Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/376

 354 Ceremonial Customs of the British Gipsies.

under a tree,^^° and (if the statements of Spengler^'^^ and Miss L. A. Smith ^•^- be accepted) under water, all seem to be devices for preventinjjf the body from beinjj;^ walked over, and, as such, are based on fear of the ghost, possibly of making it uncomfortable and restless, possibly lest some one should accidentally walk over the grave and " catch " it. The prohibition of footwear is in all probability based on the belief that it would keep the ghost from " walking," whilst the same belief may underlie the custom of turning the clothes inside out. In the latter case, however, an alternative reason suggests itself, namely, that the device was intended to prevent the stupid ghost from losing its way during its journey to the other world, for, according to his son, a half-breed named Winter used to turn his coat inside out whenever he got lost, with the inevitable result that he very soon found the right road.^^-^ Articles enclosed in the cofhn, — " bits o' things what the dead person was more fonder on than others, an' might find the want of," according to Lavinia Smith {nee Boswell), — would no doubt content it, and lessen the chance of its returning to trouble those left behind. In the particular case of Rodney Smith's uncle, however, practically all his possessions were placed in his coffin, instead of being destroyed, so that nobody should ever use them again. The enclosure of a pair of new shoes in the coffin of Job Cooper seems to have been nothing more than an individual eccentricity, comparable with the curious behaviour of another of Leland's Gipsy friends, who burned his waggon on being jilted by the girl whom he had intended to marry.^^^ The desire further to

130 j^ Twiss, Travels through Portugal and Spain ^ In I'/J2 and /JJS ('775). pp. 179-80.

^'■^^ Heister, Ethnographische und geschichtliche A'otizen iibcr die Zigeutur (Kiinigsberg, 1842), p. 51.

!•'" Through J^omany Songland {iSSg), p. 51.

^^^ Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, N. S., vol. vi., p. 149.

^^■* English-Gipsy Songs, pp. 68-9.