In the past few weeks i’ve seen two samurai themed movies, ghost dog and ronin. each movie has detailed scenes where they go into the samurai code. both refer to a samurai’s ritual suicide as (spelling it like it sounds here) see-pa-koo. i always thought this was called hara kiri. i looked hara kiri in an encyclopedia or two and they say it literally means “belly cutting.” is see-pa-koo the name of the ritual or does it just sound more badass? any help would be great.
I don’t have a source, but that is the “preferred term” in Japanese. I don’t know the literal translation. You can probably do a Google search and find what it actually means.
The word is “seppuku” and it means “disembowelment.” Basically the same thing as “hara-kiri.”
“Seppuku” is what the samurai called it. “Hara-kiri” is the term for it that either Japanese commoners or foreigners (“gaijin”) came up with; so far as I know, no samurai would ever have used such a vulgar term for it.
Now for something I don’t know: female samurai committed ritual suicide by stabbing themselves in the throat. What the heck do they call this? It clearly isn’t “disembowelment” or “belly-cutting,” but I’ve heard some people call it “seppuku” anyway. Is that correct?
Obligatory seppuku was abolished during the Meiji Restoration (1868). This was a practice whereby a noble who had committed a crime or who was disloyal could preserve the family wealth by performing ritual suicide. Noble ancient Romans would also commit suicide to preserve the family wealth. Voluntary ritual suicide outlived obligatory suicide. As recently as WW II there were instances of belly-cutting. Perhaps there are more recent cases. But jumping out the window or hanging oneself in a hotel room has pretty much replaced self-disembowelment.
In 1970 the writer Yukio Mishima made an extremely weak effort to take over the Japanese army and when he failed, committed seppuku. Here’s a description of the event from the Yukio Mishima Cyber Museum.
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Novemer 25th, 1970:
Early in the morning, Mishima addresses the envelope containing the final installment of “The Decay of the Angel” the final volume of his life-work “The Sea of Fertility” (which had taken him six years to write) to his publisher and places it on a table in his foyer. At 10 a.m. he phones a couple of reporter friends and asks them to come to Ichigaya. At 11 a.m. Mishima and his four cadets arrive at the Ichigaya Headquarters of the Eastern Army. He steps onto the balcony and reads his “Manifesto” trying to rouse the soldiers to take action and rise up to save Japan, but is mostly unheard and jeered. After shouting “Long Live His Majesty the Emperor!” three times, Mishima commits seppuku (ritual disembowelment) in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita at 12:15 p.m. Morita tries three times to ritually behead Mishima but fails; the head is finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga. Morita (25 years old), then tries to follow Mishima in committing seppuku; although the cut is much too shallow to be fatal, he gives the signal, upon which Koga also ritually beheads Morita. The Mishima Incident is over.
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