1,795 bytes added
, 12 March
*''Japanese'': 安藤家 ''(Andou ke)''
The Andô clan were a samurai clan of northern [[Tohoku|Tôhoku]], particularly prominent in the 14th-15th centuries. Based at the active trading port of [[Tosaminato]] on the [[Sea of Japan]] (today, Goshogawara City, [[Aomori prefecture]]), they dominated the region around the [[Tsugaru Strait]] separating [[Honshu|Honshû]] and [[Hokkaido|Hokkaidô]], and at times claimed to be "suzerains" over the [[Emishi]].
According to some sources, the Andô may have themselves been descended from Emishi chiefs who had assimilated into Japanese identity.<ref>David Howell, "Ainu Ethnicity and the Boundaries of the Early Modern Japanese State," ''Past & Present'', No. 142 (Feb., 1994), p78.</ref> The borders of identity in this period are difficult to ascertain, however, and it is unclear whether the Andô, or various others sometimes labeled as Emishi were in fact ethnically or genealogically distinct from [[Yamato people|Japanese]], or whether they came to be seen as Emishi only because they were politically, geographically, and/or culturally on the margins of, or outside of, the Japanese state.
Through Tosaminato and other ports, the Andô traded Chinese and Japanese ceramics, coins, and other items from elsewhere in Japan, or from Korea, to [[Ainu]] communities and others for furs and a variety of maritime products.
The [[Matsumae clan]], who enjoyed a monopoly on authority over Hokkaidô and over relations with the Ainu in the 17th to 19th centuries, claimed descent from the Andô.
{{stub}}
==References==
*David Howell, "On the Peripheries of the Japanese Archipelago: Ryukyu and Hokkaido," in Howell (ed.), ''The New Cambridge History of Japan'' vol 2 (2024), 616.
<references/>
[[Category:Clans]]
[[Category:Muromachi Period]]