“When a man has committed a crime that warrants the death sentence and the king has decreed his execution. The condemned man declares he wishes to kill himself in honour and adoration of such-and-such idol. The king replies that he approves of this. Then all the relatives and friends of the man who must kill himself take him and sit him in a chair and give him twelve knives or swords and they carry him around the city proclaiming at every step, ‘This brave man is going to kill himself out of devotion to such-and-such an idol.”
Marco Polo (1254-1324), “Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls”
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