Harakiri 腹切り

Hara-Kiri (Japanese, “belly-cutting”), Japanese practice of ceremonious suicide by disembowelment, a method originally restricted by custom to noblemen and later adopted by all classes. The term is also used to signify any suicide performed for the sake of personal honor. Hara-kiri originated in feudal Japan, when it was used by samurai, or warrior noblemen, to avoid the dishonor of capture by their enemies. It later became virtually an indirect method of execution, whereby a noble on receiving a message from the mikado, or emperor, that his death was essential to imperial welfare, performed hara-kiri.

In most cases of so-called obligatory hara-kiri, a richly ornamented dagger accompanied the imperial message, to be used as the suicide weapon. A specified number of days was allotted to the offender for his preparations for the ceremony. A red-carpeted dais was constructed in the home of the offending noble, or in a temple. At the beginning of the final ceremony, the nobleman, dressed in ceremonial costume and attended by a group of friends and officials, took his place on the dais. Assuming a kneeling position, he prayed, took the dagger from the representative of the emperor, and publicly avowed his guilt; then, stripping to the waist, he plunged the dagger into the left side of his abdomen, drawing it slowly across to the right side and making a slight upward cut. At the final moment a friend or kinsman beheaded the dying nobleman. Subsequently, the blood-stained dagger was customarily sent to the emperor as proof of the death of the nobleman by hara-kiri. If the offender committed voluntary hara-kiri, that is, acted on his own guilty conscience rather than by order of the emperor, his honor was considered restored and his entire estate went to his family. If hara-kiri had been ordered by the emperor, half the property of the suicide was confiscated by the state.

As practiced by persons of all classes, hara-kiri frequently served as an ultimate gesture of devotion to a superior who had died, or as a form of protest against some act or policy of the government. The practice eventually became so widespread that for centuries an estimated total of 1500 deaths occurred annually by this method; more than half of these were voluntary acts.

Hara-kiri as an obligatory form of execution was abolished in 1868. Incidences of it as a form of voluntary suicide are rare in modern times. Many Japanese soldiers in recent wars, including World War II, resorted to hara-kiri to escape the ignominy of defeat or capture.