The Inquisitor's Spear (Bambusa Hastam)
The Inquisitor's Spear (Bambusa hastam)
The Bambusa hastam, known colloquially as The Inquisitor’s Spear, is infamous for its usage in torture and executions in cities throughout the northwestern Euphemia region.
In these remote places, heretics, dissidents, and other enemies of the state — having been tried and pronounced guilty in some sham trial — are bound to a mattress and suspended over a bed of Bambusa hastam seedlings. In their steady ascent toward the sun, the plant’s needle-like stalks will impale the poor man a thousandfold. It is a slow death; a death measured in millimetres per hour; a death that, like the flower of the grass, will blossom and reproduce.
Without fail, the convicted man will confess. And he will implicate others. Friends. Family. An old woman, whose name he does not know — the one with the dead eye, who begs for scraps from the storm drain outside the butcher’s door. And when their time comes, these newly revealed heretics will do what is required of them and implicate even more heretics.
The executioner takes no pleasure in his work — he knows that the boundary between himself and the convicted is tenuous.
He knows that his time will come.
He knows that the inquisition will, inevitably, claim every citizen.
And the final inquisitor — the city’s last inhabitant — will, in his shame, lie willingly amongst the Bambusa hastam seedlings, and wait patiently for his fate.
The Inquisitor’s Spear will outlive the city, stretching ceaselessly upwards, in its greedy pursuit of sunlight, bearing the bones of the dead toward the heavens.
[A celebrated figure in the botanical world, Dr. Franz Sieber spent the final 14 years of his life in a Prague mental institution. It was during this time that he wrote his final botanical manuscript – his field guide to the strange flowers of the most remote and death-haunted parts of this world. This short passage above is just one example of the strange machinations of Dr. Sieber's troubled mind.]
Illustrating Dr. Sieber's Works
I have set myself to the task of illustrating Dr. Sieber's "strange flowers" as best I can. Since it remains unclear if these plants have ever existed outside of the botanist's tortured mind, I opted to reproduce the philosophy and mood of Dr. Sieber's writing, rather than attempt any sort of literal anatomical interpretation. Here, in this image, the deadly points of the inquisitor's spear and given emphasis, stretching upwards in the frame. The blossoms of the Bambusa hastam are constructed from dried roses, their crimson hues are meant to suggest blood and emphasize the violence of Dr. Sieber's description. The gizzard "seeds" on the right-hand-side are meant to suggest the cyclical nature of the plant and the inquisition, while the tipped cup is a reminder of the fragility of life.
Notes on the Text
Dr. Sieber's narrative seems very much influenced by bamboo torture – a method of torture and execution ostensibly practiced in parts of East and South Asia. I have not been able to confirm if this torture practice is real or not but, apparently, there is some evidence to support the idea that bamboo really could pierce a human body.
The Latin named for the Inquisitor's Spear, Bambusa hastam, literally translated to "bamboo spear."