“I am a Catholic, and I wholeheartedly accept death for God. Had I a thousand lives, I would offer all of these to Him.”

~ St. Lorenzo Ruiz, Filipino, martyred by *tsurushi*.

*Tsurushi* (Japanese for “hole hanging”) involved cutting open a victim’s forehead, hanging him upside down, then lowering him headfirst into a pit filled with excrement until he either died or agreed to apostatize. The bleeding from the forehead ensured he didn’t die quickly from rising cranial blood pressure but as slowly & painfully as possible. He wasn’t suffocated or drowned in the excrement, just suspended in the fumes right above it. Death could take up to 13 days, as in the case of St. Magdalene of Nagasaki.