Cat o' nine tails
Encyclopedia
Whip
A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...
that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment
Physical punishment
Physical punishment is any form of penalty in a judicial, educational or domestic setting that takes a physical form, by the infliction on the offender of pain, injury, discomfort or humiliation...
, notably in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and Army of the United Kingdom, and also as a judicial punishment
Judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment refers to the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging, caning, birching, whipping, or strapping...
in Britain and some other countries.
Etymology
The term first appears in 1695, although the design is much older. It was probably so called in reference to its "clawClaw
A claw is a curved, pointed appendage, found at the end of a toe or finger in most mammals, birds, and some reptiles. However, the word "claw" is also often used in reference to an invertebrate. Somewhat similar fine hooked structures are found in arthropods such as beetles and spiders, at the end...
s", which inflict parallel wounds. There are equivalent terms in many languages, usually strictly translating, and also some analogous terms referring to a similar instrument's number of tails (cord or leather), such as the Dutch zevenstaart (seven tail[s]) or the Spanish gato de nueve colas.
Description
The cat is made up of nine knotKnot
A knot is a method of fastening or securing linear material such as rope by tying or interweaving. It may consist of a length of one or several segments of rope, string, webbing, twine, strap, or even chain interwoven such that the line can bind to itself or to some other object—the "load"...
ted thong
Thong
Thong may refer to:* Thong , a garment which primarily covers only the pubic area* Thongs, jandals or flip-flops, a type of footwear similar to sandals but which are not secured to the ankles...
s of cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
cord
Cord
Cord may refer to:* String or rope* Cord , a trimming made of multiple strands of yarn twisted together* The spinal cord* Cord Automobile, a former American car marque founded by Errett Lobban Cord* The cord , used to measure firewood...
, about feet or 76 cm long, designed to lacerate the skin and cause intense pain.
It traditionally has nine thongs as a result of the manner in which rope is plait
Plait
A plait may refer to:* Plait, also called a braid, intertwined strands of, for example, textile or hair* Plait, now called a pleat, a fold of fabric, used in clothing and upholstery* Plait , a fold in the columella of a gastropod mollusc...
ed. Thinner rope is made from three strands of yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
plaited together, and thicker rope from three strands of thinner rope plaited together. To make a cat o' nine tails, a rope is unravelled into three small ropes, each of which is unravelled again.
Variations
Variations exist, either named cat (of x tails) or not, such as the whip used on adult EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian prisoners which had a cord on a cudgel branching into seven tails, each with six knots, used only on adult men, with boys being subject to caning
Caning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hand . Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common...
, until Egypt banned the use of the device in 2001.
Sometimes the term "cat" is used incorrectly to describe various other punitive flogging devices with multiple tails in any number, even one made from 80 twigs (so rather a limp birch
Birch
Birch is a tree or shrub of the genus Betula , in the family Betulaceae, closely related to the beech/oak family, Fagaceae. The Betula genus contains 30–60 known taxa...
) to flog a drunk or other offender instead of 80 lashes normally applicable under shariah law.
The closed cat, one without tails, was called a starter.
Naval types and use
The naval cat, also known as the captain's daughter (in principle, it was used under his authority), weighed about 13 ounces (370 grams) and was composed of a baton (handle) and nine cords.Contrary to popular belief, the standard cat was not the most feared implement; being made of rope, it was less painful than a leather whip or a wooden birch-rod, while the modes of application (number and intensity of lashes, anatomical target, baring) of any implement can be more important than its intrinsic potential.
Naval punishments
All formal punishments—ordered by captain or court martial—were administered ceremonially on deck, the crew being summoned to "witness punishment" (although usually adults and boys separated, which was apparently not strictly observed in practice) and drama enhanced by drum roll and a whole routine, including pauses, untangling of the tails, a drink of water and so on, which it is believed were intended more for the benefit of the watching crew than for the actual participants. Informal "daily" punishments, usually without assembly, including canings, were often left unrecorded.The thieves' cat, to inflict punishment for theft, which was considered a particularly offensive crime aboard ship, had each of its thongs knotted three times to cause additional pain.
Napoleonic wars period
During the period of the Napoleonic warsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, the naval cat's handle was made of rope about 2 foot (0.6096 m) long and about 1 inches (2.5 cm) in diameter, and was traditionally covered with red baize
Baize
Baize is a coarse woollen cloth, sometimes called felt in American English based on a similarity in appearance.-Usage:...
cloth. The tails were made of cord about a quarter inch (6 mm) in diameter and typically 2 feet long.
