The picture below was published in National Geographic in 1913, part of an otherwise beautiful series by Stefan Passe from his travels to the newly independent Mongolia. The caption is simple: A Mongolian woman condemned to die of starvation. Yet, it’s not entirely clear that starvation was the woman’s fate. Westerners had previously written of people placed in cages in Mongolian markets, where passersby could taunt and insult them as they starved. However, later reports described the cramped padlocked boxes as cells rather than methods of execution. Other reports claimed people would be locked in the boxes, unable to properly lie or sit, sometimes for years. Some of the boxes were placed in public, where people could pass the prisoner food through the small hole. Those punished for minor crimes would stay inside for one or two weeks. Given the bowls on the ground around the woman, Passe and National Geographic may have been pessimistic with their assessment of the woman’s fate.
