Gypsies, a wandering race, dispersed the wide world over, and distinguished by language, physique, and mode of life. Their number in Europe is vaguely estimated at 700,000; and only for the following countries have we these more or less trustworthy statistics: Hungary (1890) 95,157; Bosnia and Herzegovina (1874), 9537; Servia (1890), 37,581; Roumania (1895) 200,000; Bulgaria and Eastern Roumania (1893), 51,754; the vilayet of Adrianople (1876), 27,326 males; Russia (1877), 11,654; Prussia (1887), 1054 settled Gypsies. Asia has untold thousands of these nomads, in Anatolia, Syria, Armenia, Persia, Turkestan, and Siberia; so, too, has Africa, in Egypt, Algeria, Dar-Für, and Kordofan. We find them in both North and South America, from Pictou in Canada to Rio in Brazil; nor are even New Zealand and Australia without their isolated bands.
Late in 1417 four hundred 'Secani' arrived from the East at Lineburg, and thence passed on to Hamburg, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and Greifswald. In 1418 they are heard of at Leipzig and Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Switzerland, and at Augsburg; in 1419 at Mâcon and at Sisteron in Provence; in 1420 at Deventer; in 1421 at Tournai; in 1422, en route for Rome, at Bologna and at Forli, where 'some said they were from India; in 1427 at Paris; and so on till in 1433 we lose sight of them for a while in Bavaria. Oftenest they seem to have bivouacked in the fields, but at Deventer they slept in a barn, at Bologna 'lodged themselves inside and outside the gate of Galiera, and settled themselves under the porticoes, with the exception of Duke Andrew, who lay at the King's Inn.' Some riding and some afoot, with the women and children in wagons, they were led by him or Duke Michael, or by both together, according as the band, 400 to 1400 strong, split up or reunited. These two chieftains and certain subordinate 'counts' went richly dressed, with fine silver belts, and, like nobles, led dogs of chase; but the rest of the 'Egyptians,' 'Saracens,' or 'baptised heathens' are described as lean, hideous, black as Tartars, poor, and pitiful. They lived on charity, and practised horse-chaunting, purse-cutting, palmistry, shop-lifting, and ringing the changes, wherefore some were taken and slain. They bore letters of protection from the Emperor Sigismund (procured probably in 1417 at Lindau on Lake Constance), and, after 1422, from Pope Martin V.; and they professed sometimes to be engaged in a seven years' pilgrimage, imposed by their bishops as a penance for apostasy from the Christian faith, sometimes to have been driven out of 'Little Egypt' by the Saracens for refusing to apostatise. Yet another story was told by the tented 'Cingari or Cigäwnär,' who appeared at Ratisbon in 1424-26, that their exile was meant 'for a sign or memorial of the flight of our Lord into Egypt.' These, whose woiwode Ladislaus also bore letters (1423) from Sigismund, were natives of Hungary; the others came seemingly from the Balkan peninsula, pioneers of vast hordes behind, who in 1438 began to pour over Germany, Italy, and France, by thousands instead of hundreds, and headed this time by King Zindl. Spain they reached in 1447, Poland and Russia about 1501, Sweden by 1512, England by 1514, and Scotland by 1505, or very possibly fifty-six years earlier, for an act of 1449 refers to 'overliers and masterful beggars' as going about the country with 'horses, hunds, and other goods.'
For western Europe, then, the year 1417 does mark an era in Gypsy history; but how long before that date there had been Gypsies in south-eastern Europe remains a mystery. We recognise them dimly in Crete in 1322 as dwellers in 'little, oblong, black, low tents, like those of the Arabs,' and in caves; at Constantinople about 1050 as 'descendants of the race of Simon Magus, Atsinikan by name, sorcerers and famous rogues;' and there, too, in 810 as Athinganoi, magicians, soothsayers, and serpent-charmers. Beyond any shadow of doubt, we find them prior to 1346 on Corfu; about 1378 at Nauplion, in the Peloponnese, receiving a renewal of former privileges; and prior to 1370 in Wallachia, whose woiwode then granted forty tents of Acigani to the monastery of Voditza—i.e. the Roumanian Gypsies were already serfs, and serfs they continued till 1856. Then, in a free metrical paraphrase of Genesis, made in German about or before the year 1122 by an Austrian monk, and cited by Freytag in Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit (ii. 226, 1859), the following passage occurs: 'So she (Hagar) had this child, they named him Ishmael. From him are descended the Ishmaelitic folk. They journey far through the world. We call them chaltsmide ('workers in cold metal'). Out upon their life and their manners! For whatever they have to sell is never without a defect; whenever he (sic) buys anything, good or bad, he always wants something in; he never abates on what he sells himself. They have neither house nor country; every place is the same to them. They roam about the land, and abuse the people by their knaveries. It is thus they deceive folk, robbing no one openly.' That Gypsies were meant here, likely as it seems at first sight, is rendered doubly likely by the fact that the names Agariens and Agareni are expressly applied to Gypsies by Lusignan and Fritschius in 1580 and 1664, and that in German and Danish thieves' slang Geschmeilim and Smaelem (Ish- mælites) are terms for Gypsies at the present date. Finally, the kōmodromoi ('village-roamers') of Greek writers were probably Gypsies. The term is a vague one, but no vaguer than landloopers, which does in Dutch stand for 'Gypsy.' And the kōmodromoi, we find, were both copper and gold smiths, roaming about the country, and using bellows made of skins, like those of Harff's Naupliote Gypsies in 1497. The verb kōmodromein occurs in Pollux, who flourished about 183 A.D.; and Theophanes Isanrus (758-818 A.D.) speaks under the date 544 A.D. of a kōmodromos from Italy. A kōmodromos figures, moreover, in a Greek apocryphal gospel of unascertained date as helping to crucify Christ, which at once recalls the enrent Montenegrin legend that the founder of the Gypsy race was accursed for having forged the nails for the crucifixion.* Thus, on the one hand, it is certain that in Wallachia the Gypsies were already reduced to bondage in 1370; it is almost certain that Gypsies were nothing new in Austria in 1122; and it is at least highly probable that more than a thousand years ago there were Gypsies roaming through the Byzantine empire. On the other hand, of the Gypsies' passage of the Bosphorus, and their first arrival in Europe, no record has yet been discovered.
