Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 April 19

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 19

Do Japanese people have special beliefs about being beheaded?

I just recalled from some book and internet sources I read some years ago saying that during the Second Sino Japanese War Japanese soldiers feared Chinese Dadao not only because it was a deadly weapon, but also because they believed if one lose his head he will not be granted a reincarnation in the afterlife(or granted entrance to Yasukuni Shrine, in some other version I had seen). Did this kind of belief exist anyway? Besides, I also know that it is common to cut off the suicider's head during a seppuku, for example Yukio Mishima(that is after WW2), which should be contrary to the belief above.--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 05:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

This could be the case. I found one source indicating that dismemberment of a corpse meant it could not be revived in the afterlife, according to old Chinese and Korean beliefs.[1] Decapitation was considered the most severe punishment in Japan, and there is some evidence that elaborate seppuku rituals were meant to restore dignity to the spirit of the warrior. I haven't come across anything conclusive regarding Japanese beliefs though. OttawaAC (talk) 20:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

In actual fact, the sword was hardly used in feudal Japan, contrary to modern films and romanticisation of Japan's earlier times. The bow was the most-used weapon, because it was easier, safer, and far better to kill from a distance, than to engage in blade-to-blade combat. The sword was considered a last resort, and was therefore thought of as an inferior weapon. To be killed by an inferior weapon meant that both your archery skills and swordsmanship were inferior, thus meaning you were inferior. It was only with the advent of the gun, that archery went out of fashion on the battlefield, but guns were a foreign weapon, and prior to the coming of the Black Ships, foreign things were inferior, but as the sword was still carried as a last resort, and was a native weapon, it became a symbol of Japan's earlier majesty, and after the Meiji Restoration, when Bushido was invented, it became an even more powerful symbol of Japan. Yukio Mishima's suicide was in 1977, after a failed coup attempt. The Second Sino-Japanese War was in the Showa Era started in 1929. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:02, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Bushido itself was "invented" but certainly the term didn't come into general use until the end of the 19th century. It describes a code of accepted behaviour for the Samurai class, our Bushido article lists the many written sources that define it from the 8th century AD onwards. In the Shinto creation myth, the goddess Izanami-no-Mikoto after giving birth to the various Japanese islands, gives birth to the incarnation of fire, Kagu-tsuchi and is burned to death in the process. Her distraught husband kills his son the fire god by beheading.[2] Beheading with a sword was the preferred form of execution for Edo period criminals, usually after various kinds of inhumane treatment was used to gain a confession.

Beheading, as previously mentioned, has for several centuries been the final part of the act of seppuku, performed by an assistant called a kaishakunin, a practical solution to the problem that cutting your own guts out could take an awfully long time to kill you. The assistant was not supposed to cut your head right off, but to leave it attached by strip of skin,[3] possibly because of the religious injunctions mentioned by OttawaAC above. Possibly by this route, beheading acquired a level of respectability, although I couldn't find a source that says so. Note that attitudes to beheading in the west have undergone something of a transformation, from being the privilege of the nobility in the 17th century, to humane dispatch in the French revolution (they were still chopping criminals' heads off in the 1940s) and finally to the abhorrence we have for it today. It's understandable to us, although maybe not to the Japanese, how WWII photographs of Allied POWs being beheaded by their Japanese guards probably caused more outrage than perhaps a picture of a firing squad would have done (I couldn't find a source for that either). Alansplodge (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

After a bit more digging around, it seems that having your head cut-off was a very bad way to go, but having your head almost completely cut-off was far more acceptable. "The skin of the throat must not be cut to stop the head rolling on the ground. Completely severing the head is considered to be considerably impolite. This technique was used for convicted criminals. Completely cutting through the neck is morally rude and degrading. However leaving thin skin of the throat is not an easy technique to do."[4] An editor's note at the bottom of the page says: "The partially severed head of the deceased could be sewn onto the body. The cut area would not show when dressed in a Kimono". A few other sources that confirmed this, but none so eloquently. Alansplodge (talk) 19:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Frank Hird

