OF PREGNANCY AND CHARMS, OR FOLK-LORE CONNECTED WITH IT--BOARS'
TEETH AND CHARMS FOR PREVENTING THE FLOW OF BLOOD.
Like all Orientals the gypsy desires intensely to have a
family. Superstition comes in to increase the wish, for a barren woman
in Eastern Europe is generally suspected of having had intercourse with
a vampire or spirit before her marriage, and she who has done this,
willingly or unconsciously, never has children. They have recourse
to many magic medicines or means to promote conception; one of the
most harmless in Hungary is to eat grass from the grave in which a
woman with child has been buried. While doing this the woman repeats:--
"Dui riká hin mire minc,
Dui yará hin leskro kor,
Avnás dui yek jelo,
Keren ákána yek jeles."
Or else the woman drinks the water in which the husband has cast hot
coals, or, better still, has spit, saying:--
"Káy me yákh som
Ac tu ángár,
Káy me brishind som,
Ac tu pani!"
"Where I am flame
Be thou the coals!
Where I am rain
Be thou the water!"
Or at times the husband takes an egg, makes a small hole at each end,
and then blows the yolk and white into the mouth of his wife who
swallows them.
There are innumerable ways and means to ensure pregnancy, some of which
are very dangerous. Faith in the so-called "artificial propagation" is
extensively spread. "Will der Zigeuner einen Sohn erzielen, so gürtet
er sich mit dem Halfterzaume eines männlichen Pferdes und umgekehrt
mit dem einer Stute, will er eine Tochter erzeugen." ("Gebräuche
d. Trans. Zig." Dr. H. von Wlislocki. "Ill. Zeitschrift. Band,"
51. No. 16.)
If a gypsy woman in Transylvania wishes to know whether she be with
child, she must stand for nine evenings at a cross-road with an
axe or hammer, which she must wet with her own water, and then bury
there. Should it be dug up on the ninth morning after, and found rusty,
it is a sign that she is "in blessed circumstances."
To bring on the menses a gypsy woman must, while roses are in bloom,
wash herself all over with rose-water, and then pour the water over
a rose-bush. Or she takes an egg, pours its contents into a jug, and
makes water on it. If the egg swims the next morning on the surface
she is enceinte; if the yolk is separate from the white she will bear
a son, if they are mingled a daughter. In Tuscany women wishing for
children go to a priest, get a blessed apple and pronounce over it an
incantation to Santa Anna, which was probably addressed in Roman days
to Lucina, who was very probably, according to the Romagna dialect,
lu S'anna--Santa Anna herself. I have several old Roman spells from
Marcellus, which still exist word for word in Italian, but fitted to
modern usage in this manner like old windows to new houses.
Should a woman eat fish while pregnant the child will be slow in
learning to speak, but if she feed on snails it will be slow in
learning to walk. The proverbs, "Dumb as a fish," and "Slow as a
snail," appear here.
To protect a child against the evil eye it is hung with amulets,
generally with shells (die eine Aehnlichkeit mit der weiblichen
Scham haben). And these must be observed on all occasions, and
for everything, ceremonies, of which there are literally hundreds,
showing that gypsies, notwithstanding their supposed freedom from
conventionalisms, are, like all superstitious people, harassed and
vexed to a degree which would seem incredible to educated Europeans,
with observances and rites of the most ridiculous and vexatious
nature. The shells alluded to are, however, of great interest,
as they indicate the transmission of the old belief that symbols
typical of generation, pleasure, and reproductiveness, are repugnant
to witchcraft which is allied to barrenness, destruction, negation,
and every kind of pain and sterility.
Hence a necklace of shells, especially cowries or snail shells,
or the brilliant and pretty conchiglie found in such abundance near
Venice, are regarded as protecting animals or children from the evil
eye, and facilitating love, luxury, and productiveness. I have read
an article in which a learned writer rejects with indignation the
"prurient idea" that the cowrie, which gave its name porcellana to
porcelain, derived it from porcella, in sensu obsceno; porcella being
a Roman word not only for pig but for the female organ. But every
donkey-boy in Cairo could have told him that the cowrie is used in
strings on asses as on children because the shell has the likeness
which the writer to whom I refer rejects with indignation. The pig,
as is well known, is a common amulet, the origin thereof being that
it is extremely prolific. It has within a few years been very much
revived in silver as a charm for ladies, and may be found in most
shops where ornaments for watch-chains are sold. The boar's tooth,
as I have before mentioned, has been since time immemorial a charm; I
have found them attached to chatelaines and bunches of keys, especially
in Austria, from one to four or five centuries past. They are found
in prehistoric graves. The tusk is properly a male emblem; a pig is
sometimes placed on the base. These are still very commonly made and
sold. I saw one worn by the son of a travelling basket-maker, who spoke
Romany, and I purchased several in Vienna (1888), also in Copenhagen
in 1889. In Florence very large boars' tusks are set as brooches, and
may be found generally in the smaller jewellers' shops and on the Ponte
Vecchio. They are regarded as protective against malocchio--a general
term for evil influences--especially for women during pregnancy, and
as securing plenty, i.e., prosperity and increase, be it of worldly
goods, honour, or prosperity. There is in the museum at Budapest
a boar's tusk, mounted or set as an amulet, which is apparently of
Celtic origin, and which certainly belongs to the migration of races,
or a very early period. And it is in this eastern portion of Europe
that it is still most generally worn as a charm.
