Тоғыз құйрықты қамшының тарихы

Type of whip

The cat o' nine tails, commonly shortened to the cat, is a type of multi tailed whip or flail. It originated as an implement for physical punishment, particularly in the Royal Navy and British Army, and as a judicial punishment in Britain and some other countries.

The term first appears in 1681 in reports of a London murder. The term came into wider circulation in 1695 after its mention by a character in William Congreve's play Love for Love. There are equivalent terms in many languages 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]), negenstaart (nine tail[s]), the Spanish gato de nueve colas or the Italian gatto a nove code.

The cat is made up of nine knotted thongs of cotton cord, about 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 plaited. Thinner rope is made from three strands of yarn plaited together, and thicker rope from three strands of thinner rope plaited together. To make a cat o' nine tails, a rope is unraveled into three small ropes, each of which is unraveled again. The 19th century British naval cat was made out of a piece of rope, thicker than a man's wrist (about ), 5 feet (2 m) in length. The first 3 feet (1 m) were stiff and solid, and the remaining 2 feet (1 m) unraveled into hard twisted and knotted ends.

The naval cat weighed about and was composed of a handle connected to nine thinner pieces of line, with each line knotted several times along its length. Formal floggings — those ordered by captain or court martial — were administered ceremonially on deck, the crew being summoned to "witness punishment" and the prisoner being brought forward by marines with fixed bayonets. The offence of sodomy generally drew the death penalty, though one eighteenth century court martial awarded a punishment of one thousand lashesan equivalent sentence as it would likely be fatal. For summary punishment of Royal Navy boys, a lighter model was made, known as boy's cat or boy's 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" (publicly bending over a gun barrel), just as boys' lighter "daily" chastisement was usually over their (often naked) rear end (mainly with a cane—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. Still, it is reported that the 'infantile' embarrassment of prolonged, public 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".