The English Gipsies and Their Language Part 13

and that it was adopted to distinguish the sect soon after he disappeared. The word, as is well known, has the same import in the Hindoovee" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i. p. 293, and vol. ii. p. 200).

This was a n.o.ble word to give a name to a body of followers supposed to be devoted to knowledge and truth.

The English Gipsy calls a mermaid a _pintni_; in Hindu it is _bint ool buhr_, a maid of the sea. Bero in Gipsy is the sea or a ship, but the Rommany had reduced the term to the original _bint_, by which a girl is known all over the East.

"Ya bint' Eeskendereyeh."

_Stan_ is a word confounded by Gipsies with both _stand_, a place at the races or a fair, and _tan_, a stopping-place, from which it was probably derived. But it agrees in sound and meaning with the Eastern _stan_, "a place, station," and by application "country," so familiar to the reader in Hindustan, Iranistan, Beloochistan, and many other names. It is curious to find in the Gipsy tan not only the root-word of a tent, but also the "Alabama," or "here we rest," applied by the world's early travellers to so many places in the Morning Land.

_Slang_ does _not_ mean, as Mr Hotten a.s.serts, the secret language of the Gipsies, but is applied by them to acting; to speaking theatrical language, as in a play; to being an acrobat, or taking part in a show. It is a very old Gipsy word, and indicates plainly enough the origin of the cant word "slang." Using other men's words, and adopting a conventional language, strikes a Gipsy as _artificial_; and many men not Gipsies express this feeling by speaking of conventional stage language as "theatrical slang." Its antiquity and origin appear in the Hindu sw.a.n.gi, an actor; sw.a.n.g, mockery, disguise, sham; and sw.a.n.g lena, to imitate. As regards the sound of the words, most English Gipsies would call sw.a.n.g "slang" as faithfully as a c.o.c.kney would exchange _hat_ with '_at_.

Deepest among deep words in India is _tat_, an element, a principle, the essence of being; but it is almost amusing to hear an English Gipsy say "that's the tatto (or tat) of it," meaning thereby "the thing itself,"

the whole of it. And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas come in England.

It is, however, pleasant to find the Persian _bahar_, a garden, recalling Bahar Da.n.u.sh, the garden of knowledge (Hindustani, bagh), reappearing in the English Gipsy _bar_. "She pirryed adree the bar lellin ruzhers."

"She walked in the garden plucking flowers." And it is also like old times and the Arabian Nights at home, to know that bazaar is a Gipsy word, though it be now quite obsolete, and signifies no longer a public street for shops, but an open field.

But of all words which identify the Gipsies with the East, and which prove their Hindu origin, those by which they call themselves Rom and Romni are most conclusive. In India the Dom caste is one of the lowest, whose business it is for the men to remove carca.s.ses, while the Domni, or female Dom, sings at weddings. Everything known of the Dom identifies them with Gipsies. As for the sound of the word, any one need only ask the first Gipsy whom he meets to p.r.o.nounce the Hindu _d_ or the word Dom, and he will find it at once converted into _l_ or _r_. There are, it is true, other castes and cla.s.ses in India, such as Nats, the roving Banjaree, Thugs, &c., all of which have left unmistakable traces on the Gipsies, from which I conclude that at some time when these pariahs became too numerous and dangerous there was a general expulsion of them from India. {124}

I would call particular attention to my suggestion that the Corn of India is the true parent of the Rom, because all that is known of the former caste indicates an affinity between them. The Dom pariahs of India who carry out or touch dead bodies, also eat the bodies of animals that have died a natural death, as do the Gipsies of England. The occupation of the Domni and Romni, dancing and making music at festivals, are strikingly allied. I was reminded of this at the last opera which I witnessed at Covent Garden, on seeing stage Gipsies introduced as part of the fete in "La Traviata."

