Note 168 — Chapter VIII

There is one word in the Gipsy language to which is attached more importance than to any other thing whatever—Lácha—the corporeal chastity of woman; the loss of which she is, from childhood, taught to dread. To ensure its preservation, the mother will have occasion to the Diclé—a kind of drapery which she ties around the daughter; and which is never removed, but continually inspected, till the day of marriage; but not for fear of the “stranger” or the “white blood.” A girl is generally betrothed at fourteen, and never married till two years afterward. Betrothal is invariable. But the parties are never permitted, previous to marriage, to have any intimate associations together.—Borrow on the Spanish Gipsies.—Ed.

Births of Children. Marriages. Births of Grand- children. 1

1822, Oct. 1. 1842 1843, Jul. 1 2

1824, Jan. 1. 1844 1844, Oct. 1 1 3

1825, Apl. 1. 1845 1846, Jan. 1 1 1 4

1826, Jul. 1. 1846 1847, Ap. 1 1 1 1 5

1827, Oct. 1. 1847 1848, Jul 1 1 1 1 1 6

1829, Jan. 1. 1849 1849, Oct. 1 1 1 1 1 1 7

1830, Apl. 1. 1850 1851, Jan. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8

1831, Jul. 1. 1851 1852, Ap. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9

1832, Oct. 1. 1852 1853, Jul. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 10

1834, Jan. 1. 1854 1854, Oct. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11

1835, Apl. 1. 1855 1856, Jan. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 12

1836, Jul. 1. 1856 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Total.

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 78

The above table will give a general idea of the natural encrease of the Gipsies. The reader can make what allowances he pleases, for ages at time of marriage, intervals between births, twins, deaths, or numbers of children born. By this table, the Gipsy, by marrying at twenty years of age, would, when 54 years old, have a “following” of no less than 78 souls. “There is one of the divine laws,” said I to a Gipsy, “which the Gipsies obey more than any other people.” “What is that?” replied he, with great gravity. “The command to ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish (but not subdue) the earth.’” Even five generations can be obtained from the male, and six from the female Gipsy, in a century, counting from first-born to first-born. The reader will notice how large are the Gipsy families incidentally mentioned by our author.—Ed.

[170] Major Archer says that this law is still in force.

[171] “I was soon tired,” says Park, “and had retired into my tent. When I was sitting, almost asleep, an old woman entered with a wooden bowl in her hand, and signified that she had brought me a present from the bride. Before I could recover from the surprise which this message created, the woman discharged the contents of the bowl full in my face. Finding that it was the same sort of holy water with which, among the Hottentots, a priest is said to sprinkle a new-married couple, I began to suspect that the lady was actuated by mischief or malice; but she gave me seriously to understand that it was a nuptial benediction from the bride’s own person; and which, on such occasions, is always received by the young unmarried Moors, as a mark of distinguished favour. This being the case, I wiped my face, and sent my acknowledgment to the lady.”—Park’s Travels, pages 205 and 206.

[172] Whatever prudes and snobs may think of this chapter, I believe that the sensible and intelligent reader will agree with me in saying, that the marriage and divorce ceremonies of the Gipsies are historical gems of the most antique and purest water.—Ed.

[173] On their return from church, the bride is seated at one extremity of a room, with the unmarried girls by her; the bridegroom on the right, and the father and mother, or those who perform their office, on the left. The male part of the company stand in the corners, singing, and playing on the guitar. About one o’clock, the oldest matron, accompanied by others advanced in years, conducts the bride into the bed-room, which, according to the custom of Spain, is usually a small chamber, without a window, opening into the general apartment. Tune vetula, manu sud sponsæ naturalibus admota membranam, vulvæ ori oppositam unguibus scindit et cruorem à plagâ fusum linteolo excipit. The Gitanos without make a loud noise with their whistles, and the girls, striking the door, sing the following couplets, or some other like them:

The bride then returns from the chamber, accompanied by the matrons, and the new-married couple are placed upon a table, where the bride dances, et coram astantibus linteolum, internerati pudoris indicium explicat; whilst the company, throwing down their presents of sweetmeats, &c., dance and cry, “Viva la honra.”—Bright, on the Spanish Gipsy marriage.

