Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvementSmith, George
History
Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvement
Smith, George
Romanies -- Great Britain
The third were, as the Brahmins, to cultivate science, but
particularly to attend to the breeding of cattle. The caste of the
Suders was to be subservient to the Brahmins, the Tschechterias, and the
Beis. These Suders, he goes on to say, are held in disdain, and they are
considered infamous and unclean from their occupation, and they are
abhorred because they eat flesh; the three other castes living entirely
on vegetables. Baldeus says the Parias or Suders are a filthy people and
wicked crew. It is related in the “Danish Mission Intelligencer,” nobody
can deny that the Parias are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians;
they are thievish, and have wicked dispositions. Neuhof assures us, “the
Parias are full of every kind of dishonesty; they do not consider lying
and cheating to be sinful.” The Gipsy’s solicitude to conceal his
language is also a striking Indian trait. Professor Pallas says of the
Indians round Astracan, custom has rendered them to the greatest degree
suspicious about their language. Salmon says that the nearest relations
cohabit with each other; and as to education, their children grow up in
the most shameful neglect, without either discipline or instruction. The
missionary journal before quoted says with respect to matrimony among the
Suders or Gipsies, “they act like beasts, and their children are brought
up without restraint or information.” “The Suders are fond of horses, so
are the Gipsies.” Grellmann goes on to say “that the Gipsies hunt after
cattle which have died of distempers in order to feed on them, and when
they can procure more of the flesh than is sufficient for one day’s
consumption, they dry it in the sun. Such is the constant custom with
the Suders in India.” “That the Gipsies and natives of Hindustan
resemble each other in complexion and shape is undeniable. And what is
asserted of the young Gipsy girls rambling about with their fathers, who
are musicians, dancing with lascivious and indecent gesture to divert any
person who is willing to give them a small gratuity for so acting, is
likewise perfectly Indian.” Sonneratt confirms this in the account he
gives of the dancing girls of Surat. Fortune-telling is practised all
over the East, but the peculiar kind professed by the Gipsies, viz.,
chiromancy, constantly referring to whether the parties shall be rich or
poor, happy or unhappy in marriage, &c., is nowhere met with but in
India. Sonneratt says:—“The Indian smith carries his tools, his shop,
and his forge about with him, and works in any place where he can find
employment. He has a stone instead of an anvil, and his whole apparatus
is a pair of tongs, a hammer, a beetle, and a file. This is very much
like Gipsy tinkers,” &c. It is usual for Parias, or Suders, in India to
have their huts outside the villages of other castes. This is one of the
leading features of the Gipsies of this country. A visit to the
outskirts of London, where the Gipsies encamp, will satisfy any one upon
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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