THE GYPSY IN EUROPE
§ 1. _The Gypsy in Hungary_
The Czigany, as they are called, appeared early in the fifteenth
century, and were supposed to have fled from Moghol persecution. King
Sigismund, father of the heroic John Hunyadi,[206] allowed them to
settle in his realm, and the law called them “mere peasants.” In 1496
Bishop Sigismund at Funf-Kirchen ordered iron cannon-balls from the
Gypsies to be used against the Turkish invaders of Hungary; and he was
doughtily supported against the Turks by King Zindelo, Dukes Miguel and
Andrew, by Counts Manuel and Juan, by the “noble knight” Pedro, and by
the chief Tomas Polgar.
The reforms of 1848 found them in a state of slavery, _adscripti
glebœ_, who could not legally take service away from their birthplace.
Their condition was worse than that of the Wallach peasant, who says
of his haughty Magyar Magnate, “A lord is a lord born in hell.” Some
forty years ago Mr. Paget[207] says Gypsies were exposed for sale in
the neighbouring province of Wallachia. In the Hungary of the bad old
_régime_ the relation of the landowning peasant, however oppressive
might have been his obligations, was never that of master and slave. If
the agriculturist chose to give up his _session-lands_, the ground he
occupied by hereditary use, he could go where he pleased. Practically
this was rare; it was equivalent to giving up his means of subsistence,
and he preferred the tax-paying while all the nobles went free, and the
odious burden of the “Robot” _corvée_, or forced labour, two and in
some cases three days a week. Hence he hated the military conscription,
the only means of civilizing him established by Austria in 1849.[208]
But the Czigany, however deep-rooted is his love of liberty, never
preserved the modicum of freedom to which the Hungarian clung.
Though now legally free, the Czigany’s deep respect for everything
aristocratic attaches him to the ruling caste. In Transylvania “Magyar”
is a distinctive term for class as well as race. The Czigany who do
not assimilate with the thrifty Saxons prefer to be mere hangers-on at
the castle of the Hungarian Magnate, as in England of old they take
his name; and they profess the same faith--Catholic, Protestant, or
nothing. Notwithstanding their incurable propensity for pilfering,
they are trusted as messengers and carriers; like the old Spanish
_arriero_, they form a general “parcels-delivery company.” And they
are ubiquitous, for never a door is left unlocked lest a Gypsy will
slip in and steal. In old days they were most efficient spies upon
Christian and Muslim, and they trimmed between the twain to their own
advantage. They also made the best of smugglers; they dug for treasure,
and they washed for _paillettes_ of gold the Transylvanian affluents
of the Danube. At times they set out upon plundering excursions,
which extended to Italy, France, and Spain. They are still accused of
incendiarism by the Wallachs, who apparently thus seek to hide the
malpractices resulting from their inordinate lust of revenge, the ugly
survival of the savage character. These people forget that “curses,
like chickens, come home to roost,” and will play with fire even when
it damages themselves.
The settled Gypsy’s dwelling is even more primitive than the Wallachs.
The hut is formed, like the African’s, with plaited sticks, and
swish is plastered into the gaps. Before the hut entrance often
stands the nomad cart, two wheeled and tilted, and always stands the
tripod supporting the iron pot--a sight, like the scarlet cloak, once
familiar to us, but now disappeared from England. In time the earth
is grass-grown; and as the hovel is rarely more than seven feet high,
it looks rather like an exaggerated ant-hill or a tumulus than a
habitation for man. Yet the ragged inmate, whose children go about in
nature’s garb, is clever with his hands. He is the best blacksmith in
the country, and he fashions simple wooden articles for household use
with dexterity and even with taste. Despite his wretched surroundings,
he keeps his good spirits, he sings to his work, and he plays the
violin in his leisure hours.
