Seppuku
Seppuku (切腹, lit. 'cutting [the] belly'), also called harakiri (腹切り, lit. 'abdomen/belly cutting', a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour, but was also practised by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era[1][2] (particularly officers near the end of World War II) to restore honour for themselves or for their families.[3][4][5]
"Harakiri" and "Hara-kiri" redirect here. For other uses, see Harakiri (disambiguation).Seppuku
切腹
せっぷく
セップク
Seppuku
Seppuku
As a samurai practice, seppuku was used voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely be tortured), as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offences, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves.[6] The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the belly and drawing the blade from left to right, slicing the belly open.[7] If the cut is deep enough, it can sever the abdominal aorta, causing death by rapid exsanguination.[8]
Seppuku occurred in 1177 by Minamoto Tametomo.[9] Minamoto fought in the Hōgen war. After facing defeat in the war, Minamoto was exiled to an Island called Ōshima.[9] Minamoto decided to try to take over the island. Because of this, Minamoto’s enemies sent troops to suppress Minamoto’s rebellion.[9] Minamoto, being on the losing end, committed Seppuku in 1177.[9] The ritual of seppuku was more concretely established when, in the early years of the Gempei war, Minamoto Yorimasa committed Seppuku after composing a poem.[9]
Seppuku was used by warriors to avoid falling into enemy hands and to attenuate shame and avoid possible torture.[10][11] Samurai could also be ordered by their daimyō (feudal lords) to carry out seppuku. Later, disgraced warriors were sometimes allowed to carry out seppuku rather than be executed in the normal manner.[12] The most common form of seppuku for men was composed of cutting open the abdomen, followed by extending the neck for an assistant to sever the spinal cord. It was the assistant's job to decapitate the samurai in one swing; otherwise, it would bring great shame to the assistant and his family. Those who did not belong to the samurai caste were never ordered or expected to carry out seppuku. Samurai could generally only carry out the act with permission.
Sometimes a daimyō was called upon to perform seppuku as the basis of a peace agreement. This weakened the defeated clan so that resistance effectively ceased. Toyotomi Hideyoshi used an enemy's suicide in this way on several occasions, the most dramatic of which effectively ended a dynasty of daimyōs. When the Hōjō Clan were defeated at Odawara in 1590, Hideyoshi insisted on the suicide of the retired daimyō Hōjō Ujimasa and the exile of his son Ujinao. With this act of suicide, the most powerful daimyō family in eastern Japan was completely defeated.
As capital punishment[edit]
While voluntary seppuku is the best known form,[6] in practice, the most common form of seppuku was obligatory seppuku, used as a form of capital punishment for disgraced samurai, especially for those who committed a serious offense such as rape, robbery, corruption, unprovoked murder, or treason.[33][34] The samurai were generally told of their offense in full and given a set time for them to commit seppuku, usually before sunset on a given day. On occasion, if the sentenced individuals were uncooperative, seppuku could be carried out by an executioner, or more often, the actual execution was carried out solely by decapitation while retaining only the trappings of seppuku; even the tantō laid out in front of the uncooperative offender could be replaced with a fan (to prevent uncooperative offenders from using the tantō as a weapon against the observers or the executioner). This form of involuntary seppuku was considered shameful and undignified.[35] Unlike voluntary seppuku, seppuku carried out as capital punishment by executioners did not necessarily absolve or pardon the offender's family of the crime. Depending on the severity of the crime, all or part of the property of the condemned could be confiscated, and the family would be punished by being stripped of rank, sold into long-term servitude, or executed.
Seppuku was considered the most honourable capital punishment apportioned to samurai. Zanshu (斬首) and sarashikubi (晒し首), decapitation followed by a display of the head, was considered harsher and was reserved for samurai who committed greater crimes. The harshest punishments, usually involving death by torturous methods like kamayude (釜茹で), death by boiling, were reserved for commoner offenders.
Forced seppuku came to be known as "conferred death" over time as it was used for punishment of criminal samurai.[35]
In modern Japan[edit]
Seppuku as judicial punishment was abolished in 1873, shortly after the Meiji Restoration, but voluntary seppuku did not completely die out.[37][38][34] Dozens of people are known to have committed seppuku since then,[39][37][40] including General Nogi Maresuke and his wife on the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, and numerous soldiers and civilians who chose to die rather than surrender at the end of World War II.[34] The practice had been widely praised in army propaganda, which featured a soldier captured by the Chinese in the Shanghai Incident (1932) who returned to the site of his capture to perform seppuku.[41] In 1944, Hideyoshi Obata, a Lieutenant General in the Imperial Japanese Army, committed seppuku in Yigo, Guam following the Allied victory over the Japanese in the Second Battle of Guam.[42] Obata was posthumously promoted to the rank of general. Many other high-ranking military officials of Imperial Japan would go on to commit seppuku toward the latter half of World War II in 1944 and 1945,[43][34] as the tide of the war turned against the Japanese, and it became clear that a Japanese victory of the war was not achievable.[44][45][46]
In 1970, author Yukio Mishima[47] and one of his followers performed public seppuku at the Japan Self-Defense Forces headquarters following an unsuccessful attempt to incite the armed forces to stage a coup d'état.[48][49] Mishima performed seppuku in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita.[49][50] His kaishakunin, a 25-year-old man named Masakatsu Morita, tried three times to ritually behead Mishima but failed, and his head was finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga, a former kendo champion.[50] Morita then attempted to perform seppuku himself,[50] but when his own cuts were too shallow to be fatal, he gave the signal and was beheaded by Koga.[51][48][49]
