Showing posts with label tajimamori. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tajimamori. Show all posts

12.9.12

Tajimamori (God of Japanese sweets)

The Kojiki reports that during the reign of the 11th emperor Suinin, a man named Tajimamori(ja) was sent to Tokoyo-no-kuni (常世の国 "Eternal Land "?) in a quest for the tokijiku-no-kaku-no-konomi (時じくの香の木の実, 登岐士玖能迦玖能木実 "fruit of the everlasting fragrant tree"?)[34].

He was able to gather eight vine-like trees and eight spear-like trees. But by the time he returned, the Emperor was dead. The Kojiki identifies the fruit as the tachibana, a type of small, sour citrus.

Tajimamori has later been hailed as the god of wagashi (Japanese confection and sweets), revered at Nakashima Shrine(ja) in Toyooka, Hyōgo[35], though this is little known trivia to the average Japanese.

The Nihon shoki dates Tajimamori's travel to Suinin 90 (purportedly 61 A.D.), and makes him out to be the great-grandson of Amenohiboko, a Korean prince who came to Japan just two years earlier[36][37]. However this is anachronistic according to Kojiki, which places Amenohiboko in a much later era.

The term Tachibana (橘, Citrus tachibana) refers to a species of wild green inedible citrus fruits native to Japan