I need hardly repeat the commonplaces about the music of the Hungarian
Gypsy, and the legends concerning Catalani and Liszt. Strolling bands,
in civilized attire, and performing upon divers instruments, are and
have been for some time well known to the capitals of Europe. So great
is the contrast between their art and their surroundings, that more
than one traveller has suspected this marvellous gift of pathetic
strains to be a “language brought with them in their exile from another
and a higher state of existence.” I find in it only the marriage of
Eastern with Western melody, the high science of the former, so little
appreciated by the ignorant Anglo-Indian, with the perfect practice of
the latter.
Though utterly unalphabetic, these people have a strange power of
stirring their hearers’ hearts. They play by ear, in style unsurpassed
by the best training, the violin, the ’cello, and the zither, with
which London is now familiarized. The airs, often their own, tell a
thrilling national tale in a way that makes an indelible impression
upon the stranger. Now it is the expression of turmoil, battle, and
defeat, followed by a long wail of woe, of passionate grief, mostly in
the minor key. Then it suddenly passes to the major in a wild burst of
joy, of triumph, of exultation, of rapture, which carries along with it
the hearer in irresistible sympathy. It has all the charm of contrast;
of extremes, excitement and depression; subjection and deliverance,
delight and despair. The strains rob the excitable Hungarian of his
reason; he drinks in the music till he is drunk.
The Gypsy is capable of a noble self-sacrifice, and Mr. Crosse tells
a tale which proves it. He passed in a wild, romantic glen a steep,
overhanging rock known throughout the land as the “Gypsy’s stone.”
About the middle of the last century, it is supposed, there was a
famine; and the Czigany, poorer than their neighbours, were reduced to
beg or starve. When turned away by certain hard-hearted villagers, one
poor fellow refused to go, declaring that his children were dying of
hunger. “Then,” said one of the boors in a mocking tone, “I will give
your family a side of bacon, if you will jump from that rock.” “You
hear his promise!” cried the Czigan, appealing to the crowd. Without
another word he rushed from amongst them, clambered up the rock, and
took the leap, which was--death.
This is exactly what we might expect under the circumstances from a
Hindu. The system of _Badli_--in plain English, paying a man to “take
blame” and to be hanged for you--is the best proof.
It should be remembered that a Hungarian was the first to publish the
“Indic origin” of the Romani tongue. At the end of 1765 an interesting
_communiqué_ was addressed to the _Vienna Gazette_ by Captain Szekely
de Doba. He related that the Protestant parson Stephen Vali while
studying at Leyden made acquaintance with certain Malabar youths sent
there by the Dutch Government, and their vernacular reminded him of
the Gypsy tongue which he had heard in his home at Almasch. They also
assured him that in Malabar there is a district called _Zigania_ (?),
which suggested a comparison with the German Zigeuner. At their
dictation he wrote down almost a thousand words, and returning to
Almasch he was surprised to find the Czigan understanding them.
Then set in the first period (1775-1800) of Sanskrit and Zend study,
accompanied by publications of Bengali, Urdu, and others of the
eighteen Prakrit tongues still spoken in the great Peninsula. This led
to careful study of Romani. The celebrated Mezzofanti did not hesitate
to assign it high rank amongst the thirty-two languages he had studied;
and when he lost his mind (1832) he never confounded it with other
idioms. Then followed in 1837 the _Gospel of St. Luke_ translated into
Spanish _Caló_ by “Gypsy Borrow,” who, however, inserted Castilian
words from Father Scio instead of forming them from Gypsy roots.
§ 2. _The Gypsies of Spain._
We have ample material for studying the Spanish Gypsy, or Flamanco,
as he is contemptuously called, probably because he entered Andalusia
in the train of the Flemings during the first third of the fifteenth
century. Yet it is somewhat remarkable that Europe believed up to the
end of that century the purely Spanish origin of the Gypsies.
Pasquier, describing the arrival of these “penitents” in Paris A.D.
1427, adds that from that time all France was infested by these
vagabonds, but that the first horde was replaced by the Biscayan and
other peoples of the same origin. This suggests an early occupation
of the Peninsula; although Francisca de Cordova in his _Didasculia_
declared they were first known in Germany, and the general belief now
is that the last horde entered Europe by the highroads of Andalusia and
Bulgaria, or rather Greece, and they must have been settled for many
years in these countries.
