CEREMONIES OF THUGGEE
Murder a religious rite--Consulting the omens--The sacred pickaxe
or “kussee”--The “goor” or consecrated sugar--Certain castes
under the protection of the goddess Bhowanee spared--Women seldom
killed--Belief of Thugs that the neglect of omens and murder of
women were the causes of arrest and downfall--The apprenticeship of
a young member to the practices of Thuggee.
When and how Thuggee began may not be definitely known, but it is
certain that its votaries always attributed a divine origin to the
practice. They esteemed the wholesale taking of life to which they were
vowed a pious act, performed under the immediate orders and protection
of the Hindu goddess, indifferently called Devee or Durga, Kali or
Bhowanee. Murder was in fact a religious rite, the victim being a
sacrifice to the deity. The strangler was troubled with no remorse;
on the contrary, he gloried in his deed as the pious act of a devout
worshipper. He prepared his murders without misgiving, perpetrated them
without emotions of pity, and looked back upon them with satisfaction,
not regret.
The Thugs gave free vent to some of the worst passions of perverse
humanity; they were treacherous, underhanded, pitiless to those they
deemed their legitimate prey. But yet they were seldom guilty of wanton
cruelty; the pain they inflicted was only that caused by depriving
a human being of life. It was a rule with them never to murder
women, and they generally spared infant children whom they adopted,
bringing them up in their traditions. Even if a woman was doomed to
suffer she was most scrupulously preserved from insult beforehand,
either by act or word. In private life they were patterns of domestic
virtue, affectionate to their own families, fond of their homes; well
conducted, law abiding subjects of the state that gave them shelter.
For two centuries at least Thuggee flourished with rank luxuriance in
India, a soil exactly suited to its growth, fostered by the bigoted
adherence to its tenets and a firm faith in the rewards vouchsafed to
close observance of its rites and ceremonies. The Thugs were noted
formalists in the performance of their dread business. When they went
out to kill, they were governed by the strictest rules of procedure,
and steadfastly believed that the breach of any, even the smallest,
would entail discomfiture and misfortune. They gave the most unlimited
credence to superstitions, followed omens blindly and implicitly, and
undertook nothing without consulting their pundits, or wise men versed
in precedent and traditionary lore. No Thug, Sleeman tells us, who
had been fully initiated in the mysteries, doubted the inspiration
of the pickaxe (the sacred emblem in the faith of Thuggee), when
consecrated in due form, or doubted that the omens sought and observed
were all-sufficient to guide them to their prey or warn them from their
danger. They were satisfied that only by the neglect of these and the
careless worship rendered to the goddess could the suppression of
Thuggee have become possible to the British government.
The most portentous omen was that invited from the deity on the eve
of a new expedition for gang-robbery. When about to be undertaken, a
chief pundit was asked to name a day for departure and the road to
take. On the day suggested the _jemadar_, or leader of the party, would
start out holding in his right hand the _lota_, a brass pot filled
with water suspended by a string from his mouth; in his left hand he
carried the sacred pickaxe and a clean white handkerchief in which were
several coins. He proceeded a short distance along the road named by
the pundit and then paused to pray to the “great goddess and universal
mother” to vouchsafe some signal that the proposed expedition met with
her approval. The best possible omen was the braying of an ass and
if it was heard on the left, followed by a second bray on the right,
it was believed that the expedition would be an entire and lasting
success even if continued for years. The first, on the left, is called
the _pilhaoo_; the second, on the right, the _thibaoo_. The terms are
applied to the voices of any animals, but by far the most effective is
deemed the braying of the ass, whose voice is equal to any hundred
birds and superior to that of any other animal.
The initial ceremony, after the omen, proceeded by the leader’s
seating himself on the ground with the _lota_ before him. He remained
thus seated for seven hours while his followers brought him food and
made the necessary preparations for the journey. If the _lota_ should
have fallen from his hand terrible disaster might be anticipated and
the _jemadar_ would inevitably die during the year. If any one was
heard weeping as they left the village, great evil impended; the same
threatened if they met a corpse being carried out, or if they met an
oil vendor, a carpenter, a potter, a dancing master, a blind or lame
man, a _fakir_ with a brown waist band or a _jogi_ with long ragged
hair. A corpse from any village but their own was a good omen. The call
of a jackal, of which there were three kinds, threatened great evil,
and if at work the gang instantly quit the country leaving any victims
marked down for slaughter untouched. The call of the lizard was a good
omen, that of a wolf or a hare crossing the path, bad, entailing an
immediate halt and change of route. If a dog was seen to shake his head
operations had to be suspended for three days.
