Seppuku: the art of ritual suicide

Seppuku
Seppuku or hara-kiri, as most people are used to call it in everyday language, is a suicide performed by Samurai, privileged Japanese warrior, committed in ritual manner. A warrior, committing self-destruction, would cut his stomach with the Samurai sword through a complicated ritual which had its deep meaning as a part of Samurai code, called bushido.

Reasons of committing seppuku
While today people still commit suicide due to various reasons and prefer to choose less sophisticated ways to do so, Seppuku was not just a suicide in the bold meaning. "Hara-kiri" was actually a deliberate decision-an act of honor. Roughly speaking, there were two main reasons to commit seppuku: at the death of their daimio (lord) and to avoid the death from the hands of the adversary. In the first case Samurai would show both his deep sorrow and affection towards his own master. In the latter case, the act of self-destruction was a choice to protect his dignity, restore justice or for the sake of others. A true samurai see seppuku as the highest display of his honor and thus death was considered for him of less importance to him than the good name of Samurai.

Seppuku ritual
While committing seppuku during battle was quite a quick-performed action, the ritual of committing suicide on the order of the daimio was a long prepared meticulous ceremony carried out with utmost piece of mind.

All the ritual details were thought over and chosen: the place, the sequence, the manner and participants. The place was not chosen just by chance and every detail has its own symbolism.

Usually it was expected that the ceremony will be performed either at a temple(except for Shinto temples), at home or in the garden. In any case the place also would indicate the status of the samurai. As seppuku was not quite an immediate suicide, it was prescribed by the ceremony to have a kaishkunin, an assistant who would in fact put an end to the victim. Commonly kaishkunin was a close friend of the warrior or a teacher who taught him seppuku technique. A warrior, who was going to commit seppuku, was dressed in ritual clothes-kimono ready with his Samurai swords. There were actually three Samurai swords, worn by the warrior: katana, the longest one, wakizashi -the shorter sword and tanto, the size of a knife. Samurai usually killed himself with the tanto and true samurai would most probably use his wakizashi sword.

Before the act of suicide, the warrior would first drink from the sake cup in four sips, preparing him for the main performance. The samurai would also write death poem on washi, a handmade paper, which will also be a part of ritual things, presented at the ceremony. Every samurai was learned to perform seppuku with the use of various techniques, which allowed the warrior to make suicide a real act of art carried out with absolute technical preciseness and lofty grace. Most often a victim would make a cross cut from left to the right and then upwards, slicing the abdomen. The Kaishakunin, the assistant would behead the warrior in very sophisticated way (not entirely as the head will be still hang), taking his life with the final quick cut.

There were some samurai who would choose to have a more agonizing death. As after belly slicing a victim didn't die at once, without the final cut performed by an assistant, the samurai had to suffer from long suffering, gradually deceasing in honor.
While seppuku is obviously a vanishing practice, if not an echo of the past today, for many Japanese people suicide remains a sorrowful event in Japan, but still a preference to disgrace.