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Decapitation

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Decapitation, or beheading, is death caused by removing a living being's head. This may be done by hand with an axe, sword, or knife, or by guillotine. In rare cases it may also be the result of an explosion, automobile accident or other violent injury.

Separation of the head from the rest of the body causes inevitable death in humans: even if the bleeding is stopped, obviously the brain cannot get oxygen. No medical emergency treatment (that would, for example, involve connecting a cardiac pump to the head) could be fast enough to save the patient. There is also heavy bleeding from both the head and decapitated body.

This is also the case for the vast majority of other living creatures, but is not an absolute. See also Mike the Headless Chicken.

Alternatively, decapitation may refer to the removal of the head of someone who is already dead, i.e., to a corpse. This would have probably made the most sense for the purpose of displaying the head to prove the fact of the individual's death or to instill fear in the populace by illustrating the likely fate of an enemy of the authorities.

Decapitation throughout history

Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The modern legal terminology capital offence or capital crime, as well as the term capital punishment itself, derives from the punishment for qualifying serious offences having been the removal of one's head (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning 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. On the other hand, execution by beheading with a sword could be at times considered an "honorable" way to die for an aristocrat, who, presumably being a warrior, could generally expect to die by the sword in any event. This would be distinguished from a "dishonorable" death on the gallows or through burning at the stake.

If the headsman's axe or sword was sharp and his aim was true, decapitation was a quick and relatively painless form of death. If the instrument was blunt or the execution clumsy, however, it was considerably more painful. The person to be executed was therefore advised to give a gold coin to the headsman so that he did his job with care.

Decapitation by guillotine was a common 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 that only one form of execution, involving no torture, should exist. It was used in France until 1977.

In Japan, decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own stomach open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to ease the suffering. As skill was involved, only the most trusted was honored to take the part. In the late Sengoku period, decapitation was performed as soon as the man to commit seppuku had made the slightest wound to his stomach.

Decapitation was also the highest form of punishment. One of the most brutal forms of decapitation was that of a samurai, Ishida Mitsunari, who had betrayed Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was buried in the ground and his head was sawed off with a blunt wooden saw. This punishment was abolished in the early Meiji era.

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 most commentators believe that this verse refers to the last great persecution of the church that is expected to occur shortly before the Second Coming of Christ.

Decapitation in the modern world

The use of decapitation has been discontinued in part because of suspicion that the severed head may in certain cases continue to be alive to some extent and capable of feeling pain. Some evidence for this was gathered by studying the presence of death-related chemicals in the brains of beheaded animals. There have also been many apocryphal stories from France about the severed heads of guillotined persons that would change facial expression or move their lips. Certainly another major reason for the end of the practice of beheading is the violent and messy nature of the practice.

Decapitation by sword has in modern times occurred in jurisdictions subject to Islamic Sharia, and by militant Islamists during the US-led invasion of Iraq. As of 2004, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran and Qatar had laws allowing decapitation but only Saudi Arabia was known to practice the sentence.

Beheading by Islamist militants

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq and during both the U.S. led occupation of Iraq and the "War on Terror", some foreigners have been kidnapped by Islamic extremists and used for pressing the United States and the rest of the countries of the coalition to release prisoners or remove their troops from the country. In many cases the kidnappers have also seized other Muslims as hostages, especially non-Arabs and Shiites. The kidnappers threaten to behead the victims if their demands are not met. Where the kidnappers have not succeeded the beheading has sometimes been videotaped and broadcast. The executioners frequently use a hacksaw rather than a quicker method such as axe or guillotine. The killers sometimes flash the head in front of the camera and then set it onto the decapitated body as a way of showing that the person died. In July 1995 the Kashmiri islamist group al-Faran kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir because India's Government refused to release guerillas who were held in prison. One of them was later found beheaded.

Some famous persons who have been beheaded

Biblical

Islam

China

Actually thousands of famous Chinese have been decapitated since decapitation is the most commonly used capital punishment in imperial China.

England

French Revolution

Italy

Mythological

Scotland

Modern era

Decapitation victims of Islamist militants

Decapitation in politics

The term 'decapitation' is also used in politics and other organisational structures as meaning to remove the leaders, ie. the 'head', of the organisation in the hope or expectation that it would flounder without direction from the top. This is a figurative usage, rather than the literal meanings above.

The term decapitation strike used in the theory of nuclear warfare also derives from this meaning.

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