Gauntlet (g hard). To run the gantlet. To be hounded on all sides. Corruption of gantlope,
the passage between two files of soldiers. (German, ganglaufen or gassenlaufen.) The
reference is to a punishment common among sailors. If a companion had disgraced himself,
the crew, provided with gauntlets or ropes' ends, were drawn up in two rows facing each
other, and the delinquent had to run between them, while every man dealt him, in passing,
as severe a chastisement as he could.
The custom exists among the North American Indians. (See Fenimore Cooper

I can remember reading references to this, and the name never made sense to me.