Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/346

 324 Cerevionial Custovis of the British Gipsies.

of their first arrival here they have been in the habit of having their children christened. Almost a score of records of Gipsy christenings during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been brought to light,^^ and many more might be discovered if the Parish Registers were thoroughly examined. Since 1700 Christian baptism has been the rule. They adopted this gdjo rite from some superstitious feeling, the exact nature of which I have not been able to ascertain. The German Gipsies like to have their children baptized as often as possible, and the practice of successive baptisms is not unknown in England.^^

For a certain period after childbirth the mother is con- sidered to be viokhadi, ceremonially unclean, or tabooed. Hemes, and Boswells, and Smiths, and Grays, and Lees all assert that for one month (a month and a day, according to Bin Boswell) after the event she is allotted her own cup, plate, knife, fork, and spoon, which are subsequently destroyed. She is not allowed to prepare or even touch any food except her own, nor must her husband have any connection with her. Two or three generations ago a special tent was frequently assigned to her, and she was compelled to wear gloves for some considerable time longer than the month, whilst in extreme cases she was not permitted to touch dough for a whole year.^'' Even the very mixed tinklers cling to this observance, for they, according to Mr. Andrew M'Cormick,^^ do not allow a woman to cook any food for weeks after she has given birth to a child. Amongst the German Gipsies, who are closely akin to our own, the prohibitions are at once more numerous and more stringent. Wittich ^^ states that births (except miscarriages, which do not count) are never

^^See Note 13.

^*See 2i\%o Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. vi. , pp. 65-6. '^'' Ibid., O.S., vol. ii., p. 382, and vol. iii., p. 58; N.S., vol. ii., p. 184. ^* The Tinkler- Gypsies of Gallozuay (2nd ed., Dumfries, 1907), p. 297. ^' Blicke in das Leben der Zigeuner, pp. 27-8.