Seppuku

(Redirected from Hara-Kiri)

Seppuku with ritual attire and second

General Akashi Gidayu preparing to commit Seppuki after losing a battle for his master in 1582. He just wrote his death poem, which is also visible in the upper right corner.

Seppuku (wiktionary:切腹, composed of the kanji "cut" and "stomach") is a Japanese word that means ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku is better known in English as hara-kiri (wiktionary:腹切り, literally "cutting the stomach", written with the same kanji as seppuku but in reverse order), which is considered the more vulgar term in Japanese. The practice of committing seppuku at the death of one's master is known as tsuifuku, though the ritual is basically the same.

1 Overview
2 The Western experience
3 Seppuku in modern Japan
4 Well-known people who committed seppuku
5 In pop culture
6 See also
7 Further reading

Overview

Seppuku was a key part of bushido, the code of the samurai warriors; it was used by warriors to avoid falling into enemy hands, and to attenuate shame. Samurai could also be ordered by their daimyo (feudal lords) to commit seppuku. In later years, disgraced warriors were sometimes allowed to commit seppuku rather than be executed in the normal manner. Since the main point of the act was to restore or protect one's honor as a warrior, those who did not belong to the samurai caste were never ordered or expected to commit seppuku.

In his book The Samurai Way of Death, Samurai: The World of the Warrior (ch.4), Dr. Stephen Turnbull states: "Seppuku was commonly performed using a dagger. It could take place with preparation and ritual in the privacy of ones home, or speedily in a quiet corner of a battlefield while ones comrades kept the enemy at bay.

In the world of the warrior, seppuku was a deed of bravery that was admirable in a samurai who knew he was defeated, disgraced, or mortally wounded. It meant that he could end his days with his transgressions wiped away and with his reputation not merely intact but actually enhanced. The cutting of the abdomen released the samurais spirit in the most dramatic fashion, but it was an extremely painful and unpleasant way to die, and sometimes the samurai who was performing the act asked a loyal comrade to cut off his head at the moment of agony.

Sometimes a daimyo was called upon to perform seppuku as the basis of a peace agreement. This would so weaken the defeated clan that resistance would effectively cease. Toyotomi Hideyoshi used an enemy's suicide in this way on several occasions, of which the most dramatic, in that it effectively ended a dynasty of daimyo for ever, is what happened when the Hojo were defeated at Odawara in 1590. Hideyoshi insisted on the suicide of the retired daimyo Hojo Ujimasa, and the exile of his son Ujinao. With one sweep of a sword the most powerful daimyo family in eastern Japan disappeared from history."

Given enough time, committing seppuku involved a detailed ritual. Dressed ceremonially, with his sword placed in front of him and sometimes seated on special cloths, the warrior would prepare for death by writing a death poem. With his selected attendant (kaishakunin, his second) standing by, he would open his kimono, take up his wakizashi (short sword) or a tanto (knife) and plunge it into his abdomen, making first a left-to-right cut and then a second slightly upward stroke to spill out the intestines. On the second stroke, the kaishakunin would perform daki-kubi, a cut in which the warrior is all but decapitated (a slight band of flesh is left attaching the head to the body). Because of the precision necessary for such a maneuver, the second was often a skilled swordsman. The principal agrees in advance when the kaishaku makes his cut, usually as soon as the dirk is plunged into the abdomen.

The second was usually but not always, a friend; e.g. if a warrior had fought honourably and well but lost, an opponent who wanted to salute his bravery would volunteer to act as his second.

In the Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo tells us:

"From ages past it has been considered ill-omened by samurai to be requested as kaishaku. The reason for this is that one gains no fame even if the job is well done. And if by chance one should blunder, it becomes a lifetime disgrace.

In the practice of past times, there were instances when the head flew off. It was said that it was best to cut leaving a little skin remaining so that it did not fly off in the direction of the verifying officials. However, at present it is best to cut clean through."

