Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/366

 344 Ceremonial Custo7Jis of the B7'itisJi Gipsies.

were compelled to bury an uncoffined body in Littlebury Churchyard, much against their will, for they wished to dispose of it elsewhere.^^

Uncoffined burial survived a little longer, for, even after they were induced to bury their dead in churchyards, the Hemes and their tributary family, the Bakers, refused to employ anything more than winding-sheets. Almost exact parallels are forthcoming in the now extinct German Gipsy customs of employing only the hollowed-out trunk of a tree as coffin, and of burying the corpse in the depths of a thick wood.^2 The Siebenbiirger Gipsies of twenty years ago buried their dead uncoffined, either in the least fre- quented part of the village burial ground, or out in the open country on the edge of a secluded wood, and sub- sequently planted thorns on the grave.^^ Of this last custom we have a reminiscence in England in John Chilcott's death-bed injunction : "Plant briars over me."^* The grave of Cecilia Chilcott, who died in 1842, was watched for some time after the funeral, but this may only have been to prevent resurrection-work, which was common about that time.^^

More than a score of fairly detailed accounts of English Gipsy funerals from 1769 to 191 1 have been collected, chiefly by the Rev. Geo. Hallj Mr. E. O. Winstedt, and myself, some from printed sources, some from the Gipsies themselves. I do not propose to give these in full, for a summary of the more important ceremonial observances will be better in keeping with my present method of dis- cussing Gipsy customs.

The body is " laid out," sometimes with the arms crossed, sometimes with them straight down by the side ; there seems to be no general rule or custom. Amongst the


 * ' See note 87. ®- Liebich, op. cit.^ p. 55.

^^ H. von Wlislocki, Vovi Wandernden Zigeunervolke, p. 296. ^^ Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iv., p. 302. 9* The Tunes, Oct. 18, 1842.