Thuggery has been around for a while. More than 700 years, to be a little more precise.
It is an ancient example of organised crime. India’s Thuggee had been murdering, man and boy, at least since 1290, when the first evidence of their existence bubbled to the surface like a black spring in 1356.
The Sultan of fourteenth century Delhi carried out some intelligence work and persuaded one Thuggee to turn 1,000 of his comrades over to the city.
Their job, it seems, was to murder travellers, usually by garotting them. Thus journeyers made their way in caravans. The Thuggees sent a small number of its members to infiltrate the caravan. They might spend hundreds of miles gaining the trust of the travellers before opening the way for their comrades to murder everyone.
But once he had uncovered them, the Sultan did not execute them.
Instead, he had them put onto boats and sailed far, far away, to a part of the country where they would never bother Delhi again.
He showed this unusual respect because no-one was ever quite sure whether these warrior-brigands were in the employ of a goddess. Kala is the Hindu goddess of eternal energy. But her name is derived from the word kala which means blackness and Death. Word has it, Death in this writhing, exquisite female form was the Thuggee’s patron.
Their modus operandum was zero tolerance. Not one traveller must escape to raise the alarm. The Thuggee schtick involved caravans going missing, as mysterious as planes in the Bermuda Triangle.
The British empire made life tough for Thuggees. They used intelligence and advanced techniques of detection, and they made it worth their while to turn states evidence. There was no mention of them by the time the twentieth century dawned.
Except that word: thug. It no longer carries the connotations it once did. Thugs now are not murderers, neither scheming or intelligent. Now they are just heavies.
We have experienced twenty-first century thugs: four-legged, though, not two-legged.
Just before the millennium, we and our no children and two cats were settled in a comfortable Kentish commuter’s haven.
Our street, which backed onto fields which stretched to the Medway River, was not over-populated by cats. My two – dubbed Kit Kat and Tuppence – were very happy going in and coming out, conducting their business.
If the cats related to each other at all it was very much as Terry Pratchett put it, in his scholarly tome, “The Unadulterated Cat”. They played Cat Chess.
Humans have never quite worked out the rules to this game of complex feline logic, but the cats seem to know what they are doing. Look out of the window in a British suburb and they’ll all be there: watching each other. And one will make a move, no-one knows why, and claim a new piece of territory. And everyone will adjust their positions accordingly.
This gentle feline pavane was how my cats experienced their peers. All was as serene as an English garden party.
One day, I saw a job in the paper. I could do it, all right: but it would mean moving to the Wild West.
We sold the house and moved, lock, stock and barrel, to the most picturesque 18th century cottage you could imagine, with roses round the door and a stunning garden stretching down to an early celtic church complete with bells.
Oh, I thought as I looked around: the cats will just love this.
We packed them into cat boxes and drove them for seven hours to their new lair.
After an appropriate period inside they put tentative paws across the threshold. And met the neighbours with all speed.
Two cottages down lived a household of free spirits. They lived life authentically, on a shoestring, and with passion. We loved them: they were even more colourful than we were.
Their daughter was into animal rights. The day they sent the hunt past the door she was out there. shaking her fist at the ladies on horseback, there in the shady lane as the horses drank at the ford.
She worked at a cat sanctuary. And inevitably, the hopeless cases came to live with her.
Terry Pratchett has a lovely term for these thuggish creatures: Boot faced cats.
He tells us: “Boot-faced cats aren’t born but made, often because they’ve tried to outstare or occasionally rape a speeding car and have been repaired by a vet who just pulled all the bits together and stuck the stitches in where there was room.”
There were nine such cats living feet away from our front door. Safety and security was a thing of the past. This was Cat War.
Remember, according to Hollywood, there is only one option in David and Goliath matches like this one.
It’s the triceratops-versus-tyrannosaurus solution. You get the baddies fighting one another so much, they forget about you.
This, I am certain, is what Tuppence and Kit Kat proceeded to do. My evidence? The number of caterwauling sessions which took place outside our cottage windows while our two were curled up on the duvet.
