Shimanagashi () is a form of punishment where people are banished to small islands. It was created during the

feudal period Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, where political offenders were often sent away and confined on the island of Sado in the Sea of Japan. One of the earliest recordings of the punishment was in 434, where a woman was sentenced to exile ( ruzai), however Shimanagashi become a popular punishment during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, considered the 2nd worst punishment, only behind execution. In astronomy and space exploration, Shinmanagashi Syndrome (a term derived from the punishment) is a psychological issue where an astronaut feels that they are alone, feeling left out of society, in space exploration this can occur during long trips throughout the astronaut's space journey or when an astronaut may -in the future- land on other planets.

References

Punishments Legal history of Japan {{japan-hist-stub