11 • AN ARRAY OF GIFTS

IN ORDER TO WIN OVER THE JAPANESE, the Commodore depended not only on the power of his fleet but also on the goodwill he would generate by presenting his hosts with an overwhelming assortment of gifts. Perry had spent months choosing and ordering them before he left the United States.

While documents were being translated and studied the time seemed appropriate for gift giving. Captain Joel Abbot of the S.S. Macedonian was in charge of delivering the presents with proper ceremony. The gifts filled several large boats, which were sent to shore with other boats occupied by officers, marines, and a band playing music. A building next to the Treaty House had been erected especially to display the many presents.

Gifts for the Japanese

The commissioners received lists of the items and the names of the persons who were to receive them. The Emperor, the Empress, and the five commissioners were the principal recipients. There were lifeboats, books, maps of America, whiskey, wines, clocks, cloth, rifles, swords, pistols, pictures, perfumes, mailbags, potatoes, seeds, and a large array of agricultural equipment. (See Appendix C.)

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Captain Joel Abbott

courtesy of the Chrysler Museum

The farm tools attracted crowds. Important Japanese were invited to handle them. When a grindstone was set up, some samurai took out their short swords to test how well they could be sharpened. One of the Americans demonstrated a folding ladder and showed how a long-handled pruning saw worked. A garden engine-and-hose proved so intriguing that some Japanese amused themselves by dowsing treetops with water. Then they drenched a crowd of spectators, who dispersed, laughing. Everyone thought it was great fun.

The hose and folding ladder were especially important for their firefighters. In a land where walls were made of wood, windows of paper, and roofs of thatch, housefires were commonplace. The poetic name “Flowers of Edo” referred to fires that “blossomed” nightly, lighting up parts of the big city.

A half mile of telegraph wire was strung from the Treaty House to a nearby building. One of Perry’s lieutenants had learned how to set it up from Samuel Morse, the inventor. Japanese stood in line for hours in order to send messages. Some of them raced from one end of the line to the other, as fast as they could, astonished to discover that a telegraph message traveled more quickly than they could run.

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The telegraph brought by the Americans

courtesy of the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo

A miniature railroad was the hit of the show. It consisted of a toy-size engine, tender, and passenger cars designed to run 350 feet around a circular track 18 inches wide. It was so small that a person had to sit on top in order to drive it. Samurai took turns whirling around at the rate of twenty miles per hour, their loose robes flying in the wind as they clung to the roof. They laughed and behaved as though they were riding a roller coaster.

American clothing was another source of fascination. Japanese tagged after sailors and officers in order to have a close-up look at their strange costumes. Many of them were so overcome by curiosity that they could not resist touching the uniformed men. They were allowed to finger hats, jackets, pants, and shoes. Some even put their hands inside pockets, much to the amusement of the Americans. Buttons intrigued them particularly, because the Japanese used various types of cords and strings to fasten their own clothing. Button collecting became a new hobby, and people gladly offered food or trinkets in exchange for the treasured mementos.

The exhibition of gifts was as much fun as any country fair or a carnival could be. Sailors and samurai had a jolly time, despite the many spies on the lookout for natives who acted too friendly.

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courtesy of the National Archives

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The train was toy-sized, as in the top drawing. Below we see a representation by Hiroshige III, which became popular as a souvenir after the Americans had departed.

reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress

Gifts marked “To the Emperor” and “To the Empress” were sent to Edo and kept by the new Shogun. The descendent of the sun goddess never received the telescope, champagne, steam engine, and telegraph sets intended for him. Nor were the soaps, perfumes, and the embroidered dress meant for his wife ever delivered to the royal palace at Kyoto.

Gifts for the Americans

The Japanese reciprocated by inviting the Commodore and his officers to receive presents from the Emperor. Gifts were heaped on tables, benches, and even on the floor of the Treaty House. Commissioner Hayashi read aloud, in Japanese, the list of presents and the names of the persons to whom they were to be given. His words were translated into Dutch, then into English.

