So throughout the history, there have been many weird ways of bringing shame for one’s actions. There are many examples I’m sure most of you are aware of such as “The Scold’s Bridle” where an iron muzzle like mask would cover the person’s head, with a spiked metal piece that went into the mouth, preventing the person from speaking to silence those “gossiping”, or The Pillory where someone would endure public ridicule where foods would be thrown at them, or even going on Twitter to call someone gay. Simple stuff, the classics. But, today I want to talk about the more rare ones, the cream of the crop, if you will.

Parading on Donkey

The first one I want to discuss about it a punishment called “Parading on donkey” real creative. In medieval times (around the 10th century), those accused of crimes such as theft, adultery, forgery, or incest (Along with other minor crimes) would be made to sit on a donkey facing backward while being paraded through the streets. And I guess this was supposed to inflict great shame upon whoever was parading the donkey?

This punishment first came to be in Indian subcontinents, towards the rural areas where it was mostly inflicted by “khap panchayats”, the village elders, where they would make the offenders parade with their faces blackened and heads shaved.

Then of course the French saw this and were probably like “hon hon hon zhis is quite macaroni” and in the 18th century bam now the French are doing it. They changed a few things, such as making it exclusively for woman, but men convicted of pimping would also be a subject to it, just on foot.

Iran also took a part in it once but theirs weren’t that fun and pretty much followed the original so I won’t cover it. The latest usage of this punishment was in 2014 in Rajsamand district, Rajasthan, India, where a 45 year old woman was accused of killing her nephew which I feel kinda invalidates the whole “small petty crimes” thing this punishment was first meant to be inflicted for. On the orders of the village council, she was stripped naked, her face blackened, and paraded on a donkey through the village.

I kinda hope they bring this one back for stuff like minor shoplifting actually, minus all the naked and face painting parts. It’d be really funny to go to a police station and see a government mandated donkey dripped in all police uniform itching to shame the next homeless guy or something. For this reason, I think donkey parading gets at least a 8/10 in terms of funniness and a 3/10 for actual effectiveness as a punishment mostly because I think it would be kinda fun to ride a donkey.

Cucking stool & the ducking stool

Okay so I was going to give at least 5 punishments but I think its getting longer than anyone clicking on my page would be willing to read so I’ll just jump to the second funniest one I found which is the ducking stool, and its cooler predecessor the cucking stool. I know what you’re thinking, and no, its not the stool a cuck sits on while watching his wife get railed by her yoga instructor, but rather, a humorous little public humiliation tactic made by the English.

So back in the 13th century England, this early form of the ducking stool was a toilet-like chair upon which the offender was seated and publicly displayed, often being paraded through town as a form of humiliation. By now I’m sure most of you are wondering why it was called the “cucking chair”. Well its because the word cuck is derived from the middle English word “cucken” meaning to poo. Although people don’t actually poop on this chair it still has a filthy connotation to reflect the morally poo thing that person did. Well, or they were just a nag.

See, the thing about the cucking chair was that it was used for anything between just being a scold and witchcraft, an offence which I’m sure most of you know by now could be punishable by death. For those who couldn’t catch up by now, this punishment was also prominently used on woman.

“So, what did Alfred’s wife do this time?”

“Oh I don’t know, I’m just here to scream shame. For all I know she could’ve told him to stop coming home smelling like crack or she might be opening a portal to a demonic dimension far beyond our comprehension”

“Eh, well, either way we get Alfred to our crack party tomorrow”

“yeah totally! SHAME, SHAME”

Anyway enough of the cucking stool, its time for the ducking stool. The ducking stool was more prominently used in the 17th to early 19th and was way more brutal compared to the cucking stool. The ducking stool involved the person being submerged underwater for a few seconds on a chair contraption repeatedly until the overseer deemed it to be enough which whoop-de-doo resulted in a few deaths, a shocker I know.

An example of this was in 1731 when a woman in Nottingham died after getting the ducking treatment which led to the mayor Thomas Trigge to face prosecution and the destruction of the town’s the ducking stool.

Okay to wrap things up, I’ll give you guys a story that unites both the ducking and the cucking enthusiasts, a story starting with the name of “Sarah Leeke”. In 1817, Sarah was sentenced to be punished by the ducking chair for being a common scold, the second worst thing you can be in the 19th century as a woman right behind being a witch. Anyway so the people gathered, Sarah got strapped to her chair and… well, not much happened because the waters that day happened to be lower than usual. So the inventors and visionaries got together, and decided to just parade her around the town instead, turning this ducking party to a cucking party.

Anyway I believe these two rapscallions get a 6/10 and 7/10 respectively in the funny scale, the ducking chair gets a little lesser than I would’ve liked since it did kill people, however it does kinda remind me of that one video of a husband dunking his wife in a lake on a seesaw. in terms of effectiveness the ducking stool wins again with a resounding 10/10 while the cucking stool gets a still high 6/10.