Mutilation or maiming (from the Latin : mutilus) is severe damage to the body that has a subsequent harmful effect on an individual's quality of life. [1]
In the modern era, the term has an overwhelmingly negative connotation, [1] [2] referring to alterations that render something inferior, dysfunctional, imperfect, or ugly. [3] [4]
In 2019, Michael H. Stone, Gary Brucato, and Ann Burgess proposed formal criteria by which "mutilation" might be systematically distinguished from the act of "dismemberment", as these terms are commonly used interchangeably. They suggested that dismemberment involves "the entire removal, by any means, of a large section of the body of a living or dead person, specifically, the head (also termed decapitation), arms, hands, torso, pelvic area, legs, or feet". Mutilation, by contrast, involves "the removal or irreparable disfigurement, by any means, of some smaller portion of one of those larger sections of a living or dead person. The latter would include castration (removal of the testicles), evisceration (removal of the internal organs), and flaying (removal of the skin)." According to these parameters, removing a whole hand would constitute dismemberment, while removing or damaging a finger would be mutilation; decapitation of a full head would be dismemberment, while removing or damaging a part of the face would be mutilation; and removing a whole torso would be dismemberment, while removing or damaging a breast or the organs contained within the torso would be mutilation. [5]
Some ethnic groups practice ritual mutilation, for example, burning, clitoridectomy, or flagellation, sometimes as part of a rite of passage. In some cases, the term may even apply to treatment of dead bodies, as in the case of scalping, when a person is mutilated after they have been killed by an enemy. Castration is also a form of mutilation. The traditional Chinese practice of foot binding is a form of mutilation. Another form of mutilation that has captured the imagination of Westerners is the "long-neck" people, a sub-group of the Karen known as the Padaung where women wear brass rings around their necks to artificially make them longer. [6]
A joint statement released by the United Nations and numerous other international bodies opposes female genital mutilation. [7]
Maiming, or mutilation which involves the loss of, or incapacity to use, a bodily member, is and has been practiced by many societies with various cultural and religious significance, and is also a customary form of physical punishment, especially applied on the principle of an eye for an eye.
Historical examples are plenty; Chinese general Sun Bin had his kneecaps removed after being framed for treason during the Warring States period, while Araucanian warrior Galvarino had his hands amputated as punishment while as a prisoner during the Spanish conquest of Chile.
Maiming has often been a criminal offense; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was mayhem, an Anglo-French variant form of the word.
Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offense generally grouped as malicious damage. For the purpose of the law as to this offense animals are divided into cattle, which includes pigs and equids, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes.
In Britain under the Malicious Damage Act 1861 the punishment for maiming of cattle was three to fourteen years' penal servitude; malicious injury to other animals was a misdemeanor punishable on summary conviction. For a second offense the penalty was imprisonment with hard labor for over twelve months. Today maiming of animals falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts, while maiming by others is additionally treated as criminal damage.
In times when even judicial physical punishment was still commonly allowed to cause not only intense pain and public humiliation during the administration but also to inflict permanent physical damage, or even deliberately intended to mark the criminal for life by cropping or branding, one of the common anatomical target areas not normally under permanent cover of clothing (so particularly merciless in the long term) were the ear(s).
In England, for example, various pamphleteers attacking the religious views of the Anglican episcopacy under William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had their ears cut off for those writings: in 1630 Alexander Leighton and in 1637 still other Puritans, John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prynne.
In Scotland one of the Covenanters, James Gavin of Douglas, Lanarkshire, had his ears cut off for refusing to renounce his religious faith. In Japan, Gonsalo Garcia and his companions were similarly punished.
Notably in various jurisdictions of the Thirteen Colonies, even relatively minor crimes, such as hog stealing, were punishable by having one's ears nailed to the pillory and slit loose, or even cropped, a counterfeiter would be branded on top (for that crime, considered lèse-majesté, the older mirror punishment was boiling in oil), which was an example of western mutilation. [8]
Independence did not render American justice any less brutal. For example, in the Southwest Territory (what would become the state of Tennessee), an example of harsh 'frontier law' under the 1780 Cumberland Compact took place in 1793 when Judge John McNairy sentenced Nashville's first horse thief, John McKain Jr., to be fastened to a wooden stock one hour for 39 lashes, have his ears cut off and cheeks branded with the letters "H" and "T".
Nebahne Yohannes, an unsuccessful claimant to the Ethiopian imperial throne, had his ears and nose cut off, yet was then freed. This form of mutilation against unsuccessful claimants to thrones has been in use in middle-eastern regions for thousands of years. To qualify as a king, formerly, one had to exemplify perfection. Obvious physical deformities such as missing noses, ears, or lips, are thereby sufficient disqualifications. The victim in these cases is typically freed alive to act as an example to others, and as no longer a threat.
Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventive surgery for such problems. A special case is that of congenital amputation, a congenital disorder, where fetal limbs have been cut off by constrictive bands. In some countries, judicial amputation is currently used to punish people who commit crimes. Amputation has also been used as a tactic in war and acts of terrorism; it may also occur as a war injury. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment. When done by a person, the person executing the amputation is an amputator. The oldest evidence of this practice comes from a skeleton found buried in Liang Tebo cave, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo dating back to at least 31,000 years ago, where it was done when the amputee was a young child.
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy, while chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to deactivate the testes. Castration causes sterilization ; it also greatly reduces the production of hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. Surgical castration in animals is often called neutering.
Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common carotid artery, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function. The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an execution; it may be performed with an axe, sword, or knife, or by mechanical means such as a guillotine. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. The national laws of Saudi Arabia and Yemen permit beheading. Under Sharia, which exclusively applies to Muslims, beheading is also a legal punishment in Zamfara State, Nigeria. In practice, Saudi Arabia is the only country that continues to behead its offenders regularly as a punishment for capital crimes. Cases of decapitation by suicidal hanging, suicide by train decapitation and by guillotine are known.
Disembowelment, disemboweling, evisceration, eviscerating or gutting is the removal of organs from the gastrointestinal tract, usually through an incision made across the abdominal area. Disembowelment is a standard routine operation during animal slaughter. In ancient Rome, disembowelment of animals was practiced for divination, and was known as haruspicy. Disembowelment of humans may result from an accident, but has also been used as a method of torture, execution, or suicide. In such practices, disembowelment may be accompanied by various forms of torture or the removal of other vital organs.
Cattle mutilation is the killing and mutilation of cattle under supposedly unusual, usually bloodless circumstances. This phenomenon has been observed among wild animals as well. Worldwide, sheep, horses, goats, pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, bison, moose, deer and elk have been reported mutilated with similar bloodless excisions; often an ear, eyeball, jaw flesh, tongue, lymph nodes, genitals and rectum are removed.
The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, used during the medieval and renaissance periods for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks.
The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified serial killer who was active in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, in the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the dismemberment of thirteen known victims and the disposal of their remains in the impoverished neighborhood of Kingsbury Run. Most victims came from an area east of Kingsbury Run called "The Roaring Third" or "Hobo Jungle", known for its bars, gambling dens, brothels and vagrants. Despite an investigation of the murders, which at one time was led by famed lawman Eliot Ness, the murderer was never apprehended. In 2024, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office teamed up with the DNA Doe Project to exhume some of the victims and use investigative genetic genealogy to identify them.
Dismemberment is the act of completely disconnecting and/or removing the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with regicide, but can occur as a result of a traumatic accident, or in connection with murder, suicide, or cannibalism. As opposed to surgical amputation of limbs, dismemberment is often fatal. In criminology, a distinction is made between offensive dismemberment, in which dismemberment is the primary objective of the dismemberer, and defensive dismemberment, in which the motivation is to destroy evidence.
Emasculation is the removal of the external male sex organs, which includes both the penis and the scrotum, the latter of which contains the testicles. It is distinct from castration, where only the testicles are removed. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, the potential medical consequences of emasculation are more extensive due to the complications arising from the removal of the penis. There are a range of religious, cultural, punitive, and personal reasons why someone may choose to emasculate themselves or another person.
Human branding or stigmatizing is the process by which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention of the resulting scar making it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron. It therefore uses the physical techniques of livestock branding on a human, either with consent as a form of body modification; or under coercion, as a punishment or to identify an enslaved, oppressed, or otherwise controlled person. It may also be practiced as a "rite of passage", e.g. within a tribe, or to signify membership of or acceptance into an organization.
Mayhem is a common law criminal offence consisting of the intentional maiming of another person.
Horse-ripping, or horse slashing, is an animal cruelty phenomenon involving serious injuries in horses, often involving mutilation of their genitalia and slashing of the flank or neck. It has not been established, however, how often these injuries are caused by human cruelty. "Horse-ripping" is not an entirely neutral term since it implies there is always a human act behind the mutilations.
Veterinary surgery is surgery performed on non-human animals by veterinarians, whereby the procedures fall into three broad categories: orthopaedics, soft tissue surgery, and neurosurgery. Advanced surgical procedures such as joint replacement, fracture repair, stabilization of cranial cruciate ligament deficiency, oncologic (cancer) surgery, herniated disc treatment, complicated gastrointestinal or urogenital procedures, kidney transplant, skin grafts, complicated wound management, and minimally invasive procedures are performed by veterinary surgeons. Most general practice veterinarians perform routine surgeries such as neuters and minor mass excisions; some also perform additional procedures.
Reserve heads are distinctive sculptures made primarily of fine limestone that have been found in a number of non-royal tombs of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt; primarily from the reigns of pyramid-building pharaohs Khufu to Khafre, circa 2551–2496 B.C. While each of the heads share characteristics in common with each other, the striking individuality of the pieces makes them some of the earliest examples of portrait sculpture in existence. Their purpose is not entirely clear; the name comes from the prevalent theory first put forward in 1903 by the German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt, that the head was to serve as an alternate home for the spirit of the dead owner should anything happen to its body.
The raising of domestic sheep has occurred in nearly every inhabited part of the earth, and the variations in cultures and languages which have kept sheep has produced a vast lexicon of unique terminology used to describe sheep husbandry.
Penis removal is the act of removing the human penis. It is not to be confused with the related practice of castration, in which the testicles are removed or deactivated, or emasculation, which removes both. Penis removal and castration have been used to create a class of servants or slaves called eunuchs in many different places and eras, having a notable presence in various societies such as Imperial China.
Caseous lymphadenitis (CLA) is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, that affects the lymphatic system, resulting in abscesses in the lymph nodes and internal organs. It is found mostly in goats and sheep and at the moment it has no cure.
Numerous procedures performed on domestic animals are usually more invasive than purely cosmetic alterations, but differ from types of veterinary surgery that are performed exclusively for health reasons. Such procedures have been grouped together under the technical term 'mutilatory' by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in a report describing the reasons for their being conducted and their welfare consequences, and by others.
