Major Ito Humo

Major Ito Humo, a tall, slender, white-haired retired officer of the Imperial Japanese Army, enters Robert Childan's dimly lit secondhand bookshop on Geary Street in San Francisco and becomes the catalyst for Childan's transformation from a marginal dealer in used books into a purveyor of rare American historic artifacts. Childan's shop, located in a rough neighborhood where strong-arm robberies and rape occur despite the efforts of the San Francisco Police and the Kempeitai, had never attracted a customer like Major Humo. The major spends an entire afternoon searching through heaps of old magazines, and in his mild voice explains something Childan cannot quite grasp at first: that to many wealthy, cultured Japanese, the historic objects of American popular civilization are of equal interest alongside more formal antiques. Major Humo himself is particularly addicted to collecting old magazines dealing with U.S. brass buttons, as well as the buttons themselves, a pursuit he compares to coin or stamp collecting—no rational explanation can be given, and high prices are paid by wealthy collectors.

The Discovery of Americana as a Commodity

Major Humo introduces Childan to the concept that the detritus of American childhood and popular culture has become a valuable commodity for Japanese collectors. He asks Childan if he knows what is meant by 'Horrors of War' cards—cards dispensed with bubble gum for a cent apiece during Childan's childhood, each depicting a different horror. A dear friend of the major's collects these cards and lacks but one: 'The Sinking of the Panay,' for which he has offered a substantial sum. Childan suddenly recalls that he and his friends flipped these cards, standing two facing each other, dropping a card so that it flipped in the air, and the boy whose card landed with the picture side up won both cards. Major Humo considers this and says he has heard his friend discuss the cards but has never mentioned this flipping game; it is his opinion that his friend does not know how the cards were actually put to use. Eventually the major's friend, also a retired officer of the Imperial Army, shows up at the store to hear Childan's historically firsthand account and is fascinated. Childan then exclaims 'Bottle caps!' and explains that as kids they collected the round tops from milk bottles that gave the name of the dairy, and there must have been thousands of dairies in the United States, each printing a special top. The officer's eyes glint with the instinct, and he asks if Childan possesses any of his sometime collection. Childan does not, but realizes it is still possible to obtain the ancient, long-forgotten tops from the days before the war when milk came in glass bottles rather than throwaway pasteboard cartons.

The Birth of a Business

By stages, Childan gets into the business of dealing in historic American artifacts, capitalizing on the ever-growing Japanese craze for Americana. Others open similar places, but Childan always keeps his edge. Major Humo's patronage gives Childan his first inkling of what might be done with his line of merchandise, and the major's friend becomes one of Childan's very important clients, helping to create Childan's reputation among the high-placed personages residing in the Bay Area. The major's influence is so profound that Childan, years later, still thinks of him when trying to picture Mr. Tagomi's important client, recalling how Major Humo, with his tall, slender, white-haired bearing and stiff posture, had opened the door to a world where the trivial debris of American life—newspaper ads for patent medicines, Civil War recruiting posters, and flip cards—became objects of intense desire and high monetary value for Japanese connoisseurs.

Thematic Significance: The Construction of Historicity

Major Humo's role extends beyond mere plot catalyst; he embodies the novel's central inquiry into the nature of historicity. The value he and his fellow collectors place on objects is not inherent but constructed through narrative, scarcity, and the collector's own desire. Childan reflects that the major's friend, a retired officer, had been fascinated by Childan's firsthand account of how flip cards were actually used, suggesting that the authentic historical context—the lived experience of the object—is as valuable as the object itself. This dynamic prefigures the novel's later, more explicit debates about historicity, such as Wyndam-Matson's demonstration with two Zippo lighters—one supposedly from Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket when he was assassinated—and his argument that the value is all in the mind, not the object. Major Humo's quiet, scholarly passion for American popular artifacts thus establishes the epistemological ground on which the entire market in forgeries and authentic pieces rests, a market that will later threaten to collapse when Childan discovers that a Colt .44 revolver he sold is a fake. The major's legacy is not merely a successful business but a profound question about what makes an object real, a question that haunts every character who deals in the past.