Tailed beasts are widely believed to be bestial in nature, incapable of the intelligence needed to fully utilize their immense strength. The tailed beasts performing their signature technique. In order to harness the beasts' power, the villages began sealing them into humans, creating their own jinchūriki. The beasts resented this treatment and came to hate humans, at times willingly becoming the monsters they were viewed as. Because of their immense power, the tailed beasts were sought out by humans to be used as weapons in times of war. Over the centuries, humanity failed to recognize the tailed beasts as sapient individuals, instead seeing them only as monsters, demons, or mindless beasts worthy of fear and disdain. This method would be realized in Hashirama's successor as Asura's reincarnation, Naruto Uzumaki. However, Hashirama's usage of the tailed beasts were forceful rather than earning their willful cooperation. The first person to come close to their original usage was Hashirama Senju, who had captured several of the tailed beasts with his Wood Release, distributed the beasts amongst the new villages in order to stabilize the balance of power between them. The tailed beasts were originally created not only to prevent the Ten-Tails' resurrection, but also to maintain and balance peace. After the Sage's death, the tailed beasts drifted apart, apparently due to Kurama's belief that their number of tails was an indication of their strength. He also foretold of a day when they would be brought together again - though not as they were - and that at that time someone would emerge to show them what true power is. The Sage named the nine and explained to them that a link existed between them despite their separation.
Sometime later, the Sage was inspired by his youngest son, Asura, to use his Creation of All Things ability to divide the Ten-Tails' chakra into nine living entities, what would become the tailed beasts. Long before the founding of the hidden villages, the Sage of Six Paths saved the world by sealing the Ten-Tails into his body, becoming its jinchūriki.