Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/467

* GYPSIES. 415 GYPSIES. hilidih's [Greek] rjliroshu [Turkish], diiiii'is e one hundred piastres he gnve to thousand the bares ta e maskaritnes. UfkinOtar o khunU'), liAs eldest and the middle Uprose the .youngest, took [the same]. baro droni, kilrin farakelas chorf dOhis iovfi, the lens; road, every- that he found poor he money, where people, pave akari2ig okoriiig dinias len khalias o lovO. here there he them, he the money, gave soatteretl Hungarian Dialect (Yon Wlislni'ki. p. 280) : Ob diidoro, baro ruk Andro bes, tu ptdyiil, tu men Oh dear great tree in the forest, you liave you us father, fallen, niuklyiil! Ameu avnas tute curii. Akiinii nii bin have left! We were your grasses. Now not is nienge usbalyin. Ameu avnas tut' fliliiklii! to us shade. We were your lilriis ! Akiinii nii bin rukii! Kai usbiilyin th'^ariikiis. kai Now no are trees! Where shade to find, where rukii tb' iiriikiis ? trees to find? Bohemian Dialect (.Jesina, p. 133) : Kai Jas, where go you, male ? .Jav andro foros. So hi odoi tfike te kurel ? friend? I go iuto town. What is there for to do ? .vou Mri rOmni odoi geyas okia the n'avel pAle; iia My wife there went away and not comes back; not jiinav so pes lake tiilindyas. 1 know what to her has happened. German Dialect (Liebich, p. 269) : Ap o yek Upon a dfvio grai kllsyas givgses yek dslskero cbiivo. Goi wild horse rode proud a spirited boy. Then pendas o divio guro graieske: "Laj ! Tu mukyal said the wild bull to the horse: "Shame! you allow te n'kkervel tut yek ehiivester?" "Ava," pendas to hold you a boy?" "Y^," said o grai, "hav ptltib veles mflnge, yek ehiives te the horse. "How honor come to me, a boy to cbiverviiva tele ?" throw down?" English Di.lect — old pure form (Smart and Croft on, p. 21.5) : Dostadosta lie.^ha ghias kona Many, many years gone now sas (I [Eng.] baro kralis adril Angliiterra. Ed- was a ' great king in England. Ed- wardus sas lesko nav, kusbto komelo rai sas-lo. ward was his name, good lovely gentle- was he. man English Dialect — modern corrupt form : Where's yer jal'tii' 1o iich yer tiin? IT'c doesn't Where's yer goin' to pitch yer tent? We doesn't jin. We pen.5 icp'H dik .some kusbto tan to ficb know. We thinks we'll see some nice place to c,anip adol apra the drum adof. ililndi pen.s / jin a there in the road there. I thinks I know a kflshto tan to iSeh akai under dova r<ikyi,. There's nice place to camp there under those trees. There's shade adoi. and ebor for the grai.s. and dusta shade there, and grass for the horses, and plenty p.lm, yi'iso for the chals to pe. .Tal icilh m.lndi, wat*r, clean for the gypsies to drink. Go with me, ta miindi'// siker tute the kuslito tau. and I'll show you the nice place. Religion and Folk-Lore. Of the religion of the gypsies there is little to be said. On the one hand they are not idolaters, nor on the other have they any well-defined religious ideas. They may go by the name of Christians or Jloham- medans, according to the religion of the people among wliom they live, but at best lliey attach little vital significance to religious riles and worships. Their religious attitude was proba- bly the same on their arrival in Europe ; they brought with them their Indian religion, but so slightly grounded that it was easily obscured, and then wholly lost. A curious proof of tliis i.s to be found in the roniani word tnishul. Tlic Iri.ihula in Sanskrit is the three-pointed spear, or trident, borne by the Hindu god Sliiva. Erom India the gypsies brought the word, along with a vague memory of the old god; but, arrived in Cliristian countries, they speedily forgot Shiva, and transferred his symbol, the trident, to the symbol of the Christian religion — the Cross; and all over Europe, in England as in Turkey, the trushul is the Cross of Christ. It is stated in many books on the gj'psies that they have no conception of God. and that there is no word for God in their language. Tliis is wholly false. The name of God is to l)e found in every gv'psy dialect, and is of pure Hindu origin: Dcv'el "(Sk't. dera, 'god,' Avesta daCva, 'an evil genius,' Lat. deus). The English gypsy calls God o horo DiUl, 'the great God,' or mi-duvl, 'my God.' Tile gjpsy conception of God is partly pantheistic, but largely' anthropomorphic. It varies, of course, witii the grade of cvilture of the tribe. In England the gypsy is. to all intents and purposes, a Protestant Christian, with the- ological notions of a very vague sort, and rather indifferent in the matter of devoutness; but often, in individiutl cases, he becomes an ardent evangelist and missionary. At the other e.'w- treme, geographically and racially, tlic gypsy of Eastern Europe is almost a pagan, so rich is his mythology and folk-lore in supernatural beings, male and female, benign and pernicious, of every grade. It would lie impossible in a limited space to give an adequate idea of the complete mj-tbologicai system, for exam]ile. of the Tran- sylvanian gypsies as recorded by Wlislocki. 'iliey have developed a thorough cosmogony ; and the sky and woods and streams are jicoplcd in their imagination with numberless beings, whose influence must be souglit and whose vengeance must be averted with amulets and charmed words. Kot an illness, not an animal in nature that does not have its 'spirit'; and every 'omen,' every coincidence, every dream has its porten- tous meaning. Peculiar Customs, etc. The gypsy, wherever lie lives, inclines naturally to some occupations rather than others, and especially to those that admit of a roving life, or, at least, of a life in the open air. He is universally a mender of pots and pans, and in the East, where the gypsies are settled in communities, they engage in many employments, such as smithing, basket-making, and the like. Horse-trading is a favorite means of livelihood, and almost the only one in EngUtnd and America. The women 'tell fortunes,' and gained no small profits by their skill in more credulous days, while even now they earn a good living in this way from the frivolous. In Hun- gary especially, but also in Russia and Poland, the gv-psies are noted as musicians, and Liszt himself has borne tribute to their genius. ( See his work on Gypsy music, cited bebiw.) This music is wild and wonderfully eflfeetive, being