Bite the cartridge

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Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of Native Indian solidiers (sepoys) who had mutinied in 1857.

It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder in order to load contemporary rifles.

One of the alleged causes of the Indian Mutiny were rumours that the grease on these cartridges designed to keep them dry was, variously, pork or beef fat (pork being abhorrent to Muslims, beef to Hindus), thus their refusal to bite them.