[citation needed] The most common form of seppuku for men was composed of cutting open the abdomen, followed by extending the neck for an assistant to sever the spinal cord.

[18] Mostow's context is analysis of Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly and the original Cio-Cio San story by John Luther Long.

The defining characteristic was plunging either the tachi (longsword), wakizashi (shortsword) or tantō (knife) into the gut and slicing the abdomen horizontally.

A samurai was bathed in cold water (to prevent excessive bleeding), dressed in a white kimono called the shiro-shōzoku (白装束), and served his favorite foods for a last meal.

It was said that it was best to cut leaving a little skin remaining so that it did not fly off in the direction of the verifying officials.A specialized form of seppuku in feudal times was known as kanshi (諫死, lit.

[citation needed] Some samurai chose to perform a considerably more taxing form of seppuku known as jūmonji giri (十文字切り, lit.

A samurai performing jūmonji giri was expected to bear his suffering quietly until he bled to death, dying with his hands over his face.

[citation needed] Female ritual suicide (incorrectly referred to in some English sources as jigai) was practiced by the wives of samurai who had performed seppuku or brought dishonour.

Some women belonging to samurai families died by suicide by cutting the arteries of the neck with one stroke, using a knife such as a tantō or kaiken.

[citation needed]Stephen R. Turnbull provides extensive evidence for the practice of female ritual suicide, notably of samurai wives, in pre-modern Japan.

[26] A large number of "honour suicides" marked the defeat of the Aizu clan in the Boshin War of 1869, leading into the Meiji era.

Depending on the severity of the crime, all or part of the property of the condemned could be confiscated, and the family would be punished by being stripped of rank, sold into long-term servitude, or executed.

Zanshu (斬首) and sarashikubi (晒し首), decapitation followed by a display of the head, was considered harsher and was reserved for samurai who committed greater crimes.

In the 1860s, the British Ambassador to Japan, Bertram Freeman-Mitford (Lord Redesdale), lived within sight of Sengaku-ji where the Forty-seven Ronin are buried.

Upon his person were found papers setting forth that, being a Ronin and without means of earning a living, he had petitioned to be allowed to enter the clan of the Prince of Choshiu, which he looked upon as the noblest clan in the realm; his petition having been refused, nothing remained for him but to die, for to be a Ronin was hateful to him, and he would serve no other master than the Prince of Choshiu: what more fitting place could he find in which to put an end to his life than the graveyard of these Braves?

This happened at about two hundred yards' distance from my house, and when I saw the spot an hour or two later, the ground was all bespattered with blood, and disturbed by the death-struggles of the man.Mitford also describes his friend's eyewitness account of a seppuku: There are many stories on record of extraordinary heroism being displayed in the harakiri.

The case of a young fellow, only twenty years old, of the Choshiu clan, which was told me the other day by an eye-witness, deserves mention as a marvellous instance of determination.

During the revolution, when the Taikun (Supreme Commander), beaten on every side, fled ignominiously to Yedo, he is said to have determined to fight no more, but to yield everything.

The condemned man was Taki Zenzaburo, an officer of the Prince of Bizen, who gave the order to fire upon the foreign settlement at Hyōgo in the month of February 1868, – an attack to which I have alluded in the preamble to the story of the Eta Maiden and the Hatamoto.

After another profound obeisance, Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice which betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might be expected from a man who is making a painful confession, but with no sign of either in his face or manner, spoke as follows: I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the foreigners at Kobe, and again as they tried to escape.

For this crime I disembowel myself, and I beg you who are present to do me the honour of witnessing the act.Bowing once more, the speaker allowed his upper garments to slip down to his girdle, and remained naked to the waist.

When he drew out the dirk, he leaned forward and stretched out his neck; an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound.

At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed from the body.

A dead silence followed, broken only by the hideous noise of the blood throbbing out of the inert heap before us, which but a moment before had been a brave and chivalrous man.

The kaishaku made a low bow, wiped his sword with a piece of rice paper which he had ready for the purpose, and retired from the raised floor; and the stained dirk was solemnly borne away, a bloody proof of the execution.

The ceremony, to which the place and the hour gave an additional solemnity, was characterized throughout by that extreme dignity and punctiliousness which are the distinctive marks of the proceedings of Japanese gentlemen of rank; and it is important to note this fact, because it carries with it the conviction that the dead man was indeed the officer who had committed the crime, and no substitute.

While profoundly impressed by the terrible scene it was impossible at the same time not to be filled with admiration of the firm and manly bearing of the sufferer, and of the nerve with which the kaishaku performed his last duty to his master.Seppuku as judicial punishment was abolished in 1873, shortly after the Meiji Restoration, but voluntary seppuku did not completely die out.

[34][35][31] Dozens of people are known to have committed seppuku since then,[36][34][37] including General Nogi Maresuke and his wife on the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, and numerous soldiers and civilians who chose to die rather than surrender at the end of World War II.

[46][47] His kaishakunin, a 25-year-old man named Masakatsu Morita, tried three times to ritually behead Mishima but failed, and his head was finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga, a former kendo champion.

[49] The expected honour suicide of the samurai wife is frequently referenced in Japanese literature and film, such as in Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa, Humanity and Paper Balloons,[50] and Rashomon.