Chiyome, a descendant of the 15th century ninja Mochizuki Izumo-no-Kami (望月出雲守) of the Kōga-ryū, was the wife of Mochizuki Moritoki, a samurai lord of Shinano's Saku District and himself a distant relative of Izumo-no-Kami.
Chiyome recruited prostitutes and other wayward women, victims of the civil wars of the Sengoku period, and young girls who were either orphaned, lost or abandoned.