a prisoner of the Iroquois in 1641. He described the ordeal in a letter that appears in the book The Jesuit Martyrs of North America: "Before arriving (at the Iroquois Village) we met the young men of the country, in a line armed with sticks...", and he and his fellow Frenchmen were made to walk slowly past them "for the sake of giving time to anyone who struck us." Many years before he became a hero of the American Revolution at the Battle of Bennington, John Stark was captured by natives and forced to run a gauntlet. Knowing what was about to happen Stark stunned them by grabbing the weapon away from the first person about to strike him and proceeded to attack the warrior with it. The warriors and the chief were so surprised by this that they stopped the gauntlet and adopted him into their tribe. He was later ransomed along with Amos Eastman for $163 and returned home. Modern use The original meanings of the phrase notwithstanding, the expression (to run) the gauntlet has been applied to various less severe punishments or tests, often consisting of consecutive blows or tasks endured sequentially and delivered collectively, especially by colleagues such as roommates or fraternity brothers. As these do not usually cause serious injuries, only bearable pain, the rituals are sometimes eagerly anticipated by the initiate as a sign of acceptance into a more prestigious group. Because of this, Running the Gauntlet is considered a hazing ritual. The phrase running the gauntlet has also been used, informally, to express the idea of a public but painless, ritual humiliation such as the walk of shame or perp walk, or to indicate a series of difficult trials that one must overcome. Fitness trail in communist Poland During the days of the People's Republic of Poland, the Communist authorities forced political dissidents, criminals, protestors, and prisoners through a gauntlet-like process, which they called the (literally 'health path', but idiomatically used to mean early fitness trails). In KOR, A History of the Worker's Defense Committee in Poland, 1976–1981, Jan Józef Lipski documents the experience of one such criminal during the June 1976 protests: Military custom Similar practices are used in other initiations and rites of passage, as on pollywogs (those passing the equator for the first time; includes a paddling version) or in aviation when a new pilot gets their first license. It