From numbers of scattered notices we may safely infer that the Gypsies in early times possessed every art that they possess to-day, with many besides since lost. Thus, in Scotland in 1530 they 'dansit before the king in Halyrudhouse;' between 1559 and 1628 they yearly 'acted severall plays' at Roslin, where Sir William St Clair, Lord Chief-justice, 'allowed them two towers for their residence, the one called Robin Hood, the other Little John;' in 1726 they cast the church bell at Edzell, in Forfarshire; about 1740 in the Border country they practised engraving on pewter, lead, and copper, as well as rude drawing and painting; and during that century they were famous as fiddlers and pipers, and they worked the small iron-foundry of Little Carron, near St Andrews. In England, again, in 1549 they were capable of counterfeiting the great seal; in Hungary they made bullets and cannon-balls in 1496 and 1565; and there, too, we find them celebrated as musicians as early as the 15th century. A gifted and insinuating race, equal—nay, often superior—to the nations whose lands they roamed, the early Gypsies met with a good reception, as from kaiser and pope on the Continent, so in England from the Earl of Surrey, who about 1519 entertained 'Gypsions' at Tendring Hall, Suffolk; in Scotland from James IV., who in 1505 gave Anthonius Gaginus, 'Earl of Little Egypt,' a letter of commendation to the king of Denmark. In Scotland, too, in 1540, James V. recognised the right of 'oure lout Johnne Faw, lord and erle of Litill Egipt,' to execute justice upon his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt. Indeed, it were easy to multiply proofs that Gypsies at a much later date have been held in consideration and regarded with interest. Charles Bosvile, a Gypsy 'king,' who was buried in 1709 at Rossington, Yorkshire, had £200 a year, and 'was a mad spark, mighty fine and brisk, keeping company with a great many gentlemen, knights, and esquires; 'Queen' Margaret was visited at Norwood in 1750 by the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Lazarns Petulēngro at the Liverpool Exhibition of 1886 by Prince Victor of Hohenlohe; whilst the Archduke Josef of Austro-Hungary is a prince among Romany Ryes (or 'Gypsy gentlemen'), as Gypsies designate lovers of their race. Still, liking and pity changed sooner or later to enmity and distrust. For the knaveries of the first immigrants were copied by their successors, and to actual malpractices, charges, more or less baseless, were added—they were kidnappers, cannibals, emissaries of the Turks. The last charge is as old as 1424, the second as 1547, and the first as 1629. Gypsies were used as spies by Wallenstein and Frederick the Great, but of cannibalism and child-stealing there is no just ground to suspect them, though for cannibalism forty-five Hungarian Gypsies were racked, beheaded, quartered, or hanged in 1782, for child-stealing forty-seven German Gypsies imprisoned in 1872. The charge in each case proved false. Truly, any wrong-doings of the Gypsies fade into insignificance by the side of the wrongs that were done them. In Germany so lately as the first half of the 18th century, they were hunted down like wild beasts; in one Rhenish principality, says Freytag, the record of a day's 'bag' includes, among other game, 'a Gypsy woman with her sucking-child.' England and Scotland were comparatively merciful, yet at Durham in 1592 'Simson, Arington, Fetherstone, Fenwicke, and Lanckaster were hanged for being Egyptians;' at Banff in 1701 three young Egyptian rogues were sentenced to have 'their ears cropt, be publicklye scorned through the tonne, burnt upon the cheek by the executioner, and banished the shyre for ever under the paine of death.' Such are two samples of the cases whose records have come down to us, few probably in proportion to the cases whose records are lost; anyhow, these show that in England and Scotland fully four-score men and women were hanged or drowned between 1577 and 1701 for the offence of being what Nature had made them. The penal laws passed against the race between 1530 and 1596 were repealed in 1784; but even in 1819 it was carried unanimously at the Norfolk Quarter Sessions 'that all persons wandering in the habit or form of Egyptians are punishable by imprisonment and whipping.' One important factor in the geographical distribution of the Gypsies has been deportation—from England to France and Norway (1544); from Scotland to Barbadoes and the American plantations (1665, 1699, 1715, &c.); from Portugal to Africa till 1685, and thereafter to Brazil; from Spain to Louisiana (some time prior to 1800); and from the Basque country en masse to Africa (1802).
