Dumplings rolled into the shape of silk cocoons and stuck onto the branches of a tree. They are made to be offered rather than eaten, at least to begin with.

Rice flour is used, and also millet flour and corn flour, depending on what the house had. Two days before the little new year, on the thirteenth of January, the dough is rolled and pressed onto branches of mountain mulberry so that it looks as though the bare wood has come into white blossom.

What is being asked for is a good crop of cocoons. Gunma has raised silkworms for a very long time. It still maintains its own silkworm varieties and has worked on the technology since, and for generations the cocoon was the thing a household's year turned on — the crop that paid for everything else.

In the Azuma district, the first day of the ox in February is the day for praying over the silkworms, and on that day sixteen mayudama are made and set out before the household shrine and at the well and elsewhere about the property. Even the number is fixed. This is food that has taken the shape of a prayer literally, and then been eaten afterwards, which is roughly how most festival food works once you look at it.