Word: tsurushi
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When decapitation and crucifixion were not effective, the shoguns invented tsurushi, in which the victim was suspended head downward in a pit, often partly filled with offal, to hang in agony sometimes a week or more before dying. "The persecuters were well aware that entire districts would be depopulated if all Christians were killed," says Drummond, "and so from the beginning they aimed to make apostates rather than martyrs." Many Japanese preferred to give up their Christianity. But a surprising number held out to the death. In Shimabara 36,000 men, women and children, offered the way to freedom...
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