Death by boilingis a method ofexecutionin which a person is killed by being immersed in aboilingliquid. While not as common as other methods of execution, boiling to death has been practiced in many parts ofEuropeandAsia.Due to the lengthy process, death by boiling is an extremely painful method of execution. Executions of this type were often carried out using a large vessel such as acauldronor a sealedkettlefilled with a liquid such as water, oil,tar,ortallow,and ahook and pulleysystem.[1]Instances of boiling alive as a legal punishment were quite rare and infrequent compared to other forms of execution, such asdrowning.[2]
Historical practice
editEurope
editIn England, the use of boiling alive as a method of execution was rare.[2]The ninth statute passed in 1531 (the 22nd year of the reign ofKing Henry VIII) made boiling alive the prescriptive form of capital punishment for murder committed bypoisoning,which by the same Act was defined ashigh treason.[3]This arose from a February 1531 incident in which theBishop of Rochester'scook,Richard Roose,gave several people poisonedporridge,resulting in two deaths.[4]A partial confession having been extracted bytorture,the sentence was thus imposed byattainderand withoutbenefit of clergy.His execution took place on April 15, 1532, atSmithfield.[2]A contemporary chronicle reports the following:[5]
He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would prefer to see the headsman at his work.
Boiling to death was employed again in 1542 for a woman, Margaret Davy,[6]who had also used poison.[7][8]During the reign ofEdward VI,in 1547, the 1531 act was repealed.[2]
Numerous people have been boiled to death inScotland.For example, with the consent ofJon Haraldsson,the "Bloody Earl" ofOrkney,thebishop of Caithness,Adam of Melrose,and a monk named Surlo are said to have been boiled to death by angryhusbandmenin 1222 over the bishop's aggressive means of collecting tithes.Alexander IIis said to have executed upwards of eighty persons as a punishment for killing the bishop and monk, and the earl fled his lands.[9]But according to theMelrose Chronicle,Adam of Melrose was "burned alive", rather than boiled, and Alexander II executed up to 400 for the crime against the clergy.[10]
William de Soules,a nobleman involved in a conspiracy againstRobert the Bruce,was reputed to be a sorcerer consorting with evil spirits, and was boiled alive in 1321 atNinestane Rig.[11]Around 1420, Melville, the sheriff of theMearnsand laird ofGlenbervie,who was resented for his strictness, was apprehended by some other nobles and thrown into the kettle. The nobles are said to have each taken a spoonful of the brew afterwards.[12]
Boiling as an execution method was also used forcounterfeiters,swindlersandcoin forgersduring theMiddle Ages.[13]In theHoly Roman Empire,for example, being boiled to death in oil is recorded forcoin forgersand extremely grave murderers. In 1392, a man was boiled alive inNurembergfor having raped and murdered his own mother.[14]Coin forgers were boiled to death in 1452 inDanzig[15]and in 1471 inStralsund.[16]Even as late as 1687, a man inBremenwas boiled to death in oil for having been of valuable help to some coin forgers who had escaped justice.[17]
In the Dutch town ofDeventer,the kettle that was used for boiling criminals to death can still be seen.[18]
Asia
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In 16th-century Japan, the semi-legendary Japanese banditIshikawa Goemonand his son were boiled alive in the 1590s byToyotomi Hideyoshi.[19]In 1675, aSikhmartyrcalledBhai Dayalawas boiled to death inDelhiafter he refused to convert toIslam.He was put into acauldronfull of cold water which was then heated to boiling point. Sikh scriptures record that Dayala recited theJapjiofGuru Nanakand theSukhmaniofGuru Arjanas he died.[20]
Americas
editThomas Ewbankrelates in his 1856 bookLife in Brazilthat he was told of anenslaved Afro-Brazilianbeing publicly boiled to death by a plantation owner as punishment for acts of insubordination.[21]
Modern times
editThe government ofUzbekistanunderIslam Karimov(1991–2016) has been alleged to have boiled suspected terrorists.[22]
In aUnited States Department of Statedocument from 2004, the following is written:
During the year, there were no developments or investigations in the following 2002 deaths in custody: Asilbek Sa’diyev and Shahzodjon Muzafarov, members ofgang bandwho were tortured to death inJaslyk PrisoninKarakalpakstanresulting in extensive bruises and burns, the latter reportedly caused by immersion in boiling water.[23]
Former ISIS commander Abu Abboud al-Raqqawi referred to ISIS's brutal execution methods, among which was boiling prisoners alive in engine oil:
Some people were boiled alive in oil. Engine oil. They burned wood on a fire for an hour before throwing the victim into boiling oil. It's the Tunisians who were responsible for that.[24]
In the 2010 documentaryEl Sicario, Room 164,the masked sicario interviewee claims that the Mexican cartels boil in oil those found to be working for the police.
