The Sjambok

The sjambok is the traditional whip of South Africa. Even when it has been in use for centuries, it got a bad name because of its use for riot control by the South African police, becoming a symbol associated with the apartheid.

 

The sjambok is made from an adult hippopotamus (or rhinoceros) hide. A strip of the beast’s hide is cut from the spinal area tapered into a strip 3 to 5 foot long, tapering from about 1 inch thick at the handle to about 3/8” at the tip. (Yes, they have a pretty thick hide). This strip is then rolled until reaching a near circular form and hand kneaded until the desired level of flexibility is achieved. The resulting whip is as flexible as whalebone, and very tough.

 

 

 

A plastic version is made for the South African Police, as they needed many more than which could be produced from natural materials.

  

 

There are now also  homemade plastic sjamboks, made by heating polyethylene plastic bags and rolling them carefully. They are not as severe  the police ones, but they  are definitely not toys.

 

The name seems to have originated as sambok or chambuk in Indonesia, where it was the name of a wooden rod for punishing slaves. When Malayan slaves where imported to South Africa, the instrument and its name were imported with them, the material was changed to hide, and the name was finally incorporated into the Afrikaans, spelled as sjambok. From the same root (Persian chābuk) there's a horsewhip in India called chabouk.

 

When a similar instrument is made from another animal’s hide, it is called a litupa.

 

The instrument is also known in Swahili as kiboko (the name for the hippo) and , in Belgian Congo, fimbo (rod, cane), in Zulu as imvubu (also hippo) and in Malinké as mnigolo. In the Portuguese African colonies it was called a chicote, the Portuguese word for whip.

 

It is terribly severe, and is widely used for herding cattle, as a whip, as a riding crop, and even as a personal defense weapon. It is good for killing snakes, because it can cut them in two with just a lash.

 

 

It is easier to use than a bullwhip, because it is used more like a rod. Just swing it fast thru the air, and the sjambok does its work. A light blow will raise a serious welt. A heavy lash will cut the skin and the flesh to the bone, leaving a terrible wound and scarring the body for life.

 

 

There was another version of the sjambok made not from the hippo’s hide, but from its penis. The penis was hung at the sun from its base with a weight hanging from its point, stretching it and making it thinner and thinner as it dried. When dried, trimmed and oiled, you got a terrible whip about three feet long. (See pizzle).

 

The sjambok was used by the Portuguese, the French, the British and the Boers both for judicial punishment and to chastise slaves.

 

But you cannot speak in past tense about the sjambok. It is still in use for riot control and for domestic punishment. Even when it was banned as a school punishment, there was a recent scandal involving its severe use on pupils of an expensive private high school.

 

As a domestic punishment it is used by men of all conditions to discipline their wives and children (The widespread acceptance of a man’s right to beat his wife and children is far from being an exclusive South African problem).

 

It is also used by vigilantes to punish delinquents, aside from the formal judiciary system, a problem that is increasing as the delinquency rises, and as a tribal punishment (South African laws accept the right of the village elders for imposing traditional punishments to the population) . It has been denounced as used by the police for torturing prisoners.

 

Part of this article was contributed by us to the Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) on june 26, 2003

 

Published: 02/28/03

Rev: 12/06/06