Dr. Turnbull states that the earliest reference to seppuku "occurs in Hogen Monogatari, which deals with the conflicts in which the Taira and the Minamoto were involved in 1156. The mention of the fact that a samurai called Uno Chikaharu and his followers were captured so quickly that they did not have time to draw their swords or cut their bellies is so matter-of-fact that it implies that the practice was already commonplace, at least among the warriors from eastern Japan."

The first named individual to commit seppuku in the war chronicles was the celebrated archer Minamoto Tametomo, who committed suicide in this way as boatloads of Taira samurai approached his island of exile. The first recorded account of seppuku after certain defeat in a battle that was still going on is that of Minamoto Yorimasa in the battle of Uji in 1180. His suicide was undertaken with such finesse that it was to provide a model for noble and heroic hara kiri for centuries to come. While his sons held off the enemy, Yorimasa retired to the seclusion of the beautiful Byodo-In temple. He then wrote a poem on the back of his war fan, which read:

Like a fossil tree From which we gather no flowers Sad has been my life Fated no fruit to produce

Noble women could also commit ritual suicide, but this was usually done by slashing the throat with a small knife, or stabbing into the heart with a sharp hair pin or a knife.

There are several instances in samurai history of suicide being performed as a result of personal failure. Here the samurai would commit sokotsu-shi, or 'expiatory suicide', the very act itself wiping the slate clean. Some later examples are quite bizarre. Legend tells us that Togo Shigechika had failed to capture a certain castle, so had himself buried alive, fully armoured and mounted on his horse, staring in the direction of his failure.

In his book "Samurai: The World of the Warrior", Dr. Turnbull also details examples of samurai mass suicides: "When Kamakura was captured in 1333, an operation that will be described in detail later in this chapter, we read of many acts of suicide, including this classic account of junshi:

The retainers who were left behind ran out to the middle gate, crying aloud, Our lord has killed himself. Let all loyal men accompany him! Then these twenty lit a fire in the mansion, quickly lined up together in the smoke and cut their bellies. And not willing to be outdone, three hundred other warriors cut their bellies and leapt into the consuming flames.......a fire was lighted in the hall, where from fierce flames leapt up and black smoke darkened the sky. When the warriors in the courtyard and before the gate beheld that fire, some among them cut their bellies and ran into the flames, while others smote one another with their swords and fell down together in a heap, fathers, sons and brothers. As a great river was the rushing of their blood; as on a burial field were their dead bodies laid everywhere in heaps! Although the bodies of these disappeared in the flames, later it was known that more than eight hundred and seventy men perished in this one place."

Seppuku was traditionally used as the ultimate protest when one's own morals stood in the way of executing an order from the master. It was also permissible as a form of repentance when one had committed an unforgivable sin, either by accident or on purpose. Finally, in the feudal period (1190–1867) it was the form of punishment preferred in cases where the subject required an honourable, but necessary, death sentence, such as the Forty-seven Ronin.

There was a great deal of ritual associated with seppuku, particularly when it was done as a protest, or as an honourable punishment. In such cases it might be performed in a spiritually clean temple or similar location, but other locations (for example, on the field of battle, for members of the losing side) were also common.

There are examples of junshi being performed even before the daimyo was dead. Shortly before Shimizu Muneharu's dramatic suicide on the artificial lake of Takamatsu in 1582, one of his retainers invited Muneharu to his room. The loyal retainer explained that he wished to reassure his master about the ease with which seppuku could be performed. He explained that he had in fact already committed suicide, and, pulling aside his robe, showed Muneharu his severed abdomen. Muneharu was touched by the gesture, and acted as his retainer's second to bring the act to a speedy and less painful conclusion by cutting off the man's head.

In the Hagakure, Yamamoto states that "The way of the Samurai is Death" and gives advice in how to prepare for seppuku: "Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when ones body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, muskets, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of ones master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead."

