What is Tamshigiri? How does Tamshigiri differ from Seppuku?
(WWW Board August 2000) Tamshigiri (Sword-testing) was a story that ran in Dark Horse Usagi Yojimbo #30 and was reprinted in UY Book 13 — Grey Shadows. A sword-testing school cannot procure enough appropriate bodies — traditionally, certain corpses are forbidden to be tested upon — so they start getting their own. There were 18 prescribed cuts ranging from the lopping off of a hand to cutting through the hips. The beheaded corpses were either suspended or (as I showed it because it is less gory) placed on a bed of soft sand. Testers were not executioners. Edward Morse describes a couple of executions by beheading in his book Japan Day by Day. In seppuku (ritualized suicide), the samurai would make the two cuts to his stomach and, at a signal, his second would cut through his neck leaving a flap of skin holding his head so that his noggin would not go bouncing all over the place in an undignified manner.
