Here is their epic history, with its folktales and beliefs, its rites and customs. Here is the vast treasury of the Gypsies.
Here is their epic history, with its folktales and beliefs, its rites and customs. Here is the vast treasury of the Gypsies.
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Here is their epic history, with its folktales and beliefs, its rites and customs. Here is the vast treasury of the Gypsies.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504022743 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Philosophical Library, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 09/08/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 371 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
Dictionary of Gypsy Life and Lore
By Harry E. Wedeck
Philosophical Library
Copyright © 1973 Philosophical Library, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2274-3
CHAPTER 1
A
ABRAHAM There is a Gypsy legend that when Abraham left Ur and traveled into Canaan, the Sintés or Gypsies accompanied him.
There are many similar legends relating to the origin and the migrations of the Gypsies from Asia to Europe.
ACADEMIC COURSE At the Centre Universitaire des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris, a course is given on the Gypsy language.
There is also a correspondence course for which application may be made to Donald Kenwick, Esq. M. A., 61 Blenheim Crescent, London, W. 11.
In adition, there are numerous studies of the various Gypsy dialects. An important survey of the Welsh Gypsy dialect was produced by John Sampson. In 1868 J. A. Vaillant published a Gypsy grammar.
ACCENT The Hungarian Gypsies have a peculiar accent when speaking the language of Hungary. Similarly the Gitános of Spain, when speaking Spanish, are readily identifiable as Gypsies.
ACCUSED A poor Gypsy had her donkey taken from her. A man, with four witnesses, swore that it was his property. The woman told her tale, and was allowed two days to bring forward the person who had sold her the animal. Conscious of her innocence, she was willing to risk prison, if she could not recover the donkey and establish her character. After a great deal of trouble and expense in despatching messengers to bring forward her witnesses, she succeeded in obtaining them. They had no sooner made their appearance than the accuser and his witnesses fled, and left the donkey to the rightful owner, the accused and injured Gypsy.
ADDER'S SLOUGH A Gypsy superstition credits an adder's slough with bringing good luck. A piece of mountain ash is believed to have the same virtue.
Gypsy folklore, in fact, abounds in superstitions, many of which have been incorporated into actual Gypsy life.
ADHERENCE TO RACE Gypsy women make their children know their own people. A mother tells her family of the prejudices directed against the Gypsies as such. She relates to them the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Egypt, and stresses that her people are 'Pharaoh's folk'. She teaches them Romany, but warns them about speaking it in public, among the busne, the non-Gypsies. She recounts their lives in tents and caravans, their forced migrations, the banishments suffered by Gypsies, the persecutions and antagonisms: and also she teaches them the way of living among Gypsies.
ADJAMA, TIKNO This Gypsy philosopher of the Bergsonian school, was also a poet and taught at the University of Louvain in Belgium.
In recent times many Gypsies have risen to professional status, as physicians, lawyers, journalists.
ADMISSION INTO TRIBE The admission of a non-Gypsy, abusno or gorgio, into a Gypsy tribe required the entrant to be stained with walnut-juice.
As a rule, however, there is always hesitation and sometimes difficulty in admitting a Gentile, a non-Gypsy into the close-knit, exclusive tribe or clan.
ADORNMENTS Gypsy women and even young Gypsy girls regularly wear ear-rings, very often massive and intricately designed.
Usually, too, the Gypsy women wear strings of beads. These beads are generally black or red — the 'lucky' colors.
Girls and the younger women often have flowers in the hair or small sprays of foliage, like the natives of the South Seas, particularly Tahiti.
AFFECTION Among Gypsies there are strong feelings of family affection. Children in particular are overindulged through an excess of such affection. In the first century B.C. the Roman poets Propertius and Catullus showed the deeply moving humanity and love of Roman parents for their children.
AFFINITIES WITH INDIA The marriage customs of the Gypsies are similar to those of many Hindu castes. A Hungarian Gypsy Society has collected some 1500 folksongs that are closely related in treatment to Indian themes.
AFFINITY WITH RUMANIA The Gypsies who settled in Rumania have linguistic affinities with that country, as is illustrated by the following comparative vocabulary:
English Gypsy Rumanian
spring primivari primavera
heaven cherul cheros
stocking chorapul chorab
boots chisme chismey
AFRICA There are records extant that indicate the existence of Gypsies in the Sudan, in Mauritania, and in Abyssinia. Throughout their historic wanderings they have appeared in Persia and Turkey, in Greece and the Balkans, in the Scandinavian countries, in Spain and Portugal and the British Isles.
AFRICAN GYPSIES According to one of the earliest gypsiologists, Heinrich Grellman, who belongs in the eighteenth century, Gypsies were to be found in Central Africa. Mollien, a French traveler who reached the sources of the Senegal and Gambia in 1818, said that he found a people, not unlike the Gypsies, and known by the native name of Laaubés. They led a roving life. Their only employment was the manufacture of wooden vessels.
