alt Hacker NewsBack before written deeds and the county clerk keeping track of land ownership, it was handled by memory. So they would have a young boy witness the land transfer, on the theory that if there was a dispute 30 or 40 years into the future, he could testify that the transfer happened. And to help him remember, they would nail him in the 'nads. Point being, dudes getting nailed in the 'nads has a rich historical tradition that pre-dates writing.
Ok I just had to look this up. There’s a kernel of truth but I didn’t find evidence of genital mutilation: “Sometimes the boys were whipped or violently bumped on the boundary stones to make them remember”( “Beating the bounds”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beating_the_bounds?wprov=sfti1 )