At Tobolsk in 1721 Bell of Antermony heard of sixty Tsigans, journeying from Poland to China; in 1851 a hundred Hungarian Gypsies passed through Frankfort en route for Algeria; since 1866 large bands of Calderari, or Gypsy smiths from south-eastern Europe, have made the round of the Continent, visiting Norway, England, even Corsica; in 1879 fez-wearing Gypsies were camping in Sweden; and in 1886 ninety-nine 'Greek' Gypsies were stopped at Liverpool on their way from Corfu to the United States. Thus the nomad instinct survives, and with it a marvellous faculty for picking up foreign languages—a Hungarian Gypsy will speak even Basque like a native. British Gypsies, however, hardly ever visit the Continent; and almost everywhere there are sedentary as well as nomadic Gypsies, though in what proportion it were hard to guess. Sometimes they go into houses only for the winter, but some-
* The Gypsies of both Alsace and Lithuania have a legend of their own that a Gypsy stole one of the four nails with which Christ was to be crucified, and that therefore God gave them express permission to steal. This curious legend offers a possible explanation of the hitherto unexplained transition from four nails to three in Crucifixes (q.v.) during the 12th and 13th centuries. The earliest known example of this daring innovation is a copper crucifix, of seemingly Byzantine workmanship, dating from the close of the 12th century. Now, if Gypsies had then, as now, a practical monopoly of metal-working in south-eastern Europe, that crucifix must have been fashioned by a Gypsy, when the three nails would be an easily intelligible protest against the libel that those nails were forged by the founder of his race.
times the house or cave (not tent or caravan) is their permanent abode. Nay, it is curious that, though there certainly were Gypsy tent-dwellers in Wallachia in 1370, at Ratisbon in 1424, as there are to-day in Persia and America and in all intermediate lands, still, as a rule, the early chroniclers are silent as to Gypsy tents; and the word for 'tent' differs in almost every Rómani dialect, indeed is oftenest a borrowed term.
There are few trades that Gypsies have not somewhere or at some time turned their hands to. In England the writer has known them to follow the callings of clergyman, billiard-marker, Salvationist, betting-man, quack-doctor, chimney-sweep, gun-maker, pugilist, actor, carpenter, cabman, &c., as well as of hawker, knife-grinder, showman, and the like. But everywhere the men follow the three specifically Gypsy callings of horse-dealers (slave-dealers in Brazil, too, formerly), musicians, and workers in metal; everywhere the women are adepts at fortune-telling. Their musical talent has rendered them famous as harpists in Wales, as singers in Moscow, as violinists in Hungary; and from Hungary since 1878 their fame has extended to Paris, London, Liverpool, Edinburgh. There are no such players of the czardas; still Liszt's theory that Hungary owes its national music to the Gypsies has been impugned by competent authorities. What then of the paradoxical claim, put forward by M. Bataillard, that Europe—at any rate northern and western Europe—is indebted to prehistoric Gypsies for its knowledge of metallurgy—i.e. for everything that makes life livable? If we examine this claim, the paradox sensibly diminishes. On the one hand, Sir John Lubbock, without a thought of the Gypsies, had in 1865 been led to the independent conclusion that the art of making bronze was introduced into Europe from the East by a small-handed race like the Egyptians or the Hindus, a nomad race too, who practised the self-same methods in different lands, and who, whether acquainted or not with iron, were exclusively workers in bronze. What race this was he leaves an unsolved problem, except that it certainly was not the Phoenicians. On the other hand, the Gypsies of south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor enjoy a practical monopoly of metal-working. So exclusively is the smith's a Gypsy (and therefore a degrading) craft in Montenegro that, when in 1872 the government established an arsenal, no natives could be got to fill its well-paid posts. In 1880 Mr Hyde Clarke wrote in a letter that 'over more than one sanják of the Aidu viceroyalty the Gypsies have still a monopoly of ironworking, the naalband, or shoeing-smith, being no smith in our sense at all. He is supplied with shoes of various sizes by the Gypsies, and only hammers them on.' In 1856 Mr Gardner, consul at Jassy in Moldavia, described the Gypsies as 'the blacksmiths and locksmiths of the country'; in Transylvania, says Boner (1865), 'Gypsies are the best farriers, and as blacksmiths generally they excel. All the ironwork of a village is done by them.' Add to this, and much more of the sort might be quoted, the fact that very many of the early notices of Gypsies, some of which we have cited, refer to their skill in metallurgy. Next, put two and two together, though many important links in the chain of reasoning are necessarily omitted here for want of space. Suppose that there were prehistoric Gypsies in Europe (and history knows nought of their arrival), that they were nomad smiths, like the kómodromoi of the 7th century A.D., the 'Ishmaelites' of the 12th century, and the Hungarian Calderari who visited Norway in 1874; that they were workers in bronze, to the exclusion of iron, like the Gypsy 'Zlotars' to-day in eastern Galicia (bell-founders these, like the Scottish tinklers of 1726, and goldsmiths, too, like the