A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies may be found in the fact that they speak of every foreign country beyond sea as the Hindi tem, Hindi being in Hindustani their own word for Indian. Nothing was more natural than that the Rommany on first coming to England should speak of far-away regions as being the same as the land they had left, and among such ignorant people the second generation could hardly fail to extend the term and make it generic. At present an Irishman is a _Hindi tem mush_, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, by the way, that a few years ago in America everything that was _anti_-Irish or native American received the same appellation, in allusion to the exclusive system of castes.

Although the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the "cardinal points," no one can deny that their own are of Indian origin.

Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west in Rommany. As it was explained to me, I was told that "Utar means west and wet too, because the west wind is wet." _Shimal_ is also north in Hindu; and on asking a Gipsy what it meant, he promptly replied, "It's where the snow comes from." _Poorub_ is the east in Hindustani; in Gipsy it is changed to porus, and means the west.

This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it must be constantly borne in mind that it is very common in Gipsy. Night suggests day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but the Gipsy confuses the name, and calls yesterday and to-morrow, or light and shadow, by the same word. More than this, he is p.r.o.ne to confuse almost all opposites on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly accept and understand what his own people comprehend. This is not the case among the Indians of North America, because oratory, involving the accurate use of words, is among them the one great art; nor are the negroes, despite their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they are at least very fond of elegant expressions and forcible preaching. I am positive and confident that it would be ten times easier to learn a language from the wildest Indian on the North American continent than from any real English Gipsy, although the latter may be inclined with all his heart and soul to teach, even to the extent of pa.s.sing his leisure days in "skirmishing"

about among the tents picking up old Rommany words. Now the Gipsy has pa.s.sed his entire life in the busiest scenes of civilisation, and is familiar with all its refined rascalities; yet notwithstanding this, I have found by experience that the most untutored Kaw or Chippewa, as ignorant of English as I was ignorant of his language, and with no means of intelligence between us save signs, was a genius as regards ability to teach language when compared to most Gipsies.

Everybody has heard of the Oriental _salaam_! In English Gipsy _shulam_ means a greeting. "Shulam to your kokero!" is another form of _sarishan_! the common form of salutation. The Hindu _sar i sham_ signifies "early in the evening," from which I infer that the Dom or Rom was a nocturnal character like the Night-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who sang when night fell, "Arouse ye, then, my merry men!" or who said "Good- evening!" just as we say (or used to say) "Good-day!" {127}

A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following words:--

"When a mush mullers, an' the juvas adree his ker can't _kair habben_ because they feel so naflo 'bout the rom being gone, or the chavi or juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an' b.i.t.c.hers it a lende. An' that's tacho Rommanis, an' they wouldn't be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn't kair dovo for mushis in sig an' tukli."

"When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food (literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is gone (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for three days prepare their food and send it to them. And that is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows who would not do that for people in sorrow and distress."

Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it. In England it is to _kair habben_, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin. Dict.) "karwa khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family in which one of the members has died." The Hindu karwana, to make or to cause to do, and kara, to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy _kair_ (to make or cook), while from khana, or 'hana, to eat, comes _haw_ and _habben_, or food.

The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by many sects. In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups are kept by the Gipsies with superst.i.tious regard, the utmost care being taken that they never fall to the ground. "Should this happen, the cup is _never_ used again. By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should no more be used. When a Gipsy cares for nothing else, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circ.u.mstance." I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink from a white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin. It is almost needless to say that this could never have been the origin of the antipathy. No such consideration deters English peasants from using white crockery drinking-vessels.

In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again. I found on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old Gipsy families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, it is at once broken. For this reason, even more than for convenience, real Gipsies are accustomed to hang every cooking utensil, and all that pertains to the table, high up in their waggons. It is almost needless to point out how closely these ideas agree with those of many Hindus. The Gipsy eats every and any thing except horseflesh. Among themselves, while talking Rommany, they will boast of having eaten _mullo baulors_, or pigs that have died a natural death, and _hotchewitchi_, or hedgehog, as did the belle of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer of 1872. They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent abstinence. But Mr Simson in his "History of the Gipsies" has adduced a ma.s.s of curious facts, indicating a special superst.i.tious regard for the horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could we learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and in Scandinavia), derived their superst.i.tion, in common with the Gipsies, from India.

