In 818, the Japanese emperor Saga, under whom, according to chronicles and legends, peace reigned in the country and the arts flourished, abolished the death penalty. She returned to legislation as a punishment only after three hundred years. Throughout the history of Japan, the death penalty has been abolished four times.
The origins of justice
The first written records of Japan are found in the Chinese chronicles of the 1st century AD. Japanese writing appeared three centuries later. At that time, about a hundred small community states existed on the islands. Chinese chroniclers left records of rulers, economics, human concerns, as well as laws and crime on the islands.
The islanders hardly know about theft and robbery, the chronicles report. There are few litigations. For a little guilt, a Japanese can be punished with canes, for a more serious one they are sold into slavery along with his family. In case of a serious crime, the culprit is given to be devoured by animals, but if he survived overnight, then he is released. In special cases, the criminal and his family are executed.
Until in the 7th century, the creation of a monarchy headed by an emperor began around the largest state of Yamato, there was no single law in Japan. Everywhere there were local laws, traditions and customs. In 702, a code appeared, which included criminal law.
The laws defined thirteen serious and common crimes, as well as five types of punishment. They included the death penalty, hard labor, exile, beating with sticks, and flogging. Imprisonment was not used as a punishment. The prison was used as an isolation ward during the investigation and trial.
If a criminal was threatened with execution, he was necessarily tortured in order to get a frank confession. Only then did the law allow for a death sentence. Various tortures were used until the 18th century, when the most cruel of them were abolished. The Codex left four types. The easiest was the beating with sticks until confession. They also used pressure torture with the use of heavy stone slabs, tying them up for several hours in an uncomfortable position (shrimp posture), painful suspension by various methods (in Russia, a rack).
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On the last journey
Most often, a convicted offender condemned to death would be beheaded or hanged. The execution was carried out on the day of the verdict in the city market. The convict was led to death or carried on horseback through the whole city. He was entitled to a little last wish. On the way, he could ask the guards to buy him noodles, rice vodka sake, water, or something else. On the square, the executioner put the suicide bomber with his hands tied behind his back on his knees in front of the hole for the blood drain and ordered him to stretch his neck. His instrument was a samurai sword. The art of the Japanese executioners differed from the skill of the European ones, because they chopped off heads in the air. It was believed that the sentence was carried out correctly if one blow was enough. The head was put on public display for three days.
They were sentenced to beheading for mutiny, murder, robbery, theft. It was possible to lose life because of an incorrectly filed petition with complaints. In the 17th century, when the period of self-isolation began, death was threatened for trying to flee Japan. A rich convict could buy off punishment, even execution. A high-profile offender or high-ranking official had the right to petition for suicide at home.
In addition to beheading and hanging, the offender could face crucifixion, immuring, burning at the stake, being torn apart by bulls, or cutting off the head with a bamboo saw. When drowning slowly, the executioners left the convict tied up in the surf. He gasped under the tidal wave and could inhale when the water subsided. No one stood for more than a week. The person sentenced to quartering was cut off daily different parts of the body, leaving the head on the last, thirteenth day. The captured ninja assassin was boiled in boiling water.
In 818, Emperor Saga abolished the death penalty. She returned to laws as a punishment only in 1156.
Bushido Code
Since the 7th century BC, the world's oldest monarchical Sumeragi dynasty has existed in Japan. She never had complete power. During the period of fragmentation, she ruled only a small part of the country. In the Middle Ages, in a formally single state, one had to reckon with other aristocratic clans. Each had their own possessions and an army of military nobles - samurai. To sit on the throne, the emperors chose the most powerful clan at that time as their allies.
In the XII century, for seven centuries in Japan, dual power was officially established. Together with the emperor, the country was ruled by the head of an allied clan with the title of shogun, which means "commander". The army obeyed him. He decided state affairs. The emperor, due to his "divinity", did not interfere in the government. Ritual functions were preserved for him.
The shogunate emerged as a form of power in Japan. Samurai rule was established in the country. A set of laws based on the samurai code appeared called the "List of Punishments". They were not observed everywhere. Local rulers believed that they could punish criminals in their domains at will. The death penalty has returned.
In the XV-XVI centuries, when civil strife engulfed Japan, execution became an ordinary punishment. Then, almost every tenth Japanese considered himself a samurai and observed the bushido code with contempt for his own and other people's death. He had the right to decapitate any person who, it seemed to him, showed disrespect.
At the same time, for him above all was the will of the shogun or the head of the clan. They were connected by the relationship of master and servant. The samurai code - bushido - prescribed him complete unquestioning obedience. The punishment was death.
Samurai honor
Samurai committed crimes, but the criminal law did not apply to them. The samurai served his imprisonment not in prison, but in the estate of his master. The law forbade punishing a samurai physically. The death penalty was considered an indelible disgrace, so hara-kiri (literally, "ripping open the stomach") became the capital punishment for them. It was performed as a religious ceremony. Harakiri was applied by sentence or was voluntary. The samurai himself decided to die if he violated the bushido code, if he did not follow the order, if his master died. Several of the best Japanese generals have committed suicide after being defeated in battle. In 1336, Kusunoki Masashige, the commander of the imperial army, still revered in Japan, did so. He, his brother and sixty other samurai committed suicide in order not to be captured.
In peacetime, the shogun's associates made themselves hara-kiri in his palace. Samurai of the lowest rank - in the garden of their master on a special site. It was fenced with panels stretched over stakes and covered with mats with a mourning white border, as well as white silk or felt. If the samurai received permission to hara-kiri in his house, then the walls of the room intended for this were draped with white silk fabrics. The day before, he invited friends and family to his place for a farewell feast with spices and sake. Saying goodbye, the host read his ritual death song to the guests - jisei.
When the hara-kiri was attended by the shogun's close associates or the head of the clan, representatives of the judiciary, several samurai for an honorable burial. The second main participant in the ceremony was the kayshaku samurai. He had to cut off the head of a dying man in order to save him from his death throes.
The samurai, naked to the waist, knelt down. The servant brought him a small samurai sword on a white tray. The suicide had to cut his belly twice: horizontally from left to right and vertically from the diaphragm to the navel. When the body began to lean forward, the hara-kiri completed the kaisyaku with a skillful blow. He had to chop off his head so that it would stay on a piece of skin, and not roll back to the feet of the audience.
The samurai's wife was obliged to follow her husband. She could pierce her heart or open the cervical artery to "gracefully bend to one side with a wilted flower." This is a line from jisei, a death song written to the wife of a samurai before hara-kiri.
Remote execution
In 1868, after seven centuries of shogunate rule, imperial power was restored. What happened was called the Meiji Revolution. Japan has its first constitution. The samurai estate with its bushido code was abolished and a criminal code drawn up according to European norms was adopted. Gone are the hara-kiri, although ritual suicide voluntarily repeated several times in the 20th century. The death penalty by hanging has survived to this day.
Before execution, the offender spends an average of about six years in prison. All this time, additional investigation continues to avoid mistakes. The execution is carried out in a separate cell. In it, the condemned man stands on the hatch with a noose around his neck. In the adjoining room, three guards approach three consoles, one of which lowers the hatch. They press buttons at the same time. Nobody knows who carried out the sentence.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century № 17, Victor Gorbachev