Romany Life: Experienced and Observed during many Years of Friendly Intercourse with the GypsiesCuttriss, Frank
History
Romany Life: Experienced and Observed during many Years of Friendly Intercourse with the Gypsies
Cuttriss, Frank
Romanies -- England
Of the caravan or tent dwellers it is difficult to say which are the
more interesting, as owners of caravans may be frequently found camping
in tents,—perhaps while the van is undergoing repairs, or because it
will not accommodate the whole of the family. Again, a family will,
for a time, take to “life under the tan” and later we may see them
located in a van, it will therefore be better to make no invidious
comparisons but treat of both van and tent dweller impartially. To the
student, the life led by the habitual tent dwellers will appeal the
more strongly as many of them have not associated with the outside
world to quite the same extent as their caravan brethren and they are
therefore, in some respects, the more interesting, and we can gain
from them a much better idea of the primitive dwellings and general
conditions under which most of the gypsies lived during those centuries
of wandering both in India and after their emigration. Concerning much
of their wanderings, history is dumb, but certain facts stand out in
strong relief, for historians relate how in 1414 they appeared in
Germany and France in bands, gaining a livelihood by the practice of
fortune-telling.
Bands of them went to Persia as musicians, others engaged in various
trades and scattered all over Europe. Their appearance in England dates
from about 1480.
We read that the Persian monarch Behran Gour received from an Indian
king 12,000 musicians of both sexes who were known as “Lûris” or
“Lûlis,” and in this record of what is presumably the first emigration
of the gypsies, the term “Lûris” is identical with that by which
gypsies are known in Persia to-day. Pursuing the theme, we note the
statement by old writers that “between al-Mansura and Mokrau the waters
of the Indus have formed marshes, the borders of which are inhabited by
certain Indian tribes called Zott, they are true nomads, living in huts
like the Berbers.” We are told further that in the Arabic dictionary
al-Kamus this entry occurs—“Zott arabicized from Jatt, a people of
Indian origin.” Zott, by the way, is the name by which the gypsies are
known to the Arabs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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