Every
year on December 14, Sengakuji Temple holds a festival commemorating the
47-Ronin event (the most famous example of the samurai code of honor courage,
and loyalty--bushido--as
the country's "national legend"). I will post information about
Seppuku from Wikipedia.
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Illustration from Sketches of Japanese
Manners and Customs, by J. M. W. Silver, Illustrated by Native Drawings,
Reproduced in Facsimile by Means of Chromolithography, London, 1867
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Seppuku (切腹?,
"stomach-cutting", "abdomen-cutting") is a form of Japanese
ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for
samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honour code, seppuku was either used
voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of
their enemies (and likely suffer torture[citation needed]), or as a form of
capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses,
or performed because they had brought shame to themselves. 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 abdomen and moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion.
Vocabulary
and etymology
Overview
Ritual
Female
ritual suicide
History
Religious
and social context
In
literature and film
Terminology
Seppuku
as capital punishment
European
witness
Seppuku
in modern Japan
While
the voluntary seppuku described above is the best known form, 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 unprovoked murder, rape, robbery, corruption, or treason. The
samurai were generally told of their offense in full and given a set time to
commit seppuku, usually before sunset on a given day. On occasion, if the
sentenced individuals were uncooperative or outright refused to end their own
lives, it was not unheard of for them to be restrained and the seppuku carried
out by an executioner, or for the actual execution to be carried out instead by
decapitation while retaining only the trappings of seppuku; even the short
sword laid out in front of the offender could be replaced with a fan. Unlike
voluntary seppuku, seppuku carried out as capital punishment did not necessarily
absolve, or pardon, the offender's family of the crime. Depending on the
severity of the crime, half or all property of the condemned could be
confiscated, and the family would be punished by being stripped of rank,
sold into long-term servitude, or execution.
Seppuku
was considered the most honorable 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 reserved for samurai that committed
greater crimes. The harshest punishments, usually involving death by torturous
methods like Kamayude (釜茹で), being boiled
to death, were reserved for commoner criminals.
Notable
cases
This list is in chronological order.
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