CHAPTER XXXVI

THE THUGS
Less than a century ago India was permeated by a secret society known as the Phansegars, or Thugs, who roamed about all over the country in bands, often amounting to several hundred persons, with the sole object of murdering unfortunate travellers for the sake of their property. The usual mode of assassination was strangling, but in an emergency other means were used. The profession was largely hereditary, but the children of victims were often educated to it. In most cases the Thug was incapable of earning a living by any other method than Thuggee, but he usually had some nominal, innnocent employment, and his family might often not be aware of the dreadful trade he was plying during his frequent absences from home.
Other people, however, might not be so blind when it was to their advantage. A practising Thug who turned approver confessed : that after a return from a plundering expedition to his village he was always obliged to give the headman a present, “for the whole village knew that I was a Thug, and the Zemindar would have had me put in irons but for these presents. All Thugs thus propitiate their Zemindars. I never told my wife of these murders or of my being a Thug; we do not tell our wives lest they discover the secret to others.” 1
That this criminal was telling no more than the truth is borne out by the report of a British officer made in 1838. 2
“To conclude, there seems no doubt but that this horrid crime has been fostered by nearly all classes in the com-
1 W. H. Sleeman, Report on the Depredations committed by the Thug Gangs of Upper and Central India. Calcutta, 1840.
2 Sleeman, ul sup.
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munity — the landholders, the native officers of our courts, the police and village authorities — all I think have been more or less guilty; my meaning is not, of course, that every member of these classes, but that individuals varying in number in each class were concerned. The petty police have in many instances been practising Thugs ; and the chowkedars, or village watchmen, frequently so. It is much to be feared that men so respectable in position as to make it seem almost incredible that they should give protection to such criminals have in fact done so.”
The most extraordinary aspect of Thuggee was its ability to bind Hindu and Moslem together. To quote from a classic on the subject 1:
“Strange, too, that Hindu and Moslem of every sect and denomination should join with one accord in the superstition from which this horrible trade has arisen. In the Hindu, perhaps, it is not to be wondered at, as the goddess who protects him is one whom all castes regard with reverence and hold in the utmost dread ; but as for the Moslem, unless his conduct springs from that terrible doctrine of Fatalism, with which every true believer is thoroughly imbued from the first dawn of his reason, it is difficult to assign a reason for the horrible pursuit he has engaged in.”
Whatever the cause, the infamous profession of Thug made the Hindu and Moslem unite as brothers, and among this fraternity bad faith was seldom known. In their palmy days the Thugs had friends wherever they went ; they bribed freely, and had agents everywhere disguised as fakirs or merchants. Some Zemindars feared them, others bullied or blackmailed them, but, on the whole, were faithful to their interests. In some districts so long as the Thugs paid a regular contribution to village and State officials they were not interferred with in practising their profession. This was particularly true of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s country. Go where they might they found homes open to them, and a welcome from tribes of whose language even the Hindus
1 Colonel Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug, 1838.
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were ignorant; this was because the signs of recognition of the sect were the same all through India.
These facts would seem to place Thuggee clearly within the pale of a true secret society.
The venerable assassin from whom Meadows Taylor obtained many of the Thug secrets asserted that by carefully examining the fireplaces in a deserted encampment it was possible for the initiated to tell whether these had been built by members of the society or not; and no doubt there must have been many other gipsy-like paterans to convey similar information ; so that one band of followers of Kali might not trespass on the hunting-trail of another, and so forth.1 There was also a definite form of greeting by which one Thug could make himself known to another all over India; it ran:
“Ali Khan Bhaee Salam!” Salutation to Ali Khan my Brother.
This was answered by: “Salam Aliekoum.”
It need hardly be said that the secrets of the sect were held sacrosanct, and the divulging of them to anyone not a Thug was punished with death by strangling.
They had their secret language or jargon incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Thus Sleeman quotes the evidence of a Thug who confessing to a murder told how the victim had become suspicious and said: “You are two suspicious persons! You look like Thugs. Do not come near me!” “Seeing that he had become suspicious, I said to the party in my secret Thug language : ‘Go aside. He suspects you ! ”’
Thuggee had its own peculiar legend of origin. In the beginning of the world, according to the Hindus, there existed a creating and a destroying Power, both of which were emanations from the Supreme Being; and these two Powers were at constant enmity. The creative Power peopled the earth so fast that the destructive Power could not keep pace by its own efforts, and was forced to resort to all kinds of additional means of accomplishing his object of