kómodromoi)—supposing all this, we say, then have we not possibly identified the unknown race, small-handed like the Gypsies, and, like the Gypsies immigrants from the East? An objection, raised by the writer in 1878 to Bataillard's theory, is that in every Gypsy dialect of Europe nearly all the metallurgical terms seem to be directly borrowed from the Greek: pétalo, 'horseshoe' (pétalon); kalái, 'tin' (kalaion); khárkoma, 'copper' (chálkoma); kakkávi, 'kettle' (kakkábē); moliv, 'lead' (molybdos); rin, 'file' (rinē); and half a dozen more. This looked like an insuperable objection; for how, unless the Gypsies had adopted the farrier's craft since their arrival in a Greek-speaking country, should their word for 'a horse' be Indian, for 'a horseshoe' Greek? But, Bataillard contends, the converse may be the case, the Greeks may have borrowed their terms from Rómani. Certainly, the occurrence of pedol in Welsh (12th century, pedhaul), for 'horseshoe,' looks like more than a mere coincidence; and gh'ala, the word for 'tin' with Asiatic Gypsies, seems to forbid our deriving kalái from kalaion. Anyhow, Bataillard's theory is gaining favour with foreign archaeologists, among whom M. Mortillet, Chantre, and Burnouf had arrived independently at similar conclusions.
The counter-theories as to the origin of the Gypsies need not detain us long. There is the Tamerlane theory of Grellmann (1783), according to which the Gypsies first reached Europe in 1417—a theory disproved by firmly-established facts. There is the Behram Gur theory of Pott and Bataillard (who since relinquished it), developed in 1844-49, and adopted by Newbold, Sir Henry Rawlinson, De Goeje, Sir Richard Burton, and an Edinburgh Reviewer (July 1878). According to this theory, about 420 A.D., Behram Gur imported 12,000 Jat minstrels from India to Persia, and their descendants, gradually wandering westward, entered Europe in 1025 or as late as the beginning of the 14th century. Plausible, and it may be containing a modicum of truth, this theory fails as a whole in view of the marked unlikeness of Játaki, the language of the Jats, and Rómani, the language of the Gypsies. Lastly, attempts have been made, on the ground for the most part of a similar habit of life, to identify the Gypsies with various Indian vagrants—e.g. by Richardson with the Nāts (1803), by R. Mitra with the Bediyás (1870), and by Leland and Grierson with the Doms (1873-88). Even if successful, such identification would prove little more than that India, like Egypt, has its Gypsy tribes—a fact in itself extremely probable, but so far lacking linguistic corroboration.
Language.—What their religion has been to the Jews, that their language is to the Gypsies—a bond of universal brotherhood. For Gypsies everywhere speak the self-same Rómani chiv ('Gypsy tongue'). Their words for 'water' and 'knife' are in Persia páni, cheri (1823); in Siberia, panji, tschuri (1878); in Armenia, páni, churi (1864); in Egypt, páni, chúri (1856); in Norway, páni, tjuri (1858); in England, páni, churi (1830); in Brazil, panin, churin (1886)—where spelling and dates are those of the works whence these words have been taken. But over and above their identity—and there are hundreds more like them in every Gypsy dialect—they are identical with the Hindustani páni and churi, familiar to all Anglo-Indians. To cite but a few more instances, 'nose,' 'hair,' 'eye,' 'ear' are in Turkish Rómani nak, bal, yak, kann; in Hindustani, nak, bal, akh, kan; whilst 'Go, see who knocks at the door' in the one language is Já, dik kon chalavéla o vudár, and in the other Já, dikh kon chaláya dvár ko. This discovery was not made till long after specimens of the Gypsy language had begun to be published—by Andrew Boorde (q.v.) in 1547, whose twenty-six words, taken down seemingly in an English alehouse, were intended to illustrate the language of Egypt; by Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597), whose vocabulary of seventy-one words, collected probably in Belgium, fills up some blank pages in a work on the Goths; and by Ludolphus (1691), whose thirty-eight words are embedded in a history of Ethiopia. First in 1782 Rüdiger in Germany, followed next year by Grellmann, and in England (independently) by Marsden, observed the resemblance of Rómani to Hindustani; and Grellmann straightway leaped to the conclusion that the Gypsies who showed themselves in western Europe in 1417 had newly come also to south-eastern Europe, and were a low-caste Indian tribe expelled from their native country about 1409 by Tamerlane. In 1783 the older languages of India were a sealed book to Europeans, and Grellmann's opinion found almost unanimous approval for upwards of sixty years; but thanks to the linguistic labours of Pott, Ascoli, and Miklosich, combined with the historical researches of Bataillard, the question has now assumed a new aspect. For while on the one hand it has been proved that Europe had its Gypsies long before 1417, so on the other Rómani has been shown to be a sister, not a daughter—and it may be an elder sister—of the seven principal New Indian dialects. Not a few of its forms are more primitive than theirs, or even than those of Pali and the Prakrits—e.g. the Turkish Rómani vast, 'hand' (Sansk. hasta; Pali, hattha), and vusht, 'lip' (Sansk. ostha; Pali, ottha). Miklosich, however, has pointed out that many of these seemingly archaic forms in Rómani may be matched from the less-known dialects of India, especially north-west India—that we find, for example, in Dardu both hast and usht.
