Next, Dewa is Idewa and is interpreted to mean Idewashi (go outside). Long ago, the land on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu from the central region to Tohoku was vaguely called the province of Koshi. This was also in the interior and, similar to Michinoku, was the benighted land of another race beyond imperial rule and called Idewashi. In other words, the name shows that Mutsu bordering the Pacific Ocean was remote land forever outside the emperor's rule.
That was Professor Kita Sadakichi's concise explanation. An explanation is best when concise and clear. Because the Dewa and Oshu provinces were regarded as remote lands, they may have been considered the habitats of bears and monkeys reaching to the northern tip of the Tsugaru Peninsula. Professor Kita further explains the history of Dewa and Oshu. The article is as follows.
Although after the subjugation of Ou by Yoritomo, they were unable to naturally unify under his rule. Based on the reason of "from the land of Ebisu in Dewa and Mutsu," the reforms of the field system recently implemented had to be canceled, and all the old regulations of Hidehira and of Yasuhira had to be followed.
Accordingly, similar to the northernmost Tsugaru region, the predicament appeared to be most of the residents lived in the old way of the Ezo but were directly ruled by Kamakura samurai. A wealthy, local Ando clan was appointed the magistrate and suppressed the people as the administrator of Ezo.
From the time of the Ando clan, little was known of the situation in Tsugaru. Before then, the Ainu may have been loafing around. However, these Ainu cannot be mocked and are a type of the so-called indigenous people of Japan. However, the Ainu remaining in Hokkaido now seem to fundamentally have a different nature.
Looking at their relics and ruins, they were said to be far superior to all the unglazed earthenware of the Stone Age. The ancestors of the Ainu in Hokkaido today have lived there since ancient times. With little contact with the culture of Honshu, the land was isolated and had few natural resources. Thus, in the Stone Age, the same tribe of the Ou region showed no development. Especially in the modern era, since the Matsumae clan, they often suffered oppression by the Japanese people from the interior and were broken. In contrast to reaching the apex of depravity, the Ainu of Ou were actively proud of their independent culture and migrated to provinces in the interior but gradually became Yamato people indistinguishable from the other regions as more Japanese people poured into Ou.
Professor Ogawa Takuji came to the following conclusions.
The classical text Shoku Nihongi states around the beginning of the Nara era, the Sushen people and the Bokkai people crossed the Sea of Japan. The most remarkable migration was more than one thousand Bokkai people migrated in Tenpyo year 18 (1406) of Emperor Shomu and Houki year 2 (1431) of Emperor Konin. Next, a large number of people exceeding three hundred arrived in what is now the Akita region. It is not difficult to imagine they freely crossed into the Oshu region. Goshusen coins have been excavated in the Akita area. There seem to be shrines enshrining Emperor Wen and Emperor Wu of China in Tohoku. This suggests direct traffic between the continent and this region.
Present-day and old stories tell of the crossing of the Emishi ruler Abe no Yoritoki to Manchuria. By also considering archeological and ethnographic data, these stories should not be discarded as scenes from folk tales. We move one step forward. Since coming under imperial rule and the eastern advance, we are convinced based on conclusions drawn from the sparse historical data remaining in central Japan that the extent of civilization acquired by the tribes at that time through direct contact with the continent was not insignificant. Shoguns like Tamuramaro, Yoriyoshi, and Yoshiie had great difficulty quashing these tribes. They were first dispelled of the idea that their rivals were simply ignorant and not like the fearless, savage tribes of Taiwan.
Professor Ogawa found it interesting to think the names often given to these people by the officials of the Yamato court such as Emishi, Azumabito (people of the east), and Kebito (hairy people) have meanings favoring the courage or the chic, exotic emotions of the people of Ou. From that perspective, the ancestors of the people of Tsugaru were certainly not loafing around at the tip of Honshu but are not depicted in the history of central Japan.
From the Ando clan described above, the situation in Tsugaru is well understood. Professor Kita reasons:
The Ando clan is called the descendants of the son Takaboshi of Abe no Sadato. A distant ancestor is said to be Abi, the older brother of Negasunehiko, the chieftain who battled Emperor Jimmu, the first emperor of Japan, and given the death penalty. Abi went to Sotogahama in Oshu; his descendants are said to be the Abe clan. In any case, before the Kamakura era, this clan was powerful in northern Ou. In Tsugaru, the three districts at the entry were in service to Kamakura. The inner three districts were lands controlled by the imperial household and lands with no role and not registered in the Registry of the Nation. The influence of the Kamakura shogunate did not reach these remote interior lands, but by relying on the freedom of the Ando clan, these lands became the so-called protected and untraveled lands.
At the end of the Kamakura era, internal discord erupted among the families of the Ando clan in Tsugaru and led to riots
