A cangue is a device that was used for public humiliation and corporal punishment in China and some other parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia, until the early years of the twentieth century. Public humiliation was often used by local communities to punish minor and petty criminals before the age of large modern Prisons (imprisonment was long unusual as a punishment Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain intended to Punish a person or change his/her behavior China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National It was somewhat similar to the stocks used for punishment in the West, except that the board of the cangue was not fixed to a base, and had to be carried around by the prisoner. Stocks are devices used since Medieval times for Public humiliation, Corporal punishment, and Torture.
Forms of cangue
Although there are many different forms, a typical cangue would consist of a large, heavy flat board with a hole in the center large enough for a person's neck. The board consisted of two pieces. These pieces were closed around a prisoner's neck, and then fastened shut along the edges by locks or hinges. The opening in the center was large enough for the prisoner to breathe and eat, but not large enough for a head to slip through. The prisoner was confined in the cangue for a period of time as a punishment. The size and especially weight were varied as a measure of severity of the punishment. Often the cangue was large enough that the prisoner required assistance to eat or drink, because his hands could not reach his own mouth.
The word "cangue" is French, from the Portuguese "canga," which means yoke - that carrying tool has also been used to the same effect, with the hands tied to each arm of the yoke. A yoke is a wooden beam which is used between a pair of Oxen to allow them to pull a load (oxen almost always work in pairs In contemporary Standard Mandarin Chinese it is called a 木枷 "mu jia. Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan "
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