Harakiri Yagura: The Truth About the Supposedly Haunted Cave

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2024-11-18 20:00:05

Art & Culture Japanese History & Culture

As battle raged across Kamakura, the powerful Hojo family committed mass seppuku at the family temple, leading to legends, ghost tales and bad behavior

Japan has plenty of places with incredibly dark histories, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. Kozukappara, for example, was an execution ground where 200,000 people were brutally killed among such hope-inspiring locales as the Street of Bones and the Bridge of Tears. Today, all that remains of it is a small cemetery in a heavily gentrified area.

A similar thing happened with the Harakiri Yagura, a small cave in the hills of Kamakura surrounded by dense forest and residential homes and just down the road from Toshoji-bashi, a lovely river bridge selected as one of the 100 Best Views of Kamakura. Standing among all this tranquility, it’s hard to believe that the area was the site of a bloody mass suicide and is now considered one of the most haunted places in the country … to the continued annoyance of local monks and residents.

The Hojo clan had been the de facto rulers of Japan for 150 years, ever since Hojo “You Sleep With My Husband, I Burn Your House Down” Masako became the wife of the first shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo, in the 12th century. This all ended when the Hojo’s trusted general turned on them, leading to the sacking of Kamakura, the clan’s seat of power, in 1333. One Hojo survived the attack (together with his demon sword ), while the rest locked themselves in their family temple of Tosho-ji, set fire to it and committed harakiri ritual suicide by slicing open their bellies. Around 870 people died at the temple that day. A memorial to them was constructed in a tomb cave dug into a neighboring hill: the aptly named Harakiri Yagura.