There can be no doubt that in seeking for the Indian origin of many Gipsy words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology presents such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or defend the validity of the proofs alleged. The very word for "doubtful" or "ambiguous," _dubeni_ or _dub'na_, is of this description. Is it derived from the Hindu _dhoobd'ha_, which every Gipsy would p.r.o.nounce _doobna_, or from the English _dubious_, which has been made to a.s.sume the Gipsy- Indian termination _na_? Of this word I was naively told, "If a juva's bori (girl is big), that's _dub'ni_; and if she's shuvalo (swelled up), _that's_ dubni: for it may pen (say) she's kaired a tikno (is _enceinte_), and it may pen she hasn't." But when we find that the English Gipsy also employs the word _dukkeni_ for "doubtful," and compare it with the Hindustani _dhokna_ or _dukna_, the true derivation becomes apparent.

Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted of reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by word, to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would in Germany and Turkey have collected a ma.s.s of overwhelming proof as to the Indian origin of Rommany. At present the dictionary which I intend shall follow this work shows that, so far as the Rommany dialects have been published, that of England contains a far greater number of almost unchanged Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would especially call the attention of all who are interested in this curious language.

And what is more, I am certain that the supply is far from being exhausted, and that by patient research among old Gipsies, the Anglo-Rommany vocabulary might be increased to possibly five or six thousand words.

It is very possible that when they first came from the East to Europe the Gipsies had a very copious supply of words, for there were men among them of superior intelligence. But in Turkey, as in Germany, they have not been brought into such close contact with the _Gorgios_ as in England: they have not preserved their familiarity with so many ideas, and consequently their vocabulary has diminished. Most of the Continental Gipsies are still wild, black wanderers, unfamiliar with many things for which the English Gipsy has at least a name, and to which he has continued to apply old Indian words. Every one familiar with the subject knows that the English Gipsies in America are far more intelligent than their German Rommany cousins. A few years ago a large party of the latter appeared at an English racecourse, where they excited much attention, but greatly disgusted the English Roms, not as rivals, but simply from their habits. "They couldn't do a thing but beg," said my informant. "They jinned (knew) nothing else: they were the dirtiest Gipsies I ever saw; and when the juvas suckled the children, they sikkered their burks (showed their b.r.e.a.s.t.s) as I never saw women do before foki." Such people would not, as a rule, know so many words as those who looked down on them.

The conclusion which I have drawn from studying Anglo-Rommany, and different works on India, is that the Gipsies are the descendants of a vast number of Hindus, of the primitive tribes of Hindustan, who were expelled or emigrated from that country early in the fourteenth century.

I believe they were chiefly of the primitive tribes, because evidence which I have given indicates that they were identical with the two castes of the Doms and Nats--the latter being, in fact, at the present day, the real Gipsies of India. Other low castes and outcasts were probably included in the emigration, 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 embrace the religion of their conquerors.

It has been coolly a.s.serted 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 from the dictionary which will follow this work. But throwing 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 claimed by the Gipsies themselves as their remote great-grandfather-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 common to the Gipsy, but not to the Egyptian 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 resemblance to each other is as marked as their difference from Egyptians.

