Talk:Thuggee

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Cult?

How do we define cult? IRL Wikipedia does use the word cult occasionally in conjunction with Thugee society and notes their particular devotion to Kali. However it also notes the biases of British sources. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 03:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the Thuggees to say whether they were a cult in real-life or not. I reverted the category addition to err on the side of caution (and stimulate discussion if any). I only have read or heard criticisms before about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that its depiction of the Thuggees in almost every way, especially in their worship of Kali, is highly fictionalized. I would take whatever Wikipedia says with a grain of salt given that they were wrong about the youxia and Mohist connection. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Outside Indy criticisms, one (paywalled :/ unfortunately) academic source I can find on the group with a quick Google has these partial excerpts, if it helps any::

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of thuggee is its supposed character as a form of Kali-worship...A striking feature of the vast amount of literature on thuggee is thus the huge discrepancies in the representation of the subject...This is how the journalist George Bruce evoked the mystery of thuggee in 1968 thus continuing one of the most enduring myths of colonial India—that of the thugs who in the [words cut off] strangled and plundered travellers...

— Wagner, Kim A. (6 October 2004). "The Deconstructed Stranglers: A Reassessment of Thuggee". Modern Asian Studies 38, 4 931-963. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 18 August 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X04001258, emphasis added

I also found Bhattacharya, Sagnik (4 May 2020). "Monsters in the dark: the discovery of Thuggee and demographic knowledge in colonial India". Palgrave Communications 6, 1 1-9. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 18 August 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0458-8, a more recent open-source article from Nature that cites Wagner's piece and from its abstract says Thuggee were the archetypal monstrous Other for British colonial officials and public alike to fear. – Darman (talk) 13:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)