Tablillas
From Free net encyclopedia
Tablillas were an implement of torture used by the Inquisition, referenced under "Tormento" in Larousse Enciclopedia Gran Universal Ilustrada.
They consisted of small tablets of wood, each sporting five narrow holes, that were designed to immobilize the toes of either foot as the prisoner was immobilized on the rack. For each refusal to confess or answer, the torturer drove a razor-sharp wedge head-on into the tip of one of the toes with a single, swift blow of a heavy mallet, shattering the bones of the toe. Although the technique could theoretically be applied to fingers as well, it met with considerably less success in that milieu, since fingers were long and thin and tended to snap under the wedge, whereas short, stubby toes were more likely cooperatively to pulverize.
One might question the reference just a tad insofar as (a) one finds only one other reference to the tablillas throughout the entire, estimable corpus of works (HV8593 per Library of Congress cataloguing system) in the history of torture arena, viz., in El Arte de Matar (author unknown); and (b) the Larousse article also cites a putative ancient Spartan torture device, the dactylethra, made of iron and featuring screw-operated jaws capable of slowly crushing toes, yet one wonders where the ancient Spartans obtained the technology for constructing finely threaded devices from iron!