Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales — John Shaqi
Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and talesLeland, Charles Godfrey
History
Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling: Illustrated by numerous incantations, specimens of medical magic, anecdotes and tales
Leland, Charles Godfrey
Fortune-telling; Magic, Romani; Romanies
the Ramghur community, visits Akuti and tells her of Balu's little
scheme. Naturally Balu's liver is soon in a decline, for Akuti's
ten rupees were put in the opposite side of the gooroo's scales.
Knaves of the gooroo genus flourish in India, and when their
disposition is vicious the damage they can do is appalling. That
these priests exist and do such things as I have illustrated is
beyond question. Ask any native of India his views on the bhut
question, and he will tell you that there are such things, and,
further, that the gooroo is the only one able to lay them, so to
speak. According to the low-caste Hindoo, the bhut is a spiteful
creature which requires constant supplies of liquor and pork;
otherwise it will wreak its vengeance on the forgetful votary who
neglects the supply. A strange idea, too, is this of pork being
pleasing to the bhuts; but when it is remembered that the Jaiswars,
Chamars, and other low-caste Hindoos are inordinately fond of
that meat themselves, they are right in supposing pig to be the
favourite dish of the bhuts, who, after all, are but the departed
spirits of their own people. Naturally bhai (brother) Kaloo, or
bahin (sister, English gypsy pen) Akuti, the quondam grass-cutter
and courtesan of Ramghur village, who in this life liked nothing
better than a piece of bacon and a dram of spirits, will, in their
state of bhuthood hanker after those things still. Acting on these
notions of the people, the gooroo lives and thrives exceedingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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