CHIROMANCY, or the divination of the hand, is, according to the orthodox
theory, the determining from certain lines upon the hand the quality of
the physical and intellectual powers of the possessor.
The whole science is based upon the five principal lines in the hand, and
the triangle which they form in the palm. These lines, which have all
their particular and appropriate names, and the principal of which is
called ‘the line of life,’ are, if we may believe those who have written
on the subject, connected with the heart, with the genitals, with the
brain, with the liver or stomach, and the head. Torreblanca, {98} in his
curious and learned book on magic, observes: ‘In judging these lines you
must pay attention to their substance, colour, and continuance, together
with the disposition of the correspondent member; for, if the line be
well and clearly described, and is of a vivid colour, without being
intermitted or _puncturis infecta_, it denotes the good complexion and
virtue of its member, according to Aristotle.
‘So that if the line of the heart be found sufficiently long and
reasonably deep, and not crossed by other accidental lines, it is an
infallible sign of the health of the heart and the great virtue of
the heart, and the abundance of spirits and good blood in the heart,
and accordingly denotes boldness and liberal genius for every work.’
In like manner, by means of the hepatal line, it is easy to form an
accurate judgment as to the state of a person’s liver, and of his powers
of digestion, and so on with respect to all the other organs of the body.
After having laid down all the rules of chiromancy with the utmost
possible clearness, the sage Torreblanca exclaims: ‘And with these
terminate the canons of true and catholic chiromancy; for as for the
other species by which people pretend to divine concerning the affairs of
life, either past or to come, dignities, fortunes, children, events,
chances, dangers, etc., such chiromancy is not only reprobated by
theologians, but by men of law and physic, as a foolish, false, vain,
scandalous, futile, superstitious practice, smelling much of divinery and
a pact with the devil.’
Then, after mentioning a number of erudite and enlightened men of the
three learned professions, who have written against such absurd
superstitions, amongst whom he cites Martin Del Rio, he falls foul of the
Gypsy wives in this manner: ‘A practice turned to profit by the wives of
that rabble of abandoned miscreants whom the Italians call Cingari, the
Latins Egyptians, and we Gitános, who, notwithstanding that they are sent
by the Turks into Spain for the purpose of acting as spies upon the
Christian religion, pretend that they are wandering over the world in
fulfilment of a penance enjoined upon them, part of which penance seems
to be the living by fraud and imposition.’ And shortly afterwards he
remarks: ‘Nor do they derive any authority for such a practice from those
words in Exodus, {100a} “et quasi signum in manu tua,” as that passage
does not treat of chiromancy, but of the festival of unleavened bread;
the observance of which, in order that it might be memorable to the
Hebrews, the sacred historian said should be as a sign upon the hand; a
metaphor derived from those who, when they wish to remember anything, tie
a thread round their finger, or put a ring upon it; and still less I ween
does that chapter of Job {100b} speak in their favour, where is written,
“Qui in manu hominis signat, ut norint omnes opera sua,” because the
divine power is meant thereby which is preached to those here below: for
the hand is intended for power and magnitude, Exod. chap. xiv., {100c} or
stands for free will, which is placed in a man’s hand, that is, in his
power. Wisdom, chap. xxxvi. “In manibus abscondit lucem,” {100d} etc.
etc. etc.
No, no, good Torreblanca, we know perfectly well that the witch-wives of
Multan, who for the last four hundred years have been running about Spain
and other countries, telling fortunes by the hand, and deriving good
profit from the same, are not countenanced in such a practice by the
sacred volume; we yield as little credit to their chiromancy as we do to
that which you call the true and catholic, and believe that the lines of
the hand have as little connection with the events of life as with the
liver and stomach, notwithstanding Aristotle, who you forget was a
heathen, and knew as little and cared as little for the Scriptures as the
Gitános, whether male or female, who little reck what sanction any of
their practices may receive from authority, whether divine or human, if
the pursuit enable them to provide sufficient for the existence, however
poor and miserable, of their families and themselves.