The Western experience

The first time a Westerner saw formal seppuku was the "Sakai Incident" of 1868. On the 15th of February, twenty French sailors entered a Japanese town called Sakai without official permission. Their presence caused panic among the residents. Security forces were dispatched to turn the sailors back to their ship, but a fight broke out and 11 sailors were shot dead. Upon the protest of the French representative, compensation of 15,000 yen was paid and those responsible were sentenced to death. The French captain was present to observe the execution. As each samurai committed ritual disembowelment, the gruesome nature of the act shocked the captain, and he requested a pardon due to which nine of the samurai were spared.

In the 1860's, The British Ambassador to Japan, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (Lord Redesdale) lived within eyesight of Sengaku-ji where the Forty-seven Ronin are buried. In his book "Tales of Old Japan", he describes a man who had come to the graves to kill himself:

"I will add one anecdote to show the sanctity which is attached to the graves of the Forty-seven. In the month of September 1868, a certain man came to pray before the grave of Oishi Chikara. Having finished his prayers, he deliberately performed hara-kiri,[8] and, the belly wound not being mortal, dispatched himself by cutting his throat. Upon his person were found papers setting forth that, being a Ronin and without means of earning a living, he had petitioned to be allowed to enter the clan of the Prince of Choshiu, which he looked upon as the noblest clan in the realm; his petition having been refused, nothing remained for him but to die, for to be a Ronin was hateful to him, and he would serve no other master than the Prince of Choshiu: what more fitting place could he find in which to put an end to his life than the graveyard of these Braves? This happened at about two hundred yards' distance from my house, and when I saw the spot an hour or two later, the ground was all bespattered with blood, and disturbed by the death-struggles of the man."

Mitford also describes his friend's eyewitness account of a Seppuku:

"There are many stories on record of extraordinary heroism being displayed in the hara-kiri. The case of a young fellow, only twenty years old, of the Choshiu clan, which was told me the other day by an eye-witness, deserves mention as a marvellous instance of determination. Not content with giving himself the one necessary cut, he slashed himself thrice horizontally and twice vertically. Then he stabbed himself in the throat until the dirk protruded on the other side, with its sharp edge to the front; setting his teeth in one supreme effort, he drove the knife forward with both hands through his throat, and fell dead."

During the Meiji Restoration, the Tokugawa Shogun's aide committed Seppuku:

"One more story and I have done. During the revolution, when the Tycoon, beaten on every side, fled ignominiously to Yedo, he is said to have determined to fight no more, but to yield everything. A member of his second council went to him and said, Sir, the only way for you now to retrieve the honour of the family of Tokugawa is to disembowel yourself; and to prove to you that I am sincere and disinterested in what I say, I am here ready to disembowel myself with you. The Tycoon flew into a great rage, saying that he would listen to no such nonsense, and left the room. His faithful retainer, to prove his honesty, retired to another part of the castle, and solemnly performed the hara-kiri."

In his book "Tales of Old Japan," Mitford describes witnessing a hara-kiri[1]:

As a corollary to the above elaborate statement of the ceremonies proper to be observed at the hara-kiri, I may here describe an instance of such an execution which I was sent officially to witness. The condemned man was Taki Zenzaburo, an officer of the Prince of Bizen, who gave the order to fire upon the foreign settlement at Hiogo in the month of February 1868,an attack to which I have alluded in the preamble to the story of the Eta Maiden and the Hatamoto. Up to that time no foreigner had witnessed such an execution, which was rather looked upon as a traveller's fable.

The ceremony, which was ordered by the Mikado himself, took place at 10.30 at night in the temple of Seifukuji, the headquarters of the Satsuma troops at Hiogo. A witness was sent from each of the foreign legations. We were seven foreigners in all.

"After another profound obeisance, Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice which betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might be expected from a man who is making a painful confession, but with no sign of either in his face or manner, spoke as follows:

I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the foreigners at Kobe, and again as they tried to escape. For this crime I disembowel myself, and I beg you who are present to do me the honour of witnessing the act.

