vil esd AML Cla tt SHS, Moe beh S. ere ic | a POY et Ne ‘ A: . 4 Ease] SOLA ke i avy bi eae he \ at Hip j ; said ut | ARLEN si = file z| " GYPSIES. and. Siebenbiirgen, and were Gypsies ever fair, blue-grey- eyed. like me.» And.a very stylish party of young ladies and gentlemen: at a neighboring table leveled their glasses and lorgnettes at me and wondered what, the long, lanky, fair faced northerner could have in common with the short, dark-haired, almost black Hungarians. But, the Gypsy band were business men and their business was to play.and the management could not al- low them to spend the night talking to a newly found Yankee brother, so they had to strike up, and I departed and. in the confused, hurried sight-seeing of my week at the fair, I saw them no more. And now I know you are asking where and how I learned the language the Hun- garian.Gypsies spoke. You knew there were Gypsies in Hungary, you knew they were musicians, perhaps you have some of you heard them yourselves in Vienna or Paris, or even in New York where for several years there has been a band at the Eden Museé and where another band, with which I was acquainted, played all the sum- mer of 1892.in the Park Avenue Hotel. But who, you would like to know, taught me their language? Of course I learned it from some rare volume on Kast Euro- pean dialects, or something of that sort. No, you are wrong. . My instructors in the language which Gypsies talk to-day on the banks of the Danube were the Gypsies you have all seen who pass: through Poughkeepsie and tent,in Dutchess County every summer, who themselves or their ancestors came to this country from England, and.whose people have lived in English speaking lands for four hundred years since their progenitors entered | England from France and the Low countries. Yet still to this day the Gypsies right here in Dutchess County speak the same language (of course with im- portant dialectic variation) which Gypsies speak in Spain, Hungary or Turkey, and still they show the same or similar physical characteristics, traditions and cus-. | 26 FREDERICK 8S. ARNOLD. 89 toms.. And more than that, Janguage and race have left traces till to-day in India, Persia, Syria and Egypt, and the mysterious language I talked in the midway can be traced all the way back to that idol of the philologist the Sanskrit, while the races from which the Gypsies sprang are to be found amongst the semi-wandering tribes of Northern India. : The first appearance of the Gypsies in Europe is gen- erally placed at about 1417. They came in with the renaissance and the Hussite warand the end of the great Schism, but there is no reason to believe that they bothered themselves much about these great questions which were troubling all western Christendom. They entered Europe probably through Transylvania and Hungary, whither they had come up the Danube from Greece and Turkey. ‘Their first known settlement was in Moldavia near Szuesava, where about three thousand of them appeared in 1417 and got permission to remain from Alexander, Vojvode of the district. Other bands made their way into Hungary and in 1423 got writs or privileges from the Emperor Sigismund, permitting them to settle near the free cities and on the crown estates. (Borrow, ‘‘ Zincali,’’? Introduction, p. 10.) They soon passed into Bohemia and Germany and be- cause their descent on the west of Europe was largely from Bohemia, they were known to the French and in literature as Bohemians. They spread in a short time over all the continent. ‘‘In 1418 they were found in ‘* Switzerland ; in 1422, in Italy ; in 1427, they are men- ‘‘tioned as being in the neighborhood of Paris; and ‘about the same time in Spain.’’ (Simpson, ‘‘ History of the Gypsies,’”’ Chap. I, p. 69.) From the very first they seem to have been the same wild, uncanny, nomadic race, but their leaders, at the time of their arrival, must have been men of more than the average ability, for, by a diplomatic fiction carefully 27 90 GYPSIES. concocted to chime in with te prejudices of the times, they contrived to hoodwink all Europe, get free passage for themselves through the various countries, and secure the privilege of living in their peculiar way without molestation until at last they were found out through their roguish and criminal goings-on, after which strenu- ous laws were almost every where passed against them. ~ They pretended to be pilgrims travelling as they did under a vow. Sometimes the story ran that they were Christian inhabitants of lower Egypt driven out by the Saracens. The Pope or their bishops had laid this pen- ance on them for some sacrilege or other and they showed letters from the then pontiff and passes from the Em- _peror Sigismund all over Europe. These passes and letters were probably forged. They travelled in bands or hordes, which on their first arrival were quite large. Accompanied by their women and children in carts and their droves of ho1ses, even as now, they would camp down outside such towns as Paris or Bologna (in both which places there are records of their first coming), telling the burgesses their story about the penance and soforth—which the burgesses would immediately proceed, Middleage-fashion, to swal- low whole—and then plying their customary trades of iron and glass and basket making, horse trading—and horse stealing—and, above all, fortune telling, unti! their petty roguery and general impudence made the nuisance unbearable, when they would be made to move on to the next town or even out of the country. (See Borrow, ‘* Zineali,’? Chapter I, p. 15, and Encycl. Brit., Art. ‘*Gipsies.”?) The leaders of these bands assumed: various high sounding titles; in the Sclavic lands Vojvode, in Spain, Count, while in Scotland we have ‘* John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Eeypt,”’ a character of such importance that King James V actually made a treaty with him. (Simpson, ‘* Hist. of Gipsies,’’ p. 101.) 28 ~ FREDERICK 8. ARNOLD. 91 They may have assumed these names to give themselves weight in dealing with other people, or like the name Gypsy itself, these titles may have been given them by the populace. The name Egyptian, Gypsey, Gipsy, was certainly given them by the people about them, and there is no reason to believe that they ever had any connection with Egypt, except that some of their tribes have found their way there (where they are called Rhagarin), as they have gone nearly everywhere else. The name was given them because they came from the east, just as our Thanks- giving bird is called Turkey and our native tribes Indians. But when the name was once given and the legends built upon the name the Gypsies had good reason enough to retain and adopt both, for, as Egyptian penitents, they passed for a while, unmolested, everywhere. (Bor- row, ‘‘Zincali,’’ Chap. X, p. 48.) The arrival of the Gypsies in France was about 1427. That part of their history has been immortalized by Walter Scott in Hayraddin Maugrabin just as he has im- mortalized Scotch Gypsydom in Meg Merrilies. France has never been a congenial home for the Gypsies. It is the land of the proprieties. The Gypsies were early ex- pelled (1504, A.D.) from the country, and to this day I am assured by a Frenchman, a friend of mine, are ex- cluded. Still there are some Gypsies in France, espec- ially in the Pyrenees on the Spanish frontier. The Gypsies came into Italy about 1422 and were soon very numerous, thriving best in the States of the Church, which were the worst policed and where was the most. superstition which they turned to their own account. A curious law was enacted against them to the effect that no Gypsy should spend two nights in the same place. Not a very severe statute, one would think, for such nomads, 29 92 GYPSIES: When peasant uprisings and penal statutes drove the. Gypsies out of France, they fled into Spain, where a num- ber had penetrated before. From then till this day. Gypsies have always been found in the peninsula, where, owing to the backward civilization and brigandage, &c., they have generally flourished. Laws were _ passed ° against them in 1491, when King Ferdinand wished to ex- pel them. Philip III also wanted to drive them out. But the force which had expelled the Jews and the Mo- riscoes and stamped out Protestantism. was not able to combat the will-o’-the-wisp, every-where-at-once tactics of the wanderers, and they remained. They even settled in some towns which had their Gitanerias, or Gypsy quarters: Borrow believes that in certain thieving, fortune telling tribes of the Barbary coast, called the Dar-Bushi-Fal, he has found a race of probable Gypsy origin, and this is quite likely.. The Spaniards frequently seized Gyp-. sies and exiled them to Morocco; besides which they might easily have found their way across the straits. By the end of the fifteenth century the Gypsies had prob- ably penetrated into nearly every quarter:of Europe. There’ is reason to believe that there were Gypsies in Scotland as early as 1460.. They probably came from Spain véa Ireland, driven out by King Ferdinand’s edicts. By 1506 they were in full force in the northern kingdom, for King James IV wrote a letter to the king of Den- mark recommending to. him, ‘‘Anthonius Gawino, ‘Karl of Little Egypt, * * * and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of. his retinue’? who, he said: were: travelling by command of the Pope and had sojourned in Scotland ‘for several months, in a peaceable and. - catholic manner.’”