What is Seppuku?

Often called “harakiri” in the West, “seppuku” is a form of ritual suicide that originated in Japan’s ancient samurai class. This act normally involved burying a short sword in the lower abdomen, cutting horizontally into the stomach, and finally directing the blade of the sword upwards to ensure a fatal wound. Sometimes they gave themselves to a slow death, but usually they had the help of a “kaishakunin”, who would cut off the head of the person performing the seppuku with a katana, as soon as the ritual cut was performed. The process was carried out under a fairly codified ceremony. Between some “steps” of the ceremony, the person to perform the seppuku used to drink sake (Japanese alcohol) and write a short poem before taking his sword.

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Seppuku originated in the 12th century, as a way to allow a samurai to receive an honorable death. These warriors performed this ritual to avoid being captured after a defeat in battle, to protest “with honor” some injustice of their feudal lords, to honor their fallen leaders, or even after being captured, they were granted the right to seppuku. to maintain his honor in front of society. By the early 15th century, seppuku was also used as a capital punishment against a samurai who had committed a crime. In any case, it was considered an act of extreme courage and personal sacrifice that was highly valued in bushido, the ancient samurai code. There was a version of seppuku for women, called “jigai”, which instead of cutting the abdomen, was performed on the throat with a special knife called “tanto”.

By the end of the 19th century, with the fall of the samurai class, seppuku was less romanticized, but it did not totally disappear from Japanese society. General Nogi Maresuke performed seppuku in 1912 as a sign of his extreme loyalty to the death of Emperor Meiji, just as there are many accounts of seppuku among Japanese soldiers during World War II. Probably the most shocking recent case involves Yukio Mishima, a renowned novelist and Nobel Prize nominee with far-right political leanings, who committed seppuku in 1970 after leading a failed coup against the Japanese government.

Seppuku is frequently mentioned in contemporary literature and cinema, an act that seen from Western moral values would seem extreme and questionable, but that in its historical and cultural context can be understood in an objective way.