In all Thug ceremonies the sacred pickaxe or _kussee_ played a great
part. It was treated with the utmost respect and was so holy that to
be sworn upon it meant an oath more binding than on Ganges water, and
perjury on the pickaxe would entail the death of the foresworn within
six days. The superstition was that the perjurer would die horribly,
with his head turned round, his face toward his back, and writhing in
tortures till the end came. The oath on the pickaxe was in use when the
Thugs filled the gaols and it was made upon a piece of cloth fashioned
in the shape of the _kussee_. A legend existed that the _kussee_ was
the gift of the goddess herself when she had been greatly incensed
by the contravention of one of her laws. At first the Thugs did not
trouble about the corpses of their victims but blindly left them for
Kali’s disposal. One day a slave looked back and saw her throwing them
in the air, and in her rage the goddess condemned her votaries to
bury their bodies themselves, digging the graves with the consecrated
pickaxe. It was to be made by some blacksmith in the presence of the
_jemadar_. The consecration follows a long ceremony, including many
washings in water, sour milk and ardent spirits, and the pickaxe is
first used to smash a cocoanut, the kernel of which is eaten by the
assembled worshippers. The pickaxe was entrusted to the safe keeping of
the _jemadar_.
When on the road it was carried by the most sober and careful man of
the party. In camp he buried it in a secure place with its point toward
the intended route, but they believed that when unearthed, if another
direction was better, the point would be found supernaturally changed.
It was at one time the rule to throw the pickaxe down a well at the
nightly halt, and many witnesses declared that it used to spring up
spontaneously from the water in the morning to come into the hand of
its carrier at his call. Several of the Thug prisoners in Jubbulpore
gaol assured Sir William Sleeman that this was absolute fact, and
went so far as to declare they had seen it happen. The _kussee_ was
religiously worshipped every seventh day.
Another important agent in the Thug religion was the _goor_ or
consecrated sugar. It was an offering to Bhowanee, made as a sacrifice
of _tupounee_, to celebrate the commission of any murder. An exact
amount of coarse sugar was purchased to the worth of 1 rupee, 4
annas. A clean place was selected and the sugar laid out on a sheet
or blanket, on which were also put the sacred pickaxe and a piece
of silver coin. The leader of the gang having taken his seat on the
blanket, surrounded by the most notable stranglers, with the rest
outside, made a small hole in the ground for the _goor_ and then
dedicated it saying, “Great goddess, who vouchsafed 1 lac and 62,000
rupees to Toora Naig and Koduk Bunwaree in their need, so we pray
thee fulfil our desires.” (Toorah Naig was a celebrated _jemadar_
who, single-handed, with his servant, Koduk Bunwaree, killed a man
possessed of plunder, and bringing it home, divided it honestly among
their assembled comrades as though they had all been present at the
murder.) The Thugs fervently repeated the prayer and the _goor_ was
distributed, first to those on the blanket, who ate in solemn silence,
and when they had finished, it was given to the rest who were entitled
by their rank to receive it. No one but a man who had strangled his
victim was suffered to partake of the _goor_, which had a miraculous
effect; and the Thugs were persuaded that if any human being tasted it
he would take forthwith to the trade. The Thug chief Feringhea told
Sir William Sleeman that the _goor_ completely changed a man’s nature,
adding,--“It would change the nature of a horse. Let anyone taste it
and he will be a Thug, though he know all the trades and have all the
wealth in the world. For my own part I was well to do; my relations
were rich and I held high office myself in which I was sure of
promotion. Yet I was always miserable when absent from my gang. While
I was still a mere boy, my father made me taste that fatal sugar, and
if I were to live a thousand years I should never be able to follow any
other trade.”
There was a hierarchy in the caste of Thuggee. The first grade was
the _kuboola_, or “tyro,” who after initiation was first employed as
scout, then as grave-digger, _lughae_; next in rank was the _shumseea_,
whose duty it was to hold the hands and feet of the victim when being
strangled by the _bhurtote_, who is of the highest grade in the
organisation. The initiation was made early; a Thug parent apprenticed
his son at thirteen or fourteen years. The candidate having bathed and
dressed in new clothes, which had never been bleached, was led by his
_guru_, or spiritual director, into a room where the leaders of the
band were assembled seated on a white cloth; the sacred pickaxe was
placed in his right hand, and raising his left on high, he repeated
a fearful oath dictated to him and sworn on the Koran, after which
he ate a small piece of the consecrated _goor_. He pledged himself
to be faithful, brave and secret, to pursue to destruction every
human being whom chance or his own ingenuity threw into his power.
