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Decapitation

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This article is about beheading. For the cricket strategy, see decapitation (cricket).
Salome and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, by Titian

Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the removal of a living organism's head. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, or knife, or by means of a guillotine. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, automobile or industrial accident or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare, but not unknown. In 2003 a British man killed himself by means of a home-made guillotine, constructed over a period of several weeks [1]. Decapitation is always fatal, as brain death usually occurs within seconds to minutes without the support of the organism's body. There is no way to provide life support for a severed head with current medical techniques.

The word decapitation can also refer, on occasion, to the removal of the head from a body that is already dead. This might be done to take the head as a trophy, for public display, to make the deceased more difficult to identify, or for other reasons.

In an analogous fashion, decapitation can also refer to the removal of the head (the leaders) of an organization. If, for example, the leader of a country were killed, that might be referred to as decapitation.

Decapitation throughout history

Beheading—Facsimile of a Miniature on Wood in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.

Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The terms capital offence, capital crime, and capital punishment derive from the punishment for serious offences being the removal of their head. Political prisoners (labelled traitors) and serious criminals often had their heads removed and placed on public display for a period of time. For instance, in medieval England, the heads were placed on spikes along the walls of the Tower of London. Execution by beheading with a sword (or axe, a military weapon as well) was sometimes considered the "honourable" way to die for an aristocrat, who, presumably being a warrior, could often expect to die by the sword in any event; in England it was considered a privilege of noblemen to be beheaded. This would be distinguished from a "dishonourable" death on the gallows or through burning at the stake. High Treason by nobles was punished by beheading; male commoners, including knights, were hanged, drawn, and quartered; female commoners were burned at the stake.

If the headsman's axe or sword was sharp and his aim was true, decapitation was a quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of death. If the instrument was blunt or the executioner clumsy however multiple strokes might be required to sever the head. The person to be executed was therefore advised to give a gold coin to the headsman so that he did his job with care.

Aristocratic heads on pikes - a cartoon from the French Revolution
  • Decapitation by guillotine was a common, mechanically assisted form of execution invented shortly before the French Revolution (although an earlier version of the guillotine, the gibbet, was used in England until the 17th century). The aim was to create a painless and quick form of execution that didn't require great skill to carry out. The executioner, after chopping off the head, would hold it up to the crowd. It was believed (with dubious evidence) that the head could still see for around ten seconds. Some people believe that the head would be held up so that it could see the crowd laughing at it before it fully died but in reality this action is merely meant to show the watching crowds that justice had been done and also to pander more effectively to their collective blood-lust. The French had a strict code of etiquette surrounding the executions; A man named Legros, one of the assistants at the execution of Charlotte Corday, was imprisoned and dismissed for slapping the face of the victim after the blade had fallen in order to see whether any flicker of life remained (witnesses say that it flushed as though angry, although with no blood circulation possible, this "evidence" is obviously false). While the idea of showing the dying head the reaction of the crowd or their own dead body is perhaps not beyond the cruelty of the revolutionaries, it would certainly go against the "humane" spirit in which the guillotine was introduced and applied. The guillotine was used in France during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in peace time, in use until the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981. (The guillotine was also used in Algeria before the French lost control of it, as shown in the Gillo Pontecorvo's film the Battle of Algiers. Another guillotine existed in the Vatican City until recent years. It had been brought in by Napoleon's forces during the early 19th century; and in 1870, the Pope still claimed the authority to use it. The Vatican has abolished capital punishment in its own jurisdiction, and recent Popes have condemned capital punishment where it is still practiced.
  • Many German states had used a guillotine-like device known as a Fallbeil since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until the abolition of the death penalty in Germany in 1949. In Nazi Germany, the guillotine was reserved to criminal convicts. It is estimated some 40,000 persons were guillotined in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. This number includes resistance fighters both in Nazi Germany itself and in those countries that were occupied by them. As these resistance fighters were not part of any regular army they were considered common criminals and were in many cases taken to Germany and decapitated. Decapitation was considered a "dishonourable" death, unlike an "honourable" death, e.g., by execution by firing squad.
A fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
  • In Scandinavia, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out the capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a sword, and commoners with an axe. The last executions by decapitation in Finland in 1825 and Norway in 1876 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in Denmark in 1892. The last decapitation in Sweden in 1910 was carried out with a guillotine.
  • It is of note that in the biblical Book of Revelation, beheading is named as a method of execution of Christian martyrs during a great persecution (Rev. 20:4). There is no historical record of such an event, so certain commentators believe that this verse refers to a last great persecution of the church that some Christians believe will occur shortly before the Second Coming of Christ.
  • In traditional China decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than strangulation although strangulation caused more-prolonged suffering. This was because the Chinese believed that their bodies were gifts from their parents, and that it was therefore disrespectful to their ancestors to return their bodies to the grave dismembered.
  • In Japan, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offenses. Samurai were often allowed to decapitate their inferiors (which was nearly everyone else) at will. James Clavell makes this point early in his novel Shogun. In addition, decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own abdomen open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to reduce the suffering. The blow was expected to be precise enough to leave intact a small strip of skin at the front of the neck - to spare invited and honoured guests the indelicacy of witnessing a decapitated head rolling about, or towards them, whilst spraying blood. Such an event would have been considered inelegant and in bad taste. The sword was expected to be used upon the slightest sign that the practitioner might yield to pain and cry out - avoiding dishonour to him, and to all partaking in the privilege of observing an honourable demise. As skill was involved, only the most trusted warrior was honoured enough to take part. In the late Sengoku period, decapitation was performed as soon as the man to carry out seppuku had made the slightest wound to his abdomen. Decapitation (without seppuku) was also considered the severest and most degrading form of punishment. One of the most brutal decapitations was that of a daimyo, Ishida Mitsunari, who had warred against Ieyasu Tokugawa. After he lost the Battle of Sekigahara, he was buried in the ground and his head was sawn off with a blunt bamboo saw: spectators were invited to help with the sawing, also described at the end of the novel Shogun. This unusual punishment was abolished in the early Meiji era.

