Part 13 (2/2)
I believe they were chiefly of the priiven indicates that they were identical with the two castes of the Do, in fact, at the present day, the real Gipsies of India Other low castes and outcasts were probably included in the eration, but I believe that future research will prove that they were all of the old stock The first Pariahs of India may have consisted entirely of those who refused to eion of their conquerors
It has been coolly asserted by a recent writer that Gipsies are not proved to be of Hindu origin because ”a few” Hindu words are to be found in their language What the proportion of such words really is may be ascertained fro aside all the evidence afforded by language, traditions, manners, and customs, one irrefutable proof still remains in the physical resemblance between Gipsies all the world over and the natives of India
Even in Egypt, the country clairandfather-land, the native Gipsy is not Egyptian in his appearance but Hindu The peculiar brilliancy of the eye and its expression in the Indian is coyptian or Arab; and every donkey-boy in Cairo knows the difference between the _Rhagarin_ and the native as to personal appearance I have seen both Hindus in Cairo and Gipsies, and the reseyptians
A few years ago an article on the Roazine” (Boston, US, America), in which the writer declared that Gipsy has very little affinity with Hindustani, but a great deal with Boheht, that a Chech and a Rom could understand one another in either of their respective tongues I once devoted my time for several months to unintermitted study of Chech, and consequently do not speak in entire ignorance when I declare that true Rommany contains scores of Hindu words to one of Bohemian {133}
CHAPTER IX MISCELLANEA
Gipsies and Cats--”Christians”--Christians not ”Hanimals”--Green, Red, and Yellow--The Evil Eye--Models and Morals--Punji and Sponge-cake--Troubles with a Gipsy Teacher--Pilferin' and Bilberin'--Khapana and Hopper--Hoppera-glasses--The little wooden Bear--Huckeny Ponkee, Hanky Panky, Hocus-pocus, and Hokkeny Baro--Burning a Gipsy Witch alive in America--Daniel in the Lions'
Den--Gipsy Life in Suroes--The Gipsy's Story of Pitch- and-Toss--”You didn't fight your Stockings off?”--The guileless and venerable Gipsy--The Gipsy Professor of Ro--The old Gipsy and the beautiful Italian Models--The Adely illustrated--Gipsies willing or unwilling to communicate Rommany--Romance and Eccentricity of Gipsy Life and Manners--The Gipsy Grandmother and her Family--A fine Frolic interrupted--The Gipsy Gentles--The Witch Eles--Their Uses--Lurchers and Poachers--A Gipsy Caistrate or Polices--Beer rained froolden Opportunity to live at ro--I hear of a New York Friend--The Professor's Legend of the Olive-leaf and the Dove, ”A wery tidy little Story”--The Story of Sahter as hocussed by a Fancy Girl--The Judg away in Sleep or Dreas which can kill Ghosts--Twisted- legged Stealing--How to keep Dogs away from a Place--Gipsies avoid Unions--A Gipsy Advertise
It would be a difficult matter to decide whether the superstitions and odd fancies entertained by the Gipsies in England are derived froht from India, or picked up on the way This ists more industrious and better informed than myself to decide In any case, the possible common Aryan source will tend to obscure the truth, just as it often does the derivation of Ro can detract froinality in which these odd _credos_ are expressed, or surpass the strangeness of the reasons given for theers anywhere on earth, it is a the Rommany
One day I questioned a Gipsy as to cats, and what his opinion was of black ones, correctly sur that he would have some peculiar ideas on the subject, and he replied--
”Rommanys never lel kaulois covvas; and the puro beng, you jin, is kaulo, an' has shtor herros an' dui mushi+s--an' a sherro But pauno hosts of ranis”
Which lish, ”Gipsies never have black cats in the house, because they are unearthly creatures, and things of the devil; and the old devil, you know, is black, and has four legs and two arood, for they are like the white ghosts of ladies”
It is in the extraordinary reason given for liking white cats that the subtle Gipsyism of this cat-commentary consists Most people would consider a resehost rather repulsive But the Gipsy lives by night a strange life, and the reader who peruses carefully the stories which are given in this voluoblin-land and its denizens which has beco ”Christians”
But itin thus apparently classing hih that he considered he had a right to be regarded as a true believer--the only drawback being this, that he was apparently under the conviction that all hus were ”Christians” And the way in which he declared it was as follows: I had given him the Hindustani word _janwur_, and asked him if he knew such a term, and he answered--
”Do I jin sitch a lav (know such a word) as _janwur_ for a hanimal? Avo (yes); it's _jomper_--it's a toadus” (toad)
”But do you jin the lav (know the word) for an _animal_?”
”Didn't I just pooker tute (tell you) it was a jomper? for if a toad's a hanimal, _jomper_ must be the lav for hanimal”
”But don't you jin kek lav (knoord) for sar the covvas that have jivaben (all living things)--for joryas (horses)? You and I are animals”
”Kek, rya, kek (no, sir, no), we aren't hani queer about 'eooroos (fairs), or coith five legs, or won'ful piebald grais--_them's_ hanimals But Christins aint hanimals Them's _mushi+s_”
(men)
To return to cats: it is remarkable that the colour which makes a cat desirable should render a bowl or cup objectionable to a true Gipsy, as I have elsewhere observed in co on the fact that no old-fashi+oned Rommany will drink, if possible, from white crockery But they have peculiar fancies as to other colours Till within a few years in Great Britain, as at the present day in Gerreen coats amounted to a passion In Germany a Gipsy who loses caste for any offence is forbidden for a certain tireen, so that _ver non se thereat love for red and yellow ao pointed out by a Gerin, but the truth is, I believe, that all dark people instinctively choose these hues as agreeing with their coht blue; and all true _kaulo_ or dark Rodishler_, or neckerchief, and a red waistcoat The long red cloak of the old Gipsy fortune-teller is, however, truly dear to her heart; she feels as if there were luck in it--that _bak_ which is ever on Gipsy lips; for to the wanderers, whose ho is precarious, Luck beco sisters to expend on new red cloaks a sum which seemed to a lady friend very considerable
I have spoken in another chapter of the deeply-seated faith of the English Gipsies in the evil eye Subsequent inquiry has convinced me that they believe it to be peculiar to themselves One said in my presence, ”There was a kauli juva that dicked the evil yack ad mandy the sala--my chavo's missis--an' a'ter dovo I shooned that o-yacki ios don't jin it--it's saw Rommany”
_Ie_, ”There was a dark wo--my son's wife--and after that I heard that my son was ill A squint-eyed ios don't know it--it's all Rommany”
The Gipsy is of an eminently social turn, always ready when occasion occurs to take part in every conversation, and advance his views One dayrejected some uncalled- for advice relative to the employment of a certain model, burst out in a tone of hearty approbation with--