The unknown samurai ritual of collecting the severed heads of their enemies

“It was a party called ‘jikin’. The feudal lord or daimyo did not dare to look at the heads above his warlike admirers, as it was believed that the vengeful spirits of the vanquished would return for exact revenge. Historian Danny Chaplin He responds to the ABC from his native England with a mix of emotions at the top. He loves Japanese history so much that he devotes a volume – “Sengoku Jidai” (The Bookcase) – to the so-called Warring States Period (5th to 3rd centuries B.C.), but he almost pains himself to explain such a macabre tradition. He says: “The end came when the skulls were burned in a pyre.”

Horrible memories

Chaplin does not deny that the Jekin concert is often overlooked today; Makes sense, because it looks horrific to modern eyes. However, in the samurai world it served a specific cultural and political purpose: “In the era before mass literacy and reliable records, the battlefield was chaotic, reputation was everything, and proof of actions mattered. Thus, snapping the heads of defeated enemies was not an act of barbarism in itself, but rather a criminal record of bravery displayed against the enemy, if I may use the metaphor.”

In practical terms, the ceremony was a way to verify that the samurai had performed the feats preached in the heat of combat and to show that he had faced great enemies. The corpse’s face showed it! “A warrior’s status, rewards and prospects depended on his conspicuous achievements, and the head presented was his reward,” says Chaplin. He asserts that the jiken also reinforced loyalty within the feudal hierarchy: “By offering heads to his lord, the samurai reaffirmed his loyalty and close attachment to his lord. In addition, it allowed the daimyo to evaluate his followers, award rewards, and maintain his authority in an era when power lay as much in personal networks as in lands.”

Finally, the jiken ceremony was very symbolic. In the samurai era, personal courage and decisive individual action were highly valued; Obtaining a sample was essential to the community.

“Seizing the enemy’s head and, more importantly, presenting him in a calm, almost ritualistic setting, not only proved that he had been victorious, but also demonstrated a certain amount of restraint. The head was washed, combed, sometimes perfumed, and placed on a wooden board. “It wasn’t about grotesque pomp, it was a statement about restoring order from violence,” the expert told ABC. He argues that these rituals transformed the brutality of war into something more honorable, almost into a martial art.

Proving the defeat of brave enemies was so important that some samurai fell into the shame of lying. “Some of these warriors committed dishonesty when they pretended that the peasant chiefs they defeated, usually spearmen, were important enemy nobles. Sometimes they demanded a reward for this,” the historian continues.

Horrible memories

In Japan Warring states Everything was measured to the millimeter…even the preparation of the severed heads. “The process was governed by a strict aesthetic code,” explains the author of “Sengoku Jidai.” Women—usually wives, daughters, or servants in the nobles’ camp—were responsible for washing, caring for, and presenting the severed skulls before they were examined in the “jiken.” “They carried out the gruesome task with remarkable calm: they washed off the blood, combed the hair meticulously, cut the locks, and applied powder, and sometimes perfume. Their mission was to restore dignity to the face so that the identity of the fallen could be ascertained and the courage of the victor could be duly recorded.”

The work also had an emotional dimension. “It required a detachment from human life and dignity, and the reinforcement of the family ideal that samurai women should be as disciplined as men,” Chaplin explains to this newspaper. “In practice, they had to be able to face death without blinking.” For these chosen, the preparation of severed heads was neither a macabre curiosity nor a deplorable practice, but an extension of the samurai’s own values: equanimity, duty, and “imposing meaning on even the most brutal realities of war.” They were, in fact, a key element in this whole funerary machine.

Finally, these selectors were also responsible for very delicately softening the features of the deceased: they removed the hardness from tense jaws, avoided furrowing of the brows… “They did this not to falsify identity, but to remove marks that could be interpreted as unfavorable or a bad omen. This makes sense, because it was believed that a calm expression reflected a good death and that the warrior had come to his end with courage and acceptance, but also the opposite.”

Half a thousand heads

There are dozens of examples of battles in which jiken were practiced, but the most famous, according to Chaplin, was the Battle of Sekigahara. It took place in the year 1600, facing off against two of the major factions of the time. “It was the biggest, bloodiest and most politically decisive contest of the time. Given the ferocity of the fighting, the number of individual deaths claimed by samurai seeking recognition was enormous,” points out the expert. Legend has it that more than 500 skulls were collected, and the author of “Sengoku Jidai” finds this to be a reasonable and credible number.

Although Chaplin does not believe there is a confirmed record of the number of heads cut off that day, he maintains that the beheadings at Sekigahara were organized and predictable. He concludes, “Warriors who engaged in hand-to-hand combat beheaded not out of sheer brutality, but because elite warfare was still about personal achievement. After combat, collection teams would roam the battlefield collecting heads for identification, rewards, and ceremonial presentation. Even if only a portion of the tens of thousands of dead were beheaded as evidence, the number could easily reach several hundred.”