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 SUPREME

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA FOR ITS SUPPRESSION.

Compiled from Original and Authentic Documents published

BY CAPTAIN W. H. SLEEMAN,

SUPERINTENDENT OF THUG POLICE.

PHILADELPHIA:

CAREY & HART.

7

derers are called Thugs, signifying deceivers: in the Tamul language, they are called Ari Tulucar, or Mussulman noosers: in Canarese, Tanti Calleru, implying thieves, who use a wire or cat-gut noose: and in Telagu, Warlu Wahndlu, or Warlu Vayshay Wahndloo, meaning people who use the

noose.

There is no reason to believe that Europeans were aware of the existence of such criminals as Phansigars, until shortly after the conquest of Seringapatan in 1799; when about a hundred were apprehended in the vicinity of Bangalore. They did not engage general attention; nor would it appear that they were suspected to belong to a distinct class of hereditary murderers and plunderers, settled in various parts of India, and alike remarkable for the singularity of their practice, and the extent of their depredations. In the year 1807, between Chittoor and Arcot, several Phansigars were apprehended, belonging to a gang which had just returned, laden with booty, from an expedition to Travancore, and information was then obtained, which ultimately led to the developement of the habits, artifices, and combinations of these atrocious delinquents.

The Phansigars that infested the South of India a few years ago, were settled in Mysore, on the borders of that kingdom and the Carnatic, in the Balaghat districts, ceded to the Company by the Nizam in 1800, and they were particularly numerous in the Poliums of Chittoor. The sequestered part of the country, which comprehended these Poliums, maintaining little intercourse with the neighbouring districts, abounding in hills and fastnesses, and being immediately subject to several Polygars, afforded the Phansigars a convenient

and secure retreat; and the protection of the Polygars was extended to them, in common with other classes of robbers, in consideration of a settled contribution, or, which was more frequent, of sharing in the fruits of their rapacity.

It was impossible that such criminals as Phansigars, living by systematic plans of depredation, could long remain in the same place in safety, unless their practices were encouraged or connived at by persons in authority. . Hence, after the establishment of the Company's Government over the Carnatic, and the Districts ceded by the Nizam, and the consequent extinction of the power and influence of the Polygars, some of whom had succeeded in rendering themselves virtually independent of the former government, these murderers very generally changed their abodes, and frequently assumed other names.

While they lived under the protection of Polygars and other petty local authorities, and among people whose habits were in some respects analogous to their own, it was unnecessary to dissemble that they subsisted by depredation. They and their families lived peaceably with their neighbours, whom they never attempted to molest, and between whom there subsisted a reciprocation of interest in the purchase and disposal of the plunder which the Phansigars brought with them on returning from their expeditions. Afterwards, on the extension of the English government, it was usual for the Phansigars, while they continued their former practices, ostensibly to engage in the cultivation of land or some other occupation, to screen themselves from suspicion to which they must otherwise have been obnoxious.*

* They at all times engaged in the tillage of land even under

From this repository of undigested materials, the compiler of the volume now offered to the public, has endeavoured to form a clear and succinct account of the Thugs, their peculiar superstitions, 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 by 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 authorities 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 association was, or rather is, composed of many thousand persons; that by a process of early education and gradual training its members are brought to consider murder and robbery as no crimes, but rather as religious acts, well pleasing to their tutelary deity; and finally, that their measures have been so cunningly concerted, and carefully pursued, that until within a very recent period, not one 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

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 comprises, 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 brevity 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 influence the conduct of men under extraordinary circumstances, the whole will form a most curious and interesting study.