Seppuku

The term seppuku is derived from the two Sino-Japanese roots setsu ("to cut", from Middle Chinese tset; compare Mandarin qiē and Cantonese chit) and fuku ("belly", from MC pjuwk; compare Mandarin fù and Cantonese fūk). It is also known as harakiri (, "cutting the stomach"; often misspelled or mispronounced "hiri-kiri" or "hari-kari" by American English speakers. Harakiri is written with the same kanji as seppuku, but in reverse order with an okurigana. In Japanese, the more formal seppuku, a Chinese ''on'yomi reading, is typically used in writing, while harakiri, a native kun'yomi'' reading, is used in speech. As Ross notes, It is commonly pointed out that hara-kiri is a vulgarism, but this is a misunderstanding. Hara-kiri is a Japanese reading or Kun-yomi of the characters; as it became customary to prefer Chinese readings in official announcements, only the term seppuku was ever used in writing. So hara-kiri is a spoken term, but only to commoners and seppuku a written term, but spoken amongst higher classes for the same act. While harakiri refers to the act of disemboweling oneself, seppuku refers to the ritual and usually would involve decapitation after the act as a sign of mercy. In some popular western texts, such as martial arts magazines, the term is associated with the suicide of samurai wives. The term was introduced into English by Lafcadio Hearn in his Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation, an understanding which has since been translated into Japanese. Joshua S. Mostow notes that Hearn misunderstood the term jigai to be the female equivalent of seppuku. Mostow's context is analysis of Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly and the original Cio-Cio San story by John Luther Long. Though both Long's story and Puccini's opera predate Hearn's use of the term jigai, the term has been used in relation to western Japonisme, which is the influence of Japanese culture on the western arts. ==Ritual==

prepared for seppuku'' The practice of seppuku was not standardized until the 17th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries, such as with the seppuku of Minamoto no Yorimasa, the practice of a kaishakunin had not yet emerged; thus, the rite was considered far more painful. The defining characteristic was plunging either the tachi (longsword), wakizashi (shortsword) or tantō (knife) into the gut and slicing the abdomen horizontally. In the absence of a kaishakunin, the samurai would then remove the blade and stab himself in the throat, or fall onto the blade from a standing position with it positioned against his heart. During the Edo period (1600–1867), carrying out seppuku came to involve an elaborate, detailed ritual. This was usually performed in front of spectators if it was planned, as opposed to one performed on a battlefield. A samurai was bathed in cold water (to prevent excessive bleeding), dressed in a white kimono called the , and served his favorite foods for a last meal. When he had finished, the knife and cloth were placed on a sanbo and given to the warrior. Dressed ceremonially, with his sword placed in front of him and sometimes seated on special clothes, the warrior would prepare for death by writing a death poem. He would probably consume a ceremonial drink of sake and would also give his attendant a cup meant for sake. With his selected kaishakunin standing by, he would open his kimono, take up his tantōheld by the blade with a cloth wrapped around so that it would not cut his hand and cause him to lose his gripand plunge it into his abdomen, making a left-to-right cut. The kaishakunin would then perform kaishaku, a cut in which the warrior was partially decapitated. The maneuver should be done in the manners of dakikubi (), in which a slight band of flesh is left attaching the head to the body so that the head can dangle in front as if embraced. Because of the precision necessary for such a maneuver, the kaishakunin was a skilled swordsman. The principal and the kaishakunin agreed in advance when the latter was to make his cut. Usually, dakikubi would occur as soon as the dagger was plunged into the abdomen. Over time, the process became so highly ritualized that as soon as the samurai reached for his blade, the kaishakunin would strike. Eventually, even the blade became unnecessary and the samurai could reach for something symbolic like a fan, and this alone would trigger the killing stroke from his kaishakunin. A fan was likely used when the samurai was too old to use a blade or in situations where it was too dangerous to give him a weapon. This elaborate ritual evolved after seppuku had ceased being mainly a battlefield or wartime practice and became a para-judicial institution. The kaishakunin was usually, but not always, a friend. If a defeated warrior had fought honorably and well, an opponent who wanted to salute his bravery would volunteer to act as his kaishakunin. In the Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote: A specialized form of seppuku in feudal times was known as , in which a retainer would commit suicide in protest of a lord's decision. The retainer would make one deep, horizontal cut into his abdomen, then quickly bandage the wound. After this, the person would then appear before his lord, give a speech in which he announced the protest of the lord's action, then reveal his mortal wound. This is not to be confused with , which is any suicide made to protest or state dissatisfaction. Some samurai chose to perform a considerably more taxing form of seppuku known as , in which there is no kaishakunin to put a quick end to the samurai's suffering. It involves a second and more painful vertical cut on the belly. A samurai performing jūmonji giri was expected to bear his suffering quietly until he bled to death, dying with his hands over his face. ==Female ritual suicide==

