Based on a long range of documents from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, historians have for decades discussed the characteristics of the groups referred to as akuto (‘evil bands'). The paper introduces one of these sources, the Mineaiki, which has often been taken to represent an eyewitness account of the acts, strategies and physical appearances of these alleged bandits. I give a translation of a part of this text and discuss how this particular text has been used by various historians to explain the phenomenon of akuto. I furthermore present some alternative explanations of what we can and should deduct from the information given to us in Mineaiki based on information derived from other contemporary sources. In the present paper it is shown that the groups described in the text as bandits more likely were local residents mobilized through self-defence organizations on village level or by the generals of Go-Daigo. Though the text does not give a ‘true and fair' picture of these groups, an analysis on a discursive level can be valuable for an understanding on how the intellectual elites perceived these new social movements and upheavals.