Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1895 — Unpleasant Japanese Custom. [ARTICLE]

Unpleasant Japanese Custom.

In the early history of Japan it was decidededly a dubious honor to be closely related to any person of note, for one of the laws at that time decreed that when a person of rank or importance died all the immediate relatives must be buried alive, in a perpendicular position, around the personage’s grave. Their heads were left above the earth, and thus they remained until welcome death came to free them.