Pickaxes of the Thuggee

[Jim McDougall]

Thanks very much Kronckew! that looks like a serious headache maker! It seems like it is similar to something that came up on a recent thread discussing some of the mace type weapons hafted with sword hilts in India. In discussing many of these I think we are reminded of the thin line parallel between weapons and tools.

All very best regards,
Jim

[kronckew]

weapons are after all, just a type of tool. something politicians tend to forget. the only thing separating it from any other hunk of steel is the mind using it...

entrenching tools themselves (at least the shovel types, as far as i know) were frequently used as trench warfare tools, a sharpened edge was as good as a sword. the russian spetznast are fond of throwing sharpened entrenching tools even today....

[BBJW]

The old movie "Gunga Din" with Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen has some very interesting weapons. It shows the "thugs" using a double pick like a 2 sided zaghnal. Worth a look.

bbjw

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by BBJW

The old movie "Gunga Din" with Cary Grant and Victor McLaglen has some very interesting weapons. It shows the "thugs" using a double pick like a 2 sided zaghnal. Worth a look.

bbjw

Revisiting old threads thought I'd add this.

[kronckew]

Looks like the prop dept. whittled a point on the haft of a std. pick-adze

[kronckew]

Found essentially no reference to thuggee picks, except one photo.
There were references to their weapons being the strangling cloth, for ritual murders. They carried katars for personal defence weapons. They were taught to murder by strangling as a murder that shed blood required the death penalty, but one that didn't shed blood only required non-lethal punishments.

[Gavin Nugent]

It's been over a decade since I read this title, and it was a very fascinating read.

Within, and given how long it has been, but I don't recall any weapon used or implied... if the title can be found on google books or Jstor or similar, you may be able to do a word search within... would be a quicker way to obtain key information.

Gavin

[BBJW]

Originally Posted by kronckew

weapons are after all, just a type of tool. something politicians tend to forget. the only thing separating it from any other hunk of steel is the mind using it...

entrenching tools themselves (at least the shovel types, as far as i know) were frequently used as trench warfare tools, a sharpened edge was as good as a sword. the russian spetznast are fond of throwing sharpened entrenching tools even today....

The Cold Steel company makes a very high quality copy of the Soviet Spetznast shovel. They sell for less than $20 and are very handy. I put one in all our vehicles.

bbjw