A very singular kind of women are the Gitánas, far more remarkable in
most points than their husbands, in whose pursuits of low cheating and
petty robbery there is little capable of exciting much interest; but if
there be one being in the world who, more than another, deserves the
title of sorceress (and where do you find a word of greater romance and
more thrilling interest?), it is the Gypsy female in the prime and vigour
of her age and ripeness of her understanding—the Gypsy wife, the mother
of two or three children. Mention to me a point of devilry with which
that woman is not acquainted. She can at any time, when it suits her,
show herself as expert a jockey as her husband, and he appears to
advantage in no other character, and is only eloquent when descanting on
the merits of some particular animal; but she can do much more: she is a
prophetess, though she believes not in prophecy; she is a physician,
though she will not taste her own philtres; she is a procuress, though
she is not to be procured; she is a singer of obscene songs, though she
will suffer no obscene hand to touch her; and though no one is more
tenacious of the little she possesses, she is a cutpurse and a
shop-lifter whenever opportunity shall offer.
In all times, since we have known anything of these women, they have been
addicted to and famous for fortune-telling; indeed, it is their only
ostensible means of livelihood, though they have various others which
they pursue more secretly. Where and how they first learned the practice
we know not; they may have brought it with them from the East, or they
may have adopted it, which is less likely, after their arrival in Europe.
Chiromancy, from the most remote periods, has been practised in all
countries. Neither do we know, whether in this practice they were ever
guided by fixed and certain rules; the probability, however, is, that
they were not, and that they never followed it but as a means of fraud
and robbery; certainly, amongst all the professors of this art that ever
existed, no people are more adapted by nature to turn it to account than
these females, call them by whatever name you will, Gitánas, Zigánas,
Gypsies, or Bohemians; their forms, their features, the expression of
their countenances are ever wild and Sibylline, frequently beautiful, but
never vulgar. Observe, for example, the Gitána, even her of Seville.
She is standing before the portal of a large house in one of the narrow
Moorish streets of the capital of Andalusia; through the grated iron
door, she looks in upon the court; it is paved with small marble slabs of
almost snowy whiteness; in the middle is a fountain distilling limpid
water, and all around there is a profusion of macetas, in which flowering
plants and aromatic shrubs are growing, and at each corner there is an
orange tree, and the perfume of the azahár may be distinguished; you hear
the melody of birds from a small aviary beneath the piazza which
surrounds the court, which is surmounted by a toldo or linen awning, for
it is the commencement of May, and the glorious sun of Andalusia is
burning with a splendour too intense for his rays to be borne with
impunity. It is a fairy scene such as nowhere meets the eye but at
Seville, or perhaps at Fez and Shiraz, in the palaces of the Sultan and
the Shah. The Gypsy looks through the iron-grated door, and beholds,
seated near the fountain, a richly dressed dame and two lovely delicate
maidens; they are busied at their morning’s occupation, intertwining with
their sharp needles the gold and silk on the tambour; several female
attendants are seated behind. The Gypsy pulls the bell, when is heard
the soft cry of ‘Quien es’; the door, unlocked by means of a string,
recedes upon its hinges, when in walks the Gitána, the witch-wife of
Multan, with a look such as the tiger-cat casts when she stealeth from
her jungle into the plain.
Yes, well may you exclaim ‘Ave Maria purissima,’ ye dames and maidens of
Seville, as she advances towards you; she is not of yourselves, she is
not of your blood, she or her fathers have walked to your climate from a
distance of three thousand leagues. She has come from the far East, like
the three enchanted kings, to Cologne; but, unlike them, she and her race
have come with hate and not with love. She comes to flatter, and to
deceive, and to rob, for she is a lying prophetess, and a she-Thug; she
will greet you with blessings which will make your hearts rejoice, but
your hearts’ blood would freeze, could you hear the curses which to
herself she murmurs against you; for she says, that in her children’s
veins flows the dark blood of the ‘husbands,’ whilst in those of yours
flows the pale tide of the ‘savages,’ and therefore she would gladly set
her foot on all your corses first poisoned by her hands. For all her
love—and she can love—is for the Romas; and all her hate—and who can hate
like her?—is for the Busnees; for she says that the world would be a fair
world if there were no Busnees, and if the Romamiks could heat their
kettles undisturbed at the foot of the olive-trees; and therefore she
would kill them all if she could and if she dared. She never seeks the
houses of the Busnees but for the purpose of prey; for the wild animals
of the sierra do not more abhor the sight of man than she abhors the
countenances of the Busnees. She now comes to prey upon you and to scoff
at you. Will you believe her words? Fools! do you think that the being
before ye has any sympathy for the like of you?
