"Page 8
A Million Murders
Beginning the exciting series
-"Secret Societies”
by Rex Lawrence
The atmosphere was tense in Delhi's small court-house. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for. Behind a long oak table, Major-General Sir William Sloeman calmly arranged his papers. Then a court official lod in an old man named Buhram,
This was the climax of nearly five years of intensive investigation by Sir William into the activities of a secret society of homicidal maniacs.
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER....4; · 1958, ̧
Thugs
Buhram, lender of # band of wandering murderers, had turned King's evidence to save his own neck. In the next few hours, under Sir William's skil- ul cross-examination, he told of atrocities that stagger the imagination.
He explained the society's murder-for-gain doc- trine....the mysteries of an hereditary right to practise the art of murder....a religion that worshipped the goddess of destruction, Kali, the Black Mother. He exposed the innermost secrets of Thuggee. For three centuries, Thugs roamed the Indian countryside, murdering more than a million people, all of whom vanished without trace.
Buhram confessed that he had personally strangled 931 people in 40 years of killing as a Thug.
"Nine hundred and thirty-f According to the legend, the Thugs by making them hide
art of Thuggee came lato existence scon after the creation their victims. This, the
murders." Sir William repeated incredulously.
of the world. It was the result
warned, would
"Sahib," said the gulet-spoken of constant enmity, between the often lead to their detection and killer, "there were many more. Crcutive Power who had punishment.
but I stopped counting a few peopled the world too fast, and years ago when certain that I the Destructive Power, who would reach a thousand."
could not keep.up by his own efforts,
member
kang
of
To organised a386519, the killing was a religious rite and unremarkable.
Buhram, eonvinced
exper! Forced to resort to other of men means, the Destructive Power quite called on his consort. Kall, for
help.
number of
Kall assembled a her votaries, wham sho named Thugs, and instructed them in the art of Thuggre, a method of of the fast strangulation.
India
of burial so skilful that
But Thugs developed a system
only So vast was Kall's following Often in 19th century
that Initiates could detect f. they interred as many as thirty Thugs were always euro of find
one's Ing friends wherever they want. victims in a mass grave,
The head resting between another's Language was no barrier.
that Thugs had their own jargon, in- feet, yet left no evidence the earth had been disturbed.
comprehensible to the unini- tlated.
Thugs roamed
Then travelling, cacts Thug was assigned a specific task:
The solha acted as decoy and the highways induced avellers to join the of India in bands, sometimes divine protection of his goddess,
The logha had dealt death
hundreds Kall
and bar of Thugs 10 2 She endowed the Thugs with numbering battalion of mer
with the most intelligence and cunning superior mingled with peaceful travellers, was entrusted with the task of harmless looking: weapon in the to other men, then sent them to Te lure their victims to a pre- ing ahead and preparing the world-the rühmal, a
plece of desiny human beings, reward- selected place and murder them, grave-so that victims could be cloth not much biggor than 1 Ing. her followers
with the Thugs adopted many running buried with as little delay as possible. The shumslica acted as handkerchief.
plunder of their victims.
the executioner's anslatant victim's distancted the attention at the right moment, then seized him by the arms or was im lega. The bhuttote, or strangler,
devices.
One of these was to have a But in the hands of a trained At Arst, Thugs were excused Thug, the ruhmal was one of the the chere of disposing of the member of the gang faign sick- deadliest weapons ever devised bodies of their victims. Kall ness so that the party would It was about 30 inches in length, herself buried them. But astop. But if the prey with a knot in cae end end end of Thugs, after a success- portant enough they would even placed his ruhal around the
loop eighteen inches from it.
It a split second a Thug could garrotte his 'vietn with such dexterity that death was almost inariantaneous,
Info-ncus
ful expedition, hid behind some resort to bushes to watch Kali at work.
kitting one of their traveller's neck, garrotting him own mumber and sk their to a trice. Intended victim-usually a well- educated man-to offelate at the funeral.
In private life, Thugs were Many often respected citizens.
of
of India
HU SEALY
own father. Sometimes, spared Kall, Thugs were convincod, children of previpus victims had ordained their fate. were accepted into the seet.
It took the British authorities India more than 18 years to suppress this secret society of proċessional killers.
Thousands of Thugs were tried and executed. Moxy Like Buhram, turned King's evidence to save their own necks.
dancing-masters and women, ail of whom wero under Kall's own protection.
