My late grandmother, whose family came from Sendai used to say that the Tohoku people were different from other Japanese.  Some of her observations were somewhat prejudicial toward other Japanese living in other areas of Japan and hold little merit except as gossip, but there are a couple observations shared by other relatives and is widespread in the Tohoku, and reflects the truth: one is that Tohoku men were able to grow beards, and this is no doubt related to their Emishi heritage.   Another widespread observation is that Akita girls are especially attractive (known as Akita bijin), and that the people look different from other Japanese.  I do not know what this is based on so it would be easy to dismiss except for its persistence and its widespread nature.  It could reflect that the Akita area has seen much less migration from the south than Sendai, and may reflect a larger proportion of their population being indigenous.  Or it could mean something else entirely different.  It could point to the opposite: an ethnic group that immigrated from the ancient state of Bokkai that was once a powerful state on the shores of Siberia.  It is a historical fact that the Akita area had extensive trade relations with states in the northeastern quadrant of Asia, and that it was a gateway to immigration from that quarter.  And when the state of Bokkai was destroyed by the Khitans we know some had immigrated to the area, but it could have been a much larger immigration than the records indicate.

Related to the Akita bijin, with the influence of the West came the "Jomon look" as the in thing in the Japanese film industry and has been ever since Toshiro Mifune, originally from the Tohoku, became famous in the 1950's.  This is a rather embarrasing truth that most Japanese would like to keep hidden, but it is rather obvious that "western" looking actors and actresses are coveted by the Japanese film industry.  There is an irony to this as Japanese aesthetics has taken a complete turn in the modern period, so that what used to be seen before the Meiji period as "ugly" and "barbarian-like" (western features like a larger nose, bigger eyes, etc.) which were always portrayed in early emaki as demon-like, are today seen in a favorable light.  So that those who possess such features, such as Japanese with Jomon (including Emishi and Ainu) traits are seen as desirable.     

Small observations even of myself that seemed to contradict the racial generalizations of white Americans I grew up with included the contradiction that all Japanese had straight black hair.  I have wavy hair.  My mother's hair is naturally curly.  Among the Ainu curly hair was seen as a mark of beauty and attraction.  Both of us do not have jet black hair--more like dark brunette.  My mustache hairs are reddish in the sun.  Mifune's beard was reddish in color.  So I knew that even simple everyday observations seemed to contradict what westerners said about Japanese.  Furthermore, from time to time I would meet Japanese students in college who didn't look like me who could not accept the fact that I was ethnically Japanese.  One even kept asking me over and over whether both my parents were full Japanese even though I had answered him that they were. These small contradictions have been my experience, and has lead me to this very large contradiction, the history of the conquest of other ethnic groups on the islands of Japan.

When I look at my family and its origins more objectively, one side of my family does not originate from the Tohoku region. So to say that we are completely  indigenous to the Tohoku, or to say that we are direct descendants of the Emishi is not true. However, my family is like most who live in the region--a mixture of both indigenous Tohoku and other Japanese.  I could not even say that the Tohoku side is directly descended from the Emishi, but can point to features that seem to have strong Emishi and Jomon attributes among family members. 

My maternal grandmother's family, the Hazama, is from Sendai, and was originally a samurai clan who served the Date as hawk trainers for hunting.  It is not known whether this clan was indigenous to the area, but having served the Date they go back several centuries.  The Date clan was a powerful regional daimyo who emerged during the Sengoku (Warring states) time period of the fifteenth through the sixteenth centuries, and ruled over a large section of what used to be the southern Mutsu region corresponding today to Miyagi prefecture.  My maternal great grandfather's family, the Imagawa, originates from northern Miyagi and were most likely locals who were warrior-farmers.  They would raise crops as farmers, but fight as warriors as well--an uncommon occurrence.  This clan is most likely descendants of local Emishi.  My non-Tohoku side paternal great grandfather was from a little known Sengoku daimyo clan called Tagaya based in what is now the town of Shimotsuma in the northern Kanto prefecture of Ibaragi . Some of the family fled to the Tohoku after their overlord the Toyotomi clan was defeated by the Tokugawa in 1600.  My paternal great grandfather came from the Tagaya to succeed the Hakomori family based in Ibaragi by marrying into the clan and taking on the woman's surname. 

The point of the above is to use my own family as an example of how complicated it is to trace the various sides of my own family back to the Emishi (or at least likely Emishi), though one line is most likely directly connected.  There might even be two lines of connection both on the maternal side.  For the Kanto clan they were most likely local Kanto Japanese who may have had some connections to Jomon long ago, but now impossible to trace. To complicate this even more, the clans that lived in the Tohoku for centuries inter-married with members of other locally based clans.     

 

 

Kenjiro Hakomori, complete revision:2009.4.24 (original version 2008.1.13)