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Abstract
ELLEN
SCHATTSCHNEIDER
The Bloodstained Doll:
Violence and the Gift in Wartime Japan
During
1936-45, women throughout the Japanese Empire made countless female
figures and sent them in imonbukuro (comfort bags) to military
personnel. Incorporating elements of amulets, Bodhisattva images,
hitogata (ancient protective figures), and Western-style dolls, these
masukotto (mascots) or imon ningyō (comfort dolls) took on
shifting ideological and ritual functions. Initially, they helped
domesticate colonial landscapes and bind conventional soldiers to the
female-coded mythic Japanese homeland. Late in the war, when taken by
tokkōtai (Special Attack Corps, or “kamikaze”) pilots on fatal
missions, the dolls had increasingly conjugal and sacrificial
associations, foreshadowing their ambiguous deployments in postwar
memorial, display, and political projects.
Volume
31, Number 2 (Summer
2005)
© 2005 Society for Japanese Studies
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