Fanatical. worshippers fil ofer spcrifice to her, But, TROWO-
victims are goats,
Kali is still worshipped in adays, the India Her
most honoured - They contended that she was temple stands on the backs of although only the other day an The goddess of Indian sacrificed his four-year- displeased because, after years of the Hooghly. successful killing. Thugs had be destruction is represented as a
byts, old son to Kali by decapitating un- black figure, with red come over-confident and
murdered religious Lang-like teeth. and, blood- Inwfully
him mendiconta Dil-men, potters, heared face.
WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?
The Coffins Would
IN Melbourne, Australia, in August 1956 a woman believed to be dead woke up in a mortuary, A few seconds later she would have been put in a freezing chamber.
The crizia of this
the To becothe a strangler, Displeased fraternity of robbers and mur-
at their lack of held high office in their own highest office in 'the art derers is not known. But Thugs talth- and embarrassed at village. But during their annual Thugges, a novice Tang, served had their own folk lore-a kind having been caught devouring a wanderings they became ruth- a long apprenticeship, usually of debased Eilndu mythology. torpse Kali punished the lena killers.
receiving instructions from his
Chronic
complicated
india
"Castle fever"
Cummings
“Of course, you can always vote for an alternative... this
".
Manp people throughout history have feared being buried alive in a coffin. Proposals are often made that a breathing hole should be
THE OLD
REGINE
Condition: Delirium
tremens
democracy."
made, in case a "dead" per-
son survived. But it would
Never Lie Still
THEY HAD MOVED EVERY TIME
VAULT WAS OPENED
also be necessary to let the agree to much a marriage.
some
But placed in their proper situations.
www
coffin stand for some days the young man was undeterred Three were on the ground, sido In a convenient place as is and promptly built the coin- by side, and the others laid on shaped house. This ingentity them. The only door was then the custom
stone, in
a massive father closed, and so impressed the girl's parts of Germany. -
that he did consent after all to which six or seven men her, marriage.
needed to move, was cemented In place by masons, Though the floor was of sand, there were no footprinta.
The burial above ground which is given to a chlet in the Solomon Islands would not help
But the strangest of all stories
Lord, Combermere,
at all. His body is first cremated concerning covina ie that of the and the ashes placed with his skull and a supply of food in a mysterious vault in Barbados. large decorated coffin erected on Stace 1807, no one kas dared posts carved roughly to repre- seat laman figures..
to deposit bodies in the vault because the coffins never keep the island.
Tossed Around
Governor
of Herbados, was present the last tline the vault wils opened, and he saw how some of the coins had turned completely around. All this gave rise to superstitious fear and years of speculation, la
Many theorios were put for- ward to account for the moved
The vault is in a churchyard coffins, but none has been very No earthquake
The natives believe that the nese the son. First person to be antsfactory. chier's ghost will have great buried there was a fire Goddard tremors had been felt in Bar- - power, and woe beilde anyone in 1807. A Miss AM Chase bados and there was no sign of who passes near,one of these followed in 1808, and in 1812 the water having been in the vault, strange shrines." -
coffine were joined by another not-seen ad Impossible that containing the body of Miss D. flooding might have moved the Coffins are believed to have Chase.
cofftris,
been invented by the Egyptians thousands of years before Christ.
Thon, they were made of stone. Secret Visits ?
.earthenware, glans or wood Be-
lieving that stone consumed the
flesh of the corpse, the Egyptians
Secret vilts by naives were riled out, at the vault bad detable wells of masonry as well „as the 'huga marble stál at the entrance. No signs of inter- ference were seen.
called such ù cqma à Bar- At the end of 1812, the vauli cophagus," which means flesh was opened for the body of the Among carly Honourable Thomas Chase, and consuming.
Sir Arthair Conan Doyle, Romans, as in India for cen- it was found that the first three creator of "Sherlock Holmes", turies, cremation mado coffins conths were in a confused state. was convinced! the_psychic
unnecessary.
They had apparently been todoed, flature of this moved coins, dis from their positions. The same theories were not very con In England there is at least one dader was found when a vincing and brought the mystery. boure shaped like a codin—a child's body was later taken to no nearer to a dolution, Brithara, in Devoti. The local the vault and again in. 1818
Losund is that a Brigham girl when a ke Brewster body was. There is no doube that the coffins did wlove time and AEONS, Tali in tove with the black sheep then there
bus tha edure, wollt, probabl
at the town. Her father "WAR
furious and suki bo would Each time the vault was reingin' a mystery until the end zyther so bez in her coulas than "opened; the coline werk re- of tiene,