The Gipsies' Advocate: Or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of the English Gipsies — John Shaqi
The Gipsies' Advocate: Or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of the English GipsiesCrabb, James
Religion
The Gipsies' Advocate: Or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of the English Gipsies
Crabb, James
Romanies -- England
The Hindoo Suder delights in horses, tinkering, music, and fortune
telling; so does the Gipsy. The Suder tribes of the same part of the
Asiatic Continent, are wanderers, dwelling chiefly in wretched mud-huts.
When they remove from one place to another, they carry with them their
scanty property. The English Gipsies imitate these erratic tribes in
this particular. They wander from place to place, and carry their small
tents with them, which consist of a few bent sticks, and a blanket. {14}
The Suders in the East eat the flesh of nearly every unclean creature;
nor are they careful that the flesh of such creatures should not be
putrid. How exactly do the Gipsies imitate them in this abhorrent choice
of food! They have been in the habit of eating many kinds of brutes, not
even excepting dogs and cats; and when pressed by hunger, have sought
after the most putrid carrion. It has been a common saying among
them--_that which God kills_, _is better than that killed by man_. But
of late years, with a few exceptions, they have much improved in this
respect; for they now eat neither dogs nor cats, and but seldom seek
after carrion. But in winter they will dress and eat snails, hedge-hogs,
and other creatures not generally dressed for food.
But the strongest evidence of their Hindoo origin is the great
resemblance their own language bears to the Hindostanee. The following
Vocabulary is taken from Grellman, Hoyland, and Captain Richardson. The
first of these respectable authors declares, that twelve out of thirty
words of the Gipsies' language, are either purely Hindostanee, or nearly
related to it.
The following list of words are among those which bear the greatest
resemblance to that language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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