THE MEANING Of HARA-KIRI

Evening Star, Issue 22818, 29 November 1937, Page 8

THE MEANING Of HARA-KIRI

The courage to take life—particularly. one’s. own—ranks extraordinarily high in Japanese .public esteem, says a writer in the Chicago ‘ Tribune.’ Hara-kiri has sometimes been , translated “the happy despatch,” but the original Japanese is less euphemistic. It means “ belly-cutting,” and that i« what the operation actually consist* of. In feudal times only samurai were given the honour of committing harakiri. ' • •■There were two kinds of hara-kiri, obligatory and voluntary, The former was a boon granted by the Govern-, ment, which .graciously permitted criminals of the samurai class to destroy themselves instead of - being beheaded by the common executioner. ■ By thu* taking his life a samurai saved hit honour. - . Voluntary hara-kiri was practised by men in hopeless trouble or . out of loyalty to a dead superior, dr as l * protest against what one felt to b* the erroneous conduct of a superior. With, rare exceptions hara-kari is n* longer practised except as a form . of protest, and- even in this case .few succeed in inflicting more than a ski* wound. t Women never commit _ hara-km. They sometimes taike their lives, but i* this case it is called junshi,” which is done by cutting an artery in th* throat. . The reason why hara-kiri is regarded as an honourable way of dying seems to be based on the theory that the spirit of man dwells in that region of the.stomach rather than, in th* heart.. „ Hara-kiri, to the late IJr Ihazo Nitobe, was an institution, legal and ceremonial. It was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes,, apologise for errors, _esoap* disgrace, redeem _ their friends, or prove their sincerity. , . . The glorification of hara-kan naturally offered no small temptation for its unwarranted committal. For causes entirely incompatible with reason ana for reasons entirely or death, hot-headed ypaths rushed into the act as moths fly into the flame.