A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies. John Hoyland
attend to any discourse on religion, but they hear it with indifference, if not with impatience and repugnance. Despising all remonstrance; they endeavour to live without the least solicitude concerning a future state of being.
The Turks are so fully convinced of the little religious sincerity possessed by Gypsies, that although a Jew, by becoming a Mahometan, is freed from the payment of the Charadsch, the Gypsies are not; at least in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, they are compelled to pay the poll-tax, even though their ancestors for centuries had been Mahometans, or though they should actually have been a pilgrimage to Mecca. The privilege of wearing a white turban, is the only advantage their conversion gives them, over unbelieving Jews and Gypsies.
Among warlike nations, many instances have occurred, in which the people subdued, being more enlightened than their conquerors, the latter have adopted the manners of the former. After the conquest of Greece, the Romans assumed the manners of the Greeks; and the Turks in like manner assumed those of the Gauls. The Mancheans vanquished the Chinese, but Chinese customs prevailed over those of the Mancheans.
Grellmann.
Our countryman Dr. Clarke, page 4, of part the second of his Travels in Greece, says: “There is every reason to believe that the Turks themselves, at the conquest of Constantinople, adopted many of the customs, and embraced many of the refinements of a people they had subdued.
“Their former habits had been those of nomad tribes, their dwellings were principally tents, and the camp, rather than the city, distinguished their abode.”
But Grellmann observes, Gypsies who have not established themselves by force in any country, nor obtained toleration from any Government, remain unchanged. Though they behold fixed dwellings on every side of them, with settled inhabitants, they nevertheless, proceed in their own way, and continue, for the most part, unsocial, houseless wanderers.
To their excessive indolence and aversion to industry, may be attributed the poverty and want which are generally their lots. They dislike every kind of employment which requires application; and had rather suffer hunger and nakedness, than provide against these privations, on the conditions of labour. They therefore practise music and palmistry, which allows them many idle hours; or addict themselves to vicious habits and unlawful courses. Though no one of them marries a person who is not of Gypsey extraction, there is not any people among whom marriage is contracted with less consideration, or accomplished with less solemnity.
Some Gypsies, who are stationary, have regular habitations, according to their situation in life. To this class belong those who keep public-houses in Spain; and others in Transylvania and Hungary, who follow some regular business; which latter have their own miserable huts near Hermanstadt, Cronstadt, Beatritz, Grosswaradein, Debrezin, Eperies, Karchan, and other places. But by far the greater number of these people, lead a very different kind of life; ignorant of the comforts attending a fixed place of residence, they rove from one district to another in hordes; having no habitation, but tents, holes in the rocks, or caves: the former shade them in summer, the latter screen them in winter.
Many of these people, particularly in Germany and Spain, do not even carry tents with them, but shelter themselves from the heat of the sun, in forests shaded by the rocks, or behind hedges. They are very partial to willows, under which they erect their sleeping places at the close of the evening. Some live in their tents, in their language called Tschater, during both summer and winter; which latter indeed the Gypsies generally prefer.
In Hungary, those who have discontinued their rambling way of life, and built houses for themselves, seldom let a spring pass without taking advantage of the first settled weather, to set up a tent for their summer residence. Under this, each enjoys himself with his family, nor thinks of his house till winter returns, and the frost and snow drive him back to it.
The wandering Gypsey in Hungary and Transylvania, endeavours to procure a horse; in Turkey, an ass serves to carry his wife and a couple of children, with his tent. When he arrives at a place he likes, near a village, or a city, he unpacks, pitches his tent, ties his animal to a stake to graze, and remains some weeks there: or if he do not find his station convenient, he breaks up in a day or two, loads his beast, and looks out for a more agreeable situation. His furniture seldom consists of more than an earthen pot, an iron pan, a spoon, a jug and a knife; with sometimes the addition of a dish. These serve for the whole family.
Working in iron is the most usual occupation of the Gypsies. In Hungary, this profession is so common, that there is a proverb: “So many Gypsies so many smiths.”
The same may be said of those in Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, and all Turkey in Europe; at least such workers in fire are very numerous in all those countries. But the Gypsies of our time, are not willing to work heavy works; they seldom go beyond a pair of light horse shoes. In general, they confine themselves to small articles, such as rings and nails; they mend old pots and kettles; make knives, seals, and needles; and sometimes they work in tin and brass. Their materials, tools, and apparatus, are of a very inferior kind. The anvil is a stone; the other implements are a pair of hand bellows, a hammer, a pair of pincers, a vice, and a file. These ape the tools which a Nomadic Gypsey takes with him in his perambulations.
Whenever he is disposed to work, he is at no loss for fuel: on his arrival at a station where he proposes to remain a few days, he takes his beast, loads him with wood, builds a small kiln, and prepares his own coal. In favourable weather, his work is carried on in the open air; when it is stormy, he retires under his tent. He does not stand, but sits down on the ground cross-legged to his work; which position is rendered necessary, not only by custom, but by the quality of his tools. The wife sits by to work the bellows, in which operation she is assisted by the elder children. The Gypsies are generally praised for their dexterity and quickness, notwithstanding the bad tools they have to work with.
Another branch of commerce much followed by Gypsies, is horse-dealing, to which they have been attached from the earliest period of their history. In those parts of Hungary, where the climate is so mild, that horses may lie out all the year, the Gypsies avail themselves of this circumstance to breed, as well as to deal in horses; by which they sometimes not only procure a competency, but grew rich. Instances have been known on the Continent, of gypsies keeping from fifty to seventy horses each; and those the best bred horses of the country; some of which they let out for hire, others they exchange or sell. But this description of Gypsey horse-dealers is not numerous; the greater number of them deal in inferior kinds.
In addition to the two professions before-mentioned, commonly followed by the men, some of them employ themselves as carpenters and turners; the former making watering troughs and chests; the latter turn, trenchers and dishes; make sieves, spoons, and other trifling articles, which they hawk about. Many of them, as well as the smiths, find constant employment in the houses of the better sort of people; for whom they work the year round. They are not paid in money, but beside other advantages find a certain subsistence.
Those who are not thus circumstanced, do not wait at home for customers, but with their implements in a sack thrown over their shoulders, seek business in the cities and villages. When any one calls, they throw down the bundle, and prepare the apparatus for work, before the door of their employer.
The Gypsies have a fixed dislike to agriculture; and had rather suffer hunger, or any privation, than follow the plough. Since the year 1768, the Empress Theresa has commanded that the Hungarian, and Transylvanian Gypsies should be instructed in husbandry; but these orders have been very little regarded. At this time there are so few of them farmers in those parts, that they are undeserving of notice. In Spain and other European countries, it would be difficult to find one who had ever made a furrow in his life.
Respecting fortune-telling, with which the female Gypsies impose on people’s credulity in every district and corner of Europe, the origin, of the imposition is not to be attributed to them: the cheat was known and practised in Europe before their arrival; being deeply rooted in the ignorance of the middle age. The science of divination here was said to be already brought to a greater degree of perfection than among them. Rules were invented to tell lies from the inspection of the hand, in which the poor Gypsies were accounted mere bunglers. They in the seventeenth and eighteenth