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The Thugs Or Phansigars of India

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The Thugs Or Phansigars of India • ji - : I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 'V* ^ ' - . vT , _ ^ ^ \ t ' ' ’ ' ’ t. f . - . https://archrve.org/details/b22022053_0001 history OF THE thugs or phansigars OF INDIA. 9o‘53o THE THUGS OR PHANSIGARS OF INDIA: COMPRISING A HISTORY OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THAT EXTRAORDINARY FRATERNITY OF ASSASSINS; — AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE SYSTEM WHICH IT PURSUES, AND OF THE MEASURES WHICH HAVE BEEN ADOPTED BY THE SUPRESIE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA FOR ITS SUPPRESSION. Compiled from Original and Authentic Documents published By captain W. H. SLEEMAN, SUPERINTENDENT OF THUG POLICE. >• t PHILADELPHIA : CAREY &HART. 1839 I Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by E. L. Carey & A. Hart, in tlie office of the Clerk of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. The history of the Thugs, comprised in the following pages, has been chiefly compiled from a volume published in Calcutta in 1836, entitled, “ Ramaseana, or a Vocabulary of the peculiar “ Language used by the Thugs, with an Introduc- “ tion and Appendix, descriptive of the System “ pursued by that Fraternity, and of the Measures “.adopted by the Supreme Government of India “ for it suppression.” The author, Captain W. H. Sleeman of the Indian military service, who has recently occupied the station of Superintendent of the Thug Police, has devoted but a few pages of his voluminous work to the vocabulary referred to in the title. The remainder of the work is composed of an Introduction, comprising notices of the system of the Thugs, and of the operations pursued by the government for extirpating them ; a series of con- versations with Thug informers, containing full and most extraordinary disclosures respecting their superstitions and crimes ; and an immense mass of official papers relating to the apprehension of various gangs of Thugs, their trials and executions. # 6 PREFACE. From this repository of undigested materials, the compiler of the volume now offered to the public, has endeavoured to form a clear and suc- cinct account of the Thugs, their peculiar super- stitions, their methods of proceeding in robbing and murdering travellers, and the operations of the British government in India for the extirpation of this singular and unparalled system of assassination and plunder. To this he has added an Appendix, containing the vocabulary of their language, the disclosures made to Captain Sleeman b;^ Thug informers, and a specimen of the trials of some of the criminals ; which serves to exhibit the careful and impartial system pursued by the British autho- rities in bringing these atrocious criminals to justice. The information contained in the following pages, will be found to exhibit a most extraordinary and interesting chapter in the history of human character. It brings to light the astounding fact, that for a period of two hundred years, there has existed in India a secret association of assassins, bound together by a peculiar system of superstition, and successfully pursuing robbery and murder as a regular means of subsistence ; that this associa- tion was, or rather is, composed of many thousand early education and persons ; that by a process of gradual training its members are brought to consi- der murder and robbery as no crimes, but rather as religious acts, well pleasing to. their tutelary their measures have been deity ; and finally, that so cunningly concerted, and carefully pursued, that until within a very recent period, notone in a hun- dred of them has ever been brought to answer to any human tribunal for his atrocious crimes. The reader will have the satisfaction, however, of learn- PREFACE. 7 ing, that the energetic measures now in Operation for suppressing this abominable fraternity, afford a fair presumption that its existence will speedily terminate. , Aware that the principal value of the work depends upon the amount of authentic information which it compi'ises, the compiler has presented the several portions of it as nearly in the state in which each is furnished by the original writer, as was consistent with the clearness and U'evity necessary to commend it to the notice of the general reader. The arrangement which he has adopted, is believed to be such as will afford the reader a satisfactory general view of the subject in the main body of the work ; with the means of gratifying curiosity, as to its minuter details and ramifications, in the Appendix. To the inquirer into human character and the motives and springs of action which influ- ence the conduct of men under extraordinary circumstances, the whole will form a most curious and interesting study. r CONTENTS. EARLY HISTORY. Origin of the names, 14 Thugs proteefed i)y the Polygars, 15 invariably murder, 16 Their disguises, 17 Arts ofdeeeption, 18 Mode of assassination, 19 Precautions against detection, 20 Interment of the bodies, 21 Phansi or noose, 22 Mode of strangling, 23 Attack on horseback, 24 Division of the booty, 25 Superstition of tiie Thugs, 26 Their tutelary Deity, 27 Omens, 28 Curious tradition, * 29 Females spared, 30 Murder of a family, 31 Slang, 32 Initiation, 34 Education, \ 35 Intermarriages, 36 Hyder Ali’s proceedings, 37 Thugs of the Carnatic, 38 Of the Deccan, 39 Resorts, 40 Travelling in India, 41 P'atalism, 42 Moral insensibility, 43 Classes, 44 Tlievenot’s account, 45 Decoys, 46 . 