the
Hindu goddess of
death and
destruction. She is depicted as being black and four-armed with
red palms and eyes. She has matted hair and fanglike teeth. Her tongue, face and breasts are blood-stained. She wears a necklace of skulls, earrings of corpses and is girdled with serpents. The thugs, who terrorized many parts of
India until they were suppressed by the British in the nineteenth century, practiced a
ritual of robbery by deceit and strangulation in the name of
Kali. In
India, on the darkest night of November, goats are slain as sacrifices to her.
See also thuggee in this glossary. —Melbourne Congress Approved Glossary (2.4.92)