Only he was forbidden to kill the members of certain castes, such as
sweepers, oil-vendors, blacksmiths, carpenters, professional musicians,
any maimed or leprous persons, the carriers of Ganges water or any
man travelling accompanied by a cow. As a general rule women were
spared, and many cases are quoted of the misfortunes that overtook
those who disregarded this regulation. Feringhea stated that his gang
after killing many women had no luck, and his family fell into great
misfortune. Sometimes when they encountered a rich old woman, she was
sacrificed, and even youth and beauty did not always escape; but the
consequences were always the same. After the murder of the woman Kalee
Bebee, who was travelling with a gold _chudur_ for a sacred tomb, the
perpetrators were severely punished by fate. One got worms in his body
and died barking like a dog; others died miserably in gaol or after
crossing the black water (transportation to Penang). The families
concerned became extinct. Thugs who had slain women admitted that they
deserved the worst evils that could befall them.
The crime of killing women was sometimes aggravated by the murder of
their children. In the case of the murder of Bunda Alee, Moonshee of
General Doveton commanding at Jhalna, his wife and daughters were
strangled. One of the Thugs would have adopted the infant child and was
carrying it off, when a comrade pressed him to kill it also lest they
should be detected on crossing the Nurbudda. Whereupon the miscreant
threw the living child on the heap of dead bodies in the open grave,
and the child was buried alive.
The apprenticeship to murder was gradual. The young members saw and
heard nothing of the first affair after their initiation; they were
ignorant of the exact business, but grew to like the life as they were
mounted on ponies and received presents purchased out of their share of
the booty. On the second expedition they began to suspect that murder
was committed, and on the third they witnessed the actual deed. They
accepted the horrible situation, and were seldom much shocked. But
in one case told by Feringhea, a lad of fourteen, out for the first
time and mounted on a pony, was committed to the charge of a young
comrade, who was to keep him in the rear out of sight and hearing of
the affair when the signal was given. Unfortunately, the boy broke
away and galloped up in time to witness the scene; he heard the screams
and saw them all strangled. He fell off his pony and became delirious,
screaming and trembling violently if anyone touched him or spoke
to him. They sat by him when the gang went on and vainly attempted
to pacify him, but he never recovered his senses and died the same
night. A somewhat similar case is told by Sleeman of an affair near
Shikarpore, where the place selected for the murder was in an extensive
jungle by the river side, and a party of travellers were strangled,
all but two young boys who were to be saved for adoption. One of them,
when the bodies were being thrown into a ditch covered with earth and
bushes, began to scream violently, and the Thug who had intended to
adopt him, finding it impossible to pacify him, seized him by the legs
and dashed his brains out against a stone. The dead boy was left where
he lay and his body was found by a fisherman, who gave the alarm which
led to the pursuit and arrest of the Thugs.
Colonel Meadows-Taylor in his “Confessions of a Thug” graphically
pictures the sufferings of his hero after the first affair he
witnessed. “Do what I would,” the Thug confesses, “the murdered father
and son appeared before me; the old man’s voice rung in my ears, and
the son’s large eyes seemed to be fixed on mine. I felt as though a
thousand _skitans_ (devils) sat on my breast, and sleep would not come
to my eyes. It appeared so cold-blooded, so unprovoked a deed, that I
could not reconcile myself in any way to having become even a silent
spectator of it.” Next day his father reasoned with him, making him eat
the _goor_, and explaining that having put his hand to the work he must
not turn back. As soon as the _kuboola_ has got over the first feelings
of disgust and his courage is equal to the blood-thirsty business, he
becomes the disciple of some renowned and experienced member of the
gang, and instruction is given in strangling. He is entrusted with
the handkerchief, _roomal_, and taught how to make the knot with a
piece of silver inserted. When he has fully learned the process, one
of the travellers at the next affair is entrusted to him, and with a
_shumseea_ at hand to assist, he regularly graduates as a _bhurtote_
and is eligible to become a leader of a gang of his own.
The stern resolve of the British government to suppress Thuggee, and
the energetic assistance of the agents employed were no doubt the true
cause of its being stamped out. The neglect of omens, the signs sent by
Bhowanee to warn her votaries of threatened dangers, and the murder of
women and persons of the protected castes, brought down upon the Thugs,
in their own opinion, their deserved retribution. One leader of a gang
was arrested with seventeen others because, as they said, he persisted
in his purpose when a screaming hare had crossed his path. They pleaded
that an omen was an order, and disobedience brought its own punishment.
We may accept such explanations for what they are worth, and may
assign to a more reasonable cause the activity in the years between
1826 and 1840, when no less than 3,689 Thugs were arrested and tried.
Of these a large number were hanged, transported or imprisoned for
life. A few were acquitted or died before sentence; a certain number
became approvers or informers, and no doubt a fatal blow was struck at
these horrid crimes which had been so long fostered and supported by
nearly all classes in the community; landowners, native officers of the
courts, police and village authorities.