The custom of Senbazuru (literally, thousand cranes) appeared after the custom of Sennin-bari (literally, thousand stiches) was gone. Females asked people in the street to stich once on the white (or yellow) cloth with a red thread until it would make a thousand stiches in total. Finally, they sewed a 5 or 10 sen coin on it to give it to a soldier who was going to the front, as an amulet to avoid a bullet. Now, the war is over and the custom changed into folding a thousand cranes to pray for the safety.