Emishi

The Emishi or Ebisu (蝦夷?) constituted a group of people who lived in northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region which was referred to as michi no oku (道の奥?) in contemporary sources. Some Emishi tribes resisted the rule of the Japanese Emperors during the late Nara and early Heian periods (7th–10th centuries CE). More recently, scholars believe that they were natives of northern Honshū and were descendants of those who developed the Jōmon culture. They are thought to have been related to the Ainu. The separate ethnic status of the Emishi is not in doubt; this understanding is based upon a language that is separate from Japanese and that scholars have been unable to reconstruct.