Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/375

 Ceremonial Customs of the British Gipsies. 353

probable in the light of Wlislocki's proof that the Gipsies are inordiiiateh' afraid of the ghosts of the dead who have not found rest,'-'' and practically certain when it is recalled that those who have handled a dead person do not become taboo, and that the destruction used to be postponed, amongst the Gipsies of Siebenbiirgen, until such time as the soul was supposed to be freed from the body, that is, until the latter was decomposed.^-' Further, it is sup- ported by the statement of Cornelius Price, an English Gipsy, that if he had not destroyed his van the spirit of his dead son would have returned in a short time to haunt it,'-^ and of Engelbert Wittich, a German Gipsy, that the rite is observed because it is believed that the ghost of the deceased must haunt the waggon in which he lived during his life, and will find no repose until it is destroyed or removed from the family.'-^ (That the ghost should trouble gdjos naturally does not matter; in fact, I should think it was rather desirable.) No evidence of any weight has been adduced in favour of any other explanation, and I agree, therefore, with the theory, first proposed by Mr. E. O. Winstedt, that the destruction of the effects of the dead is, or at any rate was, dictated by dread of the clinging or lurking ghost. In the light of this it is quite obvious that the manner of destruction is of minor importance, burning and drowning being preferred solely because they are more irrevocable than any other means.

It is probable that in their fear of the ghost of the dead lies the key to the interpretation of most of the other Gipsy funeral customs. Planting thorns on the grave, hiding the corpse in an unfrequented place, burying it in a ditch,

1*® I'olksglaiibe und Religioser Branch der Zigeuner (Miinster, 1S91), p. 97; Vom It^andernden Zigentiervolke, pp. 279 et seq.

^"^^ Journal 0/ the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. ii., p. 361.

'2* Hereford Journal, Sept. 23, 191 1.

^^ Blicke in das Leben der Zigeuner, p. 29; see also /ournal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N.S., vol. v., pp. 79-80.