the.com/monkey fist
A knot so beautiful it became both sailor's tool and street weapon.
means A knot tied into a roughly spherical shape, often weighted with a core, used at the end of a rope as a heaving weight for throwing a line — and, less innocently, as an improvised weapon.
from The name is descriptive English nautical slang: the woven knot, with its over-and-under strands wrapping a central ball, resembles a small clenched fist — and possibly a monkey's paw curled around something. Sailors christened it for the look of the thing, and the term has been part of seafaring rope-work vocabulary for well over a century. The knot itself served a real purpose: tied at the end of a thin 'heaving line,' the weighted ball could be hurled across a gap to a dock or another ship, after which a heavier rope was hauled across.
- original job
- Weighted line-throwing knot for tossing ropes between ships
- hidden core
- Often wrapped around a marble or steel ball
- banned weapon
- Outlawed in several places as a concealed bludgeon
- the name
- Resembles a small clenched primate fist
- knot tying
- Built from interwoven turns in three perpendicular directions
monkey fist knot — decorative knot tied around a ball of rope, used in sailing and as a self-defense weapon since the 1800s
monkey fist riot 1911 — racial violence in rock springs, wyoming on september 2, 1911 sparked by competition between white and chinese miners