Running the gauntlet
.JPG)
Gauntlet is a form of physical punishment where a captive is forced to run between two rows, a gauntlet, of soldiers who repeatedly strike him.
Contents
Etymology and spelling
The word originates from Swedish: gatlopp, from gata "lane" and lopp "course, running".[1] It was borrowed into English in the 17th century, probably from English and Swedish soldiers fighting in the Protestant armies during the Thirty Years' War.[2][3][4][5][6] The word in English was originally spelled gantelope or gantlope, but soon its pronunciation was influenced by the unrelated word gauntlet meaning an armored glove, which is from French: gantelet.[1] The spelling changed with the pronunciation. Both senses of gauntlet had the variant spelling gantlet.[1] The spelling gantlet is preferred for the punishment in American English usage guides by Bryan Garner and Robert Hartwell Fiske.[7][8] American dictionaries list gantlet as a variant spelling of gauntlet,[1][9] while British dictionaries additionally label it American.[10][11]
Predecessor in Antiquity
Known as Xylokopia in Ancient Greece, used as a severe military punishment and Fustuarium (a Latin abstraction from the Latin fustis, a branch or rod) in the Roman military as a form of execution by cudgeling (clubbing).
It could also be applied to every tenth man of a whole unit as a mode of decimation.
Post-Roman usage
A very similar military punishment found in later armies was known as "running the gauntlet". The condemned soldier was stripped to the waist and had to pass between a double row (hence also known as die Gasse, "the alley") of cudgeling or switching comrades. A subaltern walked in front of him with a blade to prevent him from running. The condemned might sometimes also be dragged through by a rope around the hands or prodded along by a pursuer.
Various rules might apply, such as banning edged weapons, requiring the group to keep one foot in place, or allowing the soldier to attempt to protect his head with his hands. The punishment was not necessarily continued until death. If so, he might be finished off when unable to walk. Running the gauntlet was considered far less of a dishonor than a beating (with exposure to ridicule) on the pillory, pranger, or stocks, since one could "take it like a man" upright and among soldiers.
In some traditions, if the condemned was able to finish the run and exit the gauntlet at the far end, his faults would be deemed paid, and he would rejoin his comrades with a clean slate. Elsewhere, he was sent back through the gauntlet until death.
- A Prussian cavalry variation was to beat the condemned with stirrup straps instead of rods.
- It was also common practice in the French army, especially for thieves.
- Also used in training, notably on military cadets, as in a scene in the movie Oberst Redl.
- There was also a naval version of the gauntlet, notably used in the Royal Navy as a punishment for minor theft. The condemned was prevented from rushing by the master-at-arms with a cutlass and pushed forward by a corporal, whilst being beaten with rope yarns that were plaited into so-called "knittles", which looked like smaller, improvised versions of the cat o' nine tails. The condemned could also receive a dozen lashes from the cat o' nine tails beforehand, so that blows received while running the gauntlet would aggravate the lacerations on his back. This punishment was abolished by order of the British Admiralty in 1806.[12]
- Mild forms, not intended to cause permanent damage, have also been used on or by children.
In the early records of the Dutch colonial settlement of New Amsterdam appears a detailed description of running the "Gantlope/Gantloppe" as a punishment for the "Court Martial of Melchior Claes" (a soldier). It states "... The Court Marshall doe adjudge that hee shall run the Gantlope once the length of the fort, where according to the Custome of that punishment the souldyers shall have switches delivered to them with which they shall strike him as hee passes through them stript to the wast, and at the fort gate the Marshall is to receive him and there to kick him out of the Garrison as a cashiered person where hee is no more to returne ..."[13]
In Sweden, running the gauntlet was also a civilian punishment for certain crimes until the 18th century. The practice also persisted in parts of Germany (mainly Prussia) and Austria as the Spießrutenlaufen, or "pike-run", and also in Russia, until the 19th century.
A notable description of the process appears in Tolstoy's short story "After The Ball"; it is also depicted in Stanley Kubrick's film Barry Lyndon. In Ernest Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls the aristocrats of the town are subjected to a form of the gauntlet wherein they are led to and run off a cliff by villagers.
