Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/343

 Cerei)i07iial Customs of the British Gipsies. 321

facts mentioned into account as well, I make bold to go a little further than this, and state that in England we have what are almost certainly genuine survivals of the organized maternal family, — not the matriarchate, for the government has always, so far as we know, been in male hands.

The organized family bands of Continental Gipsies keep in touch with one another chiefly by means of messengers, and occasionally assemblies are held." There is some traditional evidence to support the belief that such assemblies were once held in Britain.® That the family chiefs were then subject to any higher authority is un- certain, but it is extremely probable. They are, according to Wlislocki,^ in Eastern Central Europe at the present day, and there are indications that in the time of James V. of Scotland ''Johnne Faw, Lord and erle of Litill Egypt," enjoyed a position more exalted than that of the ruler of a small family band.^*' The English Gipsies vaguely re- member that one Newcombe Heme once made laws for them.^^ In German)^ the Gipsies are now governed by two or three selected chiefs, all those in South Germany, according to Engelbert Wittich,^^ one of their number, being under the jurisdiction of a single man. He is chosen for his personal qualities and wealth, and deposed as soon as he becomes old or sick or infirm, when another chief is elected, usually from among his family or nearest relatives. At an annual assembly, or ts'il, he gives verdicts in all disputes, and punishes those who have broken a taboo, committed an

' E. Wittich, Blickc in das Leben der Zigeuner (Striegau, 191 1 ), p. 21 ; Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iv., pp. 287-92; Liebicli, Die Zigeuner (Leipzig, 1863), p. 40; Berliner Tageblatt, Sept. 12, 1890; The Times, Jan. 27, 1S72, and Sept. 29, 1879.


 * Summarized in/onrttal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. ii., pp. 271-4.

® Vom ll'andernden Zigeunenolke, pp. 78-82.

^"Simson, op. cit., pp. 101-3; MacRitchie, Scottish Gypsies tmder the Stewarts (Edinburgh, 1894), pp. 37-44.

"^"^ Journal of t he Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iii., pp. 225-6.

^"^ Ibid., vol. iv., pp. 287-292.