Northern Spaniards find in Andalusian blood a distinct Gypsy
innervation.
In Spain, as elsewhere, the Gypsy made himself hated by his systematic
contempt of the laws of _meum_ and _teum_; whilst he was protected
by two widely different conditions: the first was his poverty (“As
poor as a Gypsy” is still a proverb); secondly, he was a spy equally
useful to Christian and unbeliever. Yet action was not wanting. In
1499 was published the Gran Pragmatica (Royal Ordinance) of Medina
del Campo, under the influence of a fanatic archbishop, banishing on
and after the term of sixty days the Egyptian and foreign tinkers
(_caldereros_), and forbidding return under pain of mutilation. This
Pragmatica was renewed under Charles V. by the Cortes of Toledo and of
Madrid, with the additional punishment of perpetual slavery for those
found wandering a third time. Yet in 1560, on his marriage at Toledo
with Isabelle of France, Gypsy dances formed part of the festivities.
He was comparatively mild, and after moderating the old rigorous
laws he ordered the outcasts to live in towns. In 1586 the same king
allowed them to sell their goods at ten fairs and markets under certain
conditions.
These nomads picked up information from all classes, and the women,
with their black magic, sorcery, and devilry, palmistry, love-potions,
and poisons, penetrated into every secret. The Holy Office, established
in January, 1481, disdained to persecute such paupers; and the strong
arm of the law could not do more than hang a few witches. Ticknor
remarks: “Encouraged by the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, also by that
of the Moors in 1609-11, Dr. Sancho de Moncada, a professor in the
University of Toledo, addressed Philip III. in a discourse published in
1619, urging that monarch to drive out the Gypsies, but he failed.”
Another authority says that he himself, 1618, had prepared a memorial
to that effect, adding, “It is very vicious to tolerate such a
pernicious and perverse race.” Cordova, writing in 1615, accused them
of preparing, some years before, an organized attack upon Sogrovo
town when the pest raged, and declares that it was saved from such by
the arts of a certain wizard who had mysterious relations with the
vagabonds.
The charges of cannibalism became universal, founded probably upon the
fact that Gypsies do not disdain the flesh of animals poisoned by them.
That many of the persecuted outcasts were compelled to fly the country
we shall see presently in the Morerias of Brazil; and when religious
zeal cooled down, political interests took its place, and led to the
great legal persecution. Philip IV. in 1633 prohibited the Gypsy
dress and dialect, expelled them from the Ghettos, and by rendering
intermarriage illegal aimed at fusing the vagrants with other subjects.
In 1692 Charles II. ordered them to practise nothing but agriculture.
The decree was renewed in 1695, and article 16 threatened punishment to
all, gentle and simple, who aided and abetted them. Philip V. in 1726
banished from Madrid certain Gypsy women who had petitioned in favour
of their persecuted husbands. Nineteen years afterwards (1745) he
ordered the fugitives to return to his dominions under pain of fire and
steel, denying to them even the right of asylum in sacred places. This
terrible decree was renewed in 1746-49.
Better days now began to dawn. The racial hatred and brutality suffered
by the Gypsies became by slow degrees to be considered the abrogations
of past ages. Already, in 1783, Don Carlos of Spain followed the
Emperor Joseph of Germany, 1782, and revoked the ultra-Draconian laws
which aimed at the extinction of a people, and substituted decrees
contrasting strongly with the Pragmatica of 1499; he even threatened
pains and penalties to those who hindered the Gypsies in their
occupations. In fact, the Gitano, no longer the Egipciano, was allowed
intermarriage with his caste, his family rights were recognized, and he
was allowed to choose his own trade. He was forbidden only to wear any
special dress, to display his language in public, or to exercise the
ignoble parts of his calling. Briefly, after having been for centuries
of persecution a social pariah, he became a subject. The change must
be attributed only to the French philosophical school, and the works
of the encyclopedists, which presently led to the greatest benefits
of modern ages, the first French Revolution of 1789. It made men and
citizens where it found serfs and slaves.
