Suttees

Even quartoes, if tolerably well-seasoned with suttees and sandalwood, went down; now, every genteel family has its "own correspondent," per favour of the Red Sea; and the best printed account of Cabul would fall stillborn from the press. ❋ Various (N/A)

"The British Government is putting a stop to that," he added hastily, "and to suttees --" ❋ Joseph Hergesheimer (1917)

Listen to them, father - two suttees, side by side - I've seen the pyres and the scaffolds - do they jump into the flames, father, from the scaffolds? ❋ Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 (1914)

It makes marriage obligatory, but compels the wife to adore the husband no matter how cruel he is, permitting him to reject her at will; it encourages poly - gamy, approves of the harem, and authorizes the burning of widows in the suttees which the Bntish Goverment has not yet succeeded in preventing. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)

In laboring for the overthrow of American slavery you are pursuing a course of Christian duty as legitimate as in laboring to suppress the suttees of India, the cannibalism of the Fejee Islands, and other barbarities of heathenism, of which human slavery is but a relic. ❋ Harriet Beecher Stowe (1853)

The following conversation took place one morning between me and a native gentleman at Jubbulpore soon after suttees had been prohibited by Government: -- ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

Interesting and well-told narratives of several suttees will be found in Bernier, ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

'But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become suttees.' ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

As suttees are now prohibited in our dominions [3] and cannot be often seen or described by Europeans, I shall here relate the circumstances of this as they were recorded by me at the time, and the reader may rely upon the truth of the whole tale. ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

We went, and she told us that she had been our mother in a former birth, and wished to see us once more before she died; she blessed us, and prayed that we might have each five sons, and then told us to arrange for her funeral pile at Lasoora, as all her former five suttees had been performed at that place. ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

That suttees were formerly very numerous in Oude is manifest from the numerous suttee tombs we see in the vicinity of every town and almost every village; but the Rajpoots never felt much interested in them; they were not necessary either to their pride or purse. ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

They dare not become suttees, sir, with the murder of so many innocent children on their heads. ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

I can see her still, a tall lovely girl all in white and gold, blood on her face where her nose-stud had been ripped away, one hand gripping her head-veil beneath her chin, the other raised as she damned 'em root and branch, foretelling that the race of Sikhs would be overthrown within the year, their women widowed, and their land conquered and laid waste - and suttees, you know, are supposed to have the gift of prophecy. ❋ Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- (1990)

Jawaheer's body was brought, in several pieces, to the city on the day after his death, and the procession to the ground of cremation took place under a red evening sky, before an enormous throng, with little Dalip and Jeendan and most of the nobility prostrating themselves before the suttees - two wives, stately handsome girls, and three Kashmiri slaves, the prettiest wenches ever you saw, all in their best finery with jewelled studs in their ears and noses and gold embroidery on their silk trousers. ❋ Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- (1990)

Jawaheer's body was brought, in several pieces, to the city on the day after his death, and the procession to the ground of cremation took place under a red evening sky, before an enormous throng, with little Dalip and Jeendan and most of the nobility prostrating themselves before the suttees — two wives, stately handsome girls, and three Kashmiri slaves, the prettiest wenches ever you saw, all in their best finery with jewelled studs in their ears and noses and gold embroidery on their silk trousers. ❋ Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- (1990)

I can see her still, a tall lovely girl all in white and gold, blood on her face where her nose-stud had been ripped away, one hand gripping her head-veil beneath her chin, the other raised as she damned 'em root and branch, foretelling that the race of Sikhs would be overthrown within the year, their women widowed, and their land conquered and laid waste — and suttees, you know, are supposed to have the gift of prophecy. ❋ Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- (1990)

In India, and indeed throughout the East, there exists a like connection between the pitiless tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the rigid restraint of unchangeable customs: the caste regulations continue still unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in short, "every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim of jurisprudence." ❋ Herbert Spencer (1861)

I asked the old lady when she had first resolved upon becoming a suttee, and she told me that about thirteen years before, while bathing in the river Nerbudda, near the spot where she then sat, with many other females of the family, the resolution had fixed itself in her mind as she looked at the splendid temples on the bank of the river erected by the different branches of the family over the ashes of her female relations who had at different times become suttees. ❋ William Sleeman (1822)

"No, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "how should such women be worthy to become suttees? ❋ William Sleeman (1822)