Decapitation in the modern world

Decapitation by sword has in modern times occurred in jurisdictions subject to Islamic Sharia; another form has been practiced by militant Islamists during the US-led occupation of Iraq. As of 2005, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar all had laws allowing decapitation, but only Saudi Arabia was known to practice the sentence: a curved, single-edged sword is used, in public. Militant Islamic groups have, in recent years, begun carrying out so-called beheadings with small knives, some as small as pocket knives. Curiously, these "beheadings" begin with cutting the throat, then slowly hacking away at the spine. Historically, most methods of beheading use a heavy, sharp steel blade, cutting through the neck from behind, which quickly severs the spine, then cuts the blood vessels, trachea, and esophagus: a single stroke usually suffices. The gangs' frontal approach more closely resembles Dhabiĥa (a method used to slaughter animals, thereby rendering the meat hallal), whose goal is to drain all the blood from the animal as quickly as possible: ritual slaughter doesn't require decapitation; only draining all the blood.

During the war in Bosnia (1992-1995) there were some beheadings of Serbs. At least one case is documented and proven in court by ICTY where mujahedin, member of 3rd Corps of Army BiH, beheaded Bosnian Serb Dragan Popović. [2] [3]

Less orthodox instances of decapitation have also occurred in recent times in some areas of Colombia. Marxist FARC guerrilla as well as Right-wing paramilitary groups such as the AUC have sometimes used this method to intimidate local populations and political opponents, and it has not been uncommon criminal gangs of druglords to also make limited use of decapitation on occasion. Recently, in 2006, a drug war carried out by Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderón, against druglords and various other criminals caused many beheadings by those druglords in retaliation. The heads were then reportedly tossed into a nightclub and placed in front of various other government buildings accompanied with notes of warning from the druglords[1]. The primary means of decapitation in these cases has been the use of a machete or chainsaw.

The militant Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf is known to practice beheading in the southern islands of the Philippines.[2]

Beheadings are also reportedly practiced by the El Salvadoran street gang Mara Salvatrucha, which operates in the United States and Latin America.[4]

In largely Muslim Indonesia, three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded and one other was critically wounded by Islamic extremists in October, 2005.

In Southern Thailand, there were at least 15 cases where Buddhists have been beheaded. Thai officials suspect the attackers were Islamic extremists who are seeking to separate the Muslim-dominated south from the rest of Thailand. [5], [6], [7]

Chechen rebels were known to practice beheading against captured Russian Army soldiers during the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War (see Chechclear). Four Western telecommunication workers (three Britons and a New Zealander) who were taken hostages for ransom in Chechnya in 1998 were eventually beheaded and their heads found by the side of the road [8].

In April 2005, Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded six Somali nationals for auto theft, causing tension between the two countries. Without a government however, Somalia couldn't intervene on behalf of its citizens. Somalis all over the world have protested the Saudi action.

Jack Hensley, seated in orange, before being beheaded by the five men standing over him

Beheadings have emerged as another insurgent tactic especially in Iraq since April of 2004. Foreign civilians have borne the brunt of the kidnappings, although U.S. and Iraqi military personnel have also been targeted. After kidnapping the victim, the insurgents typically make some sort of demand of the government of the hostage's nation and give a time limit for the demand to be carried out, often 72 hours. Beheading is often threatened if the government fails to heed the wishes of the hostage takers. Frequently the beheadings are videotaped and made available on the internet.

Some famous people who have been beheaded

Biblical

Christian Saints

The Beheading of Cosmas and Damian, by Fra Angelico

Islamic

China

England

The Colonial Americas

French Revolution

Iraq

Switzerland

Saudi Arabia

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/12/12/mexico.drug.offensive.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
  2. ^ "Abu Sayyaf Group (Philippines, Islamist separatists)," Council on Foreign Relations. URL
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