Kibi dango (millet dumpling)
A Kibi dango (黍団子, きびだんご, "millet dumpling"), is a preparation is a Japanese dumpling made from the meal or flour of the kibi (proso millet) grain.[1][2] The treat was the used by folktale-hero Momotarō to recruit his three beastly retainers, in the commonly know version of the tale.[3]
Conventionally, kibi dango or kibi mochi uses the sticky variety proso millet known as mochi kibi, rather thant the regular (amylose-rich) millet used for creating sweets.[4]
History
Use of the term kibi dango in the sense of "millet dumpling" occurs at least as early as the Yamashinake raiki (『山科家礼記』, "Diary of the Yamashina Family"), in an entry dated 1488 (Chōkyō 2, 3rd month, 19th day) which mentions "kibi dango."[5][6] The Japanese-Portuguese dictionary Nippo Jisho (1603-4) also listed "qibidango"[verification needed], which it defined as "millet dumpling."[1][2]
Kibitsu Shrine
The Kibitsu Shrine of the former Kibi Province has an early connection to the millet dumpling, due to the easy pun on the geographic name "Kibi". The pun is attested in one waka poem and one haiku dating to the early 17th century, brought to attention by poet and scholar Shida Giyū in a treatise written in 1941.[7][8]
The first example, a satirical kyōka composed at the shrine by the feudal lord Hosokawa Yūsai (d. 1610), translates to "As kine (double entendre meaning either miko priestess or a mallet) is traditional to godhood, straightaway I would fain see the pounding of Kibitsu (or "Millet's") shrine into dumplings."[a] The kibi dango which is implicit in this poem must have required pounding in a Japanese mortar (usu) in its preparation: conceivably the raw grain was pounded into meal, or the cooked millet was pounded like mochi. And it must have been something the shrine fed to visitors on some occasions, one source venturing as far as to say that "it was already being sold at Kibitsu Shrine at the time.[9]
A haiku in similar vein, of somewhat later date and also at the same shrine according to Shida, was composed by an obscure poet named Nobumitsu (信充) of Bitchū Province. The haiku reads "Oh, mochi-like snow, Japan's number one Kibi dango,"[b] The flaunting of the stock phrase from the Momotarō story,[10] constituted "immovable" proof of an early Momotarō connection in Shida's estimation, but his underlying convinction that "Japan's number one kibi dango" was ever-present since the earliest inception of the Momotarō legend has been compromised by the efforts of Koike Tōgorō, who after examining Edo-period texts of Momotarō concluded that "Japan's number one" or even "millet dumpling" had not appeared in the tale until decades after this haiku.[11][c]
in later years, more elaborate legends were promoted connecting the shrine, or rather its resident deity Kibitsuhiko-no-mikoto to the kibi dango. The founder the Kōeido authored a travel guide in 1895, in which he claimed that Kibitsuhiko rolled with his own hand some kibi dango to give to Emperor Jimmu who stopped at Takayama Palace in Okayama,[12] but that anecdote was purely anachronistic.[d] Later, an amateur historian wrote a 1930 book proposing that the legend of Kibitsuhiko's ogre-slaying was the source of the "Peach Boy" or Momotarō folktale,[13] leading to fervent local efforts to localize the hero Momotarō to Kibi Province (Okayama Prefecture).[14]
Momotarō legend
In the widely familiar version of Momotarō, the hero spares his traveling rations of "kibi dango" to a dog, a pheasant, and a monkey and thereby gains their allegiance. However the scholar Koike compared the various kusazōshi texts and discovered that early written texts of the Momotarō legend failed to call the rations "kibi dango". Versions from the Genroku era (1688–1704) has tō dango (とう団子(十団子), "ten-count dumplings"), and other tales antedating "kibi dango" have daibutsu mochi (大仏餅) "Great Buddha cake" or ikuyo mochi (いくよ餅) (named after Ikuyo, a woman of the pleasure quarters) instead. Morerover, the "Japan's number one" brag was unattached to Momotarō's kibi dango until around the Genbun era (1736) as far as Koike could fathom.[11][c]
Footnotes
Explanatory notes
- ^ 「神はきねがならはしなれば先づ搗きて団子にしたき吉備津宮かな」 Kami wa kine ga narawashi nareba mazu tsukite dango ni shitaki Kibitsu Miya kana. A selection from the Kokin ikyokushū (『古今夷曲集』), published 1666.
