The 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, which scholars have been unable to reconstruct.

Popular culture

• The term Emishi is used for the village tribe of the main character Ashitaka in the Hayao Miyazaki animated film Princess Mononoke. The village was a last pocket of Emishi surviving into the Muromachi period (16th century).
• The Emishi's creation myth was used as the basis of the core mythology in Final Fantasy's Fabula Nova Crystallis series.

Ebisu (2) - Kannazuki and The Legend of Ebisu

Ebisu was originally named Hiruko, meaning "leech child".
Born without bones (or, in some stories, without arms and legs).
The weak child overcame many hardships, grew legs (and, presumably, the rest of his skeletal structure) at the age of three, and became the god Ebisu.^{[citation needed]}
He remains slightly crippled and deaf, but mirthful and auspicious nonetheless (hence the title, "The Laughing God").

He is often depicted wearing a tall hat—the Kazaori Eboshi (風折烏帽子)—holding a rod and a large red bream or sea bass.

Jellyfish are also associated with the god and the fugu restaurants of Japan will often incorporate Ebisu in their motif.

Ebisu's festival is celebrated on the twentieth day of the tenth month, Kannazuki (the month without gods).
In Shinto tradition it was said that the eight million gods of Japan left their shrines and congregated annually at Izumo Taisha.

While the other eight million members of the Japanese pantheon gather at The Grand Shrine of Izumo, Ebisu does not hear the summons and is thus still available for worship.

Until 1873 the tenth month of the lunar calendar largely overlapped with the modern month of November. However, after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in Japan in that year October became generally accepted as the "godless month".

Ebisu

Ebisu (恵比須, 恵比寿, 夷, 戎), also transliterated Yebisu (ゑびす – see historical kana orthography) or called Hiruko (蛭子) or Kotoshiro-nushi-no-kami (事代主神), is the Japanese god of fishermen, luck, and workingmen, as well as the guardian of the health of small children.

He is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune (七福神, Shichifukujin), and the only one of the seven to originate from Japan.
  
Ebisu was originally named Hiruko, meaning "leech child".

He was the first child of Izanagi and Izanami, born without bones (or, in some stories, without arms and legs) due to his mother's transgression during the marriage ritual. Hiruko struggled to survive but, as he could not stand, he was cast to the sea in a boat of reeds before his third birthday.^[1] He eventually washed ashore—possibly in Ezo (蝦夷, ancient Hokkaidō)—and was cared for by the Ainu Ebisu Saburo (戎三郎).