1 Bands would frequently join up on meeting, to make murder easier.
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destruction. To assist his efforts his consort Devi, Bhowanee or Kali constructed an image and inspired it with the breath of life. She then assembled a number of her votaries to whom she gave the name of Thugs, and instructed them in the art of Thuggee by destroying before them the image she had made, employing the manner used by Thugs from that day to this. She endowed the Thugs with intelligence and cunning superior to those of other men, and sent them forth to decoy and destroy human beings, dowering them as reward with the plunder from their victims. She bade them be of no concern about the disposal of the dead bodies, which she herself would bury. All things went well with the Thugs for a long time, until one day a gang having committed a murder hid in the bushes afterwards to watch how the goddess would dispose of the body of the victim. Kali thereupon upbraided them for their lack of faith, and declared that in future they should have to dispose of the corpses themselves, which would often lead to their detection and punishment. She gave them, however, in mitigation of the penalty information about certain omens whereby they should direct their operations for the future.
The observation of such omens henceforth formed an important part, if not the most important, of the Thuggee ceremonies.
There was a regular inauguration ceremony for the reception of a novice, which if at all possible took place on the festival of the Dusera, a day particularly sacred to Kali, and the only Hindu festival acknowledged by the Moslem Thugs.
The novice was bathed and dressed in clean clothes that had never been bleached, and then led by the gooroo, or spiritual director, into a room where the leaders of the band of Thugs were seated on a clean white cloth. The gooroo asked them if they were willing to receive the novice as a Thug and a Brother, and on their assenting he was escorted into the open air, when the gooroo raising his hands and eyes to heaven cried: “O Bhowanee, mother of the world, whose votaries we are, receive this thy servant;
300 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
vouchsafe to him thy protection; grant to us an omen that may assure us of thy consent!”
All then remained waiting in silence until some omen occurred. If it was a favourable one, all the company cried aloud: “Jey Bhowanee!” Victory to Bhowanee!
The novice was then led back into the room, and a pickaxe, as the holy symbol of his profession, was placed in his right hand on a white handkerchief. He was then directed to raise it as high as his breast and to repeat the words of an oath, raising his left hand in the air and invoking the goddess to whose service he was dedicating himself henceforth. If the candidate was a Moslem, he afterwards repeated the same oath on the Koran. Then a small piece of goor, or consecrated sugar, was given him to eat, and his initiation was complete.
In his oath the candidate Thug seems to have bound him¬ self to be faithful, brave and secret in the exercise of the profession most ancient of all and most acceptable to the goddess ; and to attempt to compass the destruction of every human being whom chance or his own ingenuity might cast into his power, with the exception of those who were forbidden to him by the laws or traditions of the sect, and whom he therefore was obliged to hold sacred.
These exceptions formed a very numerous and important series of persons, immune in theory if not in strict practice from the operation of Thuggee. Tradition said that in olden times women were always spared by the Thugs; and even parties of travellers containing women, although in other respects desirable bunij (victims) , were left unmolested on their account. The patroness of the sect being a woman, the destruction of her sex was considered obnoxious to her and avoided — in theory at all events. Similar theoretical exemption attached to particular classes of mendicants, washermen, dancing-men, musicians, sweepers, oil-men, blacksmiths, carpenters, and maimed or leprous persons.
The Thugs were divided into certain classes, each having special duties. The province of a Sotha was to act as a decoy to induce travellers to join up with the band of Thugs, so that at the first convenient opportunity they might be
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strangled and robbed in safety. To the Lugha was entrusted the task of preparing the bhil, or grave, in which the victims were to be concealed after death. The usual procedure was for the Lughas to go in advance of the party and prepare this grave at a suitable spot, so that the victims could be despatched and interred with the least possible delay and inconvenience. The Shumshea acted as executioner’s assistant, and had to distract the attention of the victim at the proper moment, so that the Bhuttote could place the roomal (noose) round his neck without hindrance.
The functions of this last class were of course the most important of all, and before becoming a member of it a further ceremony was required. The young Thug who aspired to become a Bhuttote, or strangler, had to fast from all food but milk for four days, which were spent in making numerous sacrifices to the holy pickaxe, while every chance omen was carefully observed. On the morning of the fifth day a handkerchief was put in his hand ; and after he had been bathed and anointed with sweet-smelling oils, he was marked on the forehead with vermilion as a votary of Bhowanee, and declared a Bhuttote. Before he was allowed to strike down his first victim, however, the omens had to be consulted again. If these were favourable, the knot of his handkerchief was untied, a piece of silver put in it, and then handed back to him as a sacred weapon. This handkerchief with a knot in it was used by the Thugs for committing their murders, and it is said that such was their dexterity that the deed never took more than a few seconds, once the knack of breaking a man’s neck with the handkerchief had been acquired.
