The Gypsies Part 28

"Me penava tuki apopli chomani cho'haunes. Le vini o sar covva te suverena apre o pani, pa lenia, pa doeyav. Te asar i paneskri mullos kon jivena adre o pani rakkerena keti puveskri chovihanis. Si ma.n.u.sh dikela pano panna, te partan te diklo apre o pani te lela lis, adovo sikela astis lel a pireni, o yuzhior te o kushtidir o partan se, o kushtidir i rakli. Si latchesa ran apre o pani, dovo sikela sastis kur tiro wafedo geero. Chokka or curro apre o pani penela tu tevel sig atch kamelo sar tiri pireni, te pireno. Te safrani ruzhia pa pani dukerena sonaki, te pauni, rupp, te loli, kammaben."

"Kana latchesa klisin, dovo se buti bacht. Vonka haderesa lis apre, pen o ma.n.u.sheskro te rakleskri nav, te yan wena kamlo o tute. Butidir bacht si lullo dori te tav. Rikker lis, sikela kushti kamaben. Man nasher lis avri tiro zi miri chavi."

"Nanei, bibi, kekker."

WITCHCRAFT. {327}

"My dear aunt, I wish very much to be a witch. I would like to enchant people and to know secret things. You can teach me all that."

"Oh, my darling! if you come to be a witch, and the Gentiles know it, you will have much trouble. All the children will cry aloud, and make a noise and throw stones at you when they see you, and perhaps the grown-up people will kill you. But it is nice to know secret things; pleasant for a poor old humble woman whom all the world spits upon to know how to do them evil and pay them for their cruelty. And I _will_ teach you something of witchcraft. Listen! When thou wilt tell a fortune, put all thy heart into finding out what kind of a man or woman thou hast to deal with. Look [keenly], fix thy glance sharply, especially if it be a girl.

When she is half-frightened, she will tell you much without knowing it.

When thou shalt have often done this thou wilt be able to twist many a silly girl like twine around thy fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a snake's, and when thou art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half the business, my dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure people. When a girl has anything unusual in her face, you must tell her that it signifies extraordinary luck. If she have red or yellow hair, tell her that is a true sign that she will have much gold. When her eyebrows meet, that shows she will be united to many rich gentlemen.

Tell her always, when you see a mole on her cheek or her forehead or anything, that is a sign she will become a great lady. Never mind where it is, on her body,--tell her always that a mole or fleck is a sign of greatness. _Praise her up_. And if you see that she has small hands or feet, tell her about a gentleman who is wild about pretty feet, and how a pretty hand brings more luck than a pretty face. Praising and petting and alluring and crying-up are half of fortune-telling. There is no girl and no man in all the Lord's earth who is not proud and vain about something, and if you can find it out you can get their money. If you can, pick up all the gossip about people."

"But, my aunt, that is all humbug. I wish much to learn real witchcraft.

Tell me if there are no real witches, and how they look."

"A real witch, my child, has eyes like a bird, the corner turned up like the point of a curved pointed knife. Many Jews and un-Christians have such eyes. And witches' hairs are drawn out from the beginning [roots]

and straight, and then curled [at the ends]. When Gentile witches have green eyes they are the most [to be] dreaded.

"I will tell you something magical. When you find a pen or an iron nail, and then a piece of paper, you should write on it with the pen all thou wishest, and eat it, and thou wilt get thy wish. But thou must write all in thy own blood. If thou findest by the sea a great sh.e.l.l or an old pitcher [cup, etc.], put it to your ear: you will hear a noise. If you can, when the full moon s.h.i.+nes sit quite naked in her light and listen to it; every night the noise will become more distinct, and then thou wilt hear the fairies talking plainly enough. When you make a hole with a stone in a tomb go there night after night, and erelong thou wilt hear what the dead are saying. Often they tell where money is buried. You must take a stone and turn it around in the tomb till a hole is there.

"I will tell you something more witchly. Observe [take care] of everything that swims on water, on rivers or the sea. For so the water-spirits who live in the water speak to the earth's witches. If a man sees cloth on the water and gets it, that shows he will get a sweetheart; the cleaner and nicer the cloth, the better the maid. If you find a staff [stick or rod] on the water, that shows you will beat your enemy. A shoe or cup floating on the water means that you will soon be loved by your sweetheart. And yellow flowers [floating] on the water foretell gold, and white, silver, and red, love.

"When you find a key, that is much luck. When you pick [lift it] up, utter a male or female name, and the person will become your own. Very lucky is a red string or ribbon. Keep it. It foretells happy love. Do not let this run away from thy soul, my child."

"No, aunt, never."

THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES.

This chapter contains in abridged form the substance of papers on the origin of the gypsies and their language, read before the London Philological Society; also of another paper read before the Oriental Congress at Florence in 1878; and a _resume_ of these published in the London _Sat.u.r.day Review_.

It has been repeated until the remark has become accepted as a sort of truism, that the gypsies are a mysterious race, and that nothing is known of their origin. And a few years ago this was true; but within those years so much has been discovered that at present there is really no more mystery attached to the beginning of these nomads than is peculiar to many other peoples. What these discoveries or grounds of belief are I shall proceed to give briefly, my limits not permitting the detailed citation of authorities. First, then, there appears to be every reason for believing with Captain Richard Burton that the Jats of Northwestern India furnished so large a proportion of the emigrants or exiles who, from the tenth century, went out of India westward, that there is very little risk in a.s.suming it as an hypothesis, at least, that they formed the _Hauptstamm_ of the gypsies of Europe. What other elements entered into these, with whom we are all familiar, will be considered presently.

