Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/348

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26 Cere)uonial Cn stems of the British Gipsies.

they did once is suggested by a lingering belief of the Lancashire Boswells that a pregnant woman protects a man from hurt by mortal hands;-* any woman does not protect a man, but the clothing of all women is considered to be viokliadi in a more restricted sense. In both England and Germany cooking utensils, crockery, or food touched by a woman's dress must be destroyed. In Germany, too, according to Wittich,'^ a woman's linen must not be hung up in the waggon, because, if a male Gipsy touches it, he is bale tshido, — a fate which also befalls him if he eats or drinks from a vessel touched by a woman's dress. The punish- ment which, in Germany, attends the touching of a woman's linen possibly affords some explanation of the custom of the Heme women of wearing men's underclothing. ^^ They seem, however, to have been paying more attention to the letter than to the spirit of the taboo. It must not be imagined, however, that the dread of ceremonial contamina- tion from women's clothing is merely formal in England. One afternoon, when I was having tea with the family of Shandres Smith and Lavinia Boswell, Diddles, a boy of sixteen, hurled back a slice of bread at his mother because she had allowed it to touch her dress whilst cutting it. Lavinia quietly gave it to the dog. " That's the way vvid all our fambly," she explained, " we can't none on we stomach hanythink what's viokliadi. I wouldn't have gid it to the child if I'd a-noticed.''^'

Blankets, handkerchiefs, and anything connected with the washing of clothes, or with the toilet, are viokliadi. Kenza Boswell was called "Blanket Pie Kenza " ever after the memorable occasion at Blackpool, some years ago, when he forced himself to eat a mouthful or two of a large meat pie, to avoid offending some charitable folk who had given

"^^ Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, X. S., vol. iv., p. "266. ^^ Blicke in das Leben der Zigeuner, p. 2S ; Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iv., p. 290.

^^Lbid., N.S., vol. v., p. 7S. -'Ibid., vol. iv., p. 265.