DECAPITATION

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'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, improperly-administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare, but not unknown.
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 of an organization. If, for example, the leader of a country were killed, that might be referred to as 'decapitation'.
Decapitation is almost always (see head transplant) fatal, as brain death occurs within seconds to minutes without the support of the organism's body.

Decapitation throughout history

Judith, beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio. Ca. 1598.

Beheading—facsimile of a miniature on wood in the ''Cosmographie Universelle'' of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.

An honourable death

Decapitation has been used as a form of capital punishment for millennia. The terms capital offense, capital crime, and capital punishment derive from the punishment for serious offenses involving the forfeiture of the head or life^[1]. Decapitation by 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.

Painless

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. Not getting their proper money's worth, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and Mary I of Scotland required three strikes at their respective executions.

The Beheading of Cosmas and Damian, by Fra Angelico

Guillotine

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 Halifax Gibbet, was used in England until the 17th century). The aim was to create a painless and quick form of execution that did not 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. 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 person's head or dead body to the crowd to elicit their reaction was perhaps not beyond the cruelty of the revolutionaries, it would certainly have gone 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 both peacetime and wartime into the 1970s. France abolished the death penalty in 1981 . (The guillotine was also used in Algeria before the French lost control of it, as shown in Gillo Pontecorvo's film ''The Battle of Algiers''. Another guillotine existed in 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 and did indeed use it, once. In recent times however, the Vatican has abolished capital punishment in its own jurisdiction, and recent Popes have condemned capital punishment where it is still practiced.

Aristocratic heads on pikes - a cartoon from the French Revolution

German ''Fallbeil''

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 for criminal convicts. It is estimated that 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 "dishonorable" death, unlike an "honorable" death, e.g., by execution by firing squad.

A fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Scandinavia

In Scandinavia, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out 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. In Sweden, this was the punishment for witchcraft. The last decapitation in Sweden was carried out in 1910 with a guillotine.

Book of Revelation

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 precisely 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. The early Christians considered the Second Coming imminent, for which reason many refused to marry or procreate, and some gave away all their possessions.

China

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. The Chinese however had other punishments, such as the lingering death, that involved cutting the body into multiple pieces.

Japan

In Japan, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offenses. Samurai were often allowed to decapitate their inferiors (who were 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 honored 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 dishonor to him, and to all partaking in the privilege of observing an honorable demise. As skill was involved, only the most trusted warrior was honored enough to take part. In the late Sengoku period, decapitation was performed as soon as the man chosen 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''. These unusual punishments were abolished in the early Meiji era.

India

The Muslim rulers of India, especially the Mughals, treated their religious rivals with exceptional severity.The Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was openly beheaded at Chandni Chowk in Delhi by Aurangzeb after he refused to convert to Islam. To add insult to the injury he forbade any ritual cremation of the Guru. An infuriated Jaita the Rangretta, a sweeper-caste devotee of the Guru, snatched the head away from the executioners and brought it to Anandpur Sahib for the traditional ceremony. The headless torso was also stolen by another devotee of the Guru and cremated in Delhi itself.

Decapitation in the modern world

Condemned Chinese about to be beheaded by Japanese soldiers 1901

Sharia law

Decapitation by sword has in modern times occurred in jurisdictions subject to Islamic Sharia Law; another form of decapitation has been practiced by militant Islamists during the US-led occupation of Iraq. As of 2007, 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. This event is carried out in the main mosque of the city almost every Friday following prayers. Rape, murder, drug crimes, and religious crimes(apostasy is one of them) draw this public punishment.

Terrorist "Decapitation"

Militant Islamic groups have, in recent years, begun carrying out beheadings with small knives, some as small as pocket knives: these beheadings begin with cutting the throat, then slowly severing the head, beginning with 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, in which the goal is to drain all the blood from the animal as quickly as possible. Ritual slaughter of this kind does not require decapitation; only the draining of all the blood: commonly—and controversially—the animal is hanging upside down before its throat is cut. Among those who practiced this nonritual slaughter were Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who recently claimed to have beheaded American journalist Daniel Pearl but did not specify how he beheaded him. He did, however, release a video, which doesn't show the actual butchery but does show Pearl's body with throat cut but head still attached, then later shows his body dismembered into ten pieces. (The video doesn't show the actual crime being committed, thereby preventing its use as evidence in a murder trial.)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995) there were a number of ritual beheadings of Serbs who were taken as prisoners of war by mujahedin members of the Bosnian Army. At least one case is documented and proven in court by the ICTY where mujahedin, members of 3rd Corps of Army BiH, beheaded Bosnian Serb Dragan Popović.^[2]^[3]

Colombia and Mexico

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 for 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. The primary means of decapitation in these cases has been the use of a machete or a chainsaw.

