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
In Transylvania, some of them wear the Wallachian dress; but in Hungary
they are so attached to the habits of the country, that a Gipsey had
rather go half naked, or wrap himself up in a sack, than he would
condescend to wear a foreign garb, even though a very good one were given
to him. Green is a favourite colour with the Gipseys; but scarlet is
held in so great esteem by them, that a man cannot appear abroad in a red
habit, though worn out, without being surrounded by a crowd old and
young, who, in the open street, are solicitous to purchase of him, be it
coat, pellisse, or breeches. Unless severely pinched by the cold, or in
case of the greatest necessity, they will not deign to put on a boor’s
coat: they rather choose to buy for their own use cast-off clothes; and
if they happen to be ornamented with lace or loops, they strut about in
such dresses, as proudly as if they were not merely lords of the
district, but of the whole creation. Thus all the money they can spare,
is expended in obtaining a sort of clothes not at all becoming their
station, and which answer no other purpose, but to betray their weak
silly notions, and expose them to the ridicule of the more sensible part
of mankind. They do not pay the least regard to symmetry, nor care what
reasonable people think of their dress: provided they can only get
something shining to put on, that will catch the eye, they give
themselves no concern if the rest of their clothing be very bad, or
though they be nearly in a state of nudity. It is no uncommon spectacle
to see a Gipsey parading the streets in an embroidered pellisse, or laced
coat decorated with silver buttons, with a dirty ragged shirt,
barefooted, and without a hat; or with a pair of embroidered scarlet
breeches on, and perhaps no other covering but half a shirt.
Nothing pleases Hungarian Gipseys more than a pair of yellow
(_tschischmen_) boots, and spurs: no sooner do the latter glitter on his
feet, but he bridles up, and marches consequentially about, often eying
his fine boots, at the same time totally regardless of his breeches,
which may have lost a portion before or behind, or be in some other
respects quite shabby.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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