KALI (

See also:

• BLACK
• BLACK, ADAM (1784-1874)
• BLACK, JEREMIAH SULLIVAN (1810–1883)
• BLACK, WILLIAM (1841-1898)

black)  , or Kali Ma (the Black Mother), in Hindu mythology, the goddess of destruction and death, the wife of Siva . According to one theory, Calcutta owes its name to her, being originally Kalighat, " Kali's landing-place." Siva's consort has many names (e.g . Durga, Bhawani, Parvati, &c.) . Her idol is black, with four arms, and red palms to the hands . Her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are besmeared with blood . Her hair is matted, and she has projecting fang-like teeth, between which protrudes a tongue dripping with blood . She wears a necklace of skulls, her earrings are dead bodies, and she is girded with serpents . She stands on the body of Siva, to account for which attitude there is an elaborate legend . She is more worshipped in Gondwana and the forest tracts to the east and south of it than in any other part of India . Formerly human sacrifice was the essential of her ritual . The victim, always a male, was taken to her temple after sunset and imprisoned there . When morning came he was dead: the priests told the people that Kali had sucked his blood in the night .

At Dantewara in

Bastar there is a famous shrine of Kali under the name of Danteswari . Here many a human head has been presented on her altar . About 1830 it is said that upwards of twenty-five full-grown men were immolated at once by the raja . Cutting their flesh and burning portions of their body were among the acts of devotion of her worshippers . Kali is goddess of small-pox and cholera . The Thugs murdered their victims in her honour, and to her the sacred pickaxe, wherewith their graves were dug, was consecrated . The Hook-swinging Festival (Churruk or Churuck Puja), one of the most notable celebrations in honour of the goddess Kali, has now been prohibited in British territory . Those who had vowed themselves to self-torture submitted to be swung in the air supported only by hooks passed through the muscles over the blade-bones . These hooks were hung from a long crossbeam, which see-sawed upon a huge upright pole . Hoisted into the air by men pulling down the other end of the see-saw beam, the victim was then whirled round in a circle . The torture usually lasted fifteen or twenty minutes . See A .

A .

Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897) .