In the Rómani vocabulary (five thousand words rich perhaps), besides the Indian elements that constitute its basis, there is also a largish percentage of borrowed words—Persian, Armenian, Slavonic, Roumanian, Magyar, &c. Thus, the English dialect has ambrol, 'pear' (Pers. amrūd); grásni, 'mare' (Arm. grast, 'beast of burden'); paramísú, 'scandal' (Mod. Gr. paramúthi, 'story'); hólevas, 'stockings' (Slav. choleva); vari, 'any' (Roun. vare); and stiffi-pen, 'sister-in-law' (Ger. stief). These words and the like are a record of the route by which the English Gypsies arrived in England; and as the fifty Greek and the thirty Slavonic words outnumber all the other borrowed words put together, it follows that the Gypsies tarried longest in Greek- and Slavonic-speaking lands. Again, drom, drum, or dron (Gr. drómos) is the Rómani word for 'road' not only in England, but in Turkey, Roumania, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Brazil; and the like holds more or less good of the Gypsy words for 'Sunday,' 'chair,' 'hat,' 'anger,' 'bone,' 'soup,' 'pawn,' &c. from the Greek; for 'pease,' 'beer,' 'inu,' 'cat,' 'cloak,' &c. from the Slavonic. This is important as indicating that the modern Gypsies are descended not from successive waves of Oriental immigration, but all from the self-same European-Gypsy stock, whenever that stock may have first been transplanted to Europe. It conclusively negatives a theory like Kouunavine's, that the Italian, Spanish, Basque, and French Gypsies arrived at their present habitats by way of Africa, and the Scandinavian Gypsies by way of the Ural Mountains. Still more important is the question of the presence or the absence of Arabic words in European Rómani. According to De Goeje (1875) there are ten such words; according to Miklosich (1878)—and rightly as it seems—there are none. Neither, however, of the two scholars has perceived the possible importance of the presence or the absence (especially the absence) of Arabic elements. Rómani undoubtedly contains Persian words; would it not have certainly contained also Arabic words if the ancestors of our modern European Gypsies had sojourned in Persia, or even passed through Persia, at a date later than the Arab conquest of Persia? If Miklosich is right in his contention that there are no Arabic words in European Rómani, it follows almost inevitably that the Gypsies must have passed through Persia on their way to Europe at some date prior to the middle of the 7th century A.D. In this connection it should be pointed out that the dialect of the Gypsies of Asia Minor differs far more, alike in grammar and in vocabulary, from that of the Gypsies of Turkey than does the latter from that of their brethren in Wales.
The Gypsies of Montenegro are said to have completely lost their language; elsewhere Rómani has suffered more in grammar than in vocabulary. In Spain, in Brazil, in Scotland, and in Norway its genuine inflections have been wholly or almost wholly superseded by those of Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Norwegian. In England this process is still going on, affording an unquestionable instance of 'mixed grammar,' such as Max Müller has pronounced an impossibility. There is every variety of shade, from almost absolute purity to as almost absolute corruption. Thus, a Welsh Gypsy writes in a letter, Dava ma temen borro parchyben for temorro camlo drom ('Give I you great thanks for your loving way'); and an English Gypsy, Mandy kek gin so to pen ('Me not know what to say'), where the pure Rómani would run, Kek ne jindva me so te penáv. No Gypsy dialects have been better preserved than those of Turkey at one end of Europe, and of Wales at the other end; from a comparison of these it is easy to see how little they can have altered since the ancestors of those who now speak them parted company five centuries ago. Thus, the twenty-one forms in Turkish Rómani of the third personal pronoun (masc., fem., and plur.), with two exceptions, reappear almost or quite unchanged in the Welsh dialect. The plural, for instance, runs in Turkish Rómani, ol, 'they'; len, 'them'; lengoro, 'their'; léndhe or lénge, 'to them'; léndja, 'with them'; léndar, 'from them'; and in Welsh Rómani the corresponding forms, occurring in letters written by a self-educated Gypsy, are yon, len, lengo, lendy and lengey, lensa, and lenda. Four of the cases, it will be seen, are formed by suffixing postpositions to the accusative; and this, too, holds good of the nouns. Many of the verbal inflections are almost equally simple, and may be as readily analysed by means of Rómani itself. In the final syllables of dá-va, 'I give'; dé-sa, 'thou givest'; and dé-la, 'he gives,' we recognise the first, second, and third pronouns. From the past participle dínó and isóm or hom, 'I am'; isómas or hómas, 'I was,' are formed dinióm, 'I gave'; and diniómas, 'I had given'—formations recalling those of Latin deponents. The future, formed by prefixing kama ('will') to the present, as kamadáva, 'I will give,' was modelled probably on the Modern Greek thélō or thá.
