After each murder they had a sacrificial feast of _gur_ or unrefined
sugar. This was purchased to the value of Rs. 1-4, and the leader of
the gang and the other Bhurtotes (stranglers) sat on a blanket with
the rest of the gang round them. A little sugar was dropped into a
hole and the leader prayed to Devi to send them some rich victims. The
remainder of the sugar was divided among all present. One of them gave
the _jhirni_ or signal for strangling and they consumed the sugar in
solemn silence, no fragment of it being lost They believed that it was
this consecrated _gur_ which gave the desire for the trade of a Thug
and made them callous to the sufferings of their victims, and they
thought that if any outsider tasted it he would at once become a Thug
and continue so all his life. When Colonel Sleeman asked [702] a young
man who had strangled a beautiful young woman in opposition to their
rules, whether he felt no pity for her, the leader Feringia exclaimed:
"We all feel pity sometimes, but the _gur_ of the Tuponi (sacrifice)
changes our nature. It would change the nature of a horse. Let any man
once taste of that _gur_ and he will be a Thug, though he knows all the
trades and have all the wealth in the world. I never wanted food; my
mother's family was opulent, her relations high in office. I have been
high in office myself, and became so great a favourite wherever I went
that I was sure of promotion; yet I was always miserable while absent
from my gang and obliged to return to Thuggee. My father made me taste
of that fatal _gur_ when I was yet a mere boy; and if I were to live
a thousand years I should never be able to follow any other trade."
The eating of this _gur_ was clearly the sacrificial meal of the
Thugs. On the analogy of other races they should have partaken of the
body of an animal god at their sacrificial meal, and if the goddess
Kali is the deified tiger, they should have eaten tiger's flesh. This
custom, if it ever existed, had been abandoned, and the _gur_ would
in that case be a substitute; and as has been seen the eating of the
_gur_ was held to confer on them the same cruelty, callousness and
desire to kill which might be expected to follow from eating tiger's
flesh and thus assimilating the qualities of the animal. Since they
went unarmed as a rule, in order to avoid exciting the suspicions
of their victims, it would be quite impossible for them to obtain
tiger's flesh, except by the rarest accident; and the _gur_ might be
considered a suitable substitute, since its yellow colour would be
held to make it resemble the tiger.