They had an expression on their face which indicated they were immensely pleased with themselves.
Shall we call it: Smuggee?
Kate Shrewsday 
Ahhhhh cats. Absolutely no other creature like them in the world. Of course, that’s obvious. There’s no other creature like any other creature in the world, even among the same species, but cats are TRULY unique. You can see them think – when they’ll let you – much as my beloved Popoki.
Here’s to Tuppence and Kit Kat! Are they yet among the living, or have they joined their fellow smug ones in feline heaven?
Kit Kat’s still here…but she’s a very old lady…
One wonders if the names Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer ever occored to you for these cats?
It is quite possible they went by those names, Pseu 😀
In many parts of Miami the thugs own the night and there are drive by shootings and children getting hit by stray bullets all the time. I have just moved to a much safer place but it is really costing me. Poor Mexico. Over 35,000 innocent people have been killed in the crossfire of the drug lords in the last decade.
The thuggee may have disappeared in India but thuggery is alive and well, Carl, it seems. This time travellers aren’t the target but residents. So hard for the ordinary man or woman in the street to live under constant threat.
I love the image of your picturesque 18th century cottage . . . with roses round the door and a stunning garden stretching down to an early celtic church complete with bells.
I’ve also a request . . . some day please tackle the Bermuda Triangle. I’m sure you can shed some light on the mysterious disappearances that have taken place in its confines. 😀
It was impossibly pretty, Nancy. The shame is that I was doing a job which meant I rarely got to enjoy it: and the local vicar was my chair of governors, so when the bells pealed out across the valley on a Sunday – priceless moment – al I could think of were the things I needed to tell him the next day…/
Your faith in me is considerable:not sure solving the Bermuda Triangle is within my power; but for for you, Nancy, anything.
I’ll put it on my list.
You need not “solve” the mysteries . . . but I’d love to see you shine the spotlight on them for a few minutes in the wonderful way you do. 😀
I’m on it 🙂
YOur cats do seem to have considerable powers
Re the naming of cats, pedigreed cats have at least 3, non-pedigreed cats have at least 2.
The first (for some) is the name on the paper proclaiming their predigree.
The second is the name you (their 4 legged slave) use to refer to them when talking about them to other 4 legged slaves
And the third (and fourth etc) is/are the name(s) you give them when talking to them.
It all comes down to a very nice Danish proverb which says “A much loved child has many names)
That is so true, Sidey…names evolve too…over years KK’s name has found its way towards Skittleykattley….
A lovely post, as always, cats do own us, don’t they?
We are simply their staff, Cindy…
Kala, she has always been so misunderstood…as for cats, most unusual creatures, especially Siamese ~
Tuppence was half siamese. I loved him dearly. Such a chatterbox: and a ‘heavy’ without being heavy…
Cats rule the world; they just haven’t bothered to tell us.
Why bother? They have everything just the way it should be 😀
Honestly, this one is really funny. The wild west? Darling, you’ve not been to Arizona – where cats would do a better job than our current gov’t.
LOL One day, Tammy, I will see the real thing and meet the real cats 😀
ha, ha – smuggee – great word and describes the cat-type perfectly
😀 They seemed very pleased with themselves, BB
Ha, ha! smuggee indeed!
😀
LOVE this, Kate, including the pic! Thanks for the term “cat chess” which I’ll never forget 😀 I so relate to all of this and am happy that Jina (our Norwegian Forest Cat; one of the most recently domesticated breeds apparently) is eight now. She spends a lot more time being a “smuggee” than roaming around on countless adventures. We were saying the other day that putting a helmet-cam on her could be fascinating!
I highly recommend Terry Pratchett’s Unadulterated Cat, Naomi, if you liked Cat Chess. I spent every page guffawing: his wit seems to be concentrated when he talks about our four legged friends.
CatCam. Now there’s an idea.
Smuggee! A new word! Exactly what I need to describe William and Ernest when invaders tiptoe along the top of the patio fence.
Let us hope they continue smuggee, secure and happy, Kathy.