Aterui

Aterui (アテルイ) (died 13 September 802 AD, in the 21st year of the Enryaku era [clarification needed]) was a chief of the Isawa (胆沢) band of Emishi in northern Japan.

[citation needed] The Emishi were an indigenous people of North Japan, who were considered hirsute barbarians by the Yamato Japanese.

[citation needed] Aterui was born in Isawa, Hitakami-no-kuni, what is now Mizusawa Ward of Ōshū City in southern Iwate Prefecture.

In June 787, Kosami split his army in two and sent them north from Koromogawa on each side of the Kitakami River hoping to surprise Aterui at his home in Mizusawa.

Before this time, the Japanese had adhered to a policy of deporting captured women and children to Western Japan then enticing their warrior husbands and fathers to join their families in their new homes.

In January 2013, dramatization of Aterui's life, Fiery Enmity: Hero of the North (火怨・北の英雄 アテルイ伝), starring Takao Osawa in the title role, which was broadcast on NHK.