So far, our ablest Gypsiologists are divided in opinion as to the probable antiquity of Rómani. On the one hand Ascoli maintains that, 'having retained certain nevus, or combinations of consonants, which had almost wholly disappeared at the epoch of the oldest known Prakrit texts, this lowly idiom herein surpasses Pali itself in nobility, and more nearly approaches Sanskrit.' Miklosich, on the other hand, contends that 'from the agreement of Rómani in so many important points with the modern Aryan languages of India, it follows that the emigration cannot have taken place till after the formation of the latter—i.e. till after the Prakrit period, in which the old system of declension was still recognised; since one is hardly inclined to assume that Rómani, severed from its most nearly-related idioms, developed itself in the selfsame manner as they.’ In his Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India (3 vols. 1872–79) Mr Beames arrives at a similar conclusion, that ‘the language of the Gypsies is purely Aryan in its structure, and Modern Aryan too, being in many respects quite as far removed from the old synthetical system as any of the seven languages now under discussion.’
Names.—Alike in Turkey and England, in Finland and Italy, the Gypsy calls himself Rom (‘man’ or ‘husband’), from which come Rómni (‘female Gypsy,’ ‘woman’ or ‘wife’) and the adjective Rómano (‘Gypsy’). In Asia Minor the form is lom, and in Syria down, which comes very near the Sanskrit doma and modern Indian dom, ‘a low-caste musician.’ ‘Husband’ is clearly a secondary meaning of Rom, and ‘man’ the primary; so that one is almost tempted to connect Rom with the ancient Egyptian róme, ‘man’ (Rawlinson’s Herodotus, ii. 225), and to believe that there really is something in the alleged Egyptian origin of the Gypsies. That belief was assuredly current in south-east Europe prior to their westward migration, and is current to-day from Armenia to America, having been stereotyped in such names as the modern Greek Gyphtoi, the Albanian Jevk, the Turkish Fârâwni and Magyar Pharao népe (‘Pharaoh’s folk’), the English Gypsy, and the Spanish Gitano. Another very widespread name is the Syrian Jingánih, Modern Greek Atsin-kanoi, Turkish Tchinhiané, Magyar Tzigany, German Zigeuner, Italian Zingaro, &c., perhaps identical with the Persian zingar, ‘a saddler.’ We can merely glance at the infinite variety of names applied to the Gypsies in different ages and different localities—e.g. Heiden (‘heathen’), Saraceni, Nubiani, Uxii, Cilices, &c. by early writers, and the Persian Karâchi (‘swarthy’), the Modern Greek Katzibcloi, the Cypriote Kilindjirides, the French Bohémians, and the Scandinavian Tatere (‘Tatars’). Only, if under these manifold and frequently misleading names we can safely recognise Gypsies, it is at least just possible that we should also recognise them in the Dynamitters (traders from foreign parts who sold brazen pots at Winchester fair in 1349), in the Bemische (‘foreigners’ at Würzburg about 1388; Gypsies incontestably at Frankfort in 1495); in the teut-dwelling refugees from Hungary and Lorraine, who are said to have discovered the Stourbridge fireclay about 1555; or even in the Kenites, nomad tented tinkers and blacksmiths in ancient Palestine (cf. Sayce and Neubauer in the Academy, Nov.–Dec. 1886). In England, common Gypsy surnames are Boswell, Buckland, Cooper, Gray, Herne, Lee, Lovell, Smith (Petulénqro), and Stanley—assumed, some at least, probably from former patrons of the race. Among their ‘Christian’ names are Mantis, Perun, Plato, and Pyramus; Delarifa, Meralini, Memberenci, Perpénia, and Sinaminti.
