By an attentive observation, we may perceive that the Gipseys are endued with very good capacities, which promise to make a profitable return, for much trouble bestowed upon them. In the first Section one attempt, made on this speculation, is produced, and it is hoped it will be found sufficiently complete, to exhibit the leading features of their character.
The origin of the Gipseys has remained a perfect philosopher’s stone till a late period. For more than two hundred years, people have been anxious to discover who these guests were, that, under the name of Gipseys, came, unknown and uninvited, into Europe, in the fifteenth century, and have chosen to remain here ever since. No enquirer ever broached an opinion that met with his successor’s approbation; a fourth scarcely heard what a third had said, before he passed sentence and advanced something new. We have no reason to wonder at the miscarriage of these enquiries, which were neither more nor less than a collection of conjectures founded on imaginary proofs and partial speculation.—An author set to work, to discover a country whence the Gipseys came, or a people to whom they could belong; he found out a place which had been named, for instance, Zeugitana, or a people who bore some faint resemblance to the Gipseys. As one coal lights another, so these two similarities became perfectly applicable to the people whose origin he was seeking; he stopped here, and published his discovery.
Several investigators laid their foundation on hearsay, and unauthenticated evidence; they then endeavoured to assist this testimony by modelling the extraneous circumstances which could not be passed over, in order to make them coincide; if, notwithstanding all this, difficulties still occurred, they borrowed Alexander’s sword, and cut the knot which no milder means could undo.
That this has been the mode of proceeding hitherto, will be frequently proved in the course of the work. Even had the imagination not magnified any thing, nor modelled circumstances agreeably to its own fancy, yet the following, which is taken for granted, “that two people resembling each other in one or two particulars, must be descended from the same stock,” is an over-hasty conclusion. In the first place, reject that the most different nations may agree in some points; further, make the allowance for various parts of the world producing inhabitants of similar shape and colour;—What, then, remains to prove that the Gipseys are descended from any one of the people from whom they have been traced?
There are no records, or historical sources, leading to a direct discovery of the origin of the Gipseys; those which have been thought so, are not genuine. Nothing, therefore, remains, but to seek the truth, through circuitous tracks; by this means, it may certainly be found. A man must not go to tombstones, recently erected, in German church-yards, nor adduce a single custom, or the name of a country bearing a resemblance to that of Gipsey, as grounds of proof; and, on the other hand, overlook a hundred difficulties, or even positive contradictions. But if the language of the Gipseys, their name, the conformation of their bodies and minds, their customs and religious principles, mark a country where it is possible for them to have been indigenous; when History and Chronology corroborate the supposition, and there is not any other country in the world to which the Gipseys, all these particulars taken together, could belong; then the country, where these circumstances meet, must, in all probability, be their true mother country.
Whether their Hindostan origin has so much in its favour, is more than we dare venture to affirm; as it is very possible for the judgment to be so deceived, that we may believe what does not, in fact, exist. However, on perusing the subsequent pages, our readers will judge if, like our predecessors, we have erred, or have discovered the truth.
SECTION I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GIPSEYS, THEIR MANNER OF LIFE, THEIR CUSTOMS AND PROPERTIES.
CHAPTER I.
Various Appellations of these People.
It is not uncommon for the same people to be called by different names, in different nations; such is the case with the Gipseys. The French received their first accounts of them from Bohemia; which occasioned their giving them the name of Bohemians (Bohémiens); the Dutch, supposing they came from Egypt, called them Heathens (Heydens). In Denmark, Sweden, and some parts of Germany, Tartars were thought of: the Moors and Arabians, perceiving the propensity the Gipseys have to thieving, adopted the name Charami (robbers) for them. In Hungary, they were formerly called Pharaohites (Pharaoh nepek, Pharaoh’s people); and the vulgar, in Transylvania, continue that name for them. The English do not differ much from these latter (calling them Egyptians—Gipseys