is "Harupnik" a whip like "Kanchuk" & "Nahajka" ?

[George Hawrysch]

 >Thank you everybody for pointing out the finer details of
 >Konchuk and Nahajka ( human use verus horse use)

Note that the use of these implements was not normative, and would
be less clearly distinct as you move from richer to poorer people.
A village peasant might just as well apply his nahajka to his wife
as to his horse, since that is likely all he would have handy, while
someone from the gentry would maintain a selection of instruments for
using on his horses and his servants separately.

The word nahajka probably comes from "nahajs'ki tatary," who came to
Ukraine from the steppe regions of the same name.  In Russian it is
called plet' (or more colloquially, pletka).


 >Now, next:  is "harupnik" also a whip similar to Konchuk?
 >The German-Russians recall their childhood punishments.

Yes, similar.  In Ukrainian it's harapnyk (Russ: arapnik, I believe)
and could have multiple uses too.  I have heard of the harapnyk in
particular being employed as a defense against wolves when mounted,
and also for hunting wolves while on horseback.  Apparently you can
kill a wolf with one of these things, so "childhood punishments" in
this context must have involved some pretty serious transgressions.

All of these devices had a similar construction: several strips of
leather braided very tightly to form a handle, which then plays out
into a thinner thong.  But they are not "whips" in the sense of the
Ukrainian "batih" and Russian "knut," which have wooden handles and
then leather or rope tails attached to one end.  I had thought the
harapnyk was generally generally single-tailed, but Hrinchenko's
dictionary cites the example usage "harapnyk trojchastyj" in the
periodical "Osnova" in 1861.

George Hawrysch

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