Before the marriage festival begins, four matrons—relations of the contracting parties—are appointed to scrutinize the bride; in which a handkerchief, of the finest French cambric, takes a leading part. Should she prove frail, she will likely be made away with, in a way that will leave no trace behind. In carrying out some marriage festivals, a procession will take place, led by some vile-looking fellow, bearing, on the end of a long pole, the diclé and unspotted handkerchief; followed by the betrothed and their nearest friends, and a rabble of Gipsies, shouting and firing, and barking of dogs. On arriving at the church, the pole, with its triumphant colours, is stuck into the ground, with a loud huzza; while the train defile, on either side, into the church. On returning home, the same takes place. Then follows the most ludicrous and wasteful kind of revelling, which often leaves the bridegroom a beggar for life.—Borrow, on the Spanish Gipsy marriage.—Ed.

[174] The part of the marriage ceremony of the Gipsies which relates to the chastity of the bride has a great resemblance to a part of the nuptial rites of the Russians, and the Christians of St. John, in Mesopotamia and Chaldea. Dr. Hurd says: “When a new-married couple in Russia retire to the nuptial bed, an old domestic servant stands sentinel at the chamber-door. Some travellers tell us that this old servant, as soon as it is proper, attends nearer the bedside, to be informed of what happens. Upon the husband’s declaration of his success and satisfaction, the kettle-drums and trumpets proclaim the joyful news.” Among the Christians of St. John, as soon as the marriage is consummated, “both parties wait upon the bishop, and the husband deposes before him that he found his wife a virgin; and then the bishop marries them, puts several rings on their fingers, and baptizes them again . . . . A marriage with one who is discovered to have lost her honour beforehand but very seldom, if ever, holds good.”

When speaking of the marriages of the Mandingoes, at Kamalia, about 500 miles in the interior of Africa, Park says: “The new-married couple are always disturbed toward morning by the women, who assemble to inspect the nuptial sheet, (according to the manners of the ancient Hebrews, as recorded in Scripture,) and dance around it. This ceremony is thought indispensably necessary, nor is the marriage considered valid without it.” Park’s Travels, page 399.

By the laws of Menu, the Hindoo could reject his bride, if he found her not a virgin.—Sir William Jones.

[The reader will observe that the marriage ceremony of the Gipsies, though barbarous, is very figurative and emphatic, and certainly moral enough. To show that the Gipsies, as a people, have not been addicted to the most barbarous customs, in regard to marriage, I note the following very singular form of the Scottish Highlanders, which, according to Skene, continued in use until a very late period. “This custom was termed hand-fasting, and consisted in a species of contract between two chiefs, by which it was agreed that the heir of one should live with the daughter of the other, as her husband, for twelve months and a day. If, in that time, the lady became a mother, or proved to be with child, the marriage became good in law, even although no priest had performed the marriage in due form; but should there not have occurred any appearance of issue, the contract was considered at an end, and each party was at liberty to marry, or hand-fast, with any other.” Which fact shows that Highland chiefs, at one time, would have annulled any, or all, of the laws of God, whenever it would have served their purposes.—Ed.]

[175] On reading the above ceremony to an intelligent native of Fife, he said he had himself heard a Gipsy, of the name of Thomas Ogilvie, say that the Tinklers were married in the way mentioned. On one occasion, when a couple of respectable individuals were married, in the usual Scottish Presbyterian manner, at Elie, in Fife, Ogilvie, Gipsy-like, laughed at such a wedding ceremony, as being, in his estimation, no way binding on the parties. He at the same time observed that, if they would come to him, he would marry them in the Tinkler manner, which would make it a difficult matter to separate them again.

[176] Two ram’s horns and two spoons, crossed, are sculptured on the tombstone of William Marshall, a Gipsy chief, who, according to a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, died at the age of 120 years, and whose remains are deposited in the church-yard of Kirkcudbright.

