Yamamoto Heikichi

He was nicknamed "Sabasaki's older brother" after stabbing a brown bear to death with a deba bōchō when he was young in Sakhalin.

He later carried around with him the Russian-made bolt action rifle Berdan II M1870 on a daily basis and also kept his trademark military cap as the spoils of war.

On December 9-10, 1915, when he was 57 years old, seven settlers were killed by a male brown bear, the dreaded man-eater nicknamed Kesagake by himself, in Sankebetsu Rokusen-sawa, Tomamae District (now Sankei).

Around this time, he had pawned off his gun due to debt and, when he happened to come to the vicinity of Sankebetsu thinking of hunting, he heard about the incident.

According to a resident of Sankei, he reluctantly participated in the bear suppression chosen team sent by the Japanese government late in the night from December 10-12, though the details are unknown.

At roughly 6 p.m. on December 13, he witnessed a team member named Suzuki and a brown bear breaking into an unoccupied house, but he was unable to shoot them to death.

However, he was kind to children and often reportedly taught Haruyoshi Ōkawa, the son of the district chief who later become a matagi, how to shoot bears.

In novels and movies, he is often portrayed as a very misbehaved person, but according to his grandson, Akimitsu Yamamoto, who works at the Toyosaki Post Office in Shosanbetsu, he sometimes got rough when he drank alcohol, but was always kind and caring.