These humanitarian measures bore their natural consequences. Under the
effect of toleration the Gypsies lost much of the savage wildness which
distinguished them in the depths of the Toledo Mountains, the Sierra
Morena, and the wild Alpujarras. They flocked to the valleys of the
Ebro, the Tagus, and the Guadiana, where many, waxing rich and caring
little for a community of goods, lost much of their devotion to caste
and their fear and horror of their Christian fellow-citizens. And the
grey-beards did not fail to complain that the Zincálo was speedily
becoming a Gacho or a Busno, opprobrious terms applied to non-Gypsies.
The Gitanos of Spain are supposed to number from fifty to sixty
thousand, and the increased toleration of society is rapidly
concentrating them into the great towns. They abound in Madrid, Cadiz,
Malaga, Granada, Cordova, Ciudad Real, Murcia, Valencia, Barcelona,
Pamplona, Valladolid, and Badajoz. In parts of Upper Aragon and the
Alpujarras Mountains they are troglodytes rather than nomad hordes.
Even in the northern provinces, Old Castile, Asturias, and Galicia,
where they formerly were most hated and feared, they are now freely
allowed to settle. A complete assimilation is expected from the
position which they have acquired in places like Cadiz and Malaga. They
are beginning to educate themselves in a country where hardly 20 per
cent. can read, and where a grandee of the last generation was a kind
of high-caste _chalan_ (horse-cooper) or _torero_ (bull-fighter)--the
Gitano’s peculiar trades. Though they preserve the Gypsy tradition,
some of them traffic largely in cattle and own extensive butcheries;
they keep inns and taverns; they deal with the chief merchants; and
they live in luxury. Gitanos of the poorer classes buy and barter
animals; act jockeys and race-riders; people the bull-ring (especially
in Andalusia); work nails and ironmongery, as at Granada and Cordova;
and plait the coloured baskets for which Murcia, Valencia, and
Barcelona are famous. Their women sell poultry and old rags; prepare
buns (_buñuelos_) and black puddings (_morcillas de sangre_); engage
themselves as tavern cooks; are excellent smugglers; and find in
interpreting dreams, in philter-selling, and in fortune-telling the
most lucrative industries. They sing and play various instruments,
accompanying the music with the most voluptuous and licentious
dances and attitudes; but woe to the man who would obtain from these
Bayaderes any boon beyond their provocative exhibition. From the Indus
to Gibraltar the contrast of obscenity in language and in songs with
corporal chastity--a lacha ye drupo, “body shame,” as they term it--has
ever been a distinctive characteristic. No brothel in Europe can boast
of containing a Gypsy woman.[209] The mother carefully watches and
teaches her child to preserve the premices for the Rom, the Gypsy
husband. At marriages they preserve the old Jewish and Muslim rite,
that disappeared from Spain only with the accession of the house of
Austria. Even Isabella of Castile, when she was married at Valladolid
to Ferdinand of Aragon, allowed her “justificative proofs” to be
displayed before the wedding-guest. Gypsy marriages, like those of the
high-caste Hindus, entail ruinous expense; the revelry lasts three
days; the “Gentile” is freely invited; and the profusion of meats and
drinks often makes the bridegroom a debtor for life. I have explained
this practice in Hindustan as the desire to prove that the first
marriage is _the_ marriage.
The Spanish Gypsies are remarkable for beauty in early youth: for
magnificent eyes and hair, regular features, light and well-knit
figures, easy gait, and graceful bearing. Their locks, like the Hindus,
are lamp-black, and without a sign of wave; and they preserve the
characteristic eye. The form is perfect, and it has an especial look to
which is attributed the power of engendering _grandes passions_--one
of the privileges of the eye. I have often remarked its fixity and
brilliance, which flashes like phosphoric light, the gleam which in
some eyes denotes madness. I have also noted the “far-off look” which
seems to gaze at something beyond you, and the alternation from the
fixed stare to a glazing or filming over of the pupil.[210] Hence the
English song:
A Gypsy stripling’s glossy (?) eye
Has pierced my bosom’s core,
A feat no eye beneath the sky
Could e’er effect before.