They selected a well-wooded spot, felled some trees, and made huts with the branches. Each family had its chief, and a superior chief headed the whole tribe. They were idolaters and claimed that they could tell fortunes.
AFTERLIFE When a Gypsy dies and all his belongings are burned along with the corpse, the survivor is free from all contact with the dead. There is no urge to 'join' the dead: no impulse, through emotional stress, toward suicide. No regular service is held to commemorate the dead. The survivor belongs to the present. The past is gone. But not entirely: for the mulos, the spirits of the dead, are wont to appear and harass the living.
AGRICULTURE In no country are Gypsies found engaged in agricultural pursuits, or in the service of a regular master.
The Empress Maria Theresa attempted to settle them into sedentary life, without success. So too in Spain they never attached themselves to the soil.
AGRIPPA'S VIEW According to Agrippa, a famous sixteenth century occultist, the Gypsies or Egyptians came from a region lying between Egypt and Ethiopia. They were, he contended, the descendants of Cush, the son of Ham, Noah's son.
AID FOR BORDER GYPSIES In the nineteenth century on the Scottish borders, there was a very large settlement of Gypsies:
The Gypsies are at present known as a wild and semi-barbarous race, who are feared and dreaded by others, as setting all law, character, religion, and morality at defiance. The original source of all the vicious habits of this tribe lies in their loose, irregular, and wandering mode of life.
There is nothing obviously in the native character, blood, or constitution of the Gypsy to render him more desperate and vicious than others. They are neither better nor worse than other members of society would be if they were placed in similar circumstances. Their wandering for instance exposes them to many peculiar temptations; idleness and rapine lead them frequently into scenes of mischief and wickedness, and necessarily leave them ignorant, uneducated, and uncivilized. Withdraw them therefore from this mode of life, and at as early an age as possible, before they have acquired the bad habits of the tribe, and you save them from innumerable evils, and probably render them valuable members of society. There are cases where Gypsies, separated from their tribe, acquired domestic habits. Let society, therefore, do its duty to these houseless wanderers and regard them not as outcasts, but stretching forth to them the hand of reconciliation let a civilized society grant the Gypsies the privileges of education and the means of improvement.
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE A decree of repression was promulgated in 1728 at Aix-la-chapelle against the Gypsies. At this period, as on many other occasions throughout the centuries, the hostility against the Gypsies was violent and persistent.
ALBAICIN In Granada, the Gypsies live in a kind of series of caves in the district called Albaicin.
In other countries too the Gypsies have at times been compelled to live as troglodytes.
ALL SORTS OF GYPSIES Charles Leland the gypsiologist. while in Russia, was himself surprised at the types of Gypsies that he encountered in Moscow:
There are Gypsies and Gypsies in the world, for there are the wanderers on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among the aficionados, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars who are fond of studying life and language from the people themselves. very few have dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and lady-like Gypsies of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand, but differing from them in being real 'Bohemians' by race. I confess that it had never occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, at the present day, least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities, a class or caste devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich, refined in manners, living in comfortable homes, the women dressing elegantly; and yet with all this obliged to live by law, as did the Jews once, in Ghettos or in a certain street and regarded as outcasts and cagots. I had heard there were Gypsies in Russian cities, and expected to find them like the kérengni of England or Germany, — house-dwellers somewhat reformed from vagabondage, but still reckless semi-outlaws, full of tricks and lies; in a word, Gypsies, as the world understands the term. And I certainly anticipated in Russia something queer, — the gentleman who speaks Romany seldom fails to achieve at least that, whenever he gets into an unbroken haunt, or unhunted forest, where the Romany rye is unknown, — but nothing like what I really found.
ALMS During the Middle Ages, as the Gypsies advanced from the Greek mainland and islands through Central Europe, they were sustained by public and private charity. For ostensibly they were Christian pilgrims, doing seven years' penance for once having rejected Christianity.
ALPHABET Although the Gypsies are predominantly illiterate, it is said that they have a special alphabet of their own, in the form of hieroglyphics or at least conventional symbols and signs that are communicative.
This system is known as patrin, or patteran. All such hieroglyphics, many of geometrical form, serve to guide successions of migrant Gypsies as they pass along the highways. They furnish information regarding the hostility or friendliness of the native inhabitants, the prospects of securing work or food and other relevant items of interest to all Gypsies.
ALSACE-LORRAINE In the forests of Alsace-Lorraine in the eighteenth century there were large bands of Gypsies who had settled there. Their means of sustenance consisted of constant begging campaigns in the neighboring villages. They claimed alms for their large families and often terrorized the natives into forced acquiescence.
