Further, with regard to the Gipseys’ religion, we may recollect, from what has been said, that their sense of it is very confined, and that they have not the least degree of steadiness in it. To the Gipseys, every persuasion is the same; as often as he meets with a different one, he changes his opinions. To-day he receives the sacrament as a Lutheran; next Sunday, from a Roman-catholic; and perhaps before the end of the week partakes of the communion in a Reformed church. Yet the greater part of them do not even go so far as this, but live without any religion at all, and are, as Tollius says, worse than heathens. The more wonderful such an appearance is—of a whole people being so void of and indifferent about religion—the more weight it carries with it to confirm their Indian origin, when all this is found to be literally true of the Suders. “This race,” says Rogerius, of the Suders in the kingdom of Surat, “seems to be neither heathens nor Mahometans; they live on in their own way, without any religion, or worshipping of God. There are some, it is true, who imitate the other castes in an outward shew of religion, and appoint priests for themselves; but they neither frequent the pagodas of the higher castes, nor have any of their own: and as to the choice of their deities, every one conforms to the custom of the place where he lives, or happens to remain a short time, exactly the same as the Gipseys.”
If people, in reflecting on the emigration of the Gipseys, are not determined to imagine that they were actuated by a blind impulse, to break up at once, and quit their native country; no cause can be assigned for their retreat from thence so plausible as the war of Timur Beg in India. The date of their arrival marks it very plainly. It was in the years 1408 and 1409 that this conqueror ravaged India; and having persuaded himself, as well as his followers, that he had undertaken the expedition against India for the purpose of disseminating the Mahometan religion, his war was oppressive enough to occasion such an emigration. Not only every one who made any resistance was destroyed, and such as fell into the enemy’s hands, though quite defenceless, were made slaves, but in a short time these very slaves, to the number of a hundred thousand, were put to death. As in consequence an universal panic took place, nobody being secure that it might not be his own fate in a short time, what could be more natural than that a great number of terrified inhabitants should endeavour to save themselves by flight?
An objection naturally occurs, that when this supposed flight took place, had it been true, not Gipseys only, or the lowest class of people, but with them all sorts of Indians, of superior rank, would have come among us. But this argument will fall of itself, when we reflect on the prepossession which the three higher castes of Indians entertain for their country. They ascribe an extraordinary degree of holiness to it, and believe it to be the only country thought, by the Creator of the universe, worthy for such sanctified people as the Bramins, Tschechteries, and Beis, to dwell in. They would rather suffer torture and death, than quit this land, chosen by the Almighty himself for their residence, to go and dwell any-where else. Moreover a Suder is, in their estimation, the most execrable being in the world; and the least intercourse with him would be defiling and degrading their high characters, which, to them, would be more dreadful than death. Wherefore it was a moral impossibility for those of a higher caste to have any thing in common with a Suder, or that they should have made an united retreat. Finally, by putting themselves into the power of the Suders, with whom they live constantly in a state of discord and inveteracy, they would have hazarded a greater danger, than by patiently risking their fate from the hands of their common enemy. If any of the higher ranks of Indians did withdraw themselves, on account of the troubles, it is probable they retired southwards, to people of their own sort, the Mahrattas.
As every part to the northward and eastward was beset by the enemy, and no passage left in those directions for escaping, it seems most probable that the countries below Multan, to the mouth of the Indus, were the first asylum and rendezvous of the fugitive Suders. Here they were safe; and so remained, till Timur returned from his victories on the Ganges. Then it was that they first entirely quitted the country; and, probably, with them a considerable number of the proper inhabitants about the Indus, which will explain the meaning of their original name, Ciganen, or, according to the German mode of speaking, Zigeuner. For if it was in the country of the Zinganen that these terrified fugitives collected; and they afterwards drew a considerable number of the Zinganen themselves along with them, nothing could be more easy or natural than that the people who had assembled from the general wreck should take the name of the greater number.
By what route they came to us, cannot be ascertained: if they went straight through the southern Persian deserts of Sigistan, Makran, and Kirman, along the Persian Gulph to the mouth of the Euphrates, thence they might get, by Bassora, into the great deserts of Arabia, afterwards into Arabia Petræa, and so arrive in Egypt, by the isthmus of Suez. They must certainly have been in Egypt before they reached us; otherwise we cannot account for the report that they were Egyptians. In what manner they were afterwards transported to Europe is also an obscure research: perhaps it was effected by means of the Turks, who, being at that time fully employed with the Grecian empire, might permit the Gipseys to travel about with the rabble of Serdenjesti and Nephers, who were appointed to go on ravaging parties. However, all that can be said upon that subject is mere surmise. The chief aim in this Dissertation was, to prove that the Gipseys came from Hindostan, and that they were Suders, which it is hoped has been accomplished. When every thing, even the most fortuitous concomitant circumstances, but particularly that most decisive one—the similarity of their language to that of Hindostan, uniformly point out that extraction, we cannot believe them to belong to a different country, and to be descended from another people.
SUPPLEMENT.
To invalidate, if possible, the charge of cannibalism—apparently so well founded—brought against the Gipsey tribe, it is thought proper in this place to mention circumstances, relative to the proceedings in Hungary, which at least render the justice of the sentence pronounced against these devoted people doubtful.
In the year 1534, as recorded in the Hungarian history, the Gipseys were suspected of traitorously assisting John Zapolya; in consequence of which the governor of Leutschau, Tsernabo, sent some horsemen to arrest a company of them, near Iglo: the greatest part escaped by flight; only a few old men and boys were taken, who were brought into Leutschau. These confessed circumstantially (which certainly appears improbable, that men should lye to effect their own ruin), as well before, as upon the rack, the following falsities—That a hundred of them had been sent by Zapolya since the middle of Lent, and had agreed for a sum of money to set fire to the five chief cities, Kaschau, Leutschau, Bartfeld, Eperies, and Zeben: that the preceding Saturday several of them had privately entered Leutschau, disguised like Wallachians and shepherds, under the pretence of selling skins: that they laid fire in various places; and moreover, that they had murdered several people: and finally, that they had letters from Zapolya to thirteen different cities, with orders to afford them shelter and protection within their districts, as long as they chose to remain. In consequence of this confession they were impaled, “but whether justly or not,” adds the Chronicle, “that, let him answer for who condemned them:” for on being conducted about the town, to shew in what places they had laid the fire, they could not specify them; besides, they denied every thing when they came to execution.
Except the circumstance of retracting, of which nothing is mentioned in the sentence of death, the above case seems to be exactly similar to that of the men-eaters executed in Hungary in 1782. These were taken upon suspicion of theft; in the course of their examination something escaped them which gave occasion to think they had committed murder, and the criminals being interrogated on this point, perhaps on account of the severity used, or probably from an idea of heroism (a very common trait in their character), they confessed the fact, and chattered away till they had filled the paper, without considering consequences. When desired to state where they had deposited the bodies, they promised to shew, but on being brought to the spot nothing was found, and they endeavoured to run off. Nevertheless, having once confessed, they were put on the rack. As the persons said to have been murdered could not be found, the judge imagined they must have eaten them, which, though denied by the poor miserable wretches, decided their fate.