A few years ago an article on the Rommany language appeared in the "Atlantic Magazine" (Boston, U.S., America), in which the writer declared that Gipsy has very little affinity with Hindustani, but a great deal with Bohemian or Chech--in fact, he maintained, if I remember right, 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-gla.s.ses.--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 Summer.--The Gavengroes.--The Gipsy's Story of Pitch- and-Toss.--"You didn't fight your Stockings off?"--The guileless and venerable Gipsy.--The Gipsy Professor of Rommany and the Police.--His Delicacy of Feeling.--The old Gipsy and the beautiful Italian Models.--The Admired of the Police.--Honesty strangely ill.u.s.trated.--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 Gentleman from America.--No such Language as Rommany.--Hedgehogs.--The Witch Element in Gipsy Life.--Jackdaws and Dogs.--Their Uses.--Lurchers and Poachers.--A Gipsy Camp.--The Ancient Henry.--I am mistaken for a Magistrate or Policeman.--Gipsies of Three Grades.--The Slangs.--Jim and the Twigs.--Beer rained from Heaven.--Fortune-telling.--A golden Opportunity to live at my Ease.--Petulamengro.--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 Samson as given by a Gipsy.--The great Prize-fighter who was hocussed by a Fancy Girl.--The Judgment Day.--Pa.s.sing away in Sleep or Dream to G.o.d.--A Gipsy on Ghosts.--Dogs which can kill Ghosts.--Twisted- legged Stealing.--How to keep Dogs away from a Place.--Gipsies avoid Unions.--A Gipsy Advertis.e.m.e.nt in the "Times."--A Gipsy Poetess and a Rommany Song.

It would be a difficult matter to decide whether the superst.i.tions and odd fancies entertained by the Gipsies in England are derived from the English peasantry, were brought from India, or picked up on the way. This must be left for ethnologists 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 Rommany words. But nothing can detract from the inexpressibly quaint spirit of Gipsy originality in which these odd _credos_ are expressed, or surpa.s.s the strangeness of the reasons given for them. If the spirit of the goblin and elfin lingers anywhere on earth, it is among the Rommany.

One day I questioned a Gipsy as to cats, and what his opinion was of black ones, correctly surmising that he would have some peculiar ideas on the subject, and he replied--

"Rommanys never lel kaulo matchers adree the ker, 'cause they're mullos, and beng is covvas; and the puro beng, you jin, is kaulo, an' has shtor herros an' dui mushis--an' a sherro. But pauno matchers san kushto, for they're sim to pauno ghosts of ranis."

Which means in English, "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 arms--and a head. But white cats are good, 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 resemblance to a white ghost rather repulsive. But the Gipsy lives by night a strange life, and the reader who peruses carefully the stories which are given in this volume, will perceive in them a familiarity with goblin-land and its denizens which has become rare among "Christians."

But it may be that I do this droll old Gipsy great wrong in thus apparently cla.s.sing him with the heathen, since he one day manifested clearly enough 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 human beings 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 (know a word) for sar the covvas that have jivaben (all living things)--for jompers, and bitti matchers (mice), and gryas (horses)? You and I are animals."

"Kek, rya, kek (no, sir, no), we aren't hanimals. _Hanimals_ is critters that have something queer about 'em, such as the lions an' helephants at the well-gooroos (fairs), or cows with five legs, or won'ful piebald grais--_them's_ hanimals. But Christins aint hanimals. Them's _mushis_"

(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 commenting on the fact that no old-fashioned 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 Germany, their fondness for green coats amounted to a pa.s.sion. In Germany a Gipsy who loses caste for any offence is forbidden for a certain time to wear green, so that _ver non semper viret_ may be truly applied to those among them who bloom too rankly.

The great love for red and yellow among the Gipsies was long ago pointed out by a German writer as a proof of Indian origin, but the truth is, I believe, that all dark people instinctively choose these hues as agreeing with their complexion. A brunette is fond of amber, as a blonde is of light blue; and all true _kaulo_ or dark Rommany _chals_ delight in a bright yellow _pongdishler_, 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 home is the roads, and whose living is precarious, Luck becomes a real deity. I have known two old fortune-telling 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 d.i.c.ked the evil yack ad mandy the sala--my chavo's missis--an' a'ter dovo I shooned that my chavo was naflo. A bongo-yacki mush kairs wafro-luckus. _Avali_, the Gorgios don't jin it--it's saw Rommany."

_I.e_., "There was a dark woman that looked the evil eye at me this morning--my son's wife--and after that I heard that my son was ill. A squint-eyed man makes bad-luck. Yes, the Gorgios 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 day my old Rom hearing an artist speak of having rejected some uncalled- for advice relative to the employment of a certain model, burst out in a tone of hearty approbation with--