During the era of the Sage of Six Paths, the area now known as the Land of Mountains and its surrounding regions used to be under the control of Kān Shibōhimei and his horde of barbarians, which made their capital settlement in the same cave system over which Kutsugakure was later built. After Kān betrayed the Sage's trust, Hagoromo unleashed his fury in the form of his first tailed beast, Shiniyoku. The beast's birthplace would come to be known as the due to the destruction caused by its searing flames, destruction that extended itself to the barbarians' main settlement, effectively ending Kān's reign of terror on the lands. Shiniyoku would then be sealed into a statue by the Sage himself, grieving over the desolation his creation had unintentionally wrought.