Bowing once more, the speaker allowed his upper garments to slip down to his girdle, and remained naked to the waist. Carefully, according to custom, he tucked his sleeves under his knees to prevent himself from falling backwards; for a noble Japanese gentleman should die falling forwards. Deliberately, with a steady hand, he took the dirk that lay before him; he looked at it wistfully, almost affectionately; for a moment he seemed to collect his thoughts for the last time, and then stabbing himself deeply below the waist on the left-hand side, he drew the dirk slowly across to the right side, and, turning it in the wound, gave a slight cut upwards. During this sickeningly painful operation he never moved a muscle of his face. When he drew out the dirk, he leaned forward and stretched out his neck; an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed from the body.

A dead silence followed, broken only by the hideous noise of the blood throbbing out of the inert heap before us, which but a moment before had been a brave and chivalrous man. It was horrible.

The kaishaku made a low bow, wiped his sword with a piece of paper which he had ready for the purpose, and retired from the raised floor; and the stained dirk was solemnly borne away, a bloody proof of the execution.

The two representatives of the Mikado then left their places, and, crossing over to where the foreign witnesses sat, called us to witness that the sentence of death upon Taki Zenzaburo had been faithfully carried out. The ceremony being at an end, we left the temple.

The ceremony, to which the place and the hour gave an additional solemnity, was characterized throughout by that extreme dignity and punctiliousness which are the distinctive marks of the proceedings of Japanese gentlemen of rank; and it is important to note this fact, because it carries with it the conviction that the dead man was indeed the officer who had committed the crime, and no substitute. While profoundly impressed by the terrible scene it was impossible at the same time not to be filled with admiration of the firm and manly bearing of the sufferer, and of the nerve with which the kaishaku performed his last duty to his master."

Seppuku in modern Japan

Seppuku was officially abolished during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, but did not completely die out. Dozens of people are known to have committed seppuku since then, including a large group of military men who committed suicide in 1895 as a protest against the return of a conquered territory to China; by General Nogi and his wife on the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912; and by numerous soldiers and civilians who chose to die rather than surrender at the end of World War II.

In 1970, famed author Yukio Mishima and one of his followers committed public seppuku at the Japan Self-Defense Forces headquarters after an unsuccessful attempt to incite the armed forces to stage a coup d'etat. Mishima committed suicide in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita. His second, a 25-year-old named Morita, tried three times to ritually behead Mishima but failed; his head was finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga. Morita then attempted to commit seppuku himself. Although his own cuts were too shallow to be fatal, he gave the signal and he too was beheaded by Koga.

In 1999, Masaharu Nonaka, a 58 year old employee of Bridgestone in Japan, slashed his belly with a sashimi knife to protest his forced retirement. He died later in the hospital. This suicide was dubbed risutora (corporate restructuring) seppuku by the mass media, and was said to represent the difficulties in Japan following the collapse of the bubble economy.

Well-known people who committed seppuku

In pop culture

In spite of the violent and serious nature of ritual suicide, pop culture has for the most part treated seppuku lightly as a source of black comedy or Eastern exoticism. For example, one website humorously gives instructions for "[Seppuku with a frisbee]. Seppuku also features prominently in Western depictions of the 'exotic' Japan in books, movies, videogames, etc. such as the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai. Some video games, such as Mortal Kombat Deception, give players the option of committing seppuku. In that game, the character Kenshi can be instructed to disembowel himself in the traditional fashion. For the most part, seppuku is depicted in popular as a mark of a true warrior's ethos and a mystical Eastern understanding of death. For whatever reason, the sort of ritualistic suicide enacted seppuku is seen as a uniquely Japanese cultural trait, although the Western tradition has its share of historical figures (such as the biblical King Saul) who have killed themselves in similar manners.

Seppuku

Table of contents

Overview

The Western experience

Seppuku in modern Japan

Well-known people who committed seppuku

In pop culture

See also

Further reading