The seppuku ritual that the French unintentionally stopped

Friday 26/07/2024 | 10:24 AM

The Edo period was a time when samurai ruled Japan. At this time, contact with foreign countries was limited to only a part of Nagasaki Prefecture, but after American warships forced the opening of Japan to the outside world, a flood of foreign ships arrived. The incident that occurred in the midst of all this was the trouble caused by the horrific seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment).

Let’s take a look at the incident to see the incredible qualities of the Japanese samurai.

The era when many foreigners visited Japan and did as they wanted
Japanese people at that time were small in stature. They were surprised by foreigners they had never seen before, and the foreigners seemed to do whatever they wanted. Various troubles, both large and small, broke out between samurai who could not stand what they were seeing.

I would like to talk about one such incident, the Sakai incident, which took place in present-day Osaka Prefecture.

What is the Sakai incident?
In 1868, a French warship arrived at Sakai Port in present-day Osaka Prefecture. While anchored, 30 French soldiers descended on the city and roamed the streets making a great commotion. Samurai, effectively the police of that time, tried to persuade the soldiers to return to the warship. However, they may have made fun of the samurai because they didn’t heed them at all.

The samurai started making arrests, but the French resisted, and this led to an exchange of gunfire. Resisting as they fled, the samurai shot at the French as they left by boat, killing 11 of them. I wonder if that was the right thing to do. Today, we would consider the French who did not follow the instructions of the local police to be the agitators. However, Japan still lacked the strength to fight the French at that time.

Execution of the culprit is decided
Among the samurai involved in the incident, 29 of them fired on the French. A decision was made to execute 20 of them. It was determined that the 4 commanders should be executed and of the remaining 25, 16 had to be chosen. However, since they all did the same thing, they were unable to choose, so they drew lots to decide. Even though it was the only way, it was quite an amazing way to decide who lived and died.

The scene of gruesome seppuku
In the case of samurai, the rule of the time was to commit seppuku, not execution. So, it followed that they would commit seppuku one by one in turn. Unlike ordinary seppuku, however, this was not a common practice, but rather a ritual of seppuku amidst anger and hatred, so the scene was said to have been terrible.

They cut their stomachs open, pulled out their guts, and showed them to the French soldiers who had come to watch. It must have been a frightening experience to be shown such a thing right in front of you.

In the end, after 11 samurai had committed seppuku, the French side could no longer bear to watch and put a stop to the ritual. The remaining nine samurai survived.

Word of the incident spread quickly, and many citizens visited the graves of the samurai who committed seppuku.

The French, who watched the scenes of seppuku, must have thought the Japanese were insane. It’s unlikely they ever wanted anything to do with such a country again!

In Japanese, there are phrases such as “to speak from the belly,” “to show the inside of the belly,” and “to store in the belly. The stomach is filled with one’s thoughts and feelings, and seppuku means to show them all. The heroes who did just that and scared the hell out of the French had effectively protected Japan.

The Japanese are a scary people when angered. If you think they are always smiling and you do as you like, you may be in for some trouble. I would like us to talk to each other with sincerity.

ABE KENGO