She is of the middle stature, neither strongly nor slightly built, and
yet her every movement denotes agility and vigour. As she stands erect
before you, she appears like a falcon about to soar, and you are almost
tempted to believe that the power of volition is hers; and were you to
stretch forth your hand to seize her, she would spring above the
house-tops like a bird. Her face is oval, and her features are regular
but somewhat hard and coarse, for she was born amongst rocks in a
thicket, and she has been wind-beaten and sun-scorched for many a year,
even like her parents before her; there is many a speck upon her cheek,
and perhaps a scar, but no dimples of love; and her brow is wrinkled
over, though she is yet young. Her complexion is more than dark, for it
is almost that of a mulatto; and her hair, which hangs in long locks on
either side of her face, is black as coal, and coarse as the tail of a
horse, from which it seems to have been gathered.
There is no female eye in Seville can support the glance of hers,—so
fierce and penetrating, and yet so artful and sly, is the expression of
their dark orbs; her mouth is fine and almost delicate, and there is not
a queen on the proudest throne between Madrid and Moscow who might not
and would not envy the white and even rows of teeth which adorn it, which
seem not of pearl but of the purest elephant’s bone of Multan. She comes
not alone; a swarthy two-year-old bantling clasps her neck with one arm,
its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn round her
shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender of age, it
looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false
gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments
are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the
wandering Gitána, such is the witch-wife of Multan, who has come to spae
the fortune of the Sevillian countess and her daughters.
‘O may the blessing of Egypt light upon your head, you high-born lady!
(May an evil end overtake your body, daughter of a Busnee harlot!) and
may the same blessing await the two fair roses of the Nile here flowering
by your side! (May evil Moors seize them and carry them across the
water!) O listen to the words of the poor woman who is come from a
distant country; she is of a wise people, though it has pleased the God
of the sky to punish them for their sins by sending them to wander
through the world. They denied shelter to the Majari, whom you call the
queen of heaven, and to the Son of God, when they flew to the land of
Egypt before the wrath of the wicked king; it is said that they even
refused them a draught of the sweet waters of the great river when the
blessed two were athirst. O you will say that it was a heavy crime; and
truly so it was, and heavily has the Lord punished the Egyptians. He has
sent us a-wandering, poor as you see, with scarcely a blanket to cover
us. O blessed lady, (Accursed be thy dead, as many as thou mayest have,)
we have no money to buy us bread; we have only our wisdom with which to
support ourselves and our poor hungry babes; when God took away their
silks from the Egyptians, and their gold from the Egyptians, he left them
their wisdom as a resource that they might not starve. O who can read
the stars like the Egyptians? and who can read the lines of the palm like
the Egyptians? The poor woman read in the stars that there was a rich
ventura for all of this goodly house, so she followed the bidding of the
stars and came to declare it. O blessed lady, (I defile thy dead corse,)
your husband is at Granada, fighting with king Ferdinand against the wild
Corahai! (May an evil ball smite him and split his head!) Within three
months he shall return with twenty captive Moors, round the neck of each
a chain of gold. (God grant that when he enter the house a beam may fall
upon him and crush him!) And within nine months after his return God
shall bless you with a fair chabo, the pledge for which you have sighed
so long. (Accursed be the salt placed in its mouth in the church when it
is baptized!) Your palm, blessed lady, your palm, and the palms of all I
see here, that I may tell you all the rich ventura which is hanging over
this good house; (May evil lightning fall upon it and consume it!) but
first let me sing you a song of Egypt, that the spirit of the Chowahanee
may descend more plenteously upon the poor woman.’
Her demeanour now instantly undergoes a change. Hitherto she has been
pouring forth a lying and wild harangue without much flurry or agitation
of manner. Her speech, it is true, has been rapid, but her voice has
never been raised to a very high key; but she now stamps on the ground,
and placing her hands on her hips, she moves quickly to the right and
left, advancing and retreating in a sidelong direction. Her glances
become more fierce and fiery, and her coarse hair stands erect on her
head, stiff as the prickles of the hedgehog; and now she commences
clapping her hands, and uttering words of an unknown tongue, to a strange
and uncouth tune. The tawny bantling seems inspired with the same fiend,
and, foaming at the mouth, utters wild sounds, in imitation of its dam.