A new cat was made for each flogging by a bosun's mate and kept in a red baize bag until use. In Trafalgar time, it was made by the condemned sailor during 24 hours in leg irons; the nine strongest falls were kept, and extra lashes were administered if any of the selected falls were found to be sub-standard. If several dozen lashes were awarded, each could be administered by a fresh bosun's mate—a left-handed one could be included to assure extra painful crisscrossing of the wounds. One dozen was usually awarded as a highly sensitizing prelude to running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet is a form of physical punishment wherein a captive is compelled to run between two rows—a gauntlet—of soldiers who strike him as he passes.-Etymology:...
.
In some cases a cat with a wooden handle was used, and steel balls or barbs of wire were added to the tips of the thongs to maximize the potential flogging injury.
Boys' punishment
For summary punishment of Royal Navy boys, a lighter model was made, the reduced cat, also known as boy's cat, boy's pussy or just pussy, that had only five tails of smooth whip cord. If formally convicted by a court martial, however, even boys would suffer the punishment of the adult cat.While adult sailors received their lashes on the back, they were administered to boys on the bare posterior, usually while "kissing the gunner's daughter" (bending over a gun barrel), just as boys' lighter "daily" chastisement was usually over their (often naked) rear-end (mainly with a cane
Caning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hand . Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common...
– this could be applied to the hand, but captains generally refused such impractical disablement – or a rope's end). Bare-bottom discipline was a tradition of the English upper and middle classes, who frequented public schools,
so midshipmen (trainee officers, usually from 'good families', getting a cheaper equivalent education by enlisting) were not spared, at best sometimes allowed to receive their lashes inside a cabin. Still, it is reported that the 'infantile' embarrassment of bare-bottom punishment was believed essential for optimal deterrence; cocky miscreants might brave the pain of the adult cat in the macho spirit of "taking it like a man" or even as a "badge of honour".
On board training ships, where most of the crew were boys, the cat was never introduced, but their bare bottoms risked, as in other naval establishments on land, the sting of the birch
Birching
Birching is a corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically applied to the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally to the back and/or shoulders.-Implement:...
, another favourite in public schools.
Flogging round the fleet
"The severest form of flogging was a flogging round the fleet. The number of lashes was divided by the number of ships in port and the offender was rowed between ships for each ship's company to witness the punishment." Penalties of hundreds of lashes were imposed for the gravest offences, including sedition and mutinyMutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
. The prisoner was rowed 'round the fleet in an open boat and received a number of his lashes at each ship in turn, for as long as the surgeon allowed. Sentences often took months or years to complete, depending on how much a man was expected to bear at a time. Normally 250–500 lashes was when a man taking this punishment would kill him, as infections would spread." After the flogging was completed, the sailor's lacerated back was frequently rinsed with brine
Brine
Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...
or seawater
Seawater
Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...
, which served as a crude antiseptic
Antiseptic
Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...
. Although the purpose was to control infection, it caused the sailor to endure additional pain, and gave rise to the expression, "rubbing salt into his wounds," which came to mean vindictively or gratuitously increasing a punishment or injury already imposed.
British Army
The British ArmyBritish Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
had a similar multiple whip, though much lighter in construction, made of a drumstick with attached strings. The flogger was usually a drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
rather than a strong bosun's mate. Flogging with the cat o' nine tails fell into disuse around 1870.
Naturally, it was also used elsewhere in the Commonwealth, notably at the penal colony in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and also in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
(a dominion in 1867) where it was used until 1881. An 1812 drawing shows a drummer apparently lashing the buttocks of a naked soldier who is tied with spread legs on an A-frame made from sergeants' half pikes. In many places, soldiers were generally flogged stripped to the waist.
Prison usage
The cat-o'-nine-tails was also used on adult convictConvict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
s in prisons; a 1951 memorandum (possibly confirming earlier practice) ordered all UK male prisons to use only cats o' nine tails (and birch
Birching
Birching is a corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically applied to the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally to the back and/or shoulders.-Implement:...
es) from a national stock at Wandsworth
Wandsworth
Wandsworth is a district of south London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Toponymy:...
prison, where they were to be 'thoroughly' tested before being supplied in triplicate to a prison whenever a flogging was pending for use as prison discipline. In the 20th century this use was confined to very serious cases involving violence against a prison officer, and each flogging had to be confirmed by central government.
Penal colonies in Australia
Especially harsh floggings were given with it in secondary penal coloniesPenal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
of early colonial Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, particularly at such places as Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
(apparently this has 9 leather thongs, each with a lead weight, meant as the ultimate deterrent for hardened life-convicts), Port Arthur
Port Arthur, Tasmania
Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. It is located approximately 60 km south east of...
and Moreton Bay
Moreton Bay
Moreton Bay is a bay on the eastern coast of Australia 45 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources...
(now Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
).
Modern uses and types
Judicial corporal punishment was removed from the statute book in Great Britain in 1948. The cat was still being used in Australia in 1957 and is still in use in a few Commonwealth countries, although the caneCaning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hand . Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common...
is used in more countries.
