Also 8–9 sati, 9 satti, shuttee. [a. Skr. (Hindī, Urdū) satī faithful or virtuous wife, fem. of sat good, wise, honest, lit. being, pr. pple. of as to be (see BE v.).]
1. A Hindu widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile with her husband’s body.
1786. in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1821), 3. We were informed the suttee (for that is the name given to the person who so devotes herself) had passed, and her track was marked by the goolol and betel leaf, which she had scattered as she went along. Ibid., 4. As the suttee ascends the pile, she is furnished with a lighted taper.
1787. Sir W. Jones, Lett., in Ld. Teignmouth, Mem. (1804), 295. My mother … became a sati, and burned herself to expiate sins.
1881. Tylor, Anthropology, xiv. (1904), 347. There are ‘native’ districts in India where the suttee or ‘goodwife’ is still burnt on her husband’s funeral pile.
1895. Mrs. B. M. Croker, Village Tales (1896), 127. Her relations drove her to the faggots, for the family of a suttee are held in much esteem.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 14 March, 10/1. The accused Juggernath Missir, beyond saying that his mother died as ‘sati’ on the same day that his father died, refused to make any statement.
fig. 1849. Thackeray, in Scribner’s Mag., I. 687/1. You dear Suttees, you get ready and glorify in being martyrized.
2. The immolation of a Hindu widow in this way. Phr. to do, perform suttee.
The custom was abolished by authority in British India in 1829.
1813. in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1821), 33. To require that any express leave … be required, previously to the performance of the act of ‘suttee.’
1877. Encycl. Brit., VI. 778/2. Suttee in native states … he [sc. Lord Dalhousie] kept down with an iron hand.
1885. Times (weekly ed.), 2 Oct., 12/2. A ceremony called a ‘cold suttee’ is described in books on Hindoo customs. When the relatives had a very nice sense of honour, and a widow’s proclivities outraged it, they made a feast at which she was the principal guest. She was sumptuously regaled and at the end drugged to death.
fig. 1833. T. Hook, Love & Pride, Widow, vii. Pratt … gave an account of the proceedings at one of these European suttees.
1859. G. Meredith, R. Feverel, xxxix. He had become resigned to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct rival.
1882. Miss Braddon, Mt. Royal, I. i. 4. A widower of that kind ought to perform suttee.
attrib. 1823. in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1825), 13. Any general proposition for abolishing the suttee immolation.
Hence Sutteeism, the practice of suttee.
1830. Standard, 6 April, 3/1. The Earl of Derby presented a petition from Preston against the practice of sutteeism.
1846. in Worcester (citing Ec. Rev.).
1867. Eclectic Rev. (N.S.), XIII. 94. The Sutteeism of China is by self-strangulation.
1869. Daily News, 6 Oct. The miserable condition of Hindoo widows after the custom of sutteeism was done away with.
