Mutilation
Encyclopedia
Mutilation or maiming is an act of physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death.
, burn
ing, flagellation
, tattooing or wheeling
, as part of a rite of passage
. In some cases, the term may apply to treatment of dead bodies, such as soldiers mutilated after they have been killed by an enemy.
The traditional Chinese practices of língchí and foot binding
are forms of mutilation that have captured the imagination of Westerners, as well as the now tourist centered "long-neck" people, a sub-group of the Karen
known as the Padaung
where women wear brass rings around their neck. The act of tattoo
ing is also considered a form of self-mutilation according to some cultural traditions, such as within Christianity and Islam. A joint statement released by the United Nations
and numerous other international bodies opposes female genital cutting
(female circumcision) as a form of mutilation. Denniston et al. have argued that male circumcision is a form of mutilation; their arguments have been criticised by Benatar and Benatar.
, especially applied on the principle of an eye for an eye
.
The Araucanian
warrior Galvarino
suffered this punishment as a prisoner during the Spanish conquest of Chile
.
In law, maiming is a criminal offence; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was mayhem
, an Anglo
-French
variant form of the word.
Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offence generally grouped as malicious damage. For the purpose of the law as to this offence animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law
or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes.
In Britain under the Malicious Damage Act 1861
the punishment for maiming of cattle was three to fourteen years penal servitude; malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanour punishable on summary conviction. For a second offence the penalty is imprisonment with hard labor for over twelve months. Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.
In times when even judicial physical punishment
was still commonly allowed to cause not only intense pain and public humiliation
during the administration but also to inflict permanent physical damage, or even deliberately intended to mark the criminal for life by docking
or branding
, one of the common anatomical target areas not normally under permanent cover of clothing (so particularly merciless in the long term) were the ears.
In England, for example, various pamphleteers attacking the religious views of the Anglican episcopacy under William Laud
, the Archbishop of Canterbury
, had their ears cut off for those writings: in 1630 Dr. Alexander Leighton
and in 1637 still other Puritans, John Bastwick
, Henry Burton
and William Prynne
.
In Scotland one of the Covenanters, James Gavin of Douglas, Lanarkshire, had his ears cut off for refusing to renounce his religious faith.
Notably in various jurisdictions of colonial British North America even relatively minor crimes, such as hog stealing, were punishable by having one's ears nailed to the pillory
and slit loose, or even cropped
, a counterfeiter would be branded on top (for that crime, considered lèse majesté
, the older mirror punishment
was boiling in oil).
Independence did not render American justice any less bloody. For example in the future state of Tennessee, an example of harsh 'frontier law' under the 1780 Cumberland Compact
took place in 1793 when Judge John McNairy
sentenced Nashville's first horse thief, John McKain, Jr., to be fastened to a wooden stock one hour for 39 lashes, and have his ears cut off and cheeks branded with the letters "H" and "T".
In Sharia
law, mutilation is, in certain cases, used as a punishment for crimes. For example, thieves may be punished by having a hand amputated.
Another example from a non-western culture is that of Nebahne Yohannes
, an unsuccessful claimant to the Ethiopian imperial throne
who had his ears and nose cut off, yet was then freed. This form of mutilation against unsuccessful claimants to thrones has been in use in middle-eastern regions for thousands of years. To qualify as a king, formerly, one had to exemplify perfection. Obvious physical deformities such as missing noses, ears, or lips, are thereby sufficient disqualifications. The victim in these cases is typically freed alive to act (a) as an example to others, and (b) as no longer a threat.
Usage
Some ethnic groups practice ritual mutilation, e.g. scarificationScarification
Scarifying involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin...
, burn
Burn
A burn is an injury to flesh caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, light, radiation, or friction.Burn may also refer to:*Combustion*Burn , type of watercourses so named in Scotland and north-eastern England...
ing, flagellation
Flagellation
Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...
, tattooing or wheeling
Breaking wheel
The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment in the Middle Ages and early modern times for public execution by bludgeoning to death...
, as part of a rite of passage
Rite of passage
A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....
. In some cases, the term may apply to treatment of dead bodies, such as soldiers mutilated after they have been killed by an enemy.
The traditional Chinese practices of língchí and foot binding
Foot binding
Foot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth. The practice probably originated among court dancers in the early Song dynasty, but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes. The tiny narrow feet were...
are forms of mutilation that have captured the imagination of Westerners, as well as the now tourist centered "long-neck" people, a sub-group of the Karen
Karen people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
known as the Padaung
Kayan (Burma)
The Kayan are a subgroup of the Red Karen people, a Tibeto-Burman ethnic minority of Burma . The Kayan consists of the following groups: Kayan Lahwi , Kayan Ka Khaung , Kayan Lahta, Kayan Ka Ngan...
where women wear brass rings around their neck. The act of tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ing is also considered a form of self-mutilation according to some cultural traditions, such as within Christianity and Islam. A joint statement released by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and numerous other international bodies opposes female genital cutting
Female genital cutting
Female genital mutilation , also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is defined by the World Health Organization as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."FGM...
(female circumcision) as a form of mutilation. Denniston et al. have argued that male circumcision is a form of mutilation; their arguments have been criticised by Benatar and Benatar.
Punishment
Maiming, or mutilation which involves the loss of, or incapacity to use, a bodily member, is and has been practised by many societies with various cultural and religious significances, and is also a customary form of physical punishmentPhysical 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...
, especially applied on the principle of an eye for an eye
An eye for an eye
The meaning of the principle, an eye for an eye, is that a person who has injured another person receives the same injury in compensation. The exact Latin to English translation of this phrase is actually "The law of retaliation." At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the...
.
