Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in EuropeGrellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
History
Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in Europe
Grellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
Romanies
But there are still some further traits relating to the Gipseys; we shall
now examine whether they also are to be found among the Suders. Of these
the first is, that the Gipseys always choose their place of residence
near some village or city; very seldom within the village or city, even
though there may be no order to prevent it: as is the case in Moldavia,
Wallachia, and all parts of Turkey. Even the more improved Gipseys, as
those in Transylvania, who have long since discontinued their wandering
mode of life, and might, with permission from government, reside within
the cities, yet rather choose to build their huts in some bye-place,
without their limits. This custom seems to be a remnant of their
original Suder education; it being usual, all over India, for the Suders
to have their huts without the villages of the other castes, and in
retired places near their cities.
Further, with regard to the Gipseys’ religion, we may recollect, from
what has been said, that their sense of it is very confined, and that
they have not the least degree of steadiness in it. To the Gipseys,
every persuasion is the same; as often as he meets with a different one,
he changes his opinions. To-day he receives the sacrament as a Lutheran;
next Sunday, from a Roman-catholic; and perhaps before the end of the
week partakes of the communion in a Reformed church. Yet the greater
part of them do not even go so far as this, but live without any religion
at all, and are, as Tollius says, worse than heathens. The more
wonderful such an appearance is—of a whole people being so void of and
indifferent about religion—the more weight it carries with it to confirm
their Indian origin, when all this is found to be literally true of the
Suders. “This race,” says Rogerius, of the Suders in the kingdom of
Surat, “seems to be neither heathens nor Mahometans; they live on in
their own way, without any religion, or worshipping of God. There are
some, it is true, who imitate the other castes in an outward shew of
religion, and appoint priests for themselves; but they neither frequent
the pagodas of the higher castes, nor have any of their own: and as to
the choice of their deities, every one conforms to the custom of the
place where he lives, or happens to remain a short time, exactly the same
as the Gipseys.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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