Seppuku (, or argotiquement Hara-kiri ) is a Suicide ritual and honourable of Japanese origin . Traditionally, it is done in a temple by opening the abdomen with a tantō (the shortest saber Japanese), which releases the heart (see the article Seika tanden ). The traditional form consists of a one and from top to bottom opening in the width. There exists a version less honourable (and less painful) in which a friend ( Kaishaku or Kaishakunin ) cut the head for an instantaneous Mort.
The seppuku was traditionally used as a last resort when a warrior estimated an order of his immoral Master and refused to carry out it. It was also a way of repentance of a sin unforgivable, made voluntarily or by accident. More close to us, the seppuku still remains like an exceptional manner to repurchase its faults, but also to wash itself of a personal failure.
In Japanese, will hara kiri () is a slang term - literally, “to cut the belly”. The correct term for a honourable suicide is seppuku ().
Not having the right to be made seppuku with the manner of the men, the women noble and the women of samurais sliced the Carotide with a tantô after being itself blocked the legs in order to keep in death a decent attitude. This form of Suicide is called Jigai .
Short history of the seppuku
Minamoto No Tametomo would have been the first man and Samurai to practice the honourable seppuku , by taking example on the Chinese women: shown to have given birth to the child of another man whom them husbands, they opened the belly of despair in order to prove their fidelity. Minamoto No Yorimasa is the first which one has a detailed description of the seppuku : after its defeat with the first battle of Uji in 1180, Yorimasa was withdrawn in the room of the Phoenix of the temple of the Byōdō-in, wrote a poem with the back of its standard, before taking its dagger and opening the abdomen. This way of proceeding codified the seppuku .
The practice of the seppuku is indissociable Bushido, the code of honor of the warrior, who insists on his own purpose: death. This one should not in no case to betray the values morals which are those of the samurai; also the practice of the seppuku it is codified very precisely. The act of the honourable suicide was carried out roughly speaking only on four occasions:
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at the conclusion of a defeat to the combat. To be made prisoner did not constitute a failure as well as a dishonor, not only for oneself but for its companions and his Master; to avoid soiling the name of this last, a samurai overcome and without possibility of escaping the enemy, preferred to give himself death. This type of seppuku fast and violent, is generally carried out with a tantō (the shortest saber) or a Wakisashi;
- the political power of the Shogun is marked by the competitions; when vassal was brought to criticize the shogun openly, it practiced the seppuku , all at the same time to preserve its honor, and to draw the attention of the leader. These remonstrances are indicated by the term of Kanshi ;
- contrary, starting from the shogun Tokugawa, the procedure reverses was created, like a sanction with the inaccuracy of the vassal ones. Once again, the seppuku was the single manner of avoiding the dishonor of the clan: it was thus about an offer of pity, the will tsumebara ;
- the seppuku was finally the occasion of suicides of group in the samurais, who by their death, paid homage to their Master while following it beyond the test of death. The seppuku is thus also the sign of devotion, the Junshi .
The samurai, having covered a White Kimono , knelt vis-a-vis the public, on a Tatami . He had a knife, the tantō , of ink, of a brush, sheets of paper of rice and a cup of saké. After having written and having read a Waka , wrapping the tantô of one of the rice sheets of paper, it opened the Abdomen on its left, kimono open. This part of the belly represents the conscience in the Buddhist tradition. It went up first once then, in diagonal; then one second notch came to cut the first. This Giri No jumonji , terribly painful, was stopped most of the time by the kaishakunin , a friend of the samurai, who decapitated it. Each shogun had an official kaishakunin for the will tsumebara : it was a very particular honor for a samurai.
The military history of Japan is marked by very many seppuku ; but since the Bushi lost of their influence, the practice was controlled (prohibition of the junshi ), then prohibited (by the Tokugawa government at the request of Nobutsuna Matsudaira in 1663). The scattered cases of disobediences were accommodated like all the more brave acts by the Japanese population.
Following the failure of a Coup d'etat carried out by its private militia imperialist, the Tatenokai, the writer and playwright Yukio Mishima, denouncing the dishonor of Japan, passes to the act as a practitioner a seppuku by eventration (followed by a decapitation), in the morning of November 25th, 1970. His/her companion Masakatsu Morita is broken with his continuation. Yukio Mishima, become ultranationalist in 1967, exaltait the traditional values of Japan and the challenge of the Bunburyôdô, the “double track” which unify Lettres and Martial arts, art and the action, the ethical and the Esthétique. This act héroïco-tragedy, thoroughly put in scene, deeply marked the spirits, astounded: of share the notoriety of the author, of share his ideas then Tabou but also because no seppuku had been practiced in Japan since the immediate post-war period and that the episode was retransmis on television.
Some personalities being given the seppuku
Japanese:
- Minamoto No Yoshitsune in 1189
- Hôjô Nakatori in 1333
- Oda Nobunaga the June 21st 1582
- SEN No Rikyū in 1591
- Yukio Mishima the November 25th 1970
Others:
- Andre Fortin (Singer of the Québécois group Colocs) in 2000
See too
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