Human branding
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.
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.
In criminal law, branding with a hot iron was a mode of punishment consisting of marking the subject as if goods or animals, sometimes concurrently with their reduction of status in life.
Robbers, like runaway slaves, were marked by the Romans with the letter F (fur); and the toilers in the mines, and convicts condemned to figure in gladiatorial shows, were branded on the forehead for identification.
The Acts of Sharbel record it applied, amongst other tortures, to a Christian between the eyes and on the cheeks in Parthian Edessa at the time of the Roman Emperor Trajan on a judge's order for refusal to sacrifice.
In the 16th century, German Anabaptists were branded with a cross on their foreheads for refusing to recant their faith and join the Roman Catholic church.
[2] In the North American colonial settlements of the 17th and early 18th centuries, branding was a common punishment for those found guilty of crimes.
[5][6] In late 18th century England the letter used would indicate the type of crime committed, eg SS (Sower of Sedition), M (Malefactor), B (Blasphemer), F (Fraymaker) and R (Rogue), for example.
Until 1832 in France, various offenses carried the additional infamy of being branded with a fleur de lis and galley slaves could be branded GAL or, once the galleys were replaced by the bagnes on land, TF (travaux forcés, 'forced' labor, i.e. hard labour) or TFP (travaux forcés à perpetuité, hard labour for life).
[8] Branding tended to be abolished like other judicial mutilations (with notable exceptions, such as amputation under sharia law), sooner and more widely than flogging, caning, and similar corporal punishments, which normally aim 'only' at pain and at worst cause stripe scars, although the most severe lashings (not uncommon in penal colonies) in terms of dosage and instrument (such as the proverbial knout) can even turn out to cause death.
[16] This practice remains prevalent among Madhava sect Brahmins of Karnataka in India, who brand small marks on both shoulders (for men) or forearms (for women).
[17][18] This practice is not without controversy; a Hindu temple in Sugarland, Texas was sued by the father of an eleven-year-old boy who was branded during a religious ceremony there.
In 1655, James Nayler, a Quaker, was accused of claiming to be the Messiah, and was convicted of blasphemy in a highly publicized trial before the Second Protectorate Parliament.
In 1698 it was enacted that those convicted of petty theft or larceny, who were entitled to benefit of clergy, should be "burnt in the most visible part of the left cheek, nearest the nose".
"When Charles Moritz, a young German, visited England in 1782 he was much surprised at this custom, and in his diary mentioned the case of a clergyman who had fought a duel and killed his man in Hyde Park.
Women and girls being forced into prostitution would have their boss's name or gang symbol inked or branded with hot iron on their skin.
[23] In symbolic solidarity with Calf 269, protesters in Israel subjected themselves to branding on World Farm Animals Day (Gandhi's birthday): October 2, 2012.