? From this letter of James IV it is. evident that the gentle Romanies had ‘‘come it over”’ that religious and melancholy monarch pretty thoroughly, They had ‘stuffed their penance legend down his throat.» aud gotten him to recognize the noble pretensions.of.. 30 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 93 their leader ; but, to offset the case, it may be added that this letter acted as a passport to get them out of Scot- land into Denmark, and perhaps King James thought he could do no harm by giving them that sort of recogni- ‘tion. Even so in olden time, Shankal, Maharajah of Hindoostan, sent Behram Gour, the wild-ass king of Persia, all the low caste musicians and strolling singers he could rake out of his dominions as a present to that monarch, who wanted to hear some Gypsy music. The true practices of the race, however, soon came to light. James V enacted that whenever three Gypsies were found together one of the three was instantly to be seized and hanged or shot by any loyal citizen who chose to take the law into his mands. But such laws were un- able to expel them and, in the years after James’s death, Simson, himself a Scotchman, has admitted that things were so upset in Scotland and there was so much robbery and brigandage on a large scale that the petty roguery of the Romany Chals was not noticed in the general con- fusion. Scotch Gypsies have prospered in days since, though James VI and James VII enforced laws against them, and very lately Kirk Yetholm in the Cheviot Hills was almost entirely a Gypsy town. The Scotch Gypsies do not speak the language with any purity, half of the words given by Simson being not Gypsy at all but thieves’ cant or slang of the roads (but then it has to be admit. ted Simson was a very injudicious collector). I never, myself, had the pleasure of studying any Scotch Gypsies, though there are some in the United States. A gang of them, named Williamson, once camped near Poughkeepsie. I met one of their men in town at the time. He was dressed in ragged clothes, didn’t look like a Gypsy very much, and had only one touch of the roads, that was a bright red handkerchief about his neck. I accosted him in Romany but he didn’t understand it, called it cant, and said he talked 31 94 GYPSIES. another kind of cant. J imagine his was a Gypsy dia- lect very much corrupted by slang of the roads. * Your’re talken’ cant,’’ he said to me, *‘ you can talk it good. I don’t know your kind. I’m Scotch. | ‘‘Name’s Williamson; ain’t Romanes. Do I know ‘‘ Wells? (a Gypsy friend of mine). Yes; he’s out near ‘‘Bull’s Head. We was with him but we left him. ‘¢Couldn’t stand him. Hecan talk that what you talk ‘Cin this country. I talk cant. The words are cadji, ‘like that. Will I be here several days? Yes, ’m out ‘‘by the Asylum. So long!’ And he trudged away, up the hill, basket on arm, never looking back. I meant to go out and see this gang but they got away before I could doit. Ihave since heard one of their girls mar- ried an American gypsy, a friend of mine. Tbis shows that whatever their differences they accept each other as kindred—‘‘ all rogues, and from Egypt.’’ The one word he gave me, cadji, which probably was slang for one of his own gang, is Scotch slang and means a wanderer or beggar. The ‘‘ Slang Dictionary’’ gives cadge, ‘‘ to beg in an artful, wheedling manner,’ and says it means in Scotland also, to wander, to go astray. It may be derived from Gaelic cad, a friend, or from Welsh céd, a bag or pouch (which would be carried by a beggar). According to Hoyland (a Quaker who married a Gypsy girl and wrote a book about them from the Gypsy- Quaker combination standpoint), the ancestors of our American Gypsies arrived in England in 1512. Leland (Johnson’s Encycl., Art. ‘‘Gypsies”’) gives 1506. They had a leader of the name of Giles Hathor, who was termed their king, with a woman named Calot called their queen. These two rode through the country on horse- back in strange attire, followed by their ragamuffin pack. Although I have seen no record of it, they no doubt tried to impose on our ancestors as penancers and lords of lit- tle Egypt, just as elsewhere, but the trick didn’t work 32 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 95 very well with bluff King Hal, and in the 10th chapter, 22 Henry VIII (1530 A. D.), they are legislated against as ‘tan outlandish people, calling themselves Egypt- ians’’ (Blackstone’s Comm., IV, 165), and in 1549 ‘‘ there ‘**was privy search made through all Sussex for all vaga- ‘‘bonds, Gypsies, conspirators, prophesiers, players, ‘*and such like.’? (Simson, ‘‘ Hist. of Gypsies,’’ Chap. II, p. 91.) The government of England was at that time very strenuous against the Romany. 5 Eliz., c. 20, en- acted that if any Gypsy remained in the realm a month, or if any person over fourteen years of age associated himself with the Gypsies, it was felony without benefit of clergy, and Gypsies were to be deprived of a jury per medietatem linguae; .and although the last recorded execution under this act is the execution of thirteen Gypsies at one Suffolk assizes just before the restoration, described by Sir Matthew Haie, the rigorous statute was not repealed until the 23 “Geo., III, c. 51, since when Gypsies have been punishable in England under the vagrant act (Blackstone Comm., IV, 166, Christian’s Note 6). The various laws against vagrants have also always been applicable to them in the United States, probably. It is interesting in the old statute to note the depriving them of a jury per medietatem linguae. The existence of their secret language was early known and is somewhere called ‘‘The right Egyptian language”’ (Hoyland). Literary men took considerable notice of the Gypsies from the first. Beaumontand Fletcher’s very interesting comedy of the ‘‘ Beggars’ Bush,”’ while it does not men- tion them, teems with their spirit, and several real Gypsy words are found in the slang vocabulary there intro- duced. Ben Jonson has written a masque called ‘‘ The Metamorphosed Gypsies,’”’ the plot of which is laid in Wales. He introduces a lot of cant and slang words, but I only noticed one or two real Romany ones and 33 96 ' GYPSIES. those were such as had become slang and were therefore Known to others than Romanys. Shakspeare. perhaps, mentions Romany in one place. When in Henry IV, Act II, Scene IV, he makes Prince Henry say: ‘*‘ lamso ‘‘ good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can ‘*drink with any tinker in his own language during my ‘‘ life,’ he may refer to Romany. Leland, however, thinks he means Shelta. I doubt if he knew of their separate existence. The Gypsies were tinkers and smiths by trade and are called ‘‘ tinklers’”’ in Scotland. That none of these writers, however, knew any Romany is evident from the vocabularies, which are all thieves’ cant and low slang, unless a few words originally Gypsy which had been incorporated with slang. Despite all laws, the Gypsies persisted, just as they did in Spain and the empire and modern civilization, the parish schools, but particularly the enclosure of the commons, their camping grounds, have done more to break down Gypsydom than all the sanguinary legisla- - tion of the Middle Ages. As to the United States, we have had Gypsies here from very early times. According to 13 and 14 Charles II, c. 12, the justices in sessions might transport such rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, as were duly convicted and judged incorrigible to America. Many were so transported and others enlisted and were sent here as soldiers in the Revolution. Such generally de- serted and took to their wandering life. Since that time, hundreds have come over in the emigrant ships, and I -know many an old Gypsy who was born in England, while most American Gypsies speak with a British: ac- cent and some even drop their h’s and have other Cock- ney, lower class English habits. Our historical survey so far has followed the Romany since his entry into Europe in 1417, and. though Miklo- sich thinks he has identified them in the AQiyyavoz, 34 FREDERICK 8S. ARNOLD. 