The Araucanian
Mapuche
The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...
warrior Galvarino
Galvarino (Mapuche)
Galvarino was a famous Mapuche warrior during the early part of the Arauco War. He fought and was taken prisoner along with one hundred and fifty other Mapuche, in the Battle of Lagunillas against governor García Hurtado de Mendoza...
suffered this punishment as a prisoner during the Spanish conquest of Chile
Conquest of Chile
The Conquest of Chile is a period in Chilean historiography that starts with the arrival of Pedro de Valdivia to Chile in 1541 and ends with the death of Martín García Óñez de Loyola, in the Battle of Curalaba in 1598 or alternatively with the Destruction of the Seven Cities. This was the period...
.
In law, maiming is a criminal offence; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was mayhem
Mayhem (crime)
Mayhem is a criminal offence consisting of the intentional maiming of another person.Under the common law of England and Wales and other common law jurisdictions, it originally consisted of the intentional and wanton removal of a body part that would handicap a person's ability to defend himself in...
, an Anglo
Anglo
Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...
-French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
variant form of the word.
Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offence generally grouped as malicious damage. For the purpose of the law as to this offence animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes.
In Britain under the Malicious Damage Act 1861
Malicious Damage Act 1861
The Malicious Damage Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It consolidated provisions related to malicious damage from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act...
the punishment for maiming of cattle was three to fourteen years penal servitude; malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanour punishable on summary conviction. For a second offence the penalty is imprisonment with hard labor for over twelve months. Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.
Mutilation as human punishment
In times when even judicial 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...
was still commonly allowed to cause not only intense pain and public humiliation
Public humiliation
Public humiliation was often used by local communities to punish minor and petty criminals before the age of large, modern prisons .- Shameful exposure :...
during the administration but also to inflict permanent physical damage, or even deliberately intended to mark the criminal for life by docking
Docking (animals)
Docking is the removal of portions of an animal's tail. While space docking and bobbing are more commonly used to refer to removal of the tail, the term cropping is used in reference to the ears. Tail docking occurs in one of two ways. The first involves constricting the blood supply to the tail...
or branding
Human branding
Human branding or stigmatizing is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron...
, one of the common anatomical target areas not normally under permanent cover of clothing (so particularly merciless in the long term) were the ears.
In England, for example, various pamphleteers attacking the religious views of the Anglican episcopacy under William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, had their ears cut off for those writings: in 1630 Dr. Alexander Leighton
Alexander Leighton
Alexander Leighton was a Scottish medical doctor and puritan preacher and pamphleteer best known for his 1630 pamphlet that attacked the Anglican church and which led to his torture by King Charles I.-Early life:...
and in 1637 still other Puritans, John Bastwick
John Bastwick
John Bastwick was an English Puritan physician and controversial writer.-Life:He was born at Writtle, Essex. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 19 May 1614, but remained there only a very short time, and left the university without a degree. He travelled and served for a time as a soldier,...
, Henry Burton
Henry Burton (Puritan)
Henry Burton , was an English puritan. Along with John Bastwick and William Prynne, Burton's ears were cut off in 1637 for writing pamphlets attacking the views of Archbishop Laud.-Early life:...
and William Prynne
William Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...
.
In Scotland one of the Covenanters, James Gavin of Douglas, Lanarkshire, had his ears cut off for refusing to renounce his religious faith.
Notably in various jurisdictions of colonial British North America even relatively minor crimes, such as hog stealing, were punishable by having one's ears nailed to the pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
and slit loose, or even cropped
Cropping (punishment)
Cropping is the removal of a person's ears as an act of physical punishment. It was performed along with the pillorying or immobilisation in the stocks, and sometimes alongside punishments such as branding or fines...
, a counterfeiter would be branded on top (for that crime, considered lèse majesté
Lèse majesté
Lese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...
, the older mirror punishment
Mirror punishment
A mirror punishment is a penal form of poetic justice which reflects the nature or means of the crime in the means of punishment as a form of retributive justice — the practice of “repaying” a wrongdoer ‘in kind’....
was boiling in oil).
Independence did not render American justice any less bloody. For example in the future state of Tennessee, an example of harsh 'frontier law' under the 1780 Cumberland Compact
Cumberland Compact
The Cumberland Compact was a forerunner of the Tennessee State Constitution, signed on May 13, 1780, by settlers when they arrived on the Cumberland River and settled Fort Nashborough, which would become Nashville, Tennessee...
took place in 1793 when Judge John McNairy
John McNairy
John McNairy was a United States federal judge in Tennessee.Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, McNairy read law to enter the bar in 1788...
sentenced Nashville's first horse thief, John McKain, Jr., to be fastened to a wooden stock one hour for 39 lashes, and have his ears cut off and cheeks branded with the letters "H" and "T".
In Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law, mutilation is, in certain cases, used as a punishment for crimes. For example, thieves may be punished by having a hand amputated.
Another example from a non-western culture is that of Nebahne Yohannes
Nebahne Yohannes
Nebahne Yohannes claimed the imperial title "King of Kings" of Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Tewoflos.According to E. A. Wallis Budge, he was supported by Satuni Yohannes and Mamo...
, an unsuccessful claimant to the Ethiopian imperial throne
Emperor of Ethiopia
The Emperor of Ethiopia was the hereditary ruler of Ethiopia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974. The Emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country...
who had his ears and nose cut off, yet was then freed. This form of mutilation against unsuccessful claimants to thrones has been in use in middle-eastern regions for thousands of years. To qualify as a king, formerly, one had to exemplify perfection. Obvious physical deformities such as missing noses, ears, or lips, are thereby sufficient disqualifications. The victim in these cases is typically freed alive to act (a) as an example to others, and (b) as no longer a threat.