Still more rapid become the sidelong movements of the Gitána. Movement!
she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the
ground. She no longer bears the child in her bosom; she plucks it from
thence, and fiercely brandishes it aloft, till at last, with a yell she
tosses it high into the air, like a ball, and then, with neck and head
thrown back, receives it, as it falls, on her hands and breast,
extracting a cry from the terrified beholders. Is it possible she can be
singing? Yes, in the wildest style of her people; and here is a snatch
of the song, in the language of Roma, which she occasionally screams—
‘En los sastos de yesque plai me diquélo,
Doscusañas de sonacai terélo,—
Corojai diquélo abillar,
Y ne asislo chapescar, chapescar.’
‘On the top of a mountain I stand,
With a crown of red gold in my hand,—
Wild Moors came trooping o’er the lea,
O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?
O how from their fury shall I flee?’
Such was the Gitána in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, and much the
same is she now in the days of Isabel and Christina.
[Picture: A Song of Egypt]
Of the Gitánas and their practices I shall have much to say on a future
occasion, when speaking of those of the present time, with many of whom I
have had no little intercourse. All the ancient Spanish authors who
mention these women speak of them in unmeasured terms of abhorrence,
employing against them every abusive word contained in the language in
which they wrote. Amongst other vile names, they have been called
harlots, though perhaps no females on earth are, and have ever been, more
chaste in their own persons, though at all times willing to encourage
licentiousness in others, from a hope of gain. It is one thing to be a
procuress, and another to be a harlot, though the former has assuredly no
reason to complain if she be confounded with the latter. ‘The Gitánas,’
says Doctor Sancho de Moncada, in his discourse concerning the Gypsies,
which I shall presently lay before the reader, ‘are public harlots,
common, as it is said, to all the Gitános, and with dances, demeanour,
and filthy songs, are the cause of infinite harm to the souls of the
vassals of your Majesty (Philip III.), as it is notorious what infinite
harm they have caused in many honourable houses. The married women whom
they have separated from their husbands, and the maidens whom they have
perverted; and finally, in the best of these Gitánas, any one may
recognise all the signs of a harlot given by the wise king: “they are
gadders about, whisperers, always unquiet in the places and corners.”’
{109a}
The author of Alonso, {109b} he who of all the old Spanish writers has
written most graphically concerning the Gitános, and I believe with most
correctness, puts the following account of the Gitánas, and their
fortune-telling practices, into the entertaining mouth of his hero:—
‘O how many times did these Gitánas carry me along with them, for
being, after all, women, even they have their fears, and were glad of
me as a protector: and so they went through the neighbouring
villages, and entered the houses a-begging, giving to understand
thereby their poverty and necessity, and then they would call aside
the girls, in order to tell them the buena ventura, and the young
fellows the good luck which they were to enjoy, never failing in the
first place to ask for a cuarto or real, in order to make the sign of
the cross; and with these flattering words, they got as much as they
could, although, it is true, not much in money, as their harvest in
that article was generally slight; but enough in bacon to afford
subsistence to their husbands and bantlings. I looked on and laughed
at the simplicity of those foolish people, who, especially such as
wished to be married, were as satisfied and content with what the
Gitána told them, as if an apostle had spoken it.’
The above description of Gitánas telling fortunes amongst the villages of
Navarre, and which was written by a Spanish author at the commencement of
the seventeenth century, is, in every respect, applicable, as the reader
will not fail to have observed, to the English Gypsy women of the present
day, engaged in the same occupation in the rural districts of England,
where the first demand of the sibyls is invariably a sixpence, in order
that they may cross their hands with silver, and where the same promises
are made, and as easily believed; all which, if it serves to confirm the
opinion that in all times the practices and habits of the Egyptian race
have been, in almost all respects, the same as at the present day, brings
us also to the following mortifying conclusion,—that mental illumination,
amongst the generality of mankind, has made no progress at all; as we
observe in the nineteenth century the same gross credulity manifested as
in the seventeenth, and the inhabitants of one of the countries most
celebrated for the arts of civilisation, imposed upon by the same stale
tricks which served to deceive two centuries before in Spain, a country
whose name has long and justly been considered as synonymous with every
species of ignorance and barbarism.
The same author, whilst speaking of these female Thugs, relates an
anecdote very characteristic of them; a device at which they are adepts,
which they love to employ, and which is generally attended with success.
It is the more deserving attention, as an instance of the same
description, attended with very similar circumstances, occurred within
the sphere of my own knowledge in my own country. This species of deceit
is styled, in the peculiar language of the Rommany, _hokkano baro_, or
the ‘great trick’; it being considered by the women as their most
fruitful source of plunder. The story, as related by Alonso, runs as
follows:—
‘A band of Gitános being in the neighbourhood of a village, one of
the women went to a house where lived a lady alone. This lady was a
young widow, rich, without children, and of very handsome person.