Native American usage
A number of Native American tribes of the Eastern Woodlands culture area forced prisoners to run the gauntlet. (See Captives in American Indian Wars.) The Jesuit Isaac Jogues was subject to this treatment while a prisoner of the Iroquois in 1641. He described the ordeal in a letter that appears in the book The Jesuit Martyrs of North America:[14] "Before arriving (at the Iroquois Village) we met the young men of the country, in a line armed with sticks...", and he and his fellow Frenchmen were made to walk slowly past them "for the sake of giving time to anyone who struck us."
Other European-Americans captured by Native Americans and made to run the gauntlet included John Stark,[citation needed] Daniel Boone,[citation needed] James Smith,[citation needed] Col. William Crawford,[citation needed] Simon Kenton,[citation needed] Lieutenant-Colonel John B. McClelland,[citation needed] Susanna Willard Johnson,[citation needed] and Capt. Daniel McDowell.[citation needed]
Modern use
The original meanings of the phrase notwithstanding, the expression (to run) the gauntlet has been applied to various less severe punishments or tests, often consisting of consecutive blows or tasks endured sequentially and delivered collectively, especially by colleagues such as roommates or fraternity brothers. As these do not usually cause serious injuries, only bearable pain, the rituals are sometimes eagerly anticipated by the initiate as a sign of acceptance into a more prestigious group.
The phrase running the gauntlet has also been used, informally, to express the idea of a public but painless, ritual humiliation such as the walk of shame or perp-walk. It is sometimes confused with the phrase run the gamut.
Path of Health in communist Poland
During the days of the People's Republic of Poland, the Communist authorities forced dissidents, protestors, and prisoners through a gauntlet-like process which they called the "Path of Health" or "ścieżka zdrowia".
In KOR, A History of the Worker's Defense Committee in Poland, 1976–1981, Jan Jósef Lipski documents the experience of one such dissident during the June 1976 protests:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
On the first day I walked the "path of health" on the way from a truck to the police van, about 50 metres. They ordered me to walk slowly so that each one could hit me. They beat me with fists, clubs, boots. At the very end, I fell down. I couldn't get up again under the hail of clubs... A "path of health" from the van to the second floor... When they took us to get haircuts – another "path of health" some 40 metres long, from the door of the room all the way to the car... Yet another 10 metres in the corridor leading to the table... Then, a "path of health" (10 meters) to cell number nine... to the court in a prison truck; of course another "path of health"... then again a "path" from prison to prison. I survived another "path of health" in the morning when they took me to Kielce.
— Waldemar Michalski, [15]
Military custom
Similar practices are used in other initiations and rites of passage, as on pollywogs (those passing the equator for the first time;[16] includes a paddling version) or in aviation when a new pilot gets his first license. It has also been used to "tack on" a recently promoted enlisted man's rank insignia.
In one Tailhook Association convention for Navy and Marine Corps pilots, female participants were allegedly forced to run the gauntlet in a hotel hallway as male participants fondled them.[17]
Sports
- In certain team sports such as lacrosse and hockey, the gauntlet is a common name for a type of drill whereby players are blocked or checked by the entire team in sequence.[18]
- In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu every time a student is promoted to their next coloured belt, they are required to run between two rows of their fellow students as they are struck by them with their own belts.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 2004, "Gantelope"
- ↑ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 2004, "Gauntlet"
- ↑ Word Origins, 2005, A&C Black, "Gauntlet"
- ↑ Word Histories and Mysteries, 2004, Houghton Mifflin, "Gauntlet"
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, Peter Kemp ed., 1976 ISBN 0-586-08308-1
- ↑ Peter R. Christoph, ed., New York Historical Manuscripts: English, Vol. 22, "Administrative Papers of Governors Richard Nicolls and Francis Lovelace, 1664–1673," (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980), pp 163–64. 22:123 [Minutes of the Court Martial of Melchior Claes, accused of theft] ... held at Fort James the 28th day of December 1671
- ↑ The Universal Knowledge Foundation, c. 1925, p. 163
- ↑ KOR, A history of the Worker's Defense Committee in Poland, 1976–1981, by Jan Jósef Lipski, Translated by Olga Amsterdamska and Gene M. Moore, University of California Press, 1985, page 35
- ↑ The U. S. S. West Virginia: Crossing the Equator, West Virginia Division of Culture and History
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
