Tsujigiri ( or , literally "crossroads killing") is a Japanese term for a practice when a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...

, after receiving a new ''

katana A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...

'' or developing a new fighting style or weapon, tests its effectiveness by attacking a human opponent, usually a random defenseless passer-by, in many cases during nighttime.つじぎり【辻斬り】国語辞書 - エキサイト辞書
''Excite.co.jp''. Retrieved 22009-31-12. The practitioners themselves are also referred to as ''tsujigiri''.

Variations

Sword attacks were not the only possible application of this act. In a variation named ''tsuji-nage'' (, "crossroads throwing"), the samurai would attack the passerby with

jujutsu Jujutsu ( ; ja, link=no, 柔術 , ), also known as jiu-jitsu and ju-jitsu, is a family of Japanese martial arts and a system of close combat (unarmed or with a minor weapon) that can be used in a defensive or offensive manner to kill or subd ...

in order to test his own techniques or indulge in alive practice. This must not be mistaken with ''tsuji-zumo'', unsanctioned sumo bouts hosted in the street between willing participants.

History

In the medieval era, the term referred to traditional duels between samurai, but in the

Sengoku period The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Variou ...

(1467–1600), widespread lawlessness caused it to degrade into indiscriminate murder, permitted by the unchecked power of the samurai. Shortly after order was restored, the Edo government prohibited the practice in 1602. Offenders would receive

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

1696 spree killing

The only known incident in which a very large number of people were indiscriminately killed in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

was the 1696 Yoshiwara spree killing (, ''Yoshiwara hyakunin giri''; lit. "Yoshiwara Hundred People Slashing"), where a wealthy lord, Sano Jirōzaemon, had a psychotic fit and murdered dozens of prostitutes with a

Yoshiwara was a famous (red-light district) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1617, Yoshiwara was one of three licensed and well-known red-light districts created during the early 17th century by the Tokugawa shogunate, alongside Shima ...

, the red-light district of

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

(modern-day

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

). Despite his class and heritage, he was treated by authorities as a

spree killer A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders or homicides in a short time, in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations wit ...

and was later sentenced to death and executed. Later, a

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought ...

play was made about the incident, which inspired the 1960 movie adaptation '' Hero of the Red-Light District''.

Mary Midgley's "Trying Out One's New Sword"

The British philosopher

Mary Midgley Mary Beatrice Midgley (' Scrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018) was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first b ...

wrote an essay attacking

cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...

and

moral relativism Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. ...

in 1981. In "Trying Out One's New Sword", she discusses ''tsujigiri'' as an example of an abominable practice that should be condemned, with no need to be part of the culture that might create it. The professor of Japanese history Jordan Sand criticized Midgley for misrepresenting the practices of ancient Japan by indicating that ''tsujigiri'' was never condoned, and it is not even clear it happened with any frequency. Sand believes that any samurai who did so was both rare and would be considered insane by the culture of the era and that Midgley erred in presenting it had been an accepted practice.

References

Japanese martial arts terminology Edo period * {{Japan-hist-stub

Variations

History

1696 spree killing

Mary Midgley's "Trying Out One's New Sword"

See also

References