And in Spain it is remarked that the Gypsy man often makes a conquest
of the Busno’s wife.
The women are more voluble in language and licentious in manners
than the men. These characteristics, combined with the most absolute
repulsion for other favours, even to the knife, explain how many sons
of grandees and great officials took part in the nightly orgies and
by day favoured the proscribed caste. Moreover, the Gitana protected
herself by the possession of family secrets. Besides soothsaying
and philter-selling, she had a store of the _Raiz del buen Baron_
(the goodman’s, _i.e._ the devil’s, root), alias Satan’s herb, which
relieved incommodious burdens. At fairs, while the husbands were
chapping and chaffering, the good-wives made money by the process
called _coger á la mano_ (to catch in hand); that is, pilfering coins
by sleight during the process of exchanging. Amongst other malpractices
is one called in Romani _Youjano báro_ (the great trick), translated
_gran socaliña_ (great trick) by Jermimo de Alcalá in his novel the
_Historia de Alonzo, mozo de muchos amos_ (a youth with many uncles),
written in the early seventeenth century. Rich and covetous widows were
persuaded to deposit jewels and money in dark and unfrequented places,
with the idea of finding buried treasure. Useless to say that the Gypsy
woman was the only gainer by the transaction.
We read that the old Gypsy dress was repeatedly forbidden by law; but
Spanish tradition preserves no memory of what the dress was. I have
little doubt that the immigrants of the fifteenth century had retained
to some extent the Hindu costume, the Pagrí (head-cloth) and the Dhoti
(waist-cloth). So in Moscow I have seen the Gypsy dancing-girls assume
the true toilette of the Hindustani Nachni, the Choli, or bodice, and
the Peshwáz, or petticoat of many folds. Some writers imagine that the
“picturesque vagabonds,” Calós, had borrowed their peculiar garb from
the Moors.
In these days the well-to-do Spanish Rom affects the Andalusian
costume, more or less rich. He delights in white linen, especially
the “biled shirt,” often frilled and embroidered. The materials are
linen and cotton, silk, plush, velvet, and broadcloth. The favourite
tints are blue, red, and marking colours. The short jacket or pelisse
(_zamarra_) is embroidered and adorned with frogs (_alamares_) or large
silver buttons; the waistcoat is mostly red, and a sash of crimson
silk with fringed ends supports the waist; the overalls narrow at
the ankle, where they meet boots or buskins (_borcegúies_), slippers
or sandals (_alpargatas_). Finally, the long lank locks, which hang
somewhat like the Polish Jew’s along the cheeks, are crowned with the
Gypsy _sombrero_ or porkpie, and sometimes with the red Catalan _gorro_
(bonnet), not unlike the glengarry.
The Romi also has retained the dress worn till lately in Andalusia,
and now gradually becoming obsolete. The gleaming hair is gathered in
a Diana knot at the neck, and lit up with flowers of the gaudiest hue;
it lies in bands upon the temples, and the whole is often covered with
an embroidered kerchief. A cloak of larger or lesser dimensions thrown
over the shoulders hardly conceals the bodice and the short, skimpy
petticoat (_saya_), which is embroidered, adorned with bunches of
ribbons, trimmings, and other cheap finery.
The Spanish Gypsies have not preserved, like the Hungarian, their
old habit of long expeditions for begging and plundering purposes.
Consequently they have lost the practice of the _Pateran_ or _Trail_,
the road-marks by which they denote direction. These are fur twigs, or
similar heaps of newly gathered grass disposed at short distances. At
cross-roads the signs are placed on the right side of that followed.
