Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/369

 Ceroiiouial Customs of the British Gipsies. 347

with him. Sophie Kir[)at.sh's coffiii contained a piece of soap, a towel, a mallet, and a flask of water, whilst at the funeral all the mourners dropped money into it after it had been specially opened for that purpose.

Ceremonial watching of the body between death and burial frequently takes place. In the case of the woman who was buried at Littlebury two long hazel sticks were bent over the head and feet of the body, the ends being thrust into the ground. From these hung two oil lamps, which were kept burning all night, while two women, one on either side of the corpse, watched, sitting on the ground. Five tapers were placed on the lid of the coffin of an old Gipsy woman who died near Highworth in 1830, and were kept burning until the body was removed for interment. ^"^ When George Miller, a potter, died at Staveley in 1909, the body was watched continuously, candles being ke[)t burning at the head and feet of the corpse. The burning of lights and the watciiing of the corpse are widely- spread customs, the former being mentioned bj' Sartori ^^^ as among the means used for protecting the corpse, and the survivors, from evil influences. What special meaning the British Gipsies attach to them I do not know, but amongst their Servian brethren the corpse is watched lest anything should jump over it, in which case it would become a vampire.^*^^ In the North of England a cat or dog which jumped over a corpse used to be killed ; the same prejudice being felt, as Mr. Crooke has pointed out,^"* in many other parts of this countr)-, Ireland, China, and the Malay Peninsula.

It is not at all certain whether the Gipsies fast cere- monially between the death of a person and his burial.

'"Groome, In Gipsy Tents (Edinburgh, 1880), p. 121 quoting from W. Hone, TVii; Year Book; Tegg, The Last Act ; being the funeral rites of iiations and individuals (1876), pp. 315-8.

^'^^ Sitte und Branch (Leipsic, 1910), p. 137.

^"^ Gjorgjevie, op. cit., Teil i., p. 70.

^°^ journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. iii., p. 181.