Many years ago I made the mistake of reading one of my Mother’s books. It was called “The Journeyer” by Gary Jennings and was supposed to be a rendering of the life and adventures of Marco Polo. If you are not familiar with Jennings’ work, the synopsis is simple: SEX, VIOLENCE, history, SEX, VIOLENCE.
Needless to say, I read it in about a day.
To the point, in this lovely little tome, Jennings writes of a torture practised in the Orient of Polo’s time called “Death by a thousand cuts” (or “OF a thousand cuts”). Supposedly, the Grand Poobah Torturer would fill a container with a thousand pieces of paper on which were written the names of various body parts. This pleasant fellow would pick out each piece of paper and cut, maim, or burn the assigned body part. He would be sure to keep the unfortunate victim alive until all one-thousand pieces of paper were used up. Neato!
I hadn’t thought of this for about 20 years until I heard someone use it as a phrase in conversation recently.
Questions: Was this really a torture practiced anywhere at any time? If not, how did this become a phrase meaning “A really crummy way to die”? Surely, not from this rotten book!
By the way, to this day Mom is still a fan of the Bodice Ripper school of literature. Yeesh!
A few years ago, there was a place in downtown San Diego called the Museum of Death. Hardly a real museum, it featured an array of serial killer art, had VCRs playing Faces of Death, and other various props. The walls were covered with photos and drawings of torture, car crashes, etc.
Indeed, there was a black and white of an Asian man tied to a T (not really a true cross) who had cuts all over his body and looked to be in a lot of pain from the expression on his face. It was labeled ‘Death by a thousand cuts’ though I’d say he really had more like 200 assuming his back was as bad as his front, but maybe the torturer was just getting started.
The picture had no date, but looked like it could have been as late as the 1940s-50s, so I presume it was practiced much later than the Marco Polo days as well…assuming the photo wasn’t just staged
I don’t remember seeing any collection of papers the torturer was drawing from a fishbowl in the picture, nor do I remember anything OTHER than just cuts (no burns). That’s about all I can add.
“Death by 1000 cuts” was once a traditional torture method in China, I believe.
(Can’t find a cite other than a quiz trivia book, though.)
I think the punishment is called “ling2 chi2” in Mandarin, and used as a novel, sadistic way of execution.
The guilty person is tied, and a knife is used to slice off parts of his body until the body is stripped of muscles and he dies (whichever comes first).
Of course this manner of execution was seldom actually put into practice, as compared to the more common beheading.
My dad brought back pictures of this, and other, executions from WW-II.
One day, I’m going to have to put them on a website.
Best of the bunch is the fellow being squished inside a bamboo cocoon…
-David
I always thought that the cuts had to be pretty minor for the victim to actually survive until they reached 1000. Besides, we all know the most painful cut is the relatively minor papercut!
I remember reading about a Chinese execution where each member of a several-hundred-strong organization had to take a bite out of the victim. Scary stuff.
I always figured that the “Death of a Thousand Cuts” involved papercuts…
I heard Death of 1000 cuts went like this:
You wrap the victim in Twine so that little bits of flesh protrude from the wrapping and slice the bits off one by one.
PS: to everyone else, thank you for sharing.
Warning: Zombie thread!
However, I wanted to close it off by noting that Cecil has answered in this week’s column: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3002/did-the-chinese-really-practice-death-by-a-thousand-cuts
Beer-is-Yummy, you’ve not been posting in a long time, but if you’re reading this, congrats! (I’ve also sent an email to his/her registration email address, but after all this time…)
Meanwhile, there’s a much more recent discussion, from May 2011, here: Death by a thousand paper cuts. - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
However, I’m suggesting that anyone who wants to respond to Cecil’s column should put their comments in the “Comments on Cecil’s Column” forum, here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13952317#post13952317