In connection with pregnancy and childbirth there is the profluvium,
excessive flow of blood, or menses or hemorrhages, for which there
exist many charms, not only among gypsies but all races. This includes
the stopping any bleeding--an art in which Scott's Lady of Deloraine
was an expert, and which many practised within a century.
"Tom Potts was but a serving man,
And yet he was a doctor good,
He bound a handkerchief on the wound,
And with some kind of words he staunched the blood."
What these same kind of words were among old Germans and Romans may
be learned from the following: Jacob Grimm had long been familiar
with a German magic spell of the eleventh century--ad stringendum
sanguinem, or stopping bleeding--but, as he says, "noch nicht zu
deuten vermochte," could not explain them. They were as follows:--
"Tumbo saz in berke,
Mit tumbemo kinde in arme,
Tumb hiez der berc
Tumb hiez daz kint,
Der heiligo Tumbo
Versegne dise wunta."
"Tumbo (i.e., dumm or stupid) sat in the hill
With a stupid child in arms,
Dumb (stupid) the hill was called
Dumb was called the child,
The holy Tumbo (or dumb).
Heal (bless) this wound!"
Some years after he found the following among the magic formulas of
Marcellus Burdigalensis:--
"Carmen utile profluvio mulieri:--
"Stupidus in monte ibat,
Stupidus stupuit,
Adjuro te matrix
Ne hoc iracunda suscipias.
"Pari ratione scriptum ligabis."
I.e.: "A song useful for a flow of blood in woman:--
"The stupid man went into the mountain,
The stupid man was amazed;
I adjure thee, oh womb,
Be not angry!"
"Which shall also be bound as a writing," i.e., according to a
previous direction that it shall be written on virgin parchment,
and bound with a linen cord about the waist of him or of her--quæ
patietur de qualibet parte corporis sanguinis fluxum--who suffers
anywhere from flow of blood.
It is possible that the Stupidus and his blessing of women has here
some remotely derived reference to the reverence amounting to worship
of idiots in the East, who are described as being surrounded in some
parts of India by matrons seeking for their touch and benediction,
and soliciting their embraces. This is effected very often in an
almost public manner; that is to say, by a crowd of women closely
surrounding the couple, i.e., the idiot or lunatic and one of their
number are joined, so that passers-by cannot see what is going on. The
children born of these casual matches are not unusually themselves
of weak mind, but are considered all the more holy. This recalls the
allusion in the charm:--
"Stupid sat in the hill
With a stupid child in arms."
This obscure myth of the stupid god appears to be very ancient.
"This Tritas is called intelligent. How then does he appear
sometimes stupid? The language itself supplies the explanation. In
Sanskrit bâlas means both child and stolid, and the third
brother is supposed to be stolid because, at his first appearance
especially, he is a child. (Tritas is one of the three brothers
or gods, i.e., the trinity)." ("Zoological Mythology," by Angelo
de Gubernatis, 1872).
I am indebted to the as yet unpublished collection of Gypsyana made
by Prof. Anton Herrmann for the following:--
There is a superstition among our gypsies that if the shadow of a cross
on a grave falls on a woman with child she will have a miscarriage, and
this seems to be peculiarly appropriate to girls who have "anticipated
the privileges of matrimony." The following rhyme seems to describe
the hesitation of a girl who has gone to a cross to produce the result
alluded to, but who is withheld by love for her unborn infant:--
"Cigno trussul pal handako
Hin ada usalinako;
The ziav me pro usalin,
Ajt' mange lasavo na kin.
Sar e praytin kad' chasarel,
Save sile barval marel,
Pal basavo te prasape,
Mre cajori mojd kamale."
"Cross upon a grave so small
Here I see thy shadow fall,
If it fall on me they say
All my shame will pass away.
As the autumn leaf is blown,
By the wind to die alone,
Yet in shame and misery,
My baby will be dear to me!"
There is a belief allied to this of the power of the dead in graves
to work wonders, to the effect that if any one plucks a rose from a
grave, he or she will soon die. In the following song a gypsy picks
a rose from the grave of the one he loved, hoping that it will cause
his death:--
"Cignoro hrobosa
Hin sukares rosa
Mange la pchagavas,
Doi me na kamavas.
Bes'las piranake,
Hrobas hin joy mange,
Pchgavas, choc zanav
Pal lele avava
Te me ne brinzinav.
The me pocivinav."
"On her little tomb there grows
By itself a lovely rose,
All alone the rose I break,
And I do it for her sake.
I sat by her I held so dear,
Now her grave and mine are near,
I break the rose because I know
That to her I soon must go,
Grief cannot my spirit stir,
Since I know I go to her!"
M. Kounavine (contribution by Dr. A. Elysseeff, Gypsy-Lore Journal,
July, 1890), gives the following as a Russian gypsy spell against
barrenness:--
"Laki, thou destroyest and dost make everything on earth; thou
canst see nothing old, for death lives in thee, thou givest birth
to all upon the earth for thou thyself art life. By thy might
cause me ---- to bear good fruit, I who am deprived of the joy
of motherhood, and barren as a rock."
According to Dr. Elysseeff, Laki is related to the Indian goddess
Lakshmi, although differing from her in character. Another incantation
of the same nature is as follows:--
"Thou art the mother of every living creature and the distributor
of good: thou doest according to thy wisdom in destroying what is
useless or what has lived its destined time; by thy wisdom thou
makest the earth to regenerate all that is new.... Thou dost
not seek the death of any one, for thou art the benefactress
of mankind."