![]() The short answer is because they believed the soul rested in the belly. Variations of the ritual exist without seconds, in which case the condemned man would be expected to strike the final blow to his own throat or heart. Women who performed seppuku–often the wives of samurai wishing to avoid capture–would tie their legs together before cutting to preserve a modest posture in death. In this way, not only the viewers clothes are not stained with the blood but also the head drops among the two hands of the samurai as if he is holding his head. However if honour was to be preserved in the act, it was expected that this cut would not severe the neck completely, but allow just enough flesh attached for the head to fall naturally forward into the executed man’s arms. Upon completing the cut, his second (kaishakunin) would step forward to issue the killing blow to the condemned man’s exposed neck. The execution blade, which could range in size from a long sword to a ceremonial knife, was then served in the last plate, and he would be expected to write a death poem before stabbing himself in the abdomen and cutting first from left to the right and then upwards and then downwards which looks like the word L. The condemned man wore a ceremonial white death kimono and was permitted a final meal. Seppuku (harakiri) in its most common and recognizable form became a highly ritualized spectacle of noble and artistic suicide and also a form of capital punishment for the nobles especially after the 1600’s. ” from Aya Maeda, 2012 How is seppuku done? Hara-kiri is also a compound word, but the order of Kanji is reverse, and reflects the Japanese syntax of “hara (abdomen) + wo (a case particle) + kiru (to cut = verb)” 腹 ( hara: abdomen) and 切り ( kiri: to cut). ” Seppuku is a compound Kanji of 切 (setsu means ‘to cut’), and 腹 (fuku means abdomen). Harakiri does not have clear rules and usually the samurai ends his life on his own by jumping into flames or falling on his sword. Seppuku has clear rules and the helper cuts the head at the end. g) Seppuku is often associated with capital punishment for samurais after the 1600’s, but harakiri is not.Seppuku usually refers to the ritualistic self sacrifice with the presence of others. f) Harakiri sometimes refers to solo self sacrifice which does not have clear rules.d) Hara-kiri (belly-cutting) emphasizes the action, setsu-puku (cutting the belly) is about the tradition and ritualistic aspect of the action.In Japan, almost all Chinese characters can be read in two different ways: kun-yomi for root words and on-yomi for prefixes. c) Seppuku and harakiri are written by using the same Chinese characters which are read differently.b) Japanese people usually do not use the word harakiri, it is more commonly used by foreigners.a) the word seppuku emerged in the late 15th century, a few hundred years after the first honorable suicide in official records.Some etymological differences between harakiri and seppuku are: On the other hand, the first mention of seppuku was in 1882 in a text referring to the punishment of criminals. Both refer to the same form of self-execution via disembowelment, and both ostensibly mean “ cut the stomach.” The f irst mention of harakiri in the Western literature was in 1846 which underlined self sacrifice. Seppuku and harakiri are in essence the words that have the same meanings. When executed correctly, seppuku was considered to be the noblest way for a samurai to die, and from eyewitness accounts of such ritualistic suicide, probably the most painful. Only samurai can perform harakiri commoners cannot (they can, but the action would not have any significant value).Ī samurai before the obligatory harakiri Image Source: Le Tour Du Monde Japan What are the differences between seppuku and harakiri? The seppuku custom dates back to the 12th century as a means for the upper and samurai classes exclusively to atone for crimes, regain lost honour, or avoid disgraceful capture. Harakiri refers to the action of cutting stomach while seppuku represents the ritual and the traditional procedure of cutting the stomach.ĭemonstration and explanation of Seppuku and Harakiri Harakiri and seppuku mean exactly the same thing in Japanese, but, Japanese people almost never use the word harakiri and prefer the word seppuku instead. Hara-kiri means stomach-cutting in Japanese where the word hara refers to stomach and kiri refers to cutting. Seppuku is honorable death or ritualistic suicide by disembowelment that can only be conducted by a samurai.
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