Seppuku is a Japanese ritual in which a person commits suicide by disembowelment. Disembowelment is sometimes used as torture, but in this case, it is a "ritualized suicide." On the battlefield, a samurai would perform seppuku in order to die with honor, instead of being captured by the enemy. When this happened, it was very informal, but when seppuku was ordered to be performed by an authority figure it could be a formal ceremony. This ritual was eventually banned, but there are some cases as recent as 1970 in which seppuku has caught the medias attention.Monday, July 19, 2010
Japanese Ritual: Seppuku
Seppuku is a Japanese ritual in which a person commits suicide by disembowelment. Disembowelment is sometimes used as torture, but in this case, it is a "ritualized suicide." On the battlefield, a samurai would perform seppuku in order to die with honor, instead of being captured by the enemy. When this happened, it was very informal, but when seppuku was ordered to be performed by an authority figure it could be a formal ceremony. This ritual was eventually banned, but there are some cases as recent as 1970 in which seppuku has caught the medias attention.
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