The Emishi or Ebisu constitutesa group of people who live in northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region, which is referred to as michi no oku in contemporary sources.

The original date of the Emishi is unknown but they definitely occurred sometime before the common era, as they are believed to have advanced the Jōmon Culture.

Some Emishi tribes resist the rule of the Japanese Emperors during the late Nara and early Heian periods (7th–10th centuries CE).

More recently, scholars have come to 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.All Chinese documents from the T'ang and Song refer to them as having a separate state north of Japan and call them Mandarin máo rén, Sino-Japanese mōjin, literally "hairy people".

This is also corroborated in the Shoku Nihongi, in which they are described consistently as having long beards and as kebito, or "hairy people", characteristics that have been used to describe the Ainu in the modern period.

These same kanji characters are read as "emishi" before the Nara period.