Songs and Folk Tales.—Chin, Rómani for ‘write,’ means literally ‘cut,’ so points back to a dim antiquity; still, the Gypsies have neither alphabet nor literature. Many Rómani songs, however, have been taken down in Spain, Hungary, Roumania, and elsewhere—ballads, love- and dance-songs, and threnodies. The last, collected in Transylvania by Wislocki, are instinct with pathos and poetry; but the rest, rude in rhyme and in rhythm, as a rule have only a linguistic value. The famous ‘Pharaoh lay’ is known to us only through a very corrupt fragment. The case is otherwise with
Gypsy folk-tales, of which nearly 200 have been collected since 1862 in Turkey, Roumania, Austro-Hungary, Wales, &c. A meagre store, yet sufficient to enable us to arrive at certain definite conclusions. First, in different collections we meet with variants of one and the same story—e.g. three of ‘The Valiant Little Tailor,’ and three of ‘The Master Thief.’ Secondly, many (perhaps most) of the Gypsy stories are identical with, though not seldom superior to, stories current amongst non-Gypsy races. Thirdly, there are certain episodes in Gypsy stories, and certain whole Gypsy stories, for which diligent research has failed to produce any parallel. Fourthly, a number of non-Gypsy stories present strong internal evidence of the probability of their Gypsy origin. Now, as early as 1856 the Gypsies were termed the ‘rhapsodists of Moldo-Wallachia;’ in Turkey Gypsies are professional story-tellers; their stories there are proved to be ‘very old’ by their retention of otherwise forgotten Rómani words; in the Scottish Highlands a tented tinker was one of Campbell’s four principal sources; and finally, according to Benfey, Ralston, Cosquin, Clouston, and other folklorists, most of the popular stories of Europe are traceable to Indian sources (see FOLKLORE). But how? by what channels?—one channel, perhaps, was the Gypsies.
Religion.—Of the Gypsies’ religion not much need be said, as they do not possess one. They probably had one at starting; but, if so, they lost it by the way. In spite of frequent statements to the contrary, Rómani has words for God, devil, soul, heaven, cross; but trúshul, ‘cross,’ originally stood for Siva’s trident. So, too, their folklore enshrines many strange survivals of dead heathenry—of tree and serpent worship, of phallicism, tabu, and the vampire superstition. But everywhere Gypsies profess the faith of the land of their adoption—Mohammedan, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant. They bring their children to baptism, and are scrupulous in the matter of Christian sepulture. At Steinbach in 1445 the ‘high-born Duke Panel’ was buried beneath a scutcheon monument; at Dayton, Ohio, in 1878, ‘Queen’ Margaret Stanley was borne with regal honours to the grave; and scores of similar cases could be cited in England, where at Malmesbury in 1657 ‘John Buecle, a gypsy, was buried in King Athelstone’s chapel,’ and at Steeple Barton in 1794 ‘Peter Buckland, a great man among the Gypsies, said to be very wealthy,’ was interred in the chancel. Otherwise, unless for marriages, nor always then, the Gypsies are not great church-goers.
Character.—There are Gypsies and Gypsies. The better sort are quick-witted, courteous, likeable, trustworthy when trusted, and lavishly generous with the one hand, though the other may itch for a bargain. Untrammelled by prejudices, and vexed by no lofty ambition, they have picked up a sort of peripatetic philosophy, so lead a pleasant, cuckoo-like existence, and make the best of this life—for a next they have small concern. As to faults, these ‘spoilt children of Nature’ are boastful, passionate, crafty, superstitious, thriftless, and indolent; they break most of the Decalogue’s precepts, but lightly—great criminals are few among them. Still, horse-dealing and palmistry have not proved ennobling vocations. Piety, which is rare with Gypsies, is apt to assume the form of cant; and learning, which is rarer, of conceit. Indeed, the best Gypsy is the Gypsy au naturel, the life-long tent-dweller in country lanes; and he, like all feræ naturæ, is threatened with extinction. Gypsies’ virtues are largely their own, an outcome of open-air life; their vices are ascribable to centuries of oppression, which have left them a singular compound of deep-seated gloom and quicksilver light-heartedness, have made them suspicious and hostile towards all the rest of mankind. 'There's nothing worse,' says the Gypsy, 'than nasty gautjos,' than all, that is, who have not enjoyed the privilege of Gypsy birth. For of that he is genuinely proud; he is honestly grateful that he 'hasn't got to live in none of your poverty houses.' Gypsy celebrities, outside the realm of music, have been few. John Bunyan has been claimed as one, but on slender grounds; so have Masaniello and the painter Antonio Solario (1382-1455), nicknamed 'Lo Zingaro.' Anyhow there is Jem Mace, the champion pugilist; and Mrs Carlyle was proud of her Baillie ancestry.
Physique.—Early writers all speak of the Gypsies as hideous, but such language is like early travellers' descriptions of Alpine scenery. For the race is a comely one—its most marked characteristics the tawny olive skin, the dark lustrous eye, the dazzling teeth, the black or dark-brown hair (often frizzled and somewhat coarse), the thoughtful brow, and the lithe sinewy form, with finely-made hands and feet, and arms short in comparison to the legs. The skull is mesocephalic.
