2011 Volume 76 Issue 3 Pages 237-256
Under the conscription system in effect in Japan from 1873 to 1945, some Japanese individuals served as soldiers, while others participated in departure and welcome-home celebrations for them. During times of war, in particular, women and children sent gifts, known as "comfort bags," to soldiers. Those gifts contained pictures, letters, sweets, toys, and daily necessities, and strengthened the connections between soldiers and those on the home front. Although giving comfort bags started as a voluntary effort, government and military authorities gradually came to encourage the practice. Why did people give presents to soldiers whom they did not know? Why did soldiers accept gifts and support from people whom they did not know? Why was that unidirectional gift-giving process exempt from the norms emphasizing reciprocity? The answers concern the common Japanese identity shared by all parties; it is also the reason why people gave and accepted major gifts and support. This paper elucidates how wartime gift-giving differed from ordinary gift-giving. I will pay particular attention to the commitment of several actors-the government, military authorities, the mass media, soldiers, and those on the home front-to supporting the gift-giving system. This paper focuses on Family A of Nanyo City in Yamagata Prefecture. The head of Family A had served as the village mayor before the modern era, and the family possessed 1,260 village and 302 private documents. Among the private documents were records of gifts given to soldiers by Family A, as well as a diary, "The Three-Year Dream," written by Yusuke, the second son of the fourth head of the family, from November 1900 to December 1903. Family A included three soldiers: Yusuke (1881?-1947), the second son of the fifth head; Denjiro (?-1947), the third son of the sixth head; and Takashi (?-1967), the fourth son of the sixth head. Four gift records-from 1900, 1904, 1934, and 1943-correspond to when those family members were at the front. Three observations emerged from my analysis. First, send-off gifts to soldiers were primarily monetary and exceeded the amounts given at funerals. The number of givers gradually increased from 52 (in 1904) to 133 (in 1943), which nearly matched the pattern for funerals, the major gift-giving occasion. That analysis demonstrates that send-off gifts to soldiers had social importance within communities. Second, the diary illuminated the regal send-offs accorded to soldiers, including speeches by the mayor, national flags, and calls of Banzai! during trips to garrisons. Those rituals transformed sons of farmers into Japanese soldiers. Third, giving gifts established a new and unique relationship, jugun-en, which existed outside of ordinary connections and was very short-term. Drawing on articles from the Yomiuri newspaper from 1874 to 1945, I focused on several characteristics of the comfort bags, including their origins, donors, recipients, and functions. According to the articles, comfort bags may have originated with bags containing comfort-related items produced by the women's Christian club Kyofu-kai during the Russo-Japanese War. During that period, various people and groups gave comfort bags to various individuals. Donors included political parties, elementary school students, schoolgirls, Kabuki actors, universities, nurses' groups, Japanese living in Mexico, Greeks, Muslims, Chinese living in Tokyo, and so on. Recipients included not only soldiers but also Russian prisoners of war, children, patients, flood victims, the poor, war horses, dogs, pigeons, and war correspondents. Thus, comfort bags were intended for both soldiers and those considered to be weak or needy. The analysis identified three functions of the comfort bags: to encourage soldiers, to engender participation in the war effort by those on the home front, and to develop fantasized or fictitious relationships
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