I have to comment on the "gallows." If you go back and look at it in detail, you'll see that it is a flimsy thing that would fall down if it even could be used, and the barrel knot is just rope wrapped around some fat wad of white fabric sticking out both ends. They made it fat so it could be seen from far away, and that's why they used yellow rope. It won't even slide. (And to be even more of nitpicker, a hangman's noose has 13 wraps, that one only has nine.) You cannot hang a person with that thing anyway. That gallows was a PROP, yes a scary SYMBOL of death-to-come, I'm sure someone far away would be scared by it, but no one seems to notice that it was a statement, not an actual usable killing machine. Kathy Squatty Potty Griffin held up a Trump head and that was a prop too, and just the same symbol of violence.

https://www.nybooks.com/wp-content/up...

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