Philippines

The militant Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf is known to practice beheading in the southern islands of the Philippines.^[4]
Beheadings are also reportedly practiced by the El Salvadoran street gang Mara Salvatrucha, which operates in the United States and Latin America.[1]

Indonesia

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

Chechnya

Chechen rebels were known to behead 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 hostage for ransom in Chechnya in 1998, were eventually beheaded and their heads were found on a side of a road.^[5]

Saudi Arabia

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.
Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded four men in February 2007— Sangeeth Kumara, Victor Corea, Ranjith Silva and Sanath Pushpakumara. These four Sri Lankan workers were convicted in a Saudi Arabian court for an armed robbery committed in October 2004. Their deaths sparked reactions from the international human rights watchdog Amnesty International, which called on the Saudi authorities to abolish the death sentence. The court also ruled that the bodies of the four workers be crucified for public view as an example for others. In most of the cases the respective embassy gets notification only after the execution thereby eliminating chances for international or diplomatic uproar.^[6]

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

Iraq

Beheadings have emerged as another insurgent tactic especially in Iraq since April of 2004. Foreign civilians have borne the brunt of the beheadings, 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.

Accidental

In Iraq in 2007, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was accidentally beheaded during his execution by long drop hanging.

Australia

On January 12, 2007 in Armidale, New South Wales, a World War II veteran named Mark Edwin Hutchinson was beheaded in the backyard of his home by an unknown assailant.^[7]

Ghulam Nabi

A video obtained by the Associated Press on April 20, 2007 shows a young boy, looking to be around 12 years of age, viciously beheading a man identified as Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying the Taliban. According to the AP report, "A continuous 2 1/2-minute shot then shows the victim lying on his side on a patch of rubble-strewn ground. A man holds Nabi by his beard while the boy, wearing a camouflage military jacket and oversized white sneakers, cuts into the throat. Other men and boys call out "Allahu akbar!" — "God is great!" — as blood spurts from the wound. The film, overlain with jihadi songs, then shows the boy hacking and slashing at the man's neck until the head is severed."^[8]

Famous people who have been beheaded

Salome and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, by Titian

Biblical Accounts

★ Goliath (according to scripture, this example illustrates the aforementioned "removal-of-the-head-from-a-body-that-is-already-dead" variety)

★ John the Baptist in the Gospels

★ Holofernes in the deuterocanonical ''Book of Judith'' (historical accuracy disputed)

★ Apostle James, traditionally

★ Apostle Paul, traditionally

Christian Saints

★ Saint Acisclus

★ Saint Agnes

★ Saint Alban (around 304)

★ Saint Ansanus

★ Saint Anthimus of Rome

★ Saint Columba of Spain.

★ Saint Columba of France.

★ Saint Columba (the Virgin) of Cornwall, England.

★ Saints Cosmas and Damian

★ Saint Denis, who carried his head to his final resting place, a familiar hagiographical trope (see Cephalophore).

★ Saint Diomedes

★ Saint Eurosia

★ Saint Felicitas of Rome

★ Saints Felix and Nabor

★ Saint Firmus and Saint Rusticus

★ Saint Gereon

★ Saint Gordianus

★ Saint Marcellus

★ Saint Maximilian

★ Saint Nicasius of Rheims, at Rheims

★ Saint Oliver Plunkett in Ireland

★ Saint Pancras

★ Saint Polyeuctus

★ Saint Quiteria

★ Saints Rufina and Secunda

★ Saints Simplicius and Faustinus

★ Saint Typasius

★ Saint Urith of Chittlehampton, Devon, England.

★ Saint Venantius, at Camerino

★ Saint Winefride of Flintshire in Wales.

Islamic

★ 680 Imam Husayn bin Ali and his 72 companions at the Battle of Karbala- which marked the division between Shia and Sunni

Nazi Germany

★ In February 1943 University students Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst of the White Rose protest movement, for distributing anti-war and anti-Nazi leaflets. Four other members of the White Rose were also executed by the Nazi People's Court later that same year. The LDS anti-Nazi Helmuth Hübener was also decapitated by People’s Court order.