There were scrolls, lacquer boxes and trays, porcelain tea sets, bamboo stands, silks, garments, dolls, jars of soy sauce, swords, umbrellas, and hundreds of unusual seashells. Three spaniels, a breed of dog restricted to the emperor and the shogun, were intended for the Commodore and the President of the United States. (See Appendix D.)

Many Americans, including the Commodore, were disappointed in the quality of the gifts. “A poor display, not worth over a thousand dollars, some thought,” Lieutenant Preble noted in his diary.1 The Americans undervalued the finely woven silks, the artistic lacquerware, the delicately light porcelain, and the incomparably beautiful, sharp swords. In fact, because he was a natural history buff, Perry was most impressed with the seashells.

After seeing the display of gifts, the Americans were invited outside to see a very special present from the Emperor to the entire crew—200 bales of rice, each weighing between 100 and 150 pounds. Seated near these bales, they watched a procession of about fifty huge sumo wrestlers, who were incredibly fat, muscular giants. The Americans had never seen men as fleshy and massive as these athletes, who had been fed special diets so that each weighed between 250 and 400 pounds. Lieutenant Preble was shocked because “they were entirely naked except that they wore a stout silken girdle about their loins concealing what modesty should not expose.”2

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Shunsho’s Portrait of Two Wrestlers

courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago, Frederick W. Gookin Trust

Mammoth men were (and still are) sports stars of Japan. Sumo wrestlers used to be pampered favorites of daimyos, who kept them for their own private amusement and occasionally showed them off for public entertainment. They had been brought from Edo for the occasion. A wrestler named Koyanagi, called “the bully of the capital,” was presented to Perry by the commissioners, who urged the Commodore to feel the sumo champion’s bulging muscles and to “punch him in the paunch.”3 He gripped Koyanagi’s huge arm, then felt the neck, which, he noted, was creased like that of a prize ox. Officers also examined the wrestler, and when they uttered exclamations of disbelief, he answered with an appreciative grunt.

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Marines examine a sumo wrestler on March 24, 1854.

courtesy of the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo

At a given signal, each of these strong men seized two bales of rice and carried them above their heads with apparent ease. One held a sack with his teeth. Another repeatedly turned somersaults as he held on to his bales. The wrestlers brought the rice to the edge of the water. Later the sailors huffed and puffed, lifting the bales into their boats and unloading them.

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Sumo wrestlers easily carry 150 pound rice bales.

courtesy of Asahi Shimbun and Kanagawa Prefecture Museum

The Americans were then escorted to the rear of the Treaty House to watch sumo wrestling matches. As the athletic giants tussled, the audience was served a meal of eggs, shrimps, lobsters, oysters, and a broth that Preble suspected was “a cup of raw fish or snake soup.” (Preble also thought that drinking saki was “detestable.” Nevertheless, “following the custom of the country,” the lieutenant pocketed leftovers.)4

The wrestling matches were fascinating. The athletes had servants who helped them dress and undress. The contenders paraded around a small circular arena that had been prepared for the sport. At a signal given by an elaborately gowned referee, two sumo wrestlers entered the ring, stretched their legs, stamped about, glared at each other, and scattered fists full of salt about the ring. Salt, a symbol of purity, was also rubbed on their bodies. Crouched like football linemen, with fists touching the ground, they suddenly slammed together, each trying to heave the other to the floor or out of the ring. They yelled and screeched when they fought, but as soon as a contestant won, both became quiet and courteous. The winner bowed to the loser and politely helped his downed opponent to his feet. Each contest took but a few minutes, and the sport ended when all athletes had wrestled.

After this Perry ordered a detachment of marines to put on an exhibition drill that would contrast with the “brutal performance” of “monsters” whose “animal natures had been carefully developed.”5 (One wonders how the Commodore would have described the bloody bare-knuckled boxing matches of one hundred or more rounds that were being staged in America at that time.)

Interpreter Williams wrote that it was quite a day. “A junction of East and West…epaulettes and uniforms, shaven pates and nightgowns, soldiers with muskets and drilling in close array, soldiers with petticoats, sandals, two swords…exhibiting the difference between our civilization and usages and those of this secluded, pagan people.”6

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