Seppuku Seppuku Seppuku (Japanese: 切腹, "cutting [the] belly"), sometimes referred to as harakiri (腹切り, "abdomen/belly cutting", a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai, but was also practiced by other Japanese people later on to restore honor for themselves or for their family. A samurai practice, seppuku was used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had
Samurai Red Seal Ship (朱印船) allowing him to trade between Japan and Indo-China. On a return journey from Batavia Joosten drowned after his ship ran aground. As far back as the seventh century Japanese warriors wore a form of "lamellar armor", this armor eventually evolved into the armor worn by the samurai. The first types of Japanese armors identified as samurai armor were known as "yoroi". These early samurai armors were made from small individual scales known as "kozane". The kozane were made from either iron or leather and were bound together into small strips, the strips were coated with lacquer