The primary group, uchi, or ‘the House’[56] is central to villagers’ ideas about gift giving. The ‘household’ has been extensively debated in the literature and is central to anthropological analyses of gender, kinship and exchange. The basis of ‘the family system’ or ie as the main socialising unit is one of a continuing line of generations. The continuity of the ie is the main preoccupation of the individuals in a House, with house needs being of more importance than individual needs (Hendry 1987, Bachnick 1986, Nakane 1967). In Kamikatsu there are two types of households and kinship organisations. The first, which villagers call ‘traditional’, is normally formed by an elementary patrilocal family made up of a married couple, their eldest son with his wife and unmarried children and their shinriu. Shinriu or relatives are family members related through a bilateral extension of kinship who may or may not live in the same building. Although families are patrilocal, there is a strong tendency to maintain some form of exchange with the husbands’ affines. ‘Traditional’ families have recently become more ‘nuclear’ in character, with the eldest son and his wife living separate from the older couple. The gradual break down of extended patrilocality has intensified gift giving among the different households.

Yoko is a married woman of 33 living with her husband and two daughters of 2 and 5 years old. She visits her mother-in-law twice a year. She takes her a wrapped cake or good quality tea when she visits, and sends a mid-summer gift of around Y10, 000. Her mother-in-law reciprocates with a similar gift and gives her fruits every time she visits. Her mother-in-law also bought dolls for girl’s day. Yoko visits her own mother much more regularly, with her husband and girls, and takes her mother cakes. She says that compared to her mother’s generation, she is well-off, she does not have to live with her mother-in-law and can visit her mother as often as she wants. She never returns home empty-handed. Between both families she is given food that lasts several days a week. However, she resents the two grandparents’ competition over gifts to their daughters, as they have to spend too much money on gift-giving and returning gifts. They want to show that, despite living away, they ‘care’, and that they care more than the other grandparents.

Young married couples and ‘new-comers’ receive a large proportion of gifts from maternal and paternal grandparents, the elder and younger brothers and sisters of bilateral grandparents, and first cousins and second cousins. The maternal and avuncular branches of the family are closer to the parents’ branch, as they meet through their visits to the nuclear family. Non-traditional families make very little use of layered wrapping when giving, and most gifts have the flavour of ‘home made’ or personal gifts. At chugen and seibo, these gifts may be layered in commercial noshigami, but some families prefer not to do so. Some informants complained that they always had problems with the shops because the shops insisted on wrapping each gift with noshigami, when for them simple wrapping would be enough. Return is less obligatory when gifts of money are made. In ‘non-traditional’ families, communal sharing with family and friends appears more important than obligatory gift exchange, and personal help during

harvest or the construction of buildings is returned with invitations to a meal at New Year or barter.

Atsuko went to her friends to help them with their harvest. Their plot is too small for machines and they needed extra hands. A storm was approaching, and the harvest had to be finished quickly, so they worked hard for several days. Every day she took her obento with her so as not to give anyone the trouble of preparing a meal for her. Her friends, who are also cake makers, came once a month or every two months after the harvest, bringing home made cakes, beautifully wrapped in a bamboo case. The cakes were not just to ‘thank’, like an obligation to return something, Atsuko argued, ‘it is just to show appreciation, they are very kind people and would have brought it when they came to visit, anyway.

In non-traditional families friends are crucial in the exchange of mutual help, including day to day assistance with work and children. They are more important than kin, who usually live too far away. They engage in symmetric exchange of food and drink, with wrapping, but no layering of papers. Some households, like the Watanabe, make a point of not using too much wrapping, plastic bags, or commercial products. Atsuko and other families created strong relations through barter rather than obligatory gift exchange. These kind of relationships, however, take place as a result of the capacity of people to switch to new forms of relations with their neighbours, which would not have been possible in a more ‘traditional’ setting. The Watanabe and other families indicated on in numerous occasions that they wished to use barter, as a more ‘human’ type of exchange. They hoped to transcend the utilitarian and consumeristic nature of gift giving, especially the excessive and useless gifts of obligation. The attempt of these families to return to a more ‘natural’ economy is a clear reflection of the existence of capitalist relations of production and exchange. Their ways of thinking about gifts are only possible in capitalist exchange, where individuals aim to transcend it. Market commodities such as kitchen utensils and new gadgets, immensely popular in other households, are avoided by them. Instead, garden food, home-made gifts, and re-cycled items are exchanged. A field note reflects this:

Atsuko would also go to help the Shibata family, the bakers, to make the hand-made organic bread which they sell at the onzen in Kamikatsu and in the few organic and ecological shops in Tokushima. They do not exchange any traditional gifts at chugen or seibo. Their relations are based on mutual help. Shibata gives bread to Atsuko at any time of the week, fresh and leftover bread, helping each other out in their domestic economy. In this way, they reduce each other’s domestic expenses.

There are substantial differences in how traditional and non-traditional families approach gifts, the amount of gifts and wrapping being most important. Non-traditional families developed strong alliances without the expenses of gift giving. They looked ‘poorer’, and they were poorer in economic terms and they did not always ‘fit’ in.

Looking at the Figure M, chugen and seibo constitute the main domestic expenditure for any traditional or non-traditional family. Over 60% of the gifts are said to be giri or obligatory (although I discuss the changes in the perception of giri below). There are many traditional and non-traditional families who are gradually cutting down on seibo and chugen by limiting them to kin and only those who ‘help’ and leaving giri gifts aside. Giri gifts occur differently in most of the non-traditional families. First, they are distinguishable by the fact that kin members are not always expected to make seibo gifts. There is a strong tendency to organise mochi pounding, the production of which reduces the asymmetry of age and gender. Instead, considerations of team work and mutual co-operation emerges. On these occasions, all members of the family become active producers of prestations and gifts. Relations among kin are redefined as much closer in terms of mutuality. Another example from my host family illustrates the different attitudes to obligation and mutuality between kin at New Year.

The Watanabe invited their kin to have the New Year meal with them. Atsuko prepared a vegetarian meal and bought the rice for pounding mochi. Earlier in the day her mother, her mother’s sisters, came to help with the pounding of mochi. Her sister and mother, with whom she exchanges help and food during the week, brought a bottle of vinegar and some fruits, all unwrapped. Gufodh’s friends and first cousins were also invited to the meal. The first cousins arrived at the meal with a friend and children. Gufodh was in charge of boiling rice. After the boiling of the rice, teams were assembled to make mochi. Atsuko’s mother and mother’s sister helped in folding the mochi and filling it with sweet beans. The others played on the patio, or walked in the garden, talked about herbs, and took turns at mochi pounding. Everyone kept coming and going between the pounding and folding of mochi, and eating the already made cakes. Two rounds of pounded mochi were consumed while producing it. Afterwards they sat in the porch and ate lunch. After the drinks and talk, kin and friends start leaving. Atsuko gave several trays of mochi to each of them (around two kilos), as well as garden vegetables, for which they thanked her heartedly.

All families, traditional and non-traditional alike put great value on the gifts and leftover food that they take home at the end of the day. The crucial character of giving ‘small’ gifts which all have helped to produce, reveals the central place of mutual help in the formulation of exchange.

[56] Henry has defined uchi as an expression of the house in the sense of ‘The House of Windsor’, or ‘the House of the Tananka. This definition is very apt to the way villagers view their houses in Kamikatsu and I use it here to define both, the building, the domestic unit of production, the continuos line of descendants that the word ie connotes (see Hendry 1996a for further reference).