Terrible! "Wooden Horse Or Spanish Donkey" Method Of Punishment

 

Terrible! "Wooden Horse Or Spanish Donkey" Method Of Punishment

 The wooden horse, or Spanish donkey, was an extremely painful and gruesome medieval torture device.  It was first used by the Holy Inquisition in France and then in Spain and Germany, and then migrated to the Americas, gaining prominence during the colonial period.  The main design was the same wherever it was used.  It was a triangular wooden box with a very sharp top end (ie where the horse's spine would be).

 The apparatus was constructed of wood, with planks nailed together to form a long, tapered ridge, which would serve as the horse's back.  These were supported by four legs attached to a bracket, about 6 or 7 feet (1.8 to 2.1 metres) high, with wheels fitted to the bottom of the legs so that the entire device could roll across the ground.  A head and tail would be attached to make the torture device look like an almost “fun” huge wooden horse.

 The defendant would be mounted on the horse, with ankle weights and hands tied behind his back.  They were expected to hold this position for hours, sometimes days.

 Variants of the Spanish donkey were used from the Middle Ages (it was supposedly invented by the Holy Inquisition in 12th century France), until the American Civil War period of the 1860s. It was also a torture device favored by early Jesuits.  It has even been documented that one of the founding fathers of the United States used this torture device.  The frequent use of the device by the Spanish army was documented in the 19th century.

 In the Wooden Horse, with the chains on, the entire weight of the victim or prisoner fell on his vulva or pelvis.  Ankle weights were added to each side to make the skin tear.

The Jesuit Relations say that in 1646, a man "was sentenced to make reparation, by the Civil authority, and to mount the Chevalet," and "a public blasphemer, was put on the Chevalet. He acknowledged his fault, saying that he had well deserved punishment, and came of his own accord to confess, that evening or the next day," and that another man "acted at the fort as such a glutton, that he was put on the Chevalet, on which he was ruptured."

The device was used during the American Civil War by Union guards against their Confederate prisoners:

There were some of our poor boys, for little infraction of the prison rules, riding what they called Morgan's mule every day. That was one mule that did the worst standing stock still. He was built after the pattern of those used by carpenters. He was about fifteen feet high; the legs were nailed to the scantling so one of the sharp edges was turned up, which made it very painful and uncomfortable to the poor fellow especially when he had to be ridden bareback, sometimes with heavy weights fastened to his feet and sometimes with a large beef bone in each hand. This performance was carried on under the eyes of a guard with a loaded gun, and was kept up for several days; each ride lasting two hours each day unless the fellow fainted and fell off from pain and exhaustion. Very few were able to walk after this hellish Yankee torture but had to be supported to their barracks.

— Milton Asbury Ryan, Co. G, 8th MS Regiment

The History Channel documentary Eighty Acres of Hell describes a torture device, "the mule", on which Confederate prisoners were forced to ride until they passed out; many were crippled for life.

The device was also used by Union officers as an entertaining way to discipline troops,and on freedmen after the Civil War.