After the new Bhuttote had committed his first murder, at the ensuing religious ceremony of Tupounee, he took his seat on the blanket, untied the knot in the handkerchief, and presented the silver it contained, together with some additional rupees to his gooroo, the while touching his feet in reverence. This constituted the last act of the initiatory ceremonies.
The sacrifice of Tupounee was performed in this way. After a successful murder a quantity of goor, coarse sugar,
302 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
was purchased. The chief Thug sat himself on a blanket facing west, and on the blanket before him spread out the goor, the sacred pickaxe, and a piece of silver as an offering. A small hole was made in the ground, and Kali was invoked. A little of the goor was then put into the hole, and water sprinkled upon it and upon the pickaxe. Each of the Thugs present then consumed a piece of the goor and drank some of the water in solemn silence.
Mention has been made of the supersititions of the Thugs about omens. On setting out for an expedition these were always consulted in the following way. The leader took a lota filled with water and suspended it from a string which he held in his mouth, and followed by the rest of the band advanced some distance on the appointed route. Then turning his face in the direction they proposed to take, he placed his left hand on his breast, raised his eyes to heaven, and said: “Mother of the universe! Protectress and patroness of our order! If this expedition be pleasing to thee, vouchsafe us thy help, and give us an omen of thy approbation!” Then everyone waited in silence for the omen. The twitter¬ ing of a tree-owl or the braying of an ass would be favourable signs; whereas a hare crossing the path was a very bad one. The bark of a jackal was, however, the worst of all omens, and an orthodox Thug would at once have abandoned any enterprise that was heralded by such a presage. To hear a crow call while flying was enough to make a band give up an expedition and return home.
Another class of taboo can be described in a Thug’s own words:1
“We fell in with a Hindu who had with him a cow and a calf. In Thuggee to murder a man with a cow is strictly forbidden, as an act from which no good can come. We had a consultation upon this head — the elder Thugs and the rest determined to thug in this case notwithstanding the cow, for we supposed there was much money to be obtained, from him. ... I strangled the traveller. . . . We all went home, and I fell sick of a fever, which confined me for ten months . . . The Thugs said it was on account of thugging
1 Sleeman, Op. cit.
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the man with the cow that I was so afflicted, but I did not entertain this opinion . . . though I do believe that evil will follow the murder of a man with a cow. If there be no cow, it does not signify.”
Some Thugs, however, were quite free-thinking about such matters as omens and sacrifices. Sleeman tells of one gang in the Vizagapatam district who were the most “in¬ veterate murderers, sparing neither sex nor age; nor did they pay any respect to those castes which other classes of Thugs thought it a heinous offence to murder. They seldom troubled themselves with omens, and the pickaxe was not held in any veneration; in fact, they were considered by the Arcottees an ill-omened set of Thugs.”
Another case reported by Sleeman shows that super¬ stition about omens and taboos could cut both ways. In this instance a gang of Thugs had murdered a party of religious mendicants who were returning home after a successful begging expedition, and were interrupted while burying them. “In great alarm they concealed themselves behind a mound of earth at some distance, leaving the bodies on the ground. The horsemen passed by without stopping, but when the Thugs returned to the grave they found that the dead bodies had disappeared ! The approv¬ ers, who have been questioned on the subject of the dis¬ appearance of the bodies, are unable, or pretend to be so, to account for the circumstance. They admit that the goddess Bhowanee has long since left off disposing of the bodies of their murdered victims, but still desire it to be supposed that as the travellers were religious mendicants the deity to whom they were devoted had probably removed the bodies, adding: that though this interference on the part of the deity would argue a dereliction of duty on their parts, in having put such holy persons to death, yet as they had unlimited authority from Bhowanee herself to commit murder, and the mendicants had through their means obtained a speedy passage to paradise, no sin can possibly attach to them from the commission of the act.”
The omens and sacrifices varied according to the actual religion of the Thugs; thus the Moslems killed a goat as a
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sacrifice to Bhowanee before setting out on a plundering expedition.
It only remains to be added that the efforts of the British Government in India succeeded in putting an end to Thug¬ gee as a society and as a profession. Though that country still contains many devotees of Bhowanee, they are now unable to pay their tribute to her in such a profitable way to themselves; which is yet another entry to the credit of the British Raj.