Sometimes they trace upon the ground a cross whose longer arm shows
the way, or they nail one stake to another. The Norwegian Gypsies
trace with their whips a mark on the snow called Faano; it resembles
a sack with a shut mouth. In the course of ages they have lost that
marvellous power of following the _spoor_ which their kinsmen on the
Indus preserve to perfection. They retain a peculiarly shrill whistle,
for which the Guanches were famous. By the signs and the whistles two
parties could communicate with each other; and if anything particular
occurred, messengers were sent to report it.
The Gypsy language was looked upon as a mere conventional jargon, and
its Indian origin, as has been shown elsewhere, was not recognized
before the middle of last century. It was, moreover, confounded with
the Germania (Thieves’ Latin), whose vocabulary, collected by Juan
Hidalgo of Saragona, has found its way into the _Diccionario de la
Academia_. The only Gypsy words it contains are those borrowed from
the Caló by the bullies and ruffians of the days of Quevedo. Many
corruptions and barbarisms, however, have been introduced into books
by pseudo-literati of “white blood,” who prided themselves upon their
knowledge of Romani. For instance, Meriden means Coral; and as in
Spanish reduplication of the consonant changes the word, an inventor,
in order to express Corral (Curral, Kraal, cattle-yard), produced the
most barbarous term Merridden. This was the work of _aficionados_
(fanciers) like the Augustine friar Manso de Sevilla in the Cartuja
or Carthusian convent of Jirez, whose famous breed of horses brought
them into direct communication with the Gypsies. Happily, however,
the language was spoken, not written; and thus, as Mr. Buckle held of
legend and tradition, its purity was preserved.
Gypsy verse is generally improvised to the twanging and tapping of the
guitar, sometimes to the guitar and castanet, and oftentimes without
music. Much that has been printed appears to be of that spurious kind
unintelligible to the Gypsies themselves. The favourite form is in
quartettes, more or less carefully rhymed; they are impressed upon the
hearers’ memory; and thus they pass from mouth to mouth throughout
Spain. Borrow gives a few translations of Gypsy songs in Romani. The
Cantes Flamancos of Demófico, in phonetic Andalusian, chanted at the
fairs and markets, in the cafés and ventas, the streets and alleys of
Seville, date from the last century. The poetry is weak, the moral is
not always irreproachable; but the sentiment is strong and touching.
These Cantes are sung by many a tailor and many a barber who have not
a drop of Gypsy blood in their veins. They can hardly be accepted as
genuine Gypsy work.
FOOTNOTES:
[206] Hence probably the Hungarian Hunyadis are popularly supposed to
have Gypsy blood. John’s mother (A.D. 1400) is said to have been a
fair Wallach, Elizabeth Marsinai, possibly of Romani blood. The legend
of the boy recovering his unknown father’s ring from a plundering
jackdaw, his appearance at Buda, and his receiving the gift of Hunyad
town and sixty villages, is well known. The Turk’s bell was first heard
in invaded Hungary during the reign of Sigismund. John Hunyadi drove
them from Servia and Bosnia, and vainly proposed a league of Christian
powers. When Corvinus passed away after a reign of forty-two years, the
lieges said of him, and still say, “King Matthias is dead, and Justice
died with him.”
[207] _Hungary and Transylvania_, 1839. Before 1848 the Church, the
State, and the nobles were the only landowners; the peasant, however,
had leave to occupy certain tracts (_session-lands_) under his lord.
[208] Mr. Andrew F. Crosse, _Round about the Carpathians_ (Blackwoods,
1878), declares (p. 146) that this “conscription was enforced with
every species of official brutality.” Austria was dealing with a
conquered and a peculiar, stiff-necked people. Lord Palmerston’s hatred
of Austria was, we are told, the best passport to Hungarian sympathy.
[209] The brothels of Buda-Pesth and other large cities of
Austro-Hungary have often one Gypsy woman among their inmates.
[210] I find my opinion confirmed by an older observer: “The
peculiarity of the Gypsy eye consists chiefly in a strange, staring
expression, which, to be understood, must be seen, and in a thin glaze
which steals over it when in repose, and seems to emit phosphoric
light” (_The Gypsies_, by Samuel Roberts).