Casa el Purgatoria - House of Torture Images

While walking through an area above Guanajuato Mexico today I came across the sign you see at the right. It caught my eye as the sign said “Casa el purgatoria - conosca algo diferente” (House of Torture - something different) and the sign showed a poor chap having himself dunked for some unknown insurrection.  It appeared to be a form of waterboarding - the controversial form of torture now at issue in the US and probably for the next presidential election. Given international (UN) conventions on this, I’m hoping at least one candidate takes a stand on the issue.

20 Pesos later and I’m walking amidst all forms of implements you see below.

While chatting this up, I learned the only way acceptable in the 17th-18th century to convict someone was to have at least 2 witnesses or to get a confession. And so, people became very creative in extracting such confessions for all manner of crimes both serious and minor.   Some of those methods are pictured below

I found the sewing machine pedal-powered wrist-breaker to be the oddest of them all.

click to zoom

click to zoom

del.icio.us Digg it ma.gnolia Netscape reddit StumbleUpon Yahoo MyWeb

Leave a Reply