The Saw

[Image courtesy of Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes]

This horrible method of execution was used on French witches "pregnant by Satan."

History abounds in martyrs--religious, lay and antireligious--who suffered this fate, one that may be worse even than being burnt at the stake with a slow, small fire, or being dipped into boiling oil. Owing to his inverted position, which assures ample oxygenation of the brain and impedes the general loss of blood, the victim does not lose consciousness until the saw reaches the navel--and even the breast, if one is to believe accounts of the early eighteen-hundreds (Torture Instruments).

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Punishment, Torture, and Ordeal copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.