- ^ In Japanese:「餅雪や日本一の吉備だんご」 Mochiyuki ya, Nihon ichi no Kibi dango, from the Konronshū (『崑山集』) of 1651.
- ^ a b Koike was actually refuting Shimazu Hisamoto, who likewise considered the "Japan's number one" phrase proof positive of the antiquity of the Momotarō tale.
- ^ Prince Kibitsuhiko in life was an 8th generation descendant and unborn during the time of Jimmu.
Citations
- ^ a b Shinmura 1991, Kojien dictionary: "きび‐だんご【黍団子】キビの実の粉で製した団子〈日葡〉", lit. "kibi dango: dango made from pulverized kibi grain (from Nippo Jisho)"
- ^ a b Pagés, Léon (1868), Dictionnaire Japonais-Français: Traduit du Dictionnaire Japonais-Portug. composé par les missionnaire de la compagnie de Jésus et imprimé en 1603, à Nangasaki, Benj. Duprat, p. 483: "Kibidango キビダンゴ boulettes de millet"
- ^ Antoni, Klaus (1991). "Momotaro and the Spirit of Japan". Asian Folklore Studies. 50: 163.
- ^
Nishikawa, Goro (西川五郎); Ōi, Jisaburō (大井次三郎) (1965), 平凡社『世界百科事典』 (Heibonsha's world encyclopedia), vol. 5, p. 694
{{citation}}:|contribution=ignored (help); Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ IIkura, Harutake (飯倉晴武), ed. (2012) [1972], 山科家禮記第 4, 史料纂集, vol. 22, 続群書類従完成会
- ^ Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, entry under "きび‐だんご (kibi-dango)"
- ^
志田, 義秀 (Shida, Gishū) (1941), "下篇 2 桃太郞槪論 (Nihon no densetsu to dōwa', "Japanese legends and fairy tales")", 日本の伝説と童話, 日本の伝説と童話, pp. 303–315
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Fujii, Shun (藤井駿) (1980), 吉備地方史の研究, 山陽新聞社, pp. 91–92
- ^ Tarora, Yūko (太郎良裕子) (2001), 岡山の和菓子, 岡山文庫, vol. 209, 日本文教出版, p. 33
- ^
Polen, James Scott (2008). Continuity and Change of Momotarō (pdf) (MA Art thesis). University of Pittsburgh. p.39 (endnote 40 to p.30).
Some versions of the folktale explain that [the millet dumplings] were nihon'ichi (Japan's best)
- ^ a b Koike, Tōgorō (小池藤五郎) (1967). "古文献を基礎とした 桃太郎説話の研究(上) [A Study of "Momotaro" : Based on Old Literature]" (PDF). Journal of the Faculty of Letters, Risshō University (立正大学文学部論叢). 第 26号: 3-39 (pp. 21, 30-31). ISSN 0485-215X.
- ^ Takeda, Asajirō (武田淺次郎) (1895), 山陽名所記, 岡山: 日本の伝説と童話, pp. 1–5, 45
- ^ Kahara (2004), p. 44: Nanba Kinnosuke's Momotarō no shijitsu (1930)
- ^ Kahara (2004), p. 41.
References
- Kahara, Nahoko (2004). "From Folktale Hero to Local Symbol: The Transformation of Momotaro (the Peach Boy) in the Creation of a Local Culture". Waseda Journal of Asian Studies. 25: 35-.
- Henry, David A. (2009). Momotarō, or the Peach Boy: Japan’s Best-Loved Folktale as National Allegory (pdf) (Ph. D. thesis). Vol. 25. University of Michigan. pp. 35-.
- Koike, Tōgoro (小池藤五郎) (1967). "古文献を基礎とした 桃太郎説話の研究(上)". 立正大学文学部論叢) (26): 3-39 (pp. 21, 30-31). ISSN 0485-215X.
- Shida, Gishū (志田義秀) [in Japanese] (1941), "下篇 2 桃太郞槪論", 日本の伝説と童話, 日本の伝説と童話, pp. 303–315