Bibliography.—There are more than 300 books, pamphlets, &c. on the Gypsies; but one and all might have seemed almost valueless beside the 'immense collections' of Michael Ivanovitch Kounavine (1820-81). A Russian by birth, by profession a medical man, he lived, we are told, during 1841-76 among the Gypsies of Germany, Austria, southern France, Italy, England, Spain, Turkey, northern Africa, Asia Minor, central Asia, Hindustan, and Russia, and, with much else, collected 385 tales, traditions, and ritual songs, enshrining a wealth of mythological and legendary lore. Unfortunately those collections have disappeared, and we know them only through an abstract formed before the collector's death by his friend, Dr A. Elysseef, member of the St Petersburg Geographical Society, and translated from Russian through French for the Gypsy Lore Journal (1890). Indian Gypsies have been treated by MacRitchie (1886); Persian by Sir W. Ouseley (1823) and Newbold (1856); Syrian by Pott (German, 1846), Seetzen (Ger. 1854), Newbold (1856), and Everest (1890); Anatolian by Paspati (French, 1870) and Elysseef (1889); Armenian and Siberian by Miklosich (Ger. 1878); Egyptian by Newbold (1856), Von Kremer (Ger. 1862), and Leland (1873-82); Central African by Felkin (1889); Algerian by Bataillard (Fr. 1874); Turkish by Paspati (Fr. 1870) and Colocci (Ital. 1889); Roumanian by Kogahnitschan or Cogahnitcheanu (Fr. 1837) and Vaillant (Fr. 1868); Montenegrin by Bogisic (Ger. 1874); Servian by Miklosich (Ger. 1876); Bosnian by Kopernicki (1889); Hungarian by Bright (q.v., 1818) and the Archduke Josef (Hung. 1888); Transylvanian by Wislocki (Ger. 1880-89); Bohemian by Puchmayer (Ger. 1821) and Jesina (Ger. 1886); Slovak by Kalina (Fr. 1882) and Von Sowa (Ger. 1887-90); Polish by Danilowicz (Pol. 1824) and Czacki (Pol. 1845); Crimean by Koppen (Ger. 1874; Eng. 1890); Russian by Böhlingk (Ger. 1853) and Miklosich (Ger. 1872-78); Lithuanian by Narbutt (Pol. 1830) and Dowojno-Sylwestrowicz (1889); Norwegian by Sundt (Norw. 1850-65); Danish by Dyrlund (Dan. 1872); German by Liebig (Ger. 1863); Dutch by Dirks (Dutch, 1850); English and Welsh by Bryant (1784), Hoyland (1816), Harriot (1830), Crabb (1831), Roberts (1836), Borrow (q.v. 1841-74), Leland (1873-82), Smart and Crofton (1863-88), and Groome (1880); Scottish by Baird (1839-62), Simson (1865), MacRitchie (1884-94); Basque by Michel (Fr. 1857), Baudrimont (Fr. 1862), and Wentworth Webster (1888); Italian by Ascoli (Ger. 1865) and Colocci (Ital. 1889); Catalanian by MacRitchie (1888); Spanish by Borrow (1841), Campuzano (Span. 1851), and Mayo (Span. 1870); Brazilian by Mello Moraes (Port. 1885-86); and North American by Simson (1865) and Leland (1882). Hereto should be added, for music, Liszt (Fr. 1859), Leland (1882), and Thewrewk de Ponor (1889); for folklore and folk-tales, Leland's Gypsy Sorecy (1891) and eight works cited by Groome in the National Review for July 1888; for costume, Crofton (1876); for metallurgy, Andree (1884); for craniology and physique, Kopernicki (Ger. 1872), Hovelacque (Fr. 1874), and Weisbach (Ger. 1889); for history, Grellmann (Ger.
1783; Eng. trans. by Raper, 1787), Sprengler (Lat. 1839), Hopf (Ger. 1870), Crofton (1888), and, especially, Bataillard (1844-90); and for the language as a whole, Pott (q.v., Ger. 1844-45), Ascoli (Ger. 1865), and Miklosich (q.v., 1872-80). Of these works the fullest of several bibliographies is that furnished by Colocci in Gli Zingari (Turin, 1889). Painters to whom the Gypsies have furnished subjects have been Caravaggio, Callot, Morland, Phillip, and Burgess; novelists, poets, playwrights, and composers, Cervantes, Scott, Victor Hugo, George Meredith, Le Fanu, Theodore Watts, Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, Puschkine, Kraszewski, Brachvogel, Richepin, Balfé, Verdi, Brahms, Bizet, &c. (cf. Gosche, Die Zigeuner als Typus in Dichtung und Kunst, 1879). Finally, a vast mass of material is to be found in the quarterly Journal (Edin., Constable) of the cosmopolitan Gypsy Lore Society, which was founded in 1888, and survived until 1892.