97 snake charmers and sorcerers, who figure in Byzantine history in the ninth century under Nicephorus I (802-11) and his immediate successors, and though friar Simeon Simeonis describes some nomadic rogues who wandered about, living in black tents, in Crete in the fourteenth century, still their recorded history can not be said to antedate 1417. As to their origin and their path before entering Europe, however, we are now pretty certain and the mystery which enveloped the subject has been largely cleared up. The great means toward learning about their past is their language. This is a pure Sanskritic tongue, the grammar, as it is spoken in Turkey to-day, being Aryan and the vocabulary, even that which is used here on the Hudson River, being directly related to the Sanskrit, in- deed not further removed from that sacred language than are the modern Hindustani, Bengali, and Guzerati, with which Romany would have to be classed. The language is of course the great proof for the Gypsies’ Indian origin, but when once we are on the scent their physical traits, customs, traditions, superstitions form a great ad- ditional mass of evidence. There have always been in Northern India a number of tribes, perhaps only semi-Aryan, of distinctly Gypsy- like characteristics. One of these tribes is the Jats, formerly a race of warlike horsemen, of the northwest; another the Nauts of the interior, who are wandering Gypsy-like tribes. There are the Dom, Gypsies par excelence, and the Persian Luri, from whom is named Luristan and who are the descendants of the strolling musicians whom tradition states Shankal sent Vahrahran V or Behram Gour, whose land was without music or song. This connection of the Luri with Vahrahran V is, however, disputed by Rawlinson, who does not think 35 98 GYPSIES. any of the supposed relations with India of this prinee historical (7th Mon., Chap. XIV, p. 402). The Jats were a warlike race until their power was completely and forever broken by the Mohammedan conquerors of India. To this day they inhabit the north- west and form two-fifths the population of the Punjab, and half that of the Rajput states, while they are scat- tered in Baluchistan and Sind. They are a peaceful, agri- cultural, cattle raising people, but the wandering instinct sometimes seizes them and they leave their homes and travel off in the guise of itinerant pedlars into central Asia. These migratory habits are ancient. They wan- dered in the ninth century as far west as Syria, where there was a Jat quarter in Antioch, while for twenty- four years a colony maintained themselves in the Chal- daean marshes, though in 834 the Caliph’s troops van- quished them and they were transferred to the Cilician frontier. But of all the Indian races Charles G. Leland has shown (Gypsies, p. 331), there is a race preéminently Gypsy, called the Dom. These tribes live in Central India. They are wanderers like the Gypsies, their lan- guage is closely similar, they have no religion to speak . of, they make baskets and handle corpses, their women tell fortunes, and they have many other Gypsy charac- teristics. W hen in the tenth century and from that time on wave after wave of Mohammedan and Mongol conquest broke over India, there is reason to believe that many of the dregs of the population, some of whom were outcasts already, who had nothing to lose if nothing to gain, left the country. They probably left gradually, some of them may have wandered away before the conquest began—there were Jat colonies on the Persian gulf before the ninth century and we have seen them at that period in Syria and Cilicia—while some may not have left until 36 | FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 99 the last Mongol conquests in the sixteenth. The hanptstamm of these nomads was probably the Jats who are a race of notorious thieves, without religion, and devoted to raising and riding horses and who, we have said, were very early and are still a half migratory race. The Nauts and Persian Luri, all tinkers, thieves, musicians like the Gypsies, probably swelled the throng, while Mr. Leland’s Dom tribes permeated and gave char- acter to the whole. If this be so the Gypsies are descendants of various Hindu tribes who wandered out of India under the pres- sure of Mohammedan conquest and their language may be said to prove this. An itinerary of their travels can be made up from the non-Hindu words they preserve. From the very large number of Persian words it is evident they spent some time in Persia and probably were joined by some of the inhabitants. Their road must have lain through Turkey into Asia Minor and Greece and they still preserve a number of Greek stems. Thence they entered the Dan- ube and South Sclavonian lands, where they are most numerous and where their language and their Gypsydom is purest to this day. They remained there a long while and there are numerous Sclavic words in their language. Leaving the South Sclavic lands they enter western Eu- rope and history together. English Gypsy, to fill out the itinerary, has some Teu- tonic and Italian elements but very little French. Our historical sketch has now prepared us to consider the present condition of the race, especially here in the United States, to which we shall limit ourselves as far as possible. Scattered through every country of Europe and America (there are even Gypsies in Brazil) this cosmo- polite race bears a different name almost in each. The name by which the majority of Gypsies are still known 37 100 GYPSIES. is, in the German, Zigewner, in the Kast, Zingarri, in Russia, Zigani, in Hungary, Chingany, in Italy, Zin- gari, in Portugal, Sigano, in French, Tsigane, in Persia, Zingan, in the Punjab, Tchangar, and is used under these different forms by the people of most except the English-speaking countries. The derivation of this word is not agreed upon. An article in Blackwood’ s Maga- zine (No. 99, p. 565) derives Zigeuner from old German ziehegan, that is wanderer, and the great Romany Rai, Charles G. Leland has derived it from the Gypsy words chen (chon), moon, and gan or kan (kam), the sun, and he gives a Turkish Gypsy myth to explain it, about the sun and moon being a brother and _ sister with a criminal passion for each other, who were once, on earth, chiefs of the Gypsies’ tribe. But in the face of a better deri- vation ziehegan and chen-kan will have to go, and it seems probable that Zingarri means simply the people of Zind, or Scinde, that is, from the Indus river, the ancient Zindhu. This very probable derivation makes Zingatri a doublet of Hindu and Indian and is another proof of the Indian origin of the race. In Spain the Gypsies call themselves Zincali, which means ‘‘ the black men of Sinde,’’ Aélo being black both in Gypsy and Hindustani, and their languagein some parts of Germany is called Sinte. In Scandinavia they are called Tartars, being identified with the Mongol hordes which overran eastern Europe, and in Holland, heydens, heathen. The French use the words Bohémiens, Mattois, Gueux (or Beggars) and Cagoux and call their language Blesquin (Art. ‘‘Gypsies,”’ Amer. Encycl.). In England they were known as Hgyp- tians, of which Gypsie, Gipsie, is in English lands a corruption as Gitano is in Spain. The theory that they came from Egypt also lead to the Greek I'vptos; Magyar Pharao népek (Pharaoh’s peo- ple), and Turkish Farawni, by which names they are 3s FREDERICK 8S. ARNOLD. 101 called in those countries. In Scotland tinkler and Gypsy both appear and they call themselves Vazwken (the deri- vation of which I do not know), while we have the Dar- bushi-fal in Morocco,:the Rhagarin in Egypt, the Tra- Dlus (i. e. Syrians), Wats, and Dom in India. The last word Dom has been shown by Leland to be the same as Rom (‘‘ Gypsies,” p. 334), and this brings us to the hanptname, the great name by which Gypsies call themselves all the world over—the Romany. The word is slightly modified in different lands, besides which I believe the very much corrupted and only half Gypsy Rhagarin of Egypt do not know it and possibly some other outlying waifs of Gypsydom are without it. Still it is practically universal. Its form in the East is Roma. Roma chal (a Gypsy), Roma rai (a Gypsy king, Gypsy gentleman) were given me by the Hungarian Gypsies who, when I pronounced Ramani asin English, thought I referred to Roumanian. George Borrow delights to write the word Roman, with how much authority I know not. The word without doubt means simply ‘‘man.’’ In modern Gypsy vam or ramnus means man, or husband, ramni abbreviated to ram, means wife. The Sanskrit domba, connected with Rom through Hindu Dom, means ‘‘‘a man of low caste, who gains his livelihood by singing and dancing.’ ”’ (Skeat, under rum 2.) As the Gypsies everywhere call themselves Ramani (Romany), so everywhere, almost, those not Gypsies are called Gorjios, which may be translated ‘‘gentile’’ if we forget that word’s etymology. In Russia and the Kast this- becomes gajo. Gajo, the Hungarian Gypsies I talked with, translated by the German Bauer. In Spain Borrow says, however, the Zincali call gentiles Busné, perhaps from Sanskrit purusha, a man. The American Gypsies all call themselves Romany and all speak more or less of the Romany language, but there 39g 102 GYPSIES. exists an important division between the puro Ramanis,. or kélo Ramanis (deep, or black Gypsies) and the Didi- kai or half-breeds. These latter are not purely, often not chiefly, of Gypsy blood but are the results of crosses between pure Gypsies and the lower class English or Irish people. They exist in all grades from those whose mixture of gentile blood was a long way back and who are altogether Gypsylike in character through quadroons and octaroons to men who have much more gentile than Gypsy in them and who are lacking in many essential Romany traits. We have even heard of crosses between these half-bloods, while they were South for the winter, and negroes. The Didikat never know as much of the language as the kdlo Ramanis do but they are frequently more communicative, and it was a family of them, the Wells family, who were my first Romany acquaintances and amongst whom [ laid the foundations of my knowl- edge of their language. ‘“‘Go down and talk to that man,’’ said Lottie Wells once to me, ‘‘he’sa black Gypsy. He knows an awful ‘lot of deep Ramanes.’? We were standing amongst the tents and vans of her father’s and uncles’ camp near Po’ keepsie and the man alluded to was a bude-mush, or hired man, who stood at some little distance, brushing and curry-combing the horses. He was of average (American) height, not stout but muscularly built, of a complexion at least as dark as an Italian’s, with jet black, unkempt hair and black, bright, roving eyes. Not a bad specimen of the kdlo nea or black Gypsy, though not all the pure blood Gypsies have quite such dark complexions as this one. All of them are dark, however, while some of the Didikai, on the other ieeiad are nearly as light as the average American. Still I never remember seeing even one of the Didikai whose hair was not black or who would not. have been emphatically styled brunette, and 40 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 103 the fact that the Romany is necessarily sun-burned makes him look even darker than he really is. When I went up and spoke to the black Gypsy in question he sort of chuckled but refused to answer my Romany in anything but English. ‘ Yes, everyone’s ‘‘ gettin’ to know the old language now. It used to bea **secret and some good, but now there’s lots can speak ‘it.’ His behavior was characteristic of the kdlo Ra- mani, and while all that morning I collected Romany words from the Didikai families of Henry and Leonard Wells, I didn’t get one word from their black-Gypsy servant, and he bewailed the decadence of the ancient Egyptian mystery and secret. I have since, however, found my way to the hearts of kélo Ramanis and where they are willing they always have more to teach than the Didikai. In describing Leonard Wells’s bude-mush I have al- ready described the dark, almost black complexion of the kélo Ramanis. Asto the purity of their blood, Borrow and Leland would lead us to believe that they are very particular about preserving it and never marry out of theirrace. Borrow describes, in the ‘‘ Romany Rye,” a Gypsy Adonis beloved of a countess who nevertheless preferred to marry a hag of his own tribe, and we have reason to believe that both writers state the truth about their caste feeling on this question. Yet the very ex- istence of the Didikai proves that the kdlo Ramanis have sometimes mixed with the Govjio, and I think it probable that in four hundred years in Englishry even the black Gypsies must have some gentile blood in their veins, however little. The Didikai with their mixed blood are generally lighter in complexion and I think they are generally larger, taller, and stronger, though the wiry, lithe, black Romany is very muscular. Another name for these half-breed Gypsies is padsh an’ pdsh (half and half) and $1 104 GYPSIES. they are also called churedi, which word, I think, Bor- row found in Spanish Gypsy chororo, meaning poor, and compared with Sanskrit kshudra and Hindu shor (*‘ Zin- cali”? vocab.). Although the Déidikai are fraternized with and even, though not too commonly, inter-married among, they are rather despised by the kélo Ramanis, who pride themselves on the purity of their blood and their ‘‘deep’’ knowledge of the language and look down on the less thoroughly gypsified pdsh an’ pash. Besides the two divisions of English Romany—kélo Ramanis and Didikai—and the Scotch Gypsies already referred to, the immigrant steamers have recently brought some Hungarian and Turkish Gypsies to America. Most of these are in the West; our own Gypsies associate with them very little and say they cannot understand them when speaking their language, and I myself have never seen any of them. The Gypsy bands from Vienna, and the Gypsies who have left the roads and now live in houses, keep stores and saloons, or travel with shows and circuses like other people, make up the other real Gypsy elements of our population. All civilization probably passed through a nomadic stage, and this earlier period of culture the Gypsy still perpetuates amongst us and shows an interesting case of survival of older, lower amongst higher forms. Staying for only a few days in one ¢dén, or camp, al- ways moving from place to place, their wagons are their homes, and the big Gypsy van is their most important as it is their most valuable possession. The van, or wardo is the big, covered, Gypsy wagon. It is twelve feet or more long and four or tive wide. Its box is quite deep and it is completely covered with a good canvas cover. The wagon is generally gaily painted, with the owner’s name often lettered on the side or on the tail-board. It is quite expensive, the last wardo which Henry Wells bought having cost over three 42 FREDERICK 8S. ARNOLD. — 105 hundred dollars, and it was not one of the highest priced. The inside of the wardo is arranged both for carrying things and asa living room. A bunk, perhaps three feet wide and two feet above the floor of the wagon, is placed at the back and a bed with sheets, pillows, coverlid, and all is neatly and cleanly made upon it. Two little doors under this bunk shut in a kind of closet where clothes and bedding may be kept. A narrow seat — runs around the other three sides of the wardo under which things can be stuffed and on which women and children may sit when travelling in bad weather makes it necessary to keep in the van. ‘Two small windows are let into each side of the wagon and one at the back. The baggage rack behind, where trunks or boxes may be carried, completes the description of the wardo, to whose long pole two horses must necessarily be hitched to pull the heavy load ; but the Romany can well afford to drive two horses, for horses are his wealth. Gypsies attach great value to their wardos and are very proud of them, and a Romany chal will show you his doro wardo with all the pride of possession a man might take in showing you his new house. Besides the van, a Romany in good circumstances will have a buggy or two to help carry his large family, and also to hitch up and drive in town with. The doro wardo will not be hitched up until they mean to break camp and lel their cuvers and jal avri (take their things and go away). After the van, or wardo, the tdén or tent is the most important possession of the Romany. The word tan means both tent and camping ground. It is an interest- ing word. It appears in stan in such words as Hindu- stan, which might be rendered, Gypsie fashion, the tan of the Hindus, and comes from an Aryan root tan, to stretch, seen in our word tent. Perhaps it is related to town, Ger.’ Zaun. 43 106 GYPSIES. The wealth of a Gypsy may be noticed in his tents almost as well as in his horses. Your poor Romany is content with one dirty, ragged, black covering hardly big enough for six grown people crowding around the stove, always so full of smoke that the tears come to your eyes, and letting in wind and rain. This tent is pitched on the sod without a floor, and cluttered up with baskets, clothes and the boxes and cases of provisions. Here the wife of the poorer Gypsy spends the day with her children, dogs, and chickens rolling round her in the dirt. In this tent or in the wardo, the chal, his wife and chdbos (children) sleep when they do not rest under the open sky. But where your Gypsy is prosperous he will have a fine, handsome, white tent. My first visit to a large tribe of Gypsies was in the early summer of 1890. The Wells family of half-breed Gypsies, or Didikai, were camped in what is called ‘*Gypsy Hollow,’”’ on Dorsey’s Lane, near the North Road, above Poughkeepsie. I knew some of the tribe already and went out to see them with a friend of mine. The spot is picturesque and in fact you can generally ‘trust the Romany to choose a sightly place to hach his td in (pitch his tent). Some vacant, unenclosed lots, lying to common, slope down from the road to a wooded dell through which a stream runs. The stream comes from the bush across the road and is dammed into a large pond, below in the lots, where the chdbos (Gypsy lads) go swimming. On the broken, uneven ground rising above the stream to the road, there stood this morning several Gypsy vans, some buggies, and two or three tents, showing that several families of the Romany were camping there at once. A number of horses were tied about and some men were currycomb- ing them, but probably most of the grais (horses) were hoting chor (pasturing) along the road. The men lay around on the grass, gossiping and loafing, while the oes FREDERICK 8. ARNOLD. 107 women were busied cleaning up, washing, and cooking in and about the tents, and the bushes were covered with linen which they had hung out to air. A confused medley of chdbos (children) and dogs, of both of which articles there is always a surplus in the Romany ¢dn, and a few chickens make up the picture of a Gypsy camp on A7vokers or Sunday morning. As we approached, coming cross-lots from the woods, the children spied us, and with shouts of ‘‘ Ramani Rai! Ramani Rai!’ hurried to us, tumbling and falling over each other in their haste to beg for pennies. Amidst barking dogs and with their little chorus of ‘‘ Del mandi panjors, del men yek ora!’ (give me five cents, give me a penny!) shouting around us, we entered the camp, shook hands with some of the men, and made up toward the principal tent to pay our respects to the bori dai or grandmother of the tribe. Perhaps it will not do to call Ramnipen, or Gypsydom matriarchal, but certain it is that the old women are very important personages amongst the Romanys, and I think even the younger women have more to say in the tén than their husbands do. This may be partly due to’ the fact that they make so much of the tribe’s money by their dukerin or fortune-telling. Almost every gang of Gypsies has some old ancestress called their bori dai grandmother) whose opinion is greatly regarded, and who is much reverenced by the whole company. She is generally quite rich with a kushto wardo te tan (nice van and tent) and a number of grais (horses). While she is of course old, you will find her intelligent and well preserved, and however old she is her hair is nearly black, for with Gypsies, as with some tribes of Hindus, notably the Dom, the hair seldom turns gray, or does so very slightly and late in life. The good will of these old ladies is very important, and once secured will carry you far into the graces of the whole family, and help 45 108 GYPSIES, you to rare old words and customs of which the old women are repositories. Amelia Wells, the doré dai of the Wells family, sat on a box, with a blanket thrown over it, at the door of her tent. She was a very Gypsy-looking woman, large framed, very dark, with strong, impressive features (she must have been a handsome girl) and black hair. She was smoking a clay pipe and her bright, black eyes twinkled greeting, as she took it out of her mouth, and answered my sarishan (how are you). Isat down beside her and the whole family gathered around, curious to see the Romany raz. The tent before which we were sitting was quite large, and may have been ten by twelve feet or bigger. Its floor of boards was overspread by a carpet and the boxes, baskets, and piles of bedding and clothing were neatly arranged around the sides. The stove stood in the front beside the tent pole, and we were grouped around it. I remarked that I had never seen the tradi- tional Gypsy kettle in use. ‘‘It’s all made up, a ‘“‘hukaben (lie). Ramanis never used them at all. ~ “Most Ramanis, now-a-days, has stoves, but them as ‘* don’t has kavi-sasters.”’ The kavi-saster, or kettle iron, is an iron rod, perhaps three or four feet long, one extremity of which curves over and is then hooked at the end. The straight end is driven into the ground obliquely, and the hook thus hangs over the fire, made of sticks, on the ground, and a kettle may be hung from it. The kekaveskro sasters (kettle irons) are still used, but where, as in most cases, she can afford it, the Ramani dai (Gypsy woman) has a small cook stove. We spent a pleasant morning in the camp, and I went away with an addition to my Romany vocabulary and with the remembrance of a quaint scene of Gypsy life in America, 46 FREDERICK §. ARNOLD. * 109 In describing Amelia Wells’ tent I have described the handsome, white tent of the well-to-do Romany. But some go even further. Richard Stanley was a kéto Ramani (black Gypsy), who camped in the city of Brooklyn, in a vacant lot, on the Kastern-Park way. Stanley was a stout, handsome, jolly Romany of the pure blood, very dark, very black haired. He could read and write, and was one of the finest and deepest Gypsies Lever met. A friend of mine, also a Ramani 7ai, took me out to see him. Stanley had three large, handsome tents. One, the parlor tent, if we may so express ourselves, was pecu- liarly handsome and clean, carpet on floor, two couches with bedding neatly put away on them, several skamins (chairs), and some chromos and photographs of friends hung to the canvas. It was characteristically Gypsyish that, while Mrs. Stanley took us into this tent and placed chairs for us, she herself squatted, oriental fashion, on the floor. Stanley owned a house and lot in Albany, which he rented. Owned a house and lived in tents! Had chairs, and sat on the floor! Dark, strange and inscrutable are thy ways, oh, roving Romany ! The second tent was the one they sat around in and used most. It was a fair size and had boards on the floor and a carpet thrown over them, and was divided unequally in two by a curtain. The part curtained off would, perhaps, have heen a sleeping room for any one who had been up all night and wanted a snooze in the day time. The third tent was the kitchen. It had no floor, was the largest of all three, and the stove and boxes and cases of food stood in it. There I sat down to a good lunch and one of the best beefsteaks I ever tasted. The Gypsy always asks you to eat with him, even if you will only drink a little muwtamengri or tea. After the wardo and the tan, the only property of the Gypsies of importance is their horses. The American a7 110 “s GYPSIES. Gypsy word for horse is graz, the Hungarian Gypsies gave me grast. Borrow compares the word with Hindu ghora. We would like to suggest the Persian gur or Beers the wild ass. From the very first the Gypsies have been horse dealers. The Jats were horse breeders and horsemen, and, to this day, breed horses and camels, and if the Romany is in part descended from the Jat, he shows it in his love for the horse. Approach a Gypsy camp when you will, before you sight the black tents and the fires, you will meet a drove of horses nibbling the grass along the road, and you will know by that token the camp is near. His horse dealing is the chief source of wealth to the Gypsy, the only honest source, so far as I know, to the male Gypsy. The women, however, make nearly as much by dukerin, or telling fortunes, as the men do by | horse dealing. I have sat by the hour beside a dark son of Egypt while he bargained with a Govjio for the sale of some horse he very much wanted to sell, and looked all the time the most unconcerned and independent of mortals. ‘*‘Tt?sas gentle as a kitten, sir; desti’s a duller’’ (she’s a kicker), this last intended forme. ‘‘ That there horse ‘is just the animal you want, sir;’’ and then to me, ‘“kuova si o bul grai/’ (that’s a broken-winded horse !) How he would crack up the animal, put him through his paces, and even jump on him and ride him, without a saddle, up and down the road, for Gypsies are all horsemen. I can see Henry Wells now, his powerful form, in big, great coat and heavy boots, seated blanket- back on a big horse and trotting toward us down a wild country lane—us being the prospective purchaser, myself and a crowd of youngsters come out from town to see the Gypsies. After an hour or so at talking the horse over and 48 FREDERIOK 8S. ARNOLD. 