I got most of this information from different internet sources and I got some from a history course I took.
The Chinese did use tickle torture on some people. Usually it was on servants and people from lower classes. The Chinese believed that the feet were embarrasing or something so they thought a good punishment for lesser crimes would be to have their feet showing. They would be put in a set of stocks in the main chambers of a palace and it would be up to anyone who wanted to do anything they wanted to do to the feet. Children were allowed to play with the feet. Apparently they were pretty vicious ticklers, using bits of bamboo to scrape up and down the soles of the feet. But I was told that this sort of punishment was usually done to men rather than women.
The Romans used to torture prostitutes by putting them in stocks, covering their feet in brine and having goats lick their feet clean, and then coating their feet again. The thing was though, at first the poor woman would be screaming with laughter but after a couple of hours, she'd be screaming in pain because the rough surface of the goats tongue would be like sandpaper rubbing away the skin.
It's not just fiction that Catherine the Great of Russia was into tickling. She often tickled her helpless servants and felt that her husband was so ugly that she had to be tickled to arouse herself before she could sleep with him.
During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the Witchfinder General in England reportedly used tickling to coax a confession from some women, but I don't know if this is true or not. I've never come across any reports of the Spanish Inquisition using tickling, but they did brand feet with hot irons!
The story called "The Ofoto Girls" may have been based on one of the tribes living on one of the Islands os Indonesia. At times of war captive men were tortured by men. The captured women were usually tickled women. But I don't think they tickled them to death as they did in the story.
In my own homeland of Ireland back in the ancient times of the Highkings, captive women were often tickle tortured for the amusment of her captors, although the women were raped and killed afterwards.
That's all the bits of info I have.
Johnny.