After having saluted her, the Gypsy repeated the harangue which she
had already studied, to the effect that there was neither bachelor,
widower, nor married man, nobleman, nor gallant, endowed with a
thousand graces, who was not dying for love of her; and then
continued: “Lady, I have contracted a great affection for you, and
since I know that you well merit the riches you possess,
notwithstanding you live heedless of your good fortune, I wish to
reveal to you a secret. You must know, then, that in your cellar you
have a vast treasure; nevertheless you will experience great
difficulty in arriving at it, as it is enchanted, and to remove it is
impossible, save alone on the eve of Saint John. We are now at the
eighteenth of June, and it wants five days to the twenty-third;
therefore, in the meanwhile, collect some jewels of gold and silver,
and likewise some money, whatever you please, provided it be not
copper, and provide six tapers, of white or yellow wax, for at the
time appointed I will come with a sister of mine, when we will
extract from the cellar such abundance of riches, that you will be
able to live in a style which will excite the envy of the whole
country.” The ignorant widow, hearing these words, put implicit
confidence in the deceiver, and imagined that she already possessed
all the gold of Arabia and the silver of Potosi.
‘The appointed day arrived, and not more punctual were the two
Gypsies, than anxiously expected by the lady. Being asked whether
she had prepared all as she had been desired, she replied in the
affirmative, when the Gypsy thus addressed her: “You must know, good
lady, that gold calls forth gold, and silver calls forth silver; let
us light these tapers, and descend to the cellar before it grows
late, in order that we may have time for our conjurations.”
Thereupon the trio, the widow and the two Gypsies, went down, and
having lighted the tapers and placed them in candlesticks in the
shape of a circle, they deposited in the midst a silver tankard, with
some pieces of eight, and some corals tipped with gold, and other
jewels of small value. They then told the lady, that it was
necessary for them all to return to the staircase by which they had
descended to the cellar, and there they uplifted their hands, and
remained for a short time as if engaged in prayer.
‘The two Gypsies then bade the widow wait for them, and descended
again, when they commenced holding a conversation, speaking and
answering alternately, and altering their voices in such a manner
that five or six people appeared to be in the cellar. “Blessed
little Saint John,” said one, “will it be possible to remove the
treasure which you keep hidden here?” “O yes, and with a little more
trouble it will be yours,” replied the Gypsy sister, altering her
voice to a thin treble, as if it proceeded from a child four or five
years old. In the meantime, the lady remained astonished, expecting
the promised riches, and the two Gitánas presently coming to her,
said, “Come up, lady, for our desire is upon the point of being
gratified. Bring down the best petticoat, gown, and mantle which you
have in your chest, that I may dress myself, and appear in other
guise to what I do now.” The simple woman, not perceiving the trick
they were playing upon her, ascended with them to the doorway, and
leaving them alone, went to fetch the things which they demanded.
Thereupon the two Gypsies, seeing themselves at liberty, and having
already pocketed the gold and silver which had been deposited for
their conjuration, opened the street door, and escaped with all the
speed they could.
‘The beguiled widow returned laden with the clothes, and not finding
those whom she had left waiting, descended into the cellar, when,
perceiving the trick which they had played her, and the robbery which
they had committed in stealing her jewels, she began to cry and weep,
but all in vain. All the neighbours hastened to her, and to them she
related her misfortune, which served more to raise laughter and jeers
at her expense than to excite pity; though the subtlety of the two
she-thieves was universally praised. These latter, as soon as they
had got out of the door, knew well how to conceal themselves, for
having once reached the mountain it was not possible to find them.
So much for their divination, their foreseeing things to come, their
power over the secrets of nature, and their knowledge of the stars.’
The Gitánas in the olden time appear to have not unfrequently been
subjected to punishment as sorceresses, and with great justice, as the
abominable trade which they drove in philtres and decoctions certainly
entitled them to that appellation, and to the pains and penalties
reserved for those who practised what was termed ‘witchcraft.’
Amongst the crimes laid to their charge, connected with the exercise of
occult powers, there is one, however, of which they were certainly not
capable, as it is a purely imaginary one, though if they were punished
for it, they had assuredly little right to complain, as the chastisement
they met was fully merited by practices equally malefic as the crime
imputed to them, provided that were possible. _It was casting the evil
eye_.