What A Thug’s Life Looked Like In 19th Century India
During a 1906 meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir William Turner submitted part three of his research “Contributions to the Craniology of the People of the Empire of India.” Included were the photographs of individual skulls from a group who the British Medical Journal said “made it their business to frequent the great highways of India and become friendly with travelers, with a view to setting upon them and strangling them.”
We all know this because of Indiana jones
“Soon, Kali Ma will rule the world!” – Mola Ram
I love it how really polite middle class gardeners describe a plant that has a tendancy to dominate space and other plants surrounding it as “an absolute thug”
What are they living in? A Savage Garden?
I heard about this on Mark Twain’s world travel diary, “Following the Equator”, where he spends some time in India.
It’s on the public domain and it’s a good read. There’s an audiobook version of this chapter here, by LibriVox:
https://ia800209.us.archive.org/3/items/following_the_equator_0910_librivox/equator_46_twain.mp3
The first time fingerprinting was seriously used as a crime investigation technique was to catch the Thuggee.
They would often be law abiding people much of the year before coming together to commit robbery/murders. A new level of forensics was required to catch them.
#THUGGEE LIFFEE.
Imagine living off robbing and murdering people like they did. It is, of course, possible, even now. Roads are economic veins, there are places for leeches. But establish a big group around that when being consistent at the job would absolutely call for involvement of the military or mercenaries? There’s no way to bribe your way out of their specific kind of business, something doesn’t add up.