Crushing (execution)

Death by crushing, as a method of execution, had a long and bloody history, and the techniques to achieve this end varied greatly from place to place. This form of execution is, however, no longer sanctioned by any governing body.

The most common method of death by crushing was through the use of elephants. This practice was ubiquitous throughout South and South-East Asia for over 4,000 years of recorded history, and perhaps before that. The Romans and Carthaginians also used this method on occasion.

As a rule, the elephant would be trained to step upon the heads of the condemned. However, on occasion the death would be made crueler by either having the elephant drag the condemned through the streets before the execution (usually by a rope attached to the beast's leg), or through the use of an elephant that was trained to crush limbs first, and then the chest, often with excruciating slowness.

Most rajahs kept execution elephants for the purpose of death by crushing and the executions were often held in public to serve as a warning to any who might transgress. Toward that end many of the execution elephants were especially huge, often weighing in excess of 9 tons. The results were intended to be gruesome and, by all accounts, they were. Adding to this horror was the fact that some tyrants in the long history of this form of execution even included children among those condemned.

The last person to be officially executed in this fashion was put to death in India in April, 1947. The execution took place in Bikaner. The condemned had been convicted of strangling another man's wife, and was therefore sentenced to the more excruciating death of having the elephant step on his chest rather than his head. The executioner was a state elephant named Hawai that weighed just over 8 tons and which had, over the years, put over 150 men to death beneath its huge foot.

For many centuries elephants were also used by militaries, and death under the foot of an elephant was commonplace for deserters or prisoners as well as for military criminals.

Throughout history, other forms of crushing have also been used. Pressing by weights is perhaps the most common of these. During the Salem Witch Trials, Giles Cory refused to enter a plea, and was pressed to death on September 19, 1692 in an attempt to get him to do so. In this form of torture the condemned had heavy weights placed upon him (usually large stones): death, when it occurred, was by suffocation or internal injuries.

There have also been some peculiar forms of death by crushing to receive official sanction from a ruler or governing body, both involving women as the executioners. This last fact is quite odd, because throughout history the use of women to carry out executions is exceedingly rare.

The first of these methods was designed to inflict extreme humiliation, and was practiced in the 19th century by the Watusi tribe of Africa. For centuries, the Watusi had been mortal enemies with the Pygmies as they shared attached and disputed lands. By coincidence the Watusi are the tallest people on earth, with many of the men standing over seven feet tall, while the Pygmies are the shortest people on earth, with full grown men often less than 4 feet in height.

The method of death by crushing in this instance involved the extreme humiliation of captured Pygmy warriors. The prisoner would be stripped of all his weapons and clothing and thrown into a large, stone-floored pit that was filled with waiting Watusi women. The very tall women would then proceed, as a group, to trample heavily upon the small man, crushing him to death beneath their feet. This was considered to be extremely humiliating owing to the fact that the warrior was losing his life at the hands of women, and also because he was being treated to a death fit more for an insect than a man. Many Pygmies who showed no fear in battle dreaded the possibility of such a death, indicating that the method apparently had the desired affect.

But perhaps the most bizarre form of death by crushing was put into practice by Sultan Ghias-Ud-Din of Malwa (1469-1500). Apparently in an effort to satisfy an erotic urge toward violence, the Sultan had a very large wooden platform built of two layers that could be parted, the upper layer sliding freely above its lower partner on vertical rails placed about the circumference of the platform.

The condemned would be placed on top of the lower platform directly in its center while the upper platform was lowered on its rails, eventually coming down onto him and causing him to be under its full weight. The weight of the upper platform was insufficient to crush the condemned, but was heavy enough to pin him firmly in place.

It was then that the Sultan would have women from his harem enter. Then, one by one, each woman would step up onto the upper platform and take her place upon it. It is said that the Sultan had 6,000 women in his Hiram, but it is not known how many could stand on the platform at one time. From descriptions of such executions, however, it is known that enough women could take their place on the platform to cause the two layers, to the accompaniment of the screams and cracking bones of the condemned, to come together so tightly so as to leave no discernable space between the layers and cause the condemned's "innards' to flood out freely in all directions."

It should be noted that fantasies of death, or vicarious death, by crushing are a feature of a paraphilia that is common enough to support a sub-genere of "trampling" pornography.