Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-3001903-20160813043039/@comment-734582-20160820123415

JouXIII wrote: ^ Yamato could use Wood Release because of experiment made by Orochimaru, he wasn't born with it. The point is, Hashirama couldn't just do it, he could do it very well. Even when others were capable of doing it, there was always a moment where someone said it was nothing like Hashirama's.

Considering that the village has collective amnesia about all sorts of things, i don't see why the Senju couldn't have had wood release before Hashirama. Even though the Uchiha at some point in the not-too-distant past spammed Izanagi, people were completely unaware such a jutsu exists. Even something like Susanoo seemed to be an obscure power, even though the second most powerful person in the world, one of the most notorious people to ever have existed, had it.