820 



THUGS TIN. 



of Thuggee in their families for more generations, 

 mid have adhered with greater strictness to the 

 rules of their profession than those who are of 

 IMili origin. They also refuse to intermarry with 

 the families of the latter, saying, they are of 

 lower caste, and formerly 'drove bullocks and 

 were itinerant tradesmen.' This point was warmly 

 disputed hy the northern and southern Thugs 

 before Captain Sleeman. It was admitted by some 

 of the northern men that, at their funerals, the 

 women who bring the water, chant the occupations 

 of the ancestors of the deceased, in a manner which 

 shows that they were originally descended from 

 gangs of wandering Mussulmans, who followed 

 armies, and lived in the suburbs of cities and in the 

 wild wastes, and that their pretensions to higher 

 descent were unfounded. Others acknowledged, 

 that at marriages an old matron will sometimes 

 repeat as she throws down the toolsee * ' Here's 

 to the spirits of those who once led bears and 

 monkeys; to those who drove bullocks, and marked 

 with the godneejf and those who made baskets for 

 the head ; ' but others, who were more zealous for 

 the honour of their tribe, insisted that these were 

 only disguises assumed by their ancestors to enable 

 them to practise their trade in greater safety. 



It is admitted on all hands, that two of the ori- 

 ginal seven clans of northern Thugs, which did 

 not, like the others, settle at Agra after their ex- 

 pulsion from Dehli, retain their wandering habits to 

 this day ; and there seems reason to suspect, that 

 most of the gipsy tribes who are to be found in all 

 parts of India, but are most numerous to the north 

 and west, practise Thuggee as occasion offers. 



The account which the Thugs give of the first 

 establishment of their profession will explain the 

 nature of its pretensions to a divine origin. 



' The Thugs have a tradition that a demon, by 

 name Rukut Beej Dana, infested the world, and 

 devoured mankind as often as they were born or 

 created ; and to enable the world to be peopled, 

 Ralee Davey determined to put him to death. 

 This demon, they say, was so tall that the deepest 

 ocean never reached above his waist; and he could, 

 consequently, walk over the world at his ease. 

 Kalee Davey attacked him, and cut him down ; but 

 from every drop of his blood another demon arose, 

 and as she cut them down, from every drop of their 

 blood another demon sprung up, and the numbers 

 increased at this geometrical rate, until she became 

 fatigued with the labour. On this she formed two 

 men from the sweat brushed off from one of her 

 arms; and giving them each a handkerchief, told 

 them to put all these demons to death, without 

 allowing one drop of their blood to fall on the 

 ground. After their labour was over, they offered 

 to return to the goddess the handkerchiefs with 

 which they had done their work ; but she desired 

 them to keep them as the instruments of a trade 

 by which their posterity were to earn their subsis- 

 tence, and to strangle men with these handker- 

 chiefs, as they had strangled the demons, and live 

 by the plunder they acquired ; and having been the 

 means of enabling the world to get provided with 

 men by the destruction of the demons, their pos- 

 terity would be entitled to take a few for their 

 own use." 



'i'he goddess also told them that they might 

 leave the bodies of their victims on the ground, 



- pi-ymum sanctum. Tulsee was a nymph beloved bv 



md by him turned into this plant. 

 f Needle used in tattooing. 



and she would take care that they should be 

 removed, provided they never looked back to see 

 how she disposed of them. On one occasion, how- 

 ever, a slave had the audacity to look back, and 

 saw the goddess without any clothes on, devour- 

 ing the bodies and throwing them about in the 

 air. Her modesty and dignity were naturally 

 offended, and she told them, that in future, they 

 must bury the bodies themselves; but from some 

 remains of compassion for her ancient followers, 

 she bestowed on them a pick-axe endowed with 

 various supernatural qualities. 



A pick-axe is consecrated by each gang before 

 setting out on an expedition, and is regarded by a 

 Thug much in the same light as his sword is by a 

 soldier. It is the mark of his profession ; he 

 swears by it, and under such an awful sanction, 

 that the person who forswears himself will, within 

 two or three days, 'die a horrid death; his head 

 will turn round, his face towards his back, and he 

 will writhe in tortures till he dies.' The sound of 

 the consecrated pick-axe is never heard in digging 

 a grave by any except a Thug. It is carried by 

 the shrewedest, cleanest, and most sober and care- 

 ful man of the party in his waist-belt. While in 

 camp, he buries it in a secure place with its point 

 in the direction they intend to go ; and if another 

 direction is better, its point will be found changed. 

 Formerly it used to be thrown into a well, whence 

 it would come up of itself, when summoned with 

 the appropriate ceremonies ; but since the northern 

 Thugs have begun to do what is forbidden, and 

 neglected what is enjoined, it has lost that virtue, 

 as far as they are concerned. In the Deccan, 

 where the primitive spirit of Thuggee has not 

 been departed from, this is still the case. ' During 

 a whole expedition that I made with them,' says a 

 northern Thug, who served a campaign with the 

 people of his own profession, in the south, ' Imam 

 Khan and his brother carried the pick-axe, and I 

 heard them repeatedly in the morning call them 

 from the well into which they had thrown them 

 overnight, and saw the pick-axes come of them- 

 selves from the well, and fall into their aprons, 

 which they held open thus Here he described the 

 mode.' 



The most ordinary and effectual mode, however, 

 in which the goddess interferes in behalf of her 

 votaries, is by means of omens. These are con- 

 sidered by the Thugs as signs expressly appointed 

 to guide them to their prey, or to warn them of 

 approaching danger; and no member of the frater- 

 nity doubts, that if these omens had been attended 

 to and the other prescribed rules observed, the 

 system of Thuggee must have flourished under the 

 auspices of its divine patroness, in spite of all our 

 efforts for its suppression. 



TIN, (a.) The principal tin-mines of Cornwall 

 are in the south-west part of the county, in the 

 parish of St Just, where the country consists prin- 

 cipally of granite; but there are several productive 

 mines in the slate in other places. Some tin- 

 mines are worked under the bed of the sea. One 

 was opened actually in the sea some years ago. It 

 was called Wherry Mine, and was situated near the 

 shore, a little to the west of Penzance, where a 

 rock of elvan, which had been found to contain 

 slender veins of ore, was uncovered at low water. 

 An adventurous miner set to work, although the 

 rock was covered several feet deep at every tide, 

 so that he could only proceed during a part of the 

 day. Every time the men returned to their work 



