The Kanjars and Berias are the typical gipsy castes of India, and
have been supposed to be the parents of the European gipsies. On
this point Mr. Nesfield writes: "The commonly received legend is that
multitudes of Kanjars were driven out of India by the oppressions of
Tamerlane, and it is inferred that the gipsies of Europe are their
direct descendants by blood, because they speak like them a form of
the Hindi language." [317] Sir G. Grierson states: [318] "According to
the Shah-nama, the Persian monarch Bahram Gaur received in the fifth
century from an Indian king 12,000 musicians who were known as Luris,
and the Luris or Lulis, that is gipsies, of modern Persia are the
descendants of these." These people were also called Lutt, and hence
it was supposed that they were the Indian Jats. Sir G. Grierson,
however, shows it to be highly improbable that the Jats, one of
the highest castes of cultivators, could ever have furnished a huge
band of professional singers and dancers. He on the contrary derives
the gipsies from the Dom tribe: [319] "Mr. Leland has made a happy
suggestion that the original gipsies may have been Doms of India.
He points out that Romany is almost letter for letter the same as
Domni, the plural of Dom. Domni is the plural form in the Bhojpuri
dialect of the Bihari language. It was originally a genitive plural;
so that Romany-Rye, 'A gipsy gentleman,' may be well compared with
the Bhojpuri Domni Rai, 'A king of the Doms.' The Bhojpuri-speaking
Doms are a famous race, and they have many points of resemblance
with the gipsies of Europe. Thus they are darker in complexion
than the surrounding Biharis, are great thieves, live by hunting,
dancing and telling fortunes, their women have a reputation for making
love-philtres and medicines to procure abortion, they keep fowls (which
no orthodox Hindu will do), and are said to eat carrion. They are also
great musicians and horsemen. The gipsy grammar is closely connected
with Bhojpuri, and the following mongrel, half-gipsy, half-English
rhyme will show the extraordinary similarity of the two vocabularies:
[320]
Gipsy. The Rye (squire) he mores (hunts) adrey the wesh (wood)
Bhojpuri. Rai mare andal besh (Pers. bysh)
Gipsy. The kaun-engro (ear-fellow, hare) and chiriclo (bird).
Bhojpuri. Kanwala chirin
Gipsy. You sovs (sleep) with leste (him) drey (within) the wesh (wood)
Bhojpuri. soe andal besh
Gipsy. And rigs (carry) for leste (him) the gono (sack, game-bag).
Bhojpuri. gon
Gipsy. Oprey (above) the rukh (tree) adrey (within) the wesh (wood)
Bhojpuri. Upri rukh andal besh
Gipsy. Are chiriclo (male-bird) and chiricli (female-bird).
Bhojpuri. chirin chirin
Gipsy. Tuley (below) the rukh (tree) adrey (within) the wesh (wood)
Bhojpuri. Tule rukh andal besh
Gipsy. Are pireno (lover) and pireni (lady-love).
Bhojpuri. pyara pyari
In the above it must be remembered that the verbal terminations of
the gipsy text are English and not gipsy."
Sir G. Grierson also adds (in the passage first quoted): "I may note
here a word which lends a singular confirmation to the theory. It is
the gipsy term for bread, which is manro or manro. This is usually
connected either with the Gaudian manr 'rice-gruel' or with manrua,
the millet (Eleusine coracana). Neither of these agrees with the idea
of bread, but in the Magadhi dialect of Bihari, spoken south of the
Ganges in the native land of these Maghiya Doms, there is a peculiar
word manda or manra which means wheat, whence the transition to the
gipsy manro, bread, is eminently natural."
The above argument renders it probable that the gipsies are derived
from the Doms; and as Mr. Nesfield gives it as a common legend that
they originated from the Kanjars, this is perhaps another connecting
link between the Doms and Kanjars. The word gipsy is probably an
abbreviation of 'Egyptian,' the country assigned as the home of the
gipsies in mediaeval times. It has already been seen that the Doms are
the bards and minstrels of the lower castes in the Punjab, and that the
Kanjars and Sansias, originally identical or very closely connected,
were in particular the bards of the Jats. It is a possible speculation
that they may have been mixed up with the lower classes of Jats or
have taken their name, and that this has led to the confusion between
the Jats and gipsies. Some support is afforded to this suggestion
by the fact that the Kanjars of Jubbulpore say that they have three
divisions, the Jat, Multani and Kuchbandia. The Jat Kanjars are, no
doubt, those who acted as bards to the Jats, and hence took the name;
and if the ancestors of these people emigrated from India they may
have given themselves out as Jat.