Sjambok

Sjambok
A 3' (90 cm) plastic sjambok used by South African Police.

The sjambok or litupa is the official heavy leather whip of South Africa, sometimes seen as synonymous with apartheid but actually much older and still used outside the official judiciary. It is traditionally made from an adult hippopotamus (or rhinoceros) hide, but is also commonly made out of plastic.

A strip of the animal's hide is cut and carved into a strip 3 to 5 feet (0.9 to 1.5 m) long, tapering from about 1 inch (25 mm) thick at the handle to about 38 in (9.5 mm) at the tip. This strip is then rolled (possibly between heavy metal plates) until reaching a tapered-cylindrical form. The resulting whip is both flexible and durable. A plastic version was made for the South African Police Service, and used for riot control.

The sjambok had a variety of uses, with the most obvious being cattle driving. While it may have been synonymous with discipline of people, it was heavily used by the Voortrekkers driving their oxen while migrating from the Cape of Good Hope. Even today, the sjambok is used by herdsmen to drive cattle. They are actually illegal to use in South Africa due to their historic connotations, though they are available illegally. The sjambok is also used today in South Africa by those who mete out discipline imposed by kangaroo courts.[1]

Other types

The name seems to have originated as cambuk in Indonesia, where it was the name of a wooden rod for punishing slaves, where it was possibly derived from the Persian "Chabouk" or "chabuk" . When Malayan slaves were imported to South Africa, the instrument and its name were imported with them, the material was changed to hide, and the name was finally incorporated into the Afrikaans, spelled as sambok.

The instrument is also known as imvubu (hippopotamus in Zulu), kiboko (hippopotamus in Swahili) and as mnigolo (hippopotamus in Malinké). In the Portuguese African colonies and Congo Free State it was called a chicotte, from the Portuguese word for whip. There it was sometimes rendered even more lacerating by adding nails.

In the Belgian Congo, the instrument was also known as fimbo and was used to force labour from local people through flogging, sometimes to death. The official tariff for punishment in this case was lowered in time from twenty strokes to eight, then (in 1949) six, and progressively four and two, until flogging was outlawed completely in 1955. In North Africa, particularly Egypt, the whip was called a kurbash, after the Arabic for whip. The term shaabuug is used in the Somali language; it can also refers to a generic leather whip.

References

  1. ^ Aitkenhead, Decca (2000-05-28). "Rough justice". The Guardian (London). http://observer.guardian.co.uk/life/story/0,,319167,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-23. 

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Sjambok — (Plastik) Die originalen Nilpferdpeitschen, auch Sjambok, werden aus Flusspferdehaut (wegen ihrer starken Strapazierfähigkeit) hergestellt. Aufgrund des Artenschutzes wird jedoch mittlerweile oftmals harter, elastischer Kunststoff verwendet. Das… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • sjambok — ► NOUN ▪ (in South Africa) a long, stiff whip, originally made of rhinoceros hide. ► VERB ▪ flog with a sjambok. ORIGIN South African Dutch tjambok, from Urdu …   English terms dictionary

  • sjambok — [sham′bäk] n. [Afrik < Malay cambuk, a large whip < Hindi cābuk] in South Africa, a whip traditionally made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide vt. to strike or flog with a sjambok …   English World dictionary

  • sjambok — 1. noun /ˈʃæmbɒk/ A stout whip, especially made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide. , 1963: Foppl stood holding a sjambok or cattle whip of giraffe hide, tapping the handle against his leg in a steady, syncopated figure. Thomas Pynchon, V. See… …   Wiktionary

  • sjambok — UK [ˈʃæmbɒk] / US [ˌʃæmˈbɑk] noun [countable] Word forms sjambok : singular sjambok plural sjamboks South African a strong, heavy whip made from the skin of a rhinoceros or hippopotamus …   English dictionary

  • sjambok — [ ʃambɒk] noun (in South Africa) a long, stiff whip, originally made of rhinoceros hide. verb (sjamboks, sjambokking, sjambokked) flog with a sjambok. Origin from S. Afr. Du. tjambok, via Malay from Urdu chābuk …   English new terms dictionary

  • sjambok — n. & v. n. (in S. Africa) a rhinoceros hide whip. v.tr. flog with a sjambok. Etymology: Afrik. f. Malay samboq, chambok f. Urdu chabuk …   Useful english dictionary

  • sjambok — /sham bok , buk /, n. 1. (in southern Africa) a heavy whip, usually of rhinoceros hide. v.t. 2. to whip with or as if with such a whip. [1820 30; < Afrik s(j)ambok < Malay cambuk whip < Hindi cabuk] * * * …   Universalium

  • sjambok — sjam·bok …   English syllables

  • sjambok — /ˈʃæmbɒk/ (say shambok) South African –noun 1. a heavy whip of rhinoceros or other hide. –verb (t) (sjambokked, sjambokking) 2. to strike with or as with such a whip. {Afrikaans, from Malay samboq, from Hindustani cābuk horsewhip, from Persian} …  

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”