Judicial corporal punishment has been abolished or declared unconstitutional since 1997 in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
(in 2001) and Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
(in 2002).
However, some former colonies in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
have reinstated flogging with the cat. Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands...
reinstated it in 1990, followed by the Bahamas in 1991 (where, however, it was subsequently banned by law) and Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
in 1993 (only to be formally declared inhumane and thus unconstitutional by the Barbados Supreme Court).
Trinidad & Tobago never banned the "Cat". Under the Corporal Punishment (Offenders over Sixteen) Act 1953, use of the "Cat" was limited to male offenders over the age of 16. The age limit was raised in 2000 to 18.
The Government of Trinidad & Tobago has been accused of torture and "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners, and in 2005 was ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous judicial institution based in the city of San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of American States , which serves to uphold and...
to pay US $50,000 for "moral damages" to a prisoner who had received 15 strokes of the "Cat" plus expenses for his medical and psychological care; it is unclear whether the Court's decisions were implemented. Trinidad & Tobago did not acknowledge the Court's jurisdiction, since it had denounced the American Convention on Human Rights several years before the Court started hearing this case.
Expressions
- The still-popular sailor's song What do you do with a Drunken SailorDrunken SailorDrunken Sailor is a traditional sea shanty also known as What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?It begins with the question, "What shall we do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning?" Each verse thereafter suggests a method of sobering—or castigating, or simply abusing—the sailor.The song...
? has a verse that goes "Give him a taste of the captain's daughter" or "Throw him in bed with the captain's daughter", which modern listeners tend to take literally. In fact, the term "captain's daughter" referred in British naval jargon to the cat o' nine tails or a similar whip. - The British expression "to kiss the gunner's daughter" referred to the bending of a boy over a cannon, usually tied down, the trousers lowered, exposing the buttocks for a public spankingSpankingSpanking refers to the act of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain without producing physical injury. It generally involves one person striking the buttocks of another person with an open hand. When an open hand is used, spanking is referred to in some countries as...
(often with a cane or birch). Adult sailors received whippings in an upright position. - The phrase, "not enough room to swing a cat," is said to refer to cat o' nine tails. However, examples of usage predate the known use of the cat o' nine tails (i.e. before 1695). The phrase more likely refers to the practice of putting a live cat in a leather bottle and setting it swinging as a target for marksmen. For example, Shakespeare, in Much Ado About Nothing, writes: "Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me." This was discussed in The Times in January 2007.
- The phrase "letting the cat out of the bag" in the sense of revealing a secret may derive from the cat o' nine tails being kept in a red baize bag and being taken out when punishment was to be inflicted. For a sailor being punished for the first time, the identity of the 'cat' was revealed. There are other possible explanations for this particular phrase (see Pig in a pokePig in a pokeThe idioms pig in a poke and sell a pup refer to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but cats and dogs were not...
).
See also
- Judicial corporal punishmentJudicial corporal punishmentJudicial corporal punishment refers to the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging, caning, birching, whipping, or strapping...
- Physical punishmentPhysical punishmentPhysical punishment is any form of penalty in a judicial, educational or domestic setting that takes a physical form, by the infliction on the offender of pain, injury, discomfort or humiliation...
(includes comparison of disciplinary implements) - BDSMBDSMBDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
- Flogging
- ScourgeScourgeA scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification on the back.-Description:...
- TawseTawseThe tawse, sometimes formerly spelled taws is an implement used for corporal punishment...
- Whip
Sources and References and further reading
- CORporalPUNishment website – here an illustrated example among many other articles, mainly on the adult cat
- EtymologyOnLine
- Joseph W. Bean, Flogging, Greenery PressGreenery PressGreenery Press is a publishing house based in Emeryville, California specializing in books on BDSM, polyamory and sexuality, with over 50 titles in print. Most titles are non-fiction, but a smaller number of fiction titles and memoirs are published under the Grass Stain Press name...
, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-27-1. - Male Genitorture on Wipipedia, the specialist BDSM wikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
. - Ecstagony- Dictionary of flogging instruments, with some illustrations
- Article and downloadable pdf file on corporal punishment in Trinidad and Tobago by Harvard Law School
- Inter-American Court of Human Rights orders Trinidad to pay compensation for flogging and humiliation of prisoners in March 2005
- Amnesty International report on use of the Cat o' nine tails on 6 Oct. 2006 in Bahamas
- Amnesty International report recording use of Cat o' nine tails on woman and young boy in Trinidad
- Inter-American Court of Human Rights' decisions and documents
- Use of Cat o' nine tails on World Corporal Punishment Topics site
- Judicial caning in Fiji in 1998
- Review of Lord Invader's calypso album of 1959
- Play sample of Lord Invader's calypso "Cat o' nine tails" here