Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/377

 Ceremonial Customs of the British Gipsies. 355

content the ghost probabl}' underlies the shiughter of favourite animals, and possibl)' also the pouring of beer or spirits on tiie grave. WwX. to mention the dead person's name would summon it at once. " He don't want her to walk," was the explanation offered by old Frank Elliot to the Rev. Geo. Hall of a Gipsy's reluctance to mention his dead sister's name. The Servian and Turkish Gipsies, on the seventh night after the burial, call on the dead person by name, promise never to use his name again, and implore him to quit the earth and not let his ghost torment his friends.^^^ The ghost might be inhabiting the favourite camping places of the dead person, so they are avoided, whilst to indulge in his favourite amusement or to eat his favourite food would be to invite it to join in the entertain- ment or meal.

If the interpretations that I have suggested be accepted as substantially correct, it follows that the funeral cere- monies of the British Gipsies fall into two classes. The more important of these comprises those rites that are dictated by a dread of the clinging, lurking, or haunting presence of the ghost ; considered as a class, they are almost universal amongst Gipsies. The less important comprises those that are based on a desire by thoughtful ministration and abstention to avoid giving it any cause, or offering it any inducement, to return ; these have a more limited currency. In South-Eastern Europe neither class is well represented, for the Gipsies there practise funeral rites that are not readily distinguished from those of their ^ov?/c? neighbours.

I have now recorded all that is relevant to my subject, and perhaps a little that some may consider to be irrelevant. My main object has been to provoke discussion, and to stimulate and give a direction to the research work in which we are engaged. The interpretations I have suggested and the theories I have advanced are put forward quite tentatively for the present. But what stands out most

'•'» Wlislocki, Volksglaube^ p. 96.