The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of SpainBorrow, George
History
The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain
Borrow, George
Romanies -- Languages; Romanies -- Spain
‘In her disputes, the air of menace and high passion, the flow of words,
and the facility with which she provokes and despises danger, indicate
manners half barbarous, and ignorance of other means of defence.
Finally, both in males and females, their physical constitution, colour,
agility, and flexibility, reveal to us a caste sprung from a burning
clime, and devoted to all those exercises which contribute to evolve
bodily vigour, and certain mental faculties.
‘The dress of the Gitáno varies with the country which he inhabits. Both
in Rousillon and Catalonia his habiliments generally consist of jacket,
waistcoat, pantaloons, and a red faja, which covers part of his
waistcoat; on his feet he wears hempen sandals, with much ribbon tied
round the leg as high as the calf; he has, moreover, either woollen or
cotton stockings; round his neck he wears a handkerchief, carelessly
tied; and in the winter he uses a blanket or mantle, with sleeves, cast
over the shoulder; his head is covered with the indispensable red cap,
which appears to be the favourite ornament of many nations in the
vicinity of the Mediterranean and Caspian Sea.
‘The neck and the elbows of the jacket are adorned with pieces of blue
and yellow cloth embroidered with silk, as well as the seams of the
pantaloons; he wears, moreover, on the jacket or the waistcoat, various
rows of silver buttons, small and round, sustained by rings or chains of
the same metal. The old people, and those who by fortune, or some other
cause, exercise, in appearance, a kind of authority over the rest, are
almost always dressed in black or dark-blue velvet. Some of those who
affect elegance amongst them keep for holidays a complete dress of
sky-blue velvet, with embroidery at the neck, pocket-holes, arm-pits, and
in all the seams; in a word, with the exception of the turban, this was
the fashion of dress of the ancient Moors of Granada, the only difference
being occasioned by time and misery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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