Bloody Kali patron goddess of the Thugs Poster

Clutching a severed head and sword, bloody Kali, patron goddess of the Thugs, dances atop a corpse at an Indian cremation ground. Thuggee also known as tuggee or simply thugs, were organised gangs of professional assassins who travelled in groups across India for several hundred years. They were devoted to Kali, a Hindu goddess associated with violence and sexuality. They were first mentioned in the Ẓiyāʾ-ud-Dīn Baranī (English: History of Fīrūz Shāh) dated around 1356. In the 1830s they were targeted by William Bentinck, along with his chief captain William Henry Sleeman, for eradication. They were seemingly destroyed by this effort. According to some estimates the Thugs murdered 1 million people between 1740 and 1840. The Thugs would join travellers and gain their confidence. This would allow them to then surprise and strangle their victims by tossing a handkerchief or noose around their necks. The killings were performed in honour of the Hindu goddess Kali and were very ritualistic. They would then rob their victims of valuables and bury their bodies. This led them to also be called Phansigar (English: using a noose), a term more commonly used in southern India. The term Thuggee is derived from Hindi word ठग, or ṭhag, which means thief. Related words are the verb thugna, to deceive, from Sanskrit स्थग sthaga meaning cunning, sly, fraudulent, dishonest, scoundrel, from स्थगति sthagati (English: he conceals). This term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers is popular in South Asia and particularly in India. The story of Thuggee was popularised by books such as Philip Meadows Taylor's novel Confessions of a Thug, 1839, leading to the word "thug" entering the English language.