The Gipsies.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3517, 3 April 1880, Page 1

The Gipsies.

Among all the subdivisions of the human race, there, are only two whioh hare been, apparently from the beginning, set apart, marked and cosmopolite, erer living among others and yet reserved unto themselves. These are the Jew and the Gipsy. From time whereof history hath naught to the contrary, the Jew was, - as he himself holds in simple faith, the first man. Bed Earth, Adam, was a Jew, and the old claim to be the Chosen People has been apparently confirmed by the extraordinary genius and influence of the race, and by their boundless wan* derings. Go where we may, we find the Jew. Has any other wandered so far P Yes, one; for wherever Jew has gon«, there, too, is a Gipsy. The Jew may be. more anoient, but even the authentic origin of the Bommany is lost in ancient Aryan record; and, strictly speaking, bis is a prehistoric caste. Among the 150 wandering tribes of India and Persia —some of them Turanian, some Aryan, and others mixed—it is, of course, impossible to identify the exaot origin of the European [Gipsy.' One thing we know, that from the tenth to twelfth century, and probably much later on, India threw from her northern half a .vast multitude o£ very troublesome indwellers. . What with Buddhist, Brahmin, and Mahometan wars —invaders outlawing invaded — the number of ont-casiei became alarmingly great. To these the Jati, who * according to Captain Burton, constituted the main stock of. our gipsies, contributed perhaps half their entire nation. Excommunication among the Indian professors of transcendental benevolence, meant social death and inconceivable cruelty. Now there are many historical indication! that these outcasts, before leaving India, became gipsies, which was the moat natural thing in a country-where such classes had already existed in very great numbers from early times. And from one of the lowest castes, which still exists in India, and is known aa the, Pom* the . emigrants to the west probably derived their name and several characteristics. The Dom burns the dead, handles ' corpses, skins beasts, and. performs other functions, which were appro- . priated by and became peculiar to gipsies in several countries in Europe, notably in Denmark and Holland, for several centuries after their arrival there. The Dom of tlie present day also sells baskets and Zanders with a tent; he is altogether gipsy.. It is remarkable that he, living in a hot climate, driuks ardent spirits to excess, being by no means a " temperate Hindoo," and that even in extreme old age bis hair seldom turns . white, which is a noted peculiarity among our own gipsies of pure blood. I know and have lately seen a gipsy woman nearly a hundred years old whose curling hair is black, or hardly, perceptibly changed. It is extremely probable that Dom, mentioned as a caste even in the Yedas, gave the name .to Bom. The Dom calls his wife a Domni, and being—l, a Dom, is " JDomniparia." lorEngHsli gipsy, the same words are expressed by Rom, romni and romnipen, D, be»it observed, very often obanges into r in its transfer from Hindoo to Bommany. Thus doi, a " wooden spoon," becomes in gipsy, rot—a term known to every tinker " in London. But while this was probably, ; the origin of the word Bom, there were subsequent reasons for its continuance. Among the Oophts, who were more abundant in Egypt when the first gipsies went there, the word for man is ronii, and after leaving Greece and the Levant, or Rum % it would be natural for the wanderers to bo called JRumi. But the Dom was in all probability the parent stock of the gipsy . race, though tho latter received vast accessions from many other sources. I call attention to this since it has always been ; held, and' sensibly enough, that the mere fact of the gipsies speaking Hindi-Per-sian, or the oldest type of Urdu, including many Sanscrit terms, does not prove an Indian or Aryan, origin, any more than . - the English spoken by American negroes proves a Saxon descent. But if the Bom can be identified with the Dom—and the circumstantial evidence, it must be admitted, is very strong—but little remains to seek, since, according to the Vedas, the Doms are Hindoo. Among the tribes whoso union formed

the European gipsy was, in all probability, that of the Nats, consisting ,of singing and dancing girls and male musicians and acrobats. Of these we are told that nofc less than 10,000 lute players and minstrels, v.r.der ihe name of Luri, were once sent to ' '-sia *s a present to a ting whose land ;;.j then without nansio or song. This word " Luri" is still preserved. The laddie makers and leather workers of Persia are called Tsingani: they are, in iheir way, low caste, and a kind of gipsy, nod it is supposed that from them are possibly derived the names-—Zingan, Zigeuner, Zingaro, &c—by which gipsies are known in so many lands. From Mr Arnold's late work on Persia, the reader may learn that the Eeli, who constitute the majority of the inhabitants of the southern portion of that country, are Aryan nomads, and apparently gipsies. There are also in India the Banjari, or watiJering merchants and many other tribes, all spoken of as gipsies by those who know them. As regards the great admixture of Persian with Hindi in good Bomtnany, it is quite unmistakable, though I can recall no writer who has attached sufficient importance to a fact which identifies with what is almost preeminently tbe Jand of gipsies. I once had the pleasured taking a Nile journey in company with Prince S ~*~, a Persian, and in most cases when I asked my friend what this or that gipsy word meant he gave me its correct, meaning after a little thought, and then added, in his imperfect English, •• What for you want to know such word—that no more used. Only common people—o|d peasant womenuse that word; gentlemen no want to know him."

1 think it will be found difficult to identify the European gipsy with any ope stock of the wandering races of India. Among those who left that country were men of different castes and different colour, rarying from the pure northern invader to the negro-like southern Indian. In the Danuhian principalities there are at the present day three kinds of gipsies —one very dark and barbarous, another light brown and more intelligent, and the third, or Wife, of yellow-pine complexion, as American boys characterise the hue of quadroons. Even. in England there are straight-haired and curly-haired Eomanis, the two indicating not a difference resulting from white admixture, but entirely different original stocks. It will, I trust, be admitted even fron these remarks that Rommanology, or that subdivision of ethnology which treats of gipsies, is both practical and curious. It deals with the only race save one which has long' penetrated into every village which European /- civilisation has ever touched. He who speaks Rommany need be a stranger in few lands for on every road in Europe and America, in most of Asia, and even in northern Africa, he will meet with those with whom a very few words may at once establish a peculiar understanding. For of all things understood by this widely-spread brotherhood, the chief is this—that he who knows -the jib, o? language, knows the ways; and that no one ever- attains these without treading strange paths, and threading mysteries unknown to the Gorgios or Philistines. And if he who speaks wears a good coat, and appears a gentleman, let him rest assured that he will receive the greeting which ail poor relations in all lands extend to those of their kin who have.risen in life. Some of them, it is true, manifest the winsome affection which is based on great expectations, a sentiment largely developed among English gipsies; but others are honestly proud that a gentleman is Dot ashamed of them. Of this latter class were the musical gipsies whom I met in [Russia during the winter of 18761877, and some of them again in Peris during the- Exposition of 1878.— Charles Leland, in; Macmillan's Magazine.