Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/350

 328 Ccj'cnionial Customs of the British Gipsies.

those associated with washing and disease it applies equally to men and to women. In England anything connected with food that is touched by a cat or a dog becomes nwkJiadi, and consequently we find Vensalena Smith (Shandres' and Lavinia's daughter) making paper saucers for her kitten to drink from,^^ ^nd Algar Boswell driving a stake through the bottom of a bucket from which a dog had chanced to drink.^^ German Gipsies are bale tshido for eating the flesh of cats, dogs, or horses, and for eating from a vessel in which such food has been prepared or kept.^ On one occasion, writes Mr. Eccleston, Lazzy Smith, after driving off a dog that was licking his frying pan, shouted to his daughter to put it on the fire quickly and clean it. The inference to be drawn from this is that he counted fire a sufficient purifier, but other Gipsies say that nothing can purify a thing that has become mokJiadi. Neither these nor any other taboos, with the exception of that on the name of the dead and those that concern women at the time of childbirth, have been recorded for Eastern European Gipsies. The German Gipsy punishment of making any offender, no matter what his sin or crime, bale tshido. amounts to the imposition of a taboo on him by the chief He is allowed to travel with the band, but no one must drink from the same glass as he, nor eat from the same plate, nor use the same knife, fork, or spoon. To sit at meat with him, or to drink his health, is, however, allowed, and is not considered dishonourable. The duration of the sentence varies from two years to life, breaking a taboo meriting the minimum punishment. These imposed taboos are removed by the chief at the annual isU, apparently without any accom- panying ceremony.35

^'- Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iv., p. 265. ^'^ Ibid., vol. iv., p. 156; see also O.S., vol. ii., p. 382, N.S., vol. ii., p. 184, vol. iii. , p. 320.

^* Ibid., N.S., vol. iv., 290; see also vol. i., p. 128. 3^ Ibid., vol. iv., pp. 287-8.