Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

However, young men, trusting to their youthful ardour, are apt to be
careless, and are certain to make a mistake. Some people there are who,
not lacking in skill on ordinary occasions, lose their presence of mind in
public, and cannot do themselves justice. It is all the more important,
therefore, as the act occurs but rarely, that men who are liable to be
called upon to be either principals or seconds or witnesses in the harakiri
should constantly be examined in their skill as swordsmen, and
should be familiar with all the rites, in order that when the time comes
they may not lose their presence of mind.
According to one authority, capital punishment may be divided into
two kinds—beheading and strangulation. The ceremony of hara-kiri was
added afterwards in the case of persons belonging to the military class
being condemned to death. This was first instituted in the days of the
Ashikaga 115 dynasty. At that time the country was in a state of utter confusion;
and there were men who, although fighting, were neither guilty
of high treason nor of infidelity to their feudal lords, but who by the
chances of war were taken prisoners. To drag out such men as these,
bound as criminals, and cut their heads off, was intolerably cruel; accordingly,
men hit upon a ceremonious mode of suicide by disembowelling,
in order to comfort the departed spirit. Even at present, where it becomes
necessary to put to death a man who has been guilty of some act
not unworthy of a Samurai, at the time of the execution witnesses are
sent to the house; and the criminal, having bathed and put on new
clothes, in obedience to the commands of his superiors, puts an end to
himself, but does not on that account forfeit his rank as a Samurai. This is
a law for which, in all truth, men should be grateful.
115.Ashikaga, third dynasty of Shoguns, flourished from A.D. 1336 to 1568. The practice
of suicide by disembowelling is of great antiquity. This is the time when the ceremonies
attending it were invented.
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