A horn is the hieroglyphic of authority, power, and dignity, and is a metaphor often made use of in the Scriptures. The Jews held ram’s horns in great veneration, on account, it is thought, of that animal having been caught in a bush by the horns, and used as a substitute, when Isaac was about to be sacrificed by his father; or, perhaps, on account of this animal being first used in sacrifice. So much were ram’s horns esteemed by the Israelites, that their Priests and Levites used them as trumpets, particularly at the taking of Jericho. The modern Jews, when they confess their sins, in our month of September, announce the ceremony by blowing a ram’s horn, the sound of which, they say, drives away the Devil. In ancient Egypt, and other parts of Africa, Jupiter Ammon was worshipped under the figure of a ram, and to this deity one of these animals was sacrificed annually. A ram seems to have been an emblem of power in the East, from the remotest ages. It would, therefore, appear that the practice of the Gipsy priest “wearing a ram’s horn, suspended from a string, around his neck,” must be derived from the highest antiquity.

[177] Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol, x.

[178] Mr. Borrow bears very positive testimony to the personal virtue of Gipsy females. I have heard natives of Hungary speak lightly of them in that respect; but I conclude that they alluded to exceptions to the general rule among the race.—Ed.

[179] What our author says, relative to the sacrifice of the horse, by the Gipsies, not being known to the people of Scotland at large, is equally applicable to the entire subject of the tribe. And we see here how admirably the passions—in this case, the prejudice and incredulity—of mankind are calculated to blind them to facts, perhaps to facts the most obvious and incontestible. What is stated of the Gipsies in this work, generally, should be no matter of wonder; the real wonder, if wonder there should be, is that it should not have been known to the world before.—Ed.

[180] Grellmann says, of the Hungarian Gipsies, “The greatest luxury to them is when they can procure a roast of cattle that have died of any distemper, whether it be sheep, pig, cow, or other beast, a horse only excepted.”—Ed.

[181] It appears that the Jews, when they lapsed into the grossest idolatry, dedicated horses to the sun. “And he (Josiah) took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech, the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire.” II Kings, xxiii. 11.

[182] This Gipsy mentioned one particular instance of having seen a couple separated in this way, on a wild moor, near Huntly, about the year 1805. He particularly stated that a horse found dead would not do for a separation, but that one must be killed for the express purpose; and that “the sun must be at his height” before the horse could be properly sacrificed. From the fact of Ramsay stumbling upon the Gipsies “a little after day-break,” it would seem that circumstances had compelled them to change the time, or adjourn the completion, of the sacrifice; or that the extreme wildness of the victim had prevented its being caught, and so led to the “violent swing which McDonald gave his wife at parting.” And it might be that Ramsay had come upon them when McDonald and his wife were performing the last part of the ceremony, or had caused them to finish it abruptly; as the old Gipsy stated that not only are none but Gipsies allowed to be present on such occasions, but that the greatest secrecy is observed, to prevent discovery by those who are not of the tribe.

[183] It appears all the Gipsies, male as well as female, who perform ceremonies for their tribe, carry long staffs. In the Institutes of Menu, page 28, it is written: “The staff of a priest must be of such length as to reach his hair; that of a soldier to reach his forehead; and that of a merchant to reach the nose.”

[184] That I might distinctly understand the Gipsy, when he described the manner of crossing and wheeling round the corners of the horse, a common sitting-chair was placed on its side between us, which represented the animal lying on the ground.

[185] Bright, on the Spanish Gipsies, says: “Widows never marry again, are distinguished by mourning-veils, and black shoes made like those of a man; no slight mortification, in a country where the females are so remarkable for the beauty of their feet.” It is most likely that divorced female Gipsies are confounded here with widows.—Ed.

[186] This difficulty has been removed by recent legislation.—Ed.

[187] “An ass is sometimes sacrificed by religious mendicants, as an atonement for some fault by which they had forfeited their rank as devotees.”—Account of the Hindoos.

[188] Jugg, in Hindostanee, is a word which signifies a religious ceremony; hence the well-known temple Juggernaut.