I'm interested in Frank Hird, the companion, lover, and adopted son of the artist Lord Ronald Gower (redlinked on our article about Gower) and the subject of a painting by Henry Scott Tuke. He's described as a journalist, and another source says he was the author of a biography of the explorer H. M. Stanley. Is any more known about him, for instance place/date of birth/death, etc?. --rossb (talk) 05:55, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

This book says "in the early autumn of 1897", Hird was "on the staff of the Morning Post" as a foreign correspondent "at the age of only twenty-three". It goes on to say the Gower met him in "June 1893, when he was secretary to Lord Thring". According to a 15 February 1913 newspaper article, both lost large sums of money due to fraud - the headline states "Lord Ronald Gower ruined". FindaGrave has an entry for him, stating he lived from 1873 to 2 November 1937. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for the information. I've incorporated it into an article on the LGBT History Project, but I suspect Hird might be considered not notable enough for Wikipedia.--rossb (talk) 11:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

In Dearly Beloved Friends: Henry James's Letters to Younger Men edited by Susan E. Gunter, Steven H. Jobe, a footnote on page 18 says; "The journalist Frank Hird (b. 1873) was also the author of disparate books, including The Cry of the Children: An Exposure of Certain British Industries in Which Children are Iniquitously Employed, Rosa Bonheur, Victoria the Woman. Lancashire Stories, The Bannantyne Sapphires, H. M. Stanley: The authorized life". There are a number of other works on Amazon's list. This page says "HIRD, FRANK; [i.e., Robert Francis Hird] (1873-1937)". This page says (scroll nearly halfway down) "HIRD, FRANK [ROBERT FRANCIS HIRD]. 1873-1937. Born in Hull, England; died in Westminster, London". Find A Grave gives an exit date of 2 November 1937 and has a photo of his memorial stone in St Paul Churchyard, Rusthall, in Kent. That's all I could find I'm afraid. Alansplodge (talk) 16:22, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, a close look at the monument image shows that it is shared with Lord Gower - they are buried together. There is no birth date inscribed for Hird. I could just about make out the epitaph which is from Deuteronomy Ch. 33: V. 27 "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms". Alansplodge (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Again many thanks for the information. my article on the LGBT History Project is now looking quite respectable, and possibly worth copying over to Wikipedia at some point. --rossb (talk) 08:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Access to Ancestry.com provides additional information from official sources - including date and place of birth, 19 March 1873 in Hull; the names of his parents, James and Matilda Hird; residence in 1891 with his mother and brother in Portsea, Portsmouth; date and place of death, 21 November 1937 (sic) at Empire Nursing Home, Vincent Square, London SW1; and reference to his widow, Gladys Muriel Hird. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:41, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

As a PS, Gladys Muriel Hird died on 6 May 1943, and probate was granted to Arthur William Stanton, Lucy Ann Luther (wife of Fletcher Luther), and Elcho Ross-Ross. I've no idea if those names help in any way. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

PPS: "Gladys Muriel Luss was the daughter of Walter Sinclair and Kathleen Dickinson. She married Frank Hird, son of James Hird, on 5 July 1921. She died on 6 May 1943." Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible that two Frank Hirds are being confused here? I was surprised to hear that he had been married (what would his widow have thought of him being buried with his former lover?) and even more surprised to read on the referenced Peerage page that he was Royal Navy and OBE! --rossb (talk) 09:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I've found Ancestry's 1911 Census entry for Gower's household, listing Frank Hird as his adopted son, born in 1873 in Hull, and in 1911 single and working as an author. The two men and their five servants are the only members of the household. As to the marriage - sadly, the parish registers of St George's Hanover Square for 1921 are not available yet, so I can't double-check them. But it's not unthinkable that such a man might marry - both because bisexuals (like me) exist, and because plenty of people married for social rather than romantic reasons. And he wouldn't be the only married man buried in an unusual place. Looking at the grave photograph, I surmise that a '1' has fallen out of his date of death, and the date in the National Probate Calendar is the correct one. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:27, 24 April 2014 (UTC)