Taira no Masakado

Taira no Masakado was a Heian period provincial magnate and samurai from eastern Japan who died in the year 940, remembered historically for leading the first recorded armed uprising against the imperial government in Kyoto. After his violent death he came to be feared and revered: local people, impressed by his defiance of the central government, came to regard him as an onryo, a vengeful spirit requiring appeasement, and over the centuries he was venerated as a protective deity. He is enshrined as a guardian kami at Kanda Shrine in Tokyo and at Tsukudo Jinja, among other sites, and the burial mound at Kubizuka in the Otemachi financial district of Tokyo associated with his head is still carefully maintained. Tradition holds that the fortunes of Edo and later Tokyo rose and fell with the degree of respect paid to the shrines built for him, with neglect said to bring natural disasters and other misfortune. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/