_Thug, Phansigar._--The famous community of murderers who were
accustomed to infest the high-roads and strangle travellers for
their property. The Thugs are, of course, now extinct, having been
finally suppressed by measures taken under the direction of Colonel
Sleeman between 1825 and 1850. The only existing traces of them are
a small number of persons known as Goranda or Goyanda in Jubbulpore,
the descendants of Thugs employed in the school of industry which
was established at that town. These work honestly for their living
and are believed to have no marked criminal tendencies. In the course
of his inquiries, however, Colonel Sleeman collected a considerable
mass of information about the Thugs, some of which is of ethnological
interest, and as the works in which this is contained are out of
print and not easily accessible, it seems desirable to record a
portion of it here. The word Thug signifies generically a cheat or
robber, while Phansigar, which was the name used in southern India,
is derived from _phansi_, a noose, and means a strangler. The form
of robbery and murder practised by these people was probably of
considerable antiquity, and is referred to as follows by a French
traveller, Thevenot, in the sixteenth century:
"Though the road I have been speaking of from Delhi to Agra be
tolerable yet it hath many inconveniences. One may meet with tigers,
panthers and lions upon it, and one can also best have a care of
robbers, and above all things not to suffer anybody to come near
one upon the road. The cunningest robbers in the world are in that
country. They use a certain slip with a running noose which they can
cast with so much sleight about a man's neck, when they are within
reach of him, that they never fail, so that they can strangle him
in a trice. They have another cunning trick also to catch travellers
with. They send out a handsome woman upon the road, who with her hair
dishevelled seems to be all in tears, sighing and complaining of some
misfortune which she pretends has befallen her. Now, as she takes the
same way that the traveller goes he falls easily into conversation
with her, and finding her beautiful, offers her his assistance,
which she accepts; but he hath no sooner taken her up behind him on
horseback, but she throws the snare about his neck and strangles him,
or at least stuns him until the robbers who lie hid come running to
her assistance and complete what she hath begun. But besides that,
there are men in those quarters so skilful in casting the snare,
that they succeed as well at a distance as near at hand; and if an
ox or any other beast belonging to a caravan run away, as sometimes
it happens, they fail not to catch it by the neck." [677]
This passage seems to demonstrate an antiquity of three centuries for
the Thugs down to 1850. But during the period over which Sir William
Sleeman's inquiries extended women never accompanied them on their
expeditions, and were frequently even, as a measure of precaution,
left in ignorance of the profession of their husbands.