Depictions in Western culture
editEarly reports ofcannibalsfrom places in the Pacific, such asFijiandPapua New Guinea,killing WesternChristian missionarieswere assumed to involve some form of boiling alive.[25]This became a fertile ground for film makers and especially cartoonists, whose clichéd depiction of tourists or missionaries sitting restrained in a large cauldron above a wood fire and surrounded by bone-nosed tribesmen was a staple of popular magazines and films for decades. Examples include the 1980 television miniseriesShōgun,[26]the1985 film adaptationofKing Solomon's Mines[27]and the dream sequence in the filmBagdad Café.[28]
Fromental Halévy's 1835 operaLa Juiveends with Rachel (the title character) being boiled alive in a vat of oil after her relationship with the Christian prince Léopold is discovered by antisemitic state and church authorities.
References
edit- ^Geoffrey Abbott,Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders,pp. 21–22.
- ^abcdAndrews, William (1883-07-13)."Modes of execution - boiling alive".The Newcastle Weekly Courant.p. 2.Retrieved2024-03-15.
- ^Anno 22 Henry VIII (1530–31), Chapter 9, inThe Statutes of the RealmVol. 3: The Statutes of King Henry VIII (By Command 1817), Reprint (Dawsons of Pall Mall, London, 1963),p. 326Archived2020-06-15 at theWayback Machine(HathiTrust).
- ^Kesselring, K.J. (September 2001), A Draft of the 1531 'Acte for Poysoning',The English Historical ReviewVol. 116, No. 468, pp. 894–899,JSTOR579196Archived2020-06-21 at theWayback Machine.
- ^Burke, S. Hubert (1870).The Men and Women of the English Reformation.London, United Kingdom: R. Washbourne. p. 240.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-06-12.Retrieved2023-03-13.
- ^One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Boiling to Death".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 153.
- ^Newlin, George (2000),Understanding Great expectations,Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, pp.136,ISBN978-0-313-29940-7,OCLC41488673
- ^Leslie, Frank, Frank Leslie, and Ellery Sedgwick. 1876. Frank Leslie's popular monthly. [New York]: Frank Leslie Pub. House. p 343
- ^John Pinkerton: "A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages,Volume 3 ", London 1809, p. 158. The same tradition is transmitted inThe Scottish Journal of Topography, Antiquities, Traditions.Edinburgh: Stevenson and Menzies: 248. 1842.
{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^Soc. Diff. Use. Knowl.(1842),p. 310inSociety for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1842).The Biographical Dictionary.London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 310.
- ^"The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott,New York, 1833, p. 216.
- ^"The new statistical account of Scotland, Volume 18",Edinburgh 1838, pp. 34-35.
- ^Monter, E. William (2007).A bewitched duchy: Lorraine and its dukes, 1477-1736.Librairie Droz. p. 163.ISBN978-2-600-01165-5.
- ^Mayer, M.M: "Kleine Chronik der Reichsstadt Nürnberg: Mit einem Grundrisse,Nuremberg 1847 p. 102,
- ^Krüger, J.G: "Die beglückte und geschmückte Stadt Lübeck",1697, p. 20.
- ^ von Klemptzen, N.: "Nicolaus Klemzen vom Pommer-lande und dessen fürsten geschlecht-beschreibung",Stralsund 1771, p. 39.
- ^"Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, Volum 1,p. 116, review of "Taschenbuch für vaterländische Geschichte", Berlin 1843.
- ^"10 Top Tourist Attractions in Arnhem & Easy Day Trips - PlanetWare".planetware.Archivedfrom the original on 2011-10-29.Retrieved2008-04-26.
- ^Botsman, Daniel V. (2013-10-24).Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan.Princeton University Press.ISBN978-1-4008-4929-1.
- ^Singha, H. S. (2000).The encyclopedia of Sikhism.Hemkunt Press. p. 56.ISBN978-81-7010-301-1.
- ^Ewbank, Thomas. (1856)Life in Brazil.New York: Harper & Brothers. p 439.
- ^"Uzbekistan: Two Brutal Deaths in Custody".Hrw.org.Archivedfrom the original on 29 December 2014.Retrieved6 January2015.
- ^"Uzbekistan".state.gov.Archivedfrom the original on 2020-03-22.Retrieved2019-05-25.
- ^"World-exclusive: Commander on the run tells of the terror inside ISIS".11 October 2017.Archivedfrom the original on 2017-10-14.Retrieved2017-10-14.
- ^"Villagers apologize for cannibal ancestors eating missionary: Weird News, Strange But True Stories, Odd Facts, Bizarre".thatsweird.net.Archived fromthe originalon 2010-07-19.Retrieved2010-07-23.
- ^Mavis, Paul (2011-03-14)."Shogun – 30th Anniversary Edition".DVDTalk.Archivedfrom the original on 2015-01-02.Retrieved1 January2015.
- ^"Encyclopedia of Cannibal Movies: K".indiefilm.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-08-03.Retrieved2019-11-23.
- ^Satellite Ground Systems."Encyclopedia of Cannibal Movies: B".indiefilm.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-06-12.Retrieved2010-07-23.
External links
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