Rice cake is something to eat. If eating it did not give people strength, it probably wouldn't have been called chikara-mochi. In fact, almost without exception, all the examples of the provinces we collected were so. We will consider later which of them are old and which are new applications, but first of all, talking about chikara-mochi for the New Year, which is closely related to rice cake, in a part of Shiunji Village, Kitakanbara County, Echigo Province, chikara-mochi is a name of a food made by putting rice cakes or dumplings as decorations for the Lunar New Year into red bean porridge. This porridge is usually cooked on the morning of the 15th in other regions, but only there it is on the 20th of the New Year. It is said that the more this rice cake you eat, the stronger you will become. Only the topmost rice cake of the pile is roasted over the fire, wrapped in ho (Magnolia obovata) leaves, and hung from the ceiling until spring, when the first rice field is plowed. It is explained that people eat this on that day to get strength (Koshiji 2-2). Before horse-drawn plows became popular, tilling rice fields in spring was the most laborious work for men.

porridge（名）粥

topmost（形）最上部の

horse-drawn（形）馬にひかせた

laborious（形）骨の折れる

In regions where the New Year begins in the morning of New Year's Day, it is customary to crush the offered kagami-mochi and add it to the porridge or to prepare other small rice cakes and grill them over the fire of Sagicho* held in the morning. Although rice cakes have several unique names, there was a type of rice cake called chikara-mochi, and Matsugasaki, Sado Province was one of them (Sado Nenchu Gyoji). In Torigoe Village, Kaga Province, the rice cakes that are roasted over the fire of Sagicho on this day are called chikara-mochi (Nomi-gunshi), but apparently they are not always added to porridge in that region. Although the rice cakes are now only for children's enjoyment in some areas, they are still an official food in villages on both sides of the Tama River, and sometimes the patriarch brings three dumplings on a three-legged branch, the branch, which he specially made for this purpose, and grills them. However, it is not called chikara-mochi here.

*Sagicho: A fire festival held on January 15, also called dondoyaki. Firewood is piled up in the village's square, riverside, or beach, and decorations used during the New Year and old charms are burned. Roasting rice cakes or dumplings over the fire is believed to be healthy.