These gypsies came from India, where caste is established and callings are hereditary even among out-castes. It is not a.s.suming too much to suppose that, as they evinced a marked apt.i.tude for certain pursuits and an inveterate attachment to certain habits, their ancestors had in these respects resembled them for ages. These pursuits and habits were that

They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers.

They dealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them.

They were without religion.

They were unscrupulous thieves.

Their women were fortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy.

They ate without scruple animals which had died a natural death, being especially fond of the pig, which, when it has thus been "butchered by G.o.d," is still regarded even by prosperous gypsies in England as a delicacy.

They flayed animals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for these and similar detested callings that in several European countries they long monopolized them.

They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articles of wood.

They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers, acrobats; and it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardly a traveling company of such performers or a theatre, in Europe or America, in which there is not at least one person with some Romany blood.

Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain it longer than do Europeans or ordinary Orientals.

They speak an Aryan tongue, which agrees in the main with that of the Jats, but which contains words gathered from other Indian sources. This is a consideration of the utmost importance, as by it alone can we determine what was the agglomeration of tribes in India which formed the Western gypsy.

Admitting these as the peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step should be to consider what are the princ.i.p.al nomadic tribes of gypsies in India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of the Romany of Europe. That the Jats probably supplied the main stock has been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India, which at one time had such power as to obtain important victories over the caliphs.

They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century by Mahmoud, many thousands of them wandering to the West. They were without religion, "of the horse, horsey," and notorious thieves. In this they agree with the European gypsy. But they are not habitual eaters of _mullo balor_, or "dead pork;" they do not devour everything like dogs. We cannot ascertain that the Jat is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat and basket maker, a rope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a peddler. We do not know whether they are peculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged to old age, as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of these things are, however, markedly characteristic of certain different kinds of wanderers, or gypsies, in India. From this we conclude, hypothetically, that the Jat warriors were supplemented by other tribes,--chief among these may have been the Dom,--and that the Jat element has at present disappeared, and been supplanted by the lower type.

The Doms are a race of gypsies found from Central India to the far northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appears as the Domarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In "The People of India,"

edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum, 1868), we are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms indicate a marked difference from those of the people who surround them (in Behar). The Hindus admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the Shastras is Sopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers; they make baskets and mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white."

The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers.

Travelers speak of them as "gypsies." A specimen which we have of their language would, with the exception of one word, which is probably an error of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be called pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his wife a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Domnipana.

_D_ in Hindustani is found as _r_ in English gypsy speech,--_e.g._, _doi_, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as _roi_. Now in common Romany we have, even in London,--

Rom . . . A gypsy.

Romni . . . A gypsy wife.

Romnipen . . . Gypsydom.

Of this word _rom_ I shall have more to say. It may be observed that there are in the Indian _Dom_ certain distinctly-marked and degrading features, characteristic of the European gypsy, which are out of keeping with the habits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which withstood the caliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling corpses, making baskets, eating carrion, being given to drunkenness, does not agree with anything we can learn of the Jats. Yet the European gypsies are all this, and at the same time "horsey" like the Jats. Is it not extremely probable that during the "out-wandering" the Dom communicated his name and habits to his fellow-emigrants?

The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and other European gypsies appears to link them with the Luri of Persia. These are distinctly gypsies; that is to say, they are wanderers, thieves, fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The Shah-Nameh of Firdusi tells us that about the year 420 A.D. Shankal, the Maharajah of India, sent to Behram Gour, a ruler of the Sa.s.sanian dynasty in Persia, ten thousand minstrels, male and female, called _Luri_. Though lands were allotted to them, with corn and cattle, they became from the beginning irreclaimable vagabonds.

Of their descendants, as they now exist, Sir Henry Pottinger says:--

"They bear a marked affinity to the gypsies of Europe. {335} They speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, have a king to each troupe, and are notorious for kidnapping and pilfering. Their princ.i.p.al pastimes are drinking, dancing, and music. . . . They are invariably attended by half a dozen of bears and monkeys that are broke in to perform all manner of grotesque tricks. In each company there are always two or three members who profess . . . modes of divining, which procure them a ready admission into every society."

This account, especially with the mention of trained bears and monkeys, identifies them with the Ricinari, or bear-leading gypsies of Syria (also called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these lately came to England. We have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They are unquestionably gypsies, and it is probable that many of them accompanied the early migration of Jats and Doms.

The Nats or Nuts are Indian wanderers, who, as Dr. J. Forbes Watson declares, in "The People of India," "correspond to the European gypsy tribes," and were in their origin probably identical with the Luri. They are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, except garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of by travelers as "gypsies." They are traveling merchants or peddlers. Among all these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as in England.

This slang extends even into Persia. Each tribe has its own, but the name for the generally spoken _lingua franca_ is _Rom_.

It has never been pointed out, however, by any writer, that there is in Northern and Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded, even by the Nats and Doms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly gypsy. There are, however, such wanderers, and the manner in which I became aware of their existence was, to say the least, remarkable. I was going one day along the Marylebone Road when I met a very dark man, poorly clad, whom I took for a gypsy; and no wonder, as his eyes had the very expression of the purest blood of the oldest families. To him I said,--

"_Rakessa tu Romanes_?" (Can you talk gypsy?)

"I know what you mean," he answered in English. "You ask me if I can talk gypsy. I know what those people are. But I'm a Mahometan Hindu from Calcutta. I get my living by making curry powder. Here is my card." Saying this he handed me a piece of paper, with his name written on it: _John Nano_.

"When I say to you, '_Rakessa tu Romanes_?' what does it mean?"