Female ritual suicide (incorrectly referred to in some English sources as jigai) was practiced by the wives of samurai who had performed seppuku or brought dishonor. Some women belonging to samurai families died by suicide by cutting the arteries of the neck with one stroke, using a knife such as a tantō or kaiken. The main purpose was to achieve a quick and certain death in order to avoid capture or rape. , the wife of Onodera Junai of the forty-seven rōnin, is a notable example of a wife following a samurai husband's seppuku: she is said to have starved herself to death after her husband's death. Her grave is located at the site where , a sub-temple of the , once stood, in current-day Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto. A large number of "honor suicides" marked the defeat of the Aizu clan in the Boshin War of 1869, leading into the Meiji era. For example, in the family of Saigō Tanomo, who survived, a total of twenty-two female honor suicides are recorded among one extended family. Religious and social context Voluntary death by drowning was a common form of ritual or honor suicide. The religious context of thirty-three adherents at the funeral of Abbot Jitsunyo in 1525 was faith in Amida Buddha and belief in rebirth in his Pure Land, but male seppuku did not have a specifically religious context. By way of contrast, the religious beliefs of Hosokawa Gracia, the Christian wife of daimyō Hosokawa Tadaoki, prevented her from committing suicide. ==As capital punishment==

While voluntary seppuku is the best known form, 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. 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 honorable capital punishment apportioned to samurai. and , 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 (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. ==Recorded events==

The Kobe Incident In February 1868, following the Kobe Incident, the British Ambassador to Japan, Bertram Freeman-Mitford (Lord Redesdale), was invited to witness the seppuku of Taki Zenzaburō. In his book, Tales of Old Japan (1871), he describes the event in detail: The condemned man was Taki Zenzaburô, an officer of the Prince of Bizen, who gave the order to fire upon the foreign settlement at Hyogo in the month of February 1868. Up to that time no foreigner had witnessed such an execution, which was rather looked upon as a traveler's fable. The ceremony, which was ordered by the Mikado [Emperor] 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:— 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 rice 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 Sakai incident In March 1868, eleven French sailors of the Dupleix entered the town of Sakai, in the Osaka Prefecture, 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 the sailors were shot dead. This is usually referred to as the "Sakai Incident". Upon the protest of the French representative, financial compensation was paid, and those responsible were sentenced to death. Captain Abel-Nicolas Bergasse du Petit-Thouars was present to observe the execution. As each samurai committed ritual disembowelment, the violent act shocked the captain, and he requested a pardon, as a result of which nine of the samurai were spared. This incident was dramatized in a famous short story, "Sakai Jiken", by Mori Ōgai. Other accounts was sentenced to commit seppuku in 1703. In his book, Tales of Old Japan, Mitford also relates living within sight of Sengaku-ji, the temple where the forty-seven rōnin are buried. He describes a man who had come to the graves to kill himself: Mitford also describes someone else's account of a more extreme seppuku: ==In modern Japan==

Seppuku as judicial punishment was abolished in 1873, shortly after the Meiji Restoration, but voluntary seppuku did not completely die out. Many high-ranking military officials of Imperial Japan committed seppuku toward the latter half of World War II in 1944 and 1945, In 1970, ultranationalist author Yukio Mishima 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. Mishima performed seppuku in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita. 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. ==Notable cases==

List of notable seppuku cases in chronological order. • Minamoto no Tametomo (1170) • Minamoto no Yorimasa (1180) • Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1189) • Hōjō Takatoki (1333) • Ashikaga Mochiuji (1439) • Azai Nagamasa (1573) • Oda Nobunaga (1582) • Takeda Katsuyori (1582) • Shibata Katsuie (1583) • Sassa Narimasa (1588) • Hōjō Ujimasa (1590) • Sen no Rikyū (1591) • Toyotomi Hidetsugu (1595) • Torii Mototada (1600) • Tokugawa Tadanaga (1634) • Forty-six of the forty-seven rōnin (1703) • Watanabe Kazan (1841) • Tanaka Shinbei (1863) • Takechi Hanpeita (1865) • Yamanami Keisuke (1865) • Byakkotai (group of samurai youths) (1868) • Saigō Takamori (1877) • Nogi Maresuke and Nogi Shizuko (1912) • Chujiro Hayashi (1940) • Seigō Nakano (1943) • Yoshitsugu Saitō (1944) • Hideyoshi Obata (1944) • Kunio Nakagawa (1944) • Mitsuru Ushijima (1945) • Isamu Chō (1945) • Korechika Anami (1945) • Takijirō Ōnishi (1945) • Chikahiko Koizumi (1945) • Yukio Mishima (1970) • Masakatsu Morita (1970) • Isao Inokuma (2001) ==In popular culture==

's cartoon published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on March 8, 1873, Uncle Sam is shown directing U.S. Senators implicated in the Crédit Mobilier Scandal to commit "Hari-Kari", clearly showing that by that time the general American public was already familiar with the Japanese ritual and its social implications. The story of the forty-seven rōnin (Chūshingura), who commit mass seppuku after avenging their lord, has inspired numerous works of Japanese art including bunraku puppet plays, kabuki plays and at least six film adaptations, as well as the Hollywood movie 47 Ronin. The expected honor suicide of the samurai wife is frequently referenced in Japanese literature and film, such as in Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa, Humanity and Paper Balloons, and Rashomon. In Puccini's 1904 opera Madame Butterfly, wronged child-bride Cio-Cio-san commits seppuku in the final moments of the opera, after hearing that the father of her child—although he has finally returned to Japan, much to her initial delight—had in the meantime married an American lady and has come to take her child away from her. Seppuku is referenced and described multiple times in the 1975 James Clavell novel, Shōgun; its subsequent 1980 miniseries Shōgun brought the term and the concept to mainstream Western attention. The 2024 adaptation also follows suit in this vein, in greater graphic detail. ==See also==