111 showing his paces, they go to the nearest kichamen (tavern or saloon), where perhaps the bargain is consum- mated over a pi of tddipani (drink of whiskey), or perhaps the buyer goes off, returns, and clinches the bargain in the evening. I once saw such a sale in pro- gress; the horse in question was a worthless one, and the day after I found the Gypsies had left. ‘‘ Where are ‘*they gone?’’ I asked one of the neighbors. ‘‘I don’t ** know,’ the man replied ; ‘‘but your friend sold that ‘** horse last night and made a cool fifty dollars on it, and “‘T guess he thought he’d better leave town before he **heard any complaints of the bargain !”’ That Gypsies are shrewd horse dealers is true, though I believe there are Yankees who are shrewder, but that they are horse thieves, as has been sometimes charged, I do not believe, if for no other reason, because it would be nearly impossible for them to escape detection. The remaining property of the Gypsy consists in those little. necessities of life, clothing, linen, and so forth, which he can carry about with him. Dogs are numer- ous and of all kinds from a thorough-bred, once in a great while, down to the lowest kind of cur, and almost every Gypsy carries some chickens round with him. Bantams and kuren kdnis (fighting cocks) he prefers. Many a Gypsy tent, too, has a big, gilt cage with a cheriko (bird) or parrot in it, the green parrot being very much admired and liked by the Gypsies, and often carried round by them. Gypsies do some little odd jobbing work, by which they eke out their gains from horse dealing and fortune telling. Basket making and selling is one, though now they often buy the baskets they sell instead of making them. In England they make a lot of.little knick- knacks, and an Englishman presented me with a clothes- pin made out of a cleft hazel twig, kept from splitting too far by a band of zinc. These, he told me, they made, 49 112 GYPSIES. stuck on a stick and went round selling, in the oid country. In former days Gypsies were smiths and tinkers, and the name Smith or Petwlengro is common among them, but I never knew any Gypsy smiths or tinkers in America. From our description thus far of the Gypsy and his belongings, we have gotten enough to form a good idea of the Gypsies’ life. Gypsies generally move in gangs, several households, or rather tent-holds, travelling in company. Society, I suppose, is the main object in this, and perhaps also mutual codperation makes the daily occupations of pasturing and tending the horses, cutting fire wood and tent stakes, hdching the tan (pitching the tent), &c., &c., easier. As, however, one Gypsy is com- petitor to another in the grac puriven (horse swapping) and dukerin (fortune telling) business, and as, also, the pasture by the roadside for the horses has its limit, it is inconvenient for too many to travel together, and like all nomads their ways must often part. Thus, once on a time, the bor dat Amelia Wells separated at Poughkeep- sie from her sons Henry and Leonard. and went down into Connecticut for the summer while they went on to Al- bany and beyond; ‘‘For there wasn’t chor enough for ‘*so many grais’’ (not grass enough for so many horses). Even so separated Abram and Lot, long ago. Strange, isn’t it, how the patriarchal ways of past millenniums are reproduced to-day among the waifs and outcasts of our roadsides ? : These Gypsy gangs can not properly be called tribes, since there is neither government nor common interest save that of temporary companionship, Both, however, are incipient, especially where the gang, as among the Wells, so often mentioned, is composed of several closely related families. Here the blood relationship combines the different tents into an incipient phratry and some sort of patriarchal, or more often matriarchal authority 50 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 113 is wielded by the oldest members of the gang. I have already alluded to this authority and influence in de- scribing the dori dai Amelia Wells. Plato Buckland and his wife—his wife toa much greater extent than he— stood in like relation to a band of kélo Ramanis, or pure blood Gypsies, whom I saw several times in the last two years. But the Romany gang does not always hold together and there is nothing at any time to prevent any family from separating and going off on its own account. So often you will see one lonely black tent pitched near its single wardo in some wild glen, or in some common field by a little frequented lane, and the smoke of a single unsocial fire straggling from the other side of a copse, in a spot where you expected to find only insects and birds. My observation has led me to believe that these less social wanderers are less prosperous than those who travel in gangs, and I believe one reason why they travel alone is because intemperate or dirty and shiftless habits make them unpleasant wayfellows. If you want to see a Gypsy camp at its best go out to it Sunday morning. On weekdays you will hardly find a woman inthe camp. LBaskets on arm, the dark, black- eyed dais (women) set out for town early every morning, dressed in their gaudy, outlandish gowns and big bon- nets and wearing their big gold ear rings. Or, if the camp is some distance from the town, the buggies are hitched up and the men drive them in and come after them in the afternoon. All day they go from house to house, selling baskets, trading them for old clothes, begging clothes, food, and money, but above all telling fortunes—for the Gypsy witch is the priestess of a vast amount of popular super- stition which gets into print in the shape of ten-cent dream-books, ‘‘ Napoleon’s oraculum, or book of fate,’’ &c., and which supports not only the Ramani chovihanis 51 114 GYPSIES. (Gypsy witches) but voodoo women, astrologers, clairvo- yants, and many more popular mystics. For every fortune the Gypsy wife tells she expects a lil (¢. e., a dollar), and for ‘‘setting the cards”’ she de- mands five dollars ora bar. But she is an oriental and you can higgle with her, and I have known her shade the price from a dollar down toa pair of old shoes. Still the gains of their fortune telling (and of other lower class seers too) are much larger than one would think possible in the face of our common schools, public libraries, and churches. While the women are in town, the men loaf round the camp, tend the horses, look after the babies, who tumble about on the grass all day, clean up the pots and dishes, cut wood, and wait for horse customers. When any one who wants a real good horse turns up, of course they are ready for him. How they love to hail a green country- man, but how they hate a shrewd, horsey Yankee or a Jew, whom they call a ‘‘Christ-killer,”’ for Gypsies have Christian prejudices whether they have the virtues or not. Some woman generally stays with the men in the camp to get dinner, though the Ram can cook for him- self on a pinch. But if you will go to the één on Ke ieee or Sandee word derived from the Greek xvpzann, thes are all at home and all idle and glad to see you. The Gypsies keep the Sabbath pretty well, but if a customer comes for a horse, they can’t help letting him look it over, and if he buys then and there why, isn’t it his fault more than theirs? They didn’t ask him to come Sanday. The women sit around and talk, the mothers get din- ner, and sometimes a little washing or mending goes on. After the fire wood is cut and the grais curried, the men lie round and loaf, as in fact I think they do twenty hours of the twenty-four any way. Even cutting wood and cleaning horses is often left to the hired man. 62 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 115 It may not be known to every one, but most Gypsies keep a bude-mush or servant to do all their drudgery. The servant gets his keep and some small wage. He is sometimes Romany himself, as in the case of the black Gypsy mentioned above, who worked for the Wells. But he is more often of lower class, American, ‘‘ poor- white’’ extraction. I even once knew a member of a good, lower-middle-class Dutchess County family who worked for the Gypsies for years and had learned a good deal of their language. And old Mr. Smith, when I visited his camp on top of the Palisades near Guttenberg, complained that it was through the Gorjio bude-mushes (gentile servants) that the knowledge of the dark lan- guage got out in the world and the old secret leaked away. Still the Ramani are so careful to keep their language to themselves, and some of the Govjto servants are so stupid withal, that in years of service some never learn a word. | ** You couldn’t larn him a word o’ that language,’’ said Plato Buckland, ‘‘in a thousand years. He ain’t got the head.’’ That Gypsy-lore has passed from these bude-mushes, and in other ways into the lower ranks of society is, however, true. Gypsy words creep into slang, Gypsy ways are adopted by tramps, peddlers, and so forth, not of the blood, and Gypsy superstition spreads and keeps alive the old witchcraft and shamanism which now survives only in the dregs of society, though all our ancestors confessed it once. Talking about their life, the subject of their morality suggests itself. In this respect I believe the Romany will compare very well with the lower classes of society. Intemperance has always been his besetting sin, as of the Dom in India, but his life in the open air enables him to endure hard drinking. The American Ramani whom I have personally observed are, I believe, much more tem- perate, honester and better every way than those I have 53 116 GYPSIES. read of in England. Leland says Gypsies are building up the old race and reviving the old language in Amer- ica. The sexual morality of their women is, I believe, better than that of our lower classes. At any rate it is with the pure blood Gypsies. The Didikai are inferior in this respect, as, | think, in most other ways. Cheating, petty roguery, and stealing wood, chickens, &c., are no doubt Gypsy traits. But even these charges are often exaggerated and, while fortune telling is wrong from our point of view, it is with them the ancient cus- tom of their race and they have brought it with their language and cultus from India. I have already spoken of their observance of Sunday. The Bucklands told me that in England they went to church regularly and I be- lieve that if approached properly and not too stiffly the Gypsies would be open to the truths of the gospel, though their wandering life will probably prevent their ever go- ing to church very often. _ Before turning to the language of the Romany, the last point to be discussed, it will be worth while to name the principal gangs of Gypsies who frequent this county and of whom this paper is a description. My first acquaintances, the Wells tribe, are a large family of Didikai, some of whose members are rather dissipated and not very prosperous. They often travel by single wagons, but every now and then their wardos come together and the family reunites for a time. They are tall, large bodied, and rather fair. The Coopers and some of the Stanleys are related to them. The Coopers are short, dark, pure blood Romanys. I have only seen a few of them here and those few travelled with the Wells. There also travelled once with the Wells a family named Quigley. These were not Gypsies by blood at all and they knew it, but, though they were fair and blue eyed, they spoke the dark language, and their fathers and grandfathers had lived on the roads, 54 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 117 Plato Buckland and Harry Small are two pure blood Romany patriarchs whose caravans pass through Pough- keepsie now and then. Buckland is the father of half a dozen really beautiful daughters, and his sons-in-law, the Pinfolds and Comeagains, as well as his sons, travel with him. In 1892 he and Harry Small were together, but in 1893 the Smalls had 74ll’d 0 waver drom (gone another way) and he was with the Smiths—very deep black Gypsies. Then besides these there are Stanleys, who come here very seldom, Williamses from Connecticut, the Scotch Williamsons mentioned above, and so on. New Jersey is a land very rich in Gypsies. Its win- ters are not so cold as New York’s, its people are horsey, and it contains the races. There I know deep black Romanys, Evans, Lovels and others, but I have not met these in the Hudson River country. Our Hudson River Gypsies light their winter fires in West Virginia and Maryland, or rarely Southern New Jersey. They move north with the spring through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By June they are camped in the vacant lots under the old trees on top of the Pali- sades. Sometimes they cross over into the city and a friend of mine visited a Gypsy camp on Manhattan Is- land near Kingsbridge. Two weeks after their stop on the Palisades I have seen them in Newburgh on Snake Hill and in Wiesner’s Lane and the next day they will be in Poughkeepsie. If they get here in July they will wander back and forth between Newburgh and Albany all summer, getting down into Delaware County when the peaches are ripe, not to the special benefit of the orchards. Or perhaps on leaving Poughkeepsie they will go down into Connecticut. There they may be found near Ridgefield, Danbury, or Bridgeport all summer. As the swallows fly home they are moving towards New Jersey and Pennsylvania again and they 55 118 GYPSIES. light their winter fires on the banks of the Potomac and Kanawha. All Gypsies, however, do not go south in the winter. I have known some who hired lodgings and went into winter quarters in towns, in Bridgeport, Albany or New- burgh. This is called kering from ker, a house. That there are people of Gypsy blood who have left the roads and live permanently in houses, is also true. I heard of a Williams, a Gypsy, who kept a saloon in Bridgeport, and I knew a pure blooded Stanley who was looking for a place on the trolley cars in Brooklyn. Think of the ‘deadly trolley’’ with a wild, roving Romany for con- ductor. The brief description of the history and present condi- tion of the Gypsies is not complete without some ac- count of the Romany language. It is from the compari- son of Romany with Sanskrit and modern Hindu dialects that the Indian origin of the Gypsies has been proved, and it is by his knowledge of it that the scholar to-day wins their hearts and becomes able to study their charac- ter and folk lore. When the Gypsy arrived in Babee he spoke a tongue entirely distinct from the people about him. It had a Hindu-Persian vocabulary and the elaborate Aryan gram- mar. Grammar and vocabulary are preserved in consid- erable purity in Turkey and Eastern Europe to this day, as I found out to my sorrow in talking with the Hun- garian Gypsies, who were continually using words and forms which American Romanies, and, therefore I, know nothing about. Four hundred years in Englishry have very much corrupted the kdélo jib (black language) but Leland avers that Romany inflexions were still used in England early in the century. In Wales, too, the lan- guage is purer and deeper than in England and America. The Romany language in its East European purity has two genders and eight cases to the noun; adjectives de- 56 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. - 119 clined to agree with their substantives, a verb with a mid- dle voice and a complication of tenses including a second aorist, and its own syntax. But the American Gypsies I have described preserve scarcely any of the original grammar and even their vocabulary is very scanty, and, in talking of any but the commonest occurrences of daily life, has to be eked out with English words. Of course the kdlo Ramanis (black Romanies) know much more of it than the Didikai (half breeds) and they pride them- selves on their ‘‘deep’’ knowledge of the language. They retain some inflexions and a much larger vocabulary, including many ‘‘deep”’ (7. e., nearly forgotten) syno- nyms for the words in common use. The Romany noun has two genders, masculine and feminine, and the adjective ought to agree with it. I say ‘‘ ought to”’’ advisedly, for many Romanies have now practically forgotten even this and unite, for instance, a masculine adjective with a feminine noun. Still I think the kélo Ramanis generally make the distinction prop- erly. O is the adjective masculine ending and 7 the feminine. Thus: kushto mush, a good man, but kushti juvel, a good woman. The plural of nouns is formed by adding or or ior to the singular. Thus: grai, horse; graior, horses. This inflexion too is fast vanishing and the English termination s is taking its place. You hear grais used more often than graior. Beyond this I am not aware that the American Romany noun and adjective can be declined. The old Romany genitive ended in eskoro. Thus: raklo, a boy; gen., rakleskoro. But Borrow says the genitive is entirely wanting in English Romany. The American Gypsies form a possessive after the English model with s: e. g.,0 mush’s dume, the man’s back:; a rai’s chai, a gentleman’s daughter. More declension is naturally preserved to the pro- nouns, but here too, of course, the datives and duals of the puro Roma jib (old Gypsy language) are forgotten. 