A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies may be found in the fact that they speak of every foreign country beyond sea as the Hindi tem, Hindi being in Hindustani their own word for Indian. Nothing was more natural than that the Rommany on first coming to England should speak of far-away regions as being the same as the land they had left, and among such ignorant people the second generation could hardly fail to extend the term and make it generic. At present an Irishman is a Hindi tem mush, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, by the way, that a few years ago in America everything that was anti-Irish or native American received the same appellation, in allusion to the exclusive system of castes.
Although the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the “cardinal points,” no one can deny that their own are of Indian origin. Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west in Rommany. As it was explained to me, I was told that “Utar means west and wet too, because the west wind is wet.” Shimal is also north in Hindu; and on asking a Gipsy what it meant, he promptly replied, “It’s where the snow comes from.” Poorub is the east in Hindustani; in Gipsy it is changed to porus, and means the west.
This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it must be constantly borne in mind that it is very common in Gipsy. Night suggests day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but the Gipsy confuses the name, and calls yesterday and to-morrow, or light and shadow, by the same word. More than this, he is prone to confuse almost all opposites on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly accept and understand what his own people comprehend. This is not the case among the Indians of North America, because oratory, involving the accurate use of words, is among them the one great art; nor are the negroes, despite their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they are at least very fond of elegant expressions and forcible preaching. I am positive and confident that it would be ten times easier to learn a language from the wildest Indian on the North American continent than from any real English Gipsy, although the latter may be inclined with all his heart and soul to teach, even to the extent of passing his leisure days in “skirmishing” about among the tents picking up old Rommany words. Now the Gipsy has passed his entire life in the busiest scenes of civilisation, and is familiar with all its refined rascalities; yet notwithstanding this, I have found by experience that the most untutored Kaw or Chippewa, as ignorant of English as I was ignorant of his language, and with no means of intelligence between us save signs, was a genius as regards ability to teach language when compared to most Gipsies.
Everybody has heard of the Oriental salaam! In English Gipsy shulam means a greeting. “Shulam to your kokero!” is another form of sarishan! the common form of salutation. The Hindu sar i sham signifies “early in the evening,” from which I infer that the Dom or Rom was a nocturnal character like the Night-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who sang when night fell, “Arouse ye, then, my merry men!” or who said “Good-evening!” just as we say (or used to say) “Good-day!” [{127}]
A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following words:—
“When a mush mullers, an’ the juvas adrée his ker can’t kair habben because they feel so naflo ’bout the rom being gone, or the chavï or juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an’ bitchers it a lende. An’ that’s tacho Rommanis, an’ they wouldn’t be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn’t kair dovo for mushis in sig an’ tukli.”
“When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food (literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is gone (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for three days prepare their food and send it to them. And that is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows who would not do that for people in sorrow and distress.”
Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it. In England it is to kair habben, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin. Dict.) “karwá khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family in which one of the members has died.” The Hindu karwáná, to make or to cause to do, and kara, to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy kair (to make or cook), while from khana, or ’hāna, to eat, comes haw and habben, or food.
The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by many sects. In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups are kept by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utmost care being taken that they never fall to the ground. “Should this happen, the cup is never used again. By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should no more be used. When a Gipsy cares for nothing else, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circumstance.” I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink from a white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin. It is almost needless to say that this could never have been the origin of the antipathy. No such consideration deters English peasants from using white crockery drinking-vessels.
In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again. I found on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old Gipsy families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, it is at once broken. For this reason, even more than for convenience, real Gipsies are accustomed to hang every cooking utensil, and all that pertains to the table, high up in their waggons. It is almost needless to point out how closely these ideas agree with those of many Hindus. The Gipsy eats every and any thing except horseflesh. Among themselves, while talking Rommany, they will boast of having eaten mullo baulors, or pigs that have died a natural death, and hotchewitchi, or hedgehog, as did the belle of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer of 1872. They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent abstinence. But Mr Simson in his “History of the Gipsies” has adduced a mass of curious facts, indicating a special superstitious regard for the horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could we learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and in Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies, from India.