AMELIORATION OF GYPSY CONDITIONS Maria Theresa of Austria, interested in bettering the condition of the Gypsies in her realms, issued decrees for their welfare and conduct. They were to be taught the principles of religion. They were to conform, in diet, dress, and language, to the customs of the country.
They were to be required to engage in agricultural occupations.
AMELIORATION OF SPANISH GYPSIES Since the law has ceased to brand them, they have come nearer to the common standard of humanity, and their general condition has been ameliorated. At present, only the very poorest, the pariahs of the race, are to be found wandering about the heaths and mountains, and this only in the summer time, and their principal motive, according to their own confession, is to avoid the expense of house rent. The rest remain at home, following their avocations, unless some immediate prospect of gain. lawful or unlawful, calls them forth; and such is frequently the case. They attend most fairs, women and men, and on the way frequently bivouac in the fields, but this practice must not be confounded with systematic wandering. — George Borrow
AMERICAN GYPSIES The American Gypsies do not beg, like their English brothers, and particularly their English sisters. This fact speaks volumes for their greater prosperity and for the influence which association with a proud race has on the poorest people.
A MERRY LIFE After the days of the great persecution in England against the Gypsies, there can be little doubt that they lived a right merry and tranquil life, wandering about and pitching their tents wherever inclination led them. Indeed, any more enviable condition than Gypsy life can hardly be conceived, in England during the latter part of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century, which were likewise the happy days for Englishmen in general. There was peace and plenty in the land, a contented population, and everything went well. The poor Gypsies were then allowed to sleep abroad, where they wanted: to heat their kettles at the foot of the oaks, and no people grudged one night's use of a meadow to feed their cattle in.
AMOROUS FORTUNE-TELLING An English young lady who was in love with a certain young man appealed to a Gypsy for help. The latter promised to arouse the young man's feelings for the lady. The latter, as evidence of her confidence, gave the Gypsy the plate that was in the house, together with a gold chain and locket, which the Gypsy promised to return at a given date. The Gypsy went off. She was, however, found, washing her clothes in a Gypsy camp, with the gold round her neck. On returning the articles, she was allowed to escape.
AMULETS As Gypsies were credited with more than ordinary human perception and skill, they were accustomed to sell amulets, charms, periapts of all kinds, apotropaic articles and unguents and potions that were reputed to be effective in warding off misfortune or healing sickness or achieving love, wealth, and happiness.
ANALOGY WITH OTHER RACES Among all the different peoples who have left their mother country and settled in foreign territory, there appears to be no single analogous instance that agrees exactly with that of the Gypsies. Historical records certainly indicate that there have been migrations of people into new lands, where such people remained the same in a strange country.
But then this constancy has been the result of religion, either permitted by the ruler, or maintained by victorious arms on the part of the migrants. Many instances have occurred in which, the people subdued being more enlightened than their conquerors, the latter adopted the customs of the former. On the conquest of Greece the Romans became Greeks. The Franks assumed the mores of the Gauls when they were in possession of Gaul. The Manchus vanquished the Chinese. But Chinese customs prevailed over those of the Manchus. How then did it happen that the Gypsies, who never either established their ways and manners by force, or obtained any tolerance from the governments under which they lived, except for a few and temporary concessions, remained unchanged and virtually resembled each other in every place. in every territory?
ANATORI A Gypsy term applied to Gypsy workers in tin. Among the Gypsies every trade or occupation has a special designation of its own. For instance, the bear-trainers who wander around the Balkans are called oursari.
ANDALUSIA The Gypsies have in the course of their varied wanderings settled in strange quarters. Among such settlements are the caves in Spain, particularly in Guadix, in Andalusia. Other troglodyte havens are at Benalúa, Puerto Lumbreras, Chinarral, La Chana, and the caves of Almanzora, the Cuevas del Almanzora.
ANCIENT GYPSY CULT The annual Gypsy pilgrimage to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, in the Camargue, in Provence, held on May 24, is a dedication to the Black Patron of the Gypsies, Sara the Egyptian, the servant of the two Marys. Some gypsiologists, however, regard this ceremonial as a survival, in the traditions and race history of the Gypsies, of an ancient pagan cult.
ANCIENT GYPSY SONGS In Russia, George Borrow listened to Gypsy songs:
They commenced singing, and favored me with many songs, both in Russian and Romany. The former were modern popular pieces, such as are accustomed to be sung on the boards of the theatre. But the latter were evidently of great antiquity, exhibiting the strongest marks of originality, the metaphors bold and sublime, and the metre differing from anything of the kind which it has been my fortune to observe in Oriental or European prosody.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dictionary of Gypsy Life and Lore by Harry E. Wedeck. Copyright © 1973 Philosophical Library, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Philosophical Library.
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