Kibi dango (黍団子, きびだんご; "millet dumpling") is a Japanesedumpling made from the meal or flour of thekibi (proso millet) grain.[1][2] The treat was used by folktale-heroMomotarō (the Peach Boy) to recruit his three beastly retainers (the dog, the monkey and the pheasant), in the commonly known version of the tale.[3]
In modern times, this millet dumpling has been confused with the identical-sounding confectionKibi dango[4] named afterKibi Province (nowOkayama Prefecture), even though the latter hardly uses any millet at all.[5] The confectioners continue to market their product by association with the hero Momotarō,[4] and more widely, Okayama residents have engaged in a concerted effort to claim the hero as native to their province.[6] In this context, the millet dumpling's historical association with the Kibi Province has undergone close scrutiny. In particular,Kibitsu Shrine of the region has had ongoing association with serving food by the namekibi dango.
Conventionally, kibi dango orkibi mochi uses the sticky variety proso millet known asmochi kibi, rather than the regular (amylose-rich) millet used for creating sweets.[7]
Use of the termkibi dango in the sense of "millet dumpling" occurs at least as early as theYamashinake 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".[8][9] The Japanese-Portuguese dictionaryNippo Jisho (1603–04) also listed "qibidango", which it defined as "millet dumpling".[a][1][10]
There had been similar foods in earlier times, though not specifically calledkibi dango. WriterAkatsuki Kanenari [ja] in his 1862 essay collection observed that such foods, made out of millet meals or other ground grains undergoing a process of steaming and pounding, and recognizable asdango to his contemporaries, were once calledbei (餅, the same character asmochi) in the olden days.[11]
TheKibitsu Shrine of the formerKibi Province has an early connection to the millet dumpling, due to the easy pun on the geographic name "Kibi" sounding the same askibi 'millet'. The pun is attested in onewaka poem and onehaiku dating to the early 17th century, brought to attention by poet and scholarShida Giyū [ja] in a treatise written in 1941.[12][13]
The first example, a satiricalkyōka [ja] composed at the shrine by thefeudal lordHosokawa Yūsai (d. 1610) reads "Sincepriestess/pestle (kine) is traditional to the gods, I would fain see straightaway pounded into dumplings (the millet of) the Millet Shrine/Kibitsu Shrine (where I am at)."[b][c] Thekine (杵; 'pestle ormallet-pestle') is a tool used in conjunction with a wooden mortar (usu),[14] and it is implicit in the poem that the process required these tools to pound the grain intokibi-dango dumplings.[d]. And it must have been something the shrine served to visitors on some occasions, one source venturing as far as to say that "it was already beingsold at Kibitsu Shrine at the time.[15]
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) ofBitchū Province. The haiku reads "Oh,mochi-like snow, Japan's number one Kibi dango",[e] The occurrence here of the line "Japan's number one kibi dango" which recurs as astock phrase in theMomotarō story[16] constituted "immovable" proof of an early Momotarō connection in Shida's estimation, but it was based on the underlying conviction that this phrase was ever-present since the earliest inception of the Momotarō legend. That premise was later compromised byKoike Tōgorō [ja], 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.[17][f]
In later years, more elaborate legends were promoted connecting the shrine, or rather its resident deityKibitsuhiko-no-mikoto to the kibi dango. The founder of the Kōeido confection business authored a travel guide in 1895, in which he claimed that Kibitsuhiko rolled with his own hand some kibi dango to give toEmperor Jimmu who stopped at Takayama Palace in Okayama,[18] but that anecdote was purely anachronistic.[g] 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,[19] leading to fervent local efforts to localize the hero Momotarō toKibi Province (Okayama Prefecture).[20]
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 scholarKoike compared the variouskusazōshi texts and discovered that early written texts of the Momotarō legend failed to call the rations "kibi dango". Versions from theGenroku era (1688–1704) hastō dango (とう団子,十団子; "ten-count dumplings"), and other tales antedating "kibi dango" havedaibutsu mochi (大仏餅) "Great Buddha cake" orikuyo mochi (いくよ餅)[h] instead. Moreover, the "Japan's number one" brag was unattached to Momotarō's kibi dango until around theGenbun era (1736) as far as Koike could fathom.[17][f]
Some versions of the folktale explain that [the millet dumplings] werenihon'ichi (Japan's best)
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