10 - CONTENTS. Musulman Thugs, 47 Hindus, 48 Travelling in India, 49 DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING THE SUPPRESSION OF THUGGEE, 52 MEASURES OP THE GOVERNMENT FOR ITS SUPPRES- SION, 64 CAPTAIN SLEEMAN’s ACCOUNT. Kamasee, 76 Money carriers of India, 77 Implicit faith of the Thugs, 78 Rules with respect to females, 79 Inspiration of the pick-axe, 80 Origin of Thuggee, 81 Seven clans of Thugs, 82 Grounds of their faith, t ........ 83 Great extent of their depredations, 84 Murder ofSoldiers, 85 Operations of the Marquis of Hastings, 86 Suppression of Thuggee, 88 Danger of its revival, 89 Criminal connivance of the landholders, 92 Astounding disclosures of Feringeea, 96 Concealment of operations, 97 ' • Adventures of Huree Sing, 98 Use of wells for concealing corpses, 100 Crimes and punishments, IQl Operations on Oude, 102 System of the river Thugs, 103 Resort of the river Thugs, 104 Present plan of operations, 105 Thugs to be regarded as pirates, 106 Sanctuaries, 107 Pindarics, 108 False principle, 109 “Dead men tell no tales,” 110 Arrangements of trials, Ill Captain Sleeman appainted superintendent ofThug police, 113 Zeal of Sipahees in suppressing Thuggee, 115 Persons peculiarly exposed, 117 Dialect, 118 CONTENTS 11 DISCLOSURES OF INFORMERS IN CONVERSATIONS WITH CAPTAIN SLEEMAN, . 119 Bhowanee, 124 Omens, 125 Initiation, 127 Death of Kurhora, 128 Sacrifices to Davey, 129 Death of Sahib Khan, '. 130 Sheikh Amed, . .- 131 Mudee Khan’s gang, 132 Inefficiency of the Kuboola, 133 Oath on the consecrated pick-axe, 134 Punishment of Nanha, 135 Punishments, 136 Warn ings of Davey, 137 Success of the British against tlie Thugs, 139 Implicit- faith, 140 Marks, 141 Disguises, '. 142 Divisions,. - 143 Murder of women, 144 A woman spared, 146 Seizure of a gang,. 148 A child buried alive, 149 Alurder of the Moonshee and his family, 150 Concealment of the murder, 151 Superstitions respecting the cow, 152 Murder of Kalee Behee, 153 Punishment of the murderers, 154 Confession of old Salman, 155 Virtues of the roomal and pick-axe, 156 Adventures of Feringcea, 157 Murder of Ashraf Khan, 158 River Thugs, 159 ' Resorts of river Thugs, 162 Adventures ofBukhtawur, 163 Police questions, 165 Jhoulee Khan, 166 Fate of Syfoo, 167 Geographical distribution ofThugs, 168 Prizes in Khandeish, 169 Burwaha ghat affair, 170 Restitution of the money, 171 Leaders in the Burwaha ghat affair, 173 Affair at Dholeea and Malagow, 175 Dhoree affair, 176 % 12 CONTENTS. A disputed point, I77 Shikorpore affair, 179 Fate of the m urderers, ' 182 Caves of Ellora, 183 Chaleesrooh affair, 185 Strangling a woman, 189 Surtooh affair, ,-i 191 Murder of two Saraffs, . i"! I94 The Moghulanee 195 Affair at fort Araeergur, 196 Murder of the Moghulanee, 198 Dhosa affair, 200 Adventures of Thukoree, 202 Feringeea’s ancestors, , 206 Tax on the Thugs, 207 Adv6nturcs of Inaent, 211 Adventures of Bheekun Khan, 213 A man strangled twice, 215 Adventures of ZoUuka, 216 Omen of the Chireya, 217 Bad luck, 218 Adventures of Feringeea, 219 Bunjura Thugs, 222 Mollanee Thugs, 223 Adventures of Sheikh Inaent,. 224 ' r’SS- \ HISTORY OP THE THUGS OR PHANSIGARS. [The first satisfactory general notice which we find of the Thugs, is contained in the following account from the pen of Doctor Richard C. Sher- wood, Surgeon on the Establishment of Fort St. George. It was written in 1816; and refers to the Thugs as they were found at that time in the southern part of Hindoostan, under the name of Phansigars. The notes which illustrate it were written by Captain Sleeman, with all the advan- tages of his subsequent investigations, personal and historical, in 1816.] While Europeans have journeyed through the extensive territories subject to the Government of Fort St. George, with a degree of security no where surpassed, the path of the native traveller has been beset with perils little known or suspected, into which numbers annually falling, have mysteri- ously disappeared, the victims of villains as subtle, rapacious, and cruel, as any who are to be met with in the records of human depravity. The Phansigars, or stranglers, are thus desig- nated from the Hindustani word 'phansi, a noose. In the more northern parts of India, these mur- 2 14 ORIGIN OF THE NAMES. derers are called Thugs, signifying deceivers : in the Tamul language, they are called Ari Tulucar, or Mussulman noosers : in Canarese, Tanti Cal- leru, implying thieves, who use a wire or cat-gut noose : and in Telagu, fVarlu Wahndlu, or Warlu Vayshay Wahndloo, meaning people who use the noose.
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