87 120 GYPSIES. I think the remnant of inflexion used in America is about as follows. FIRST PERSON. Sin gular. Plural. Nom. Mandi men, mendut Gen. miro, miri, mi, m To menaut § Acc. mdén, méindi SECOND PERSON—SINGULAR. Nom. tu, tuti Gen. _ tiro tuti’s Ace. tut tuti Plural like Nominative. THIRD PERSON—SINGULAR. Masculine. Feminine. Nom. YU lati (properly acc.) Gen. lesti’ s litis Acc. lesti lati. COMMON PLURAL. Nom. dis. An oblique case used, however, as nomi- native by our Gypsies. Gen. Jlendi’s. Acc. len lendi. Smart and Crofton give an elaborate series of forms for the pronoun, perhaps adapted from Paspati’s Turkish Gypsy. I doubt if all their forms have been heard in England for many a day. The verb has lost most. Gypsies add English termina- tions to the Romany stems and, I believe, all the old Romany endings among our American Romanies have practically been lost. The verb to be, however, retains inflexions ; its singular, mandi shom, I am, tute shan, thou art, yur si, he is, lati si, she is, being still used by the Gypsies. 58 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 121 But for the rest they say : mandi kams tute, for, I love you, instead of me kémava tut ; they say, mandi dik d, I saw, instead of dikdom; they say, to pi, to drink, in- stead of pialini, and they use such anglicized forms as hoiew haben, eating food ; lel’d apre, taken up (slang for arrested), etc., etc. But if we find little in the grammar of use to us the vocabulary they retain is still very large. ‘‘ Not more ‘than fourteen hundred words, the greater part of which ‘“‘seem to be of Indian origin,’ says George Borrow {Lavo Lil, p. 6). Leland, in the ‘‘ Gypsies,’’ thinks it quite possible very many more words might be found than Borrow knew of. I have taken down three hun- dred, fifty words from the Gypsies I have known on the Hudson river and I have worked at it only very occa- sionally and only during three years altogether. The Indian origin of the Romany language has already been established by Pott, Miklosich, Borrow, Paspati, Leland, Simson, &c. In illustration of it, it may be well to introduce the following list of Romany words with the cognate Sanskrit ones, which jhas been kindly sent me by my friend Mr. George N. Olcott. The Romany words given are common ones, such as may be heard in every Gypsy’s tent in New York state. alaj, ashamed. A is added to assimilate it with En- glish a shamed. In old Romany we have the form laj. Hindustani Zaj: Skts. lajja. wangar, coal (also money). Old form angar. Hindi angara: Skt. angara, coal. koko, uncle. Hindustani kaka, uncle. kdélo, black. Hindustani kala, black; whence Cal- cutta. kam, to love. Hind. kam. Skt. Kama, love, the Hindu god of love. ' kan, ear. Hind. kan. Skt. karna, ear. kasht, stick. Skt. kashtha, stick. 59 122 GYPSIES. ker, to make, do. Skt. ,/ kr, to make, do. jib, tongue. Skt. 7ihva, tongue. chiv, to put, throw. Skt. ,/ kship, to hurl. chor, to steal. Skt. chora, a thief. chum, to kiss. Skt ./- chuwmb, to kiss. churi, knife. Bengali, churi. Skt. churika. Jin, to know. Skt. ,/ jva, to know. | jukel, dog. Persian, shagdl, jackal, (whence our Eng. jackal.) ; divas, day. Skt. divasa, day. duvel, god. Skt. deva, Hind. dev. pani, water. Hindu, pani, water. Skt. pana, drink. pue, ground. Hind. bhu. Skt. bhumi. bak, luck. Skt. bdhaga, luck. mush, man. Old form manush. Skt. manushya, cf. Avestan, mashya. matto, drunk. Skt. matta. wast, hand. Skt. hasta. sap, shake. Hind. sarp. Skt. sarpa. yak, eye. Skt. akshan. yag, fire. Hind. ag. Skt. agni. (Latin ignis). rai, gentleman. Skt. rajan, King. rati, night. Prakrit ratéi. Skt. ratri. The numerals also illustrate the same fact. Those known to our American Gypsies, with the Sanskrit, are as follows: Romany. Hindu. Skt. il yek ek eka 2 dui du dva 3 trin tri rt 4 shtor chatur 5 pany - panch pancha 10 desh dasan 20 hukter Greek outa It will be curiously noted that the word our Gypsies use for a score (it has a rather indefinite meaning) is evi- 60 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. we dently derived from Greek oxt#. Among the words the Romanies borrowed in Greece were the numerals heféa, seven; okto, eight, and enea, nine, still used in Turkey and Hungary. These are all, except okto, forgotten here, and okto only lives as hukter. The authorities give bish as Gypsy for twenty. Our Romanies have forgotten this and have blindly taken their old word for eight and used it to express first an indefinite large number, then a score, then twenty. The fact that the numerals given above are the only ones the Gypsies retain is quite curious. These numer- als have evidently been kept to count money with. They need to beg for yek, dui, trin, shtar oras, or pen- nies, and to trade with as many Zils or dollars. As we have a five cent piece and a five dollar bill they can say panjors (five cents) and panj lil (five dollars), or a bar (a pound). Desh is used in deshors (a ten cent piece), desh lil (ten dollars) and so forth, and hukter conve- niently expresses a large number, being translatable by score rather than by twenty. Hwukter bar (literally, twenty pounds) means a hundred dollars, a sum of money so frequently referred to, it is convenient to have a Romany word for it. In England there is a sixpence and English Romanies know that shov means six, but as our American currency does not make the word neces-. sary, it has been forgotten. It will be interesting to note here how words for En- glish coins have been applied to American money. In England ora means a penny, tringwshi, a shilling, and bara pound. Here these words are retained, o7 for a cent, tringushi for twenty-five cents, and bar for five dollars. They call a dollar a dil, which meant book, a reference tc our printed paper money. Of other than Sanskrit elements in Romany a few examples must suffice. The Gypsies entered Europe through Asia Minor and Greece and staying a good while 61 124 GYPSIES. in those countries, Greek made some impression on their language. I have already cited Xrokers from Greek nxupiaun and hukter from onto. Drom is their common word fora road and it comes directly from Gk. dpopos. Palal is Romany for behind. It is the Greek zadzv. The Romany articles 0 and é are borrowed from Greek o and 77. | Of Slavic elements there aresome. The Romany sralis (king) is Polish £7r6d. In talking with the Hungarian Gypsies I mentioned the American Romany mdchka for cat. ‘‘No,”’ they said, ‘‘mdachka means cat but it isa Hungarian word, ‘‘not Roma. The Roma lav (Gypsy word) for cat is dandolo.”’ If this be true it is a case of a true Magyar word preserved in American Gypsy. The word dandolo for cat, I never heard before. Besides the English inflexional endings and the good English words with which most American Gypsies eke out their Romany, they sometimes add the Gypsy end- ing ws to English nouns ; thus they say weekus for week. Many things for which the Romanies had no names have been given figurative names made up of real Romany words. ‘husa turkey is kéli rani (literally, black lady), a church miduvels ker (the Lord’s house), a lawyer, Jinemester-mush (knowing man), a plow, pwose vardo (field wagon). A kori means a match. Potatoes are called puvengri and turnips (also radishes) puvakro, both words meaning literally ‘field things.”? Awver means thing, and is often added to form a noun. Thus, fdven- kuver (smoking thing), a segar. Of course this language, corrupted as it now is, always the secret dialect of ignorant bands of outcastes, is prac- tically without literature. A few orally transmitted legends, spells, and folk rhymes are all that can be col- lected. Of magic spells and rhymes the east European Gypsies have a great number. The following, which I 62 3 FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. 125 quote from Leland, will have to suffice asa sample. It is a spell to cure a fever and the sufferer, going to run- ning water, casts pieces of wood backward nine times and says: **« Shilalyi prejia, ‘*Panori me tut dav! ‘* Nani me tut kamav ; ‘** Andakode prejia, **Odoy tut cuciden, ‘*Odoy tut ferinen, ‘‘Odoy tut may kamen! ‘* Mashurdalo sastyar !’ ‘*