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
the affair finishes itself, and they separate, with as much ostentation
as if they had performed the most heroic feats.
_Thus_ the Gipsey seeks honour! of which his ideas seldom coincide with
those of other people, and sometimes deviate entirely from propriety: we
may therefore assert, what all, who have made observations on these
people agree in, that honour and shame are to them totally indifferent.
We establish this decision by comparing Gipsey notions with our own:
trying their dealings and conduct by this standard, they will often
appear ridiculous, frequently even infamous.
Nothing can exceed the unrestrained depravity of manners existing among
these people, particularly the softer sex. Unchecked by any idea of
shame, they give way to every desire. The mother endeavours, by the most
scandalous arts, to train her daughter for an offering to sensuality; and
the latter is scarcely grown up, before she becomes the seducer of
others. Let the dance, formerly mentioned, be called to mind; it will
then be unnecessary to adduce fresh examples, of which regard for decency
will not permit a detail.
Their indolence has been already quoted. Laziness is so natural to them,
that were they to subsist by their own labour only, they would hardly
have bread for two of the seven days in the week. This disposition
increases their propensity to stealing and cheating—the common attendants
on idleness. They seek and avail themselves of every opportunity to
satisfy their lawless desires. Thomasius endeavours to propagate a
notion, that this habit has grown upon the latter Gipseys by degrees, in
opposition to the practice of those who first arrived, quoting Stumpf for
his authority, who talks of Christian discipline and order among the
original Gipseys; he assures us, too, that they paid ready money for all
they wanted; but this testimony does not deserve attention: the Gipseys
in Stumpf’s time were the same as they are at this day, nor are they
differently described by any of the old writers.
This is a lamentable enumeration of evil and ruinous properties in the
Gipsey’s character, which applies not only to a few individuals, but to
by far the greatest number of these people. Scarcely any virtue could
exist in a soul so replete with vices. What at first sight appears less
censurable, or perhaps even amiable, in them is, their habitual content
in their situation. They have no care about futurity; they are
unacquainted either with anxiety or solicitude: and pass through every
day lively and satisfied. But this, in itself commendable resignation,
is as little to be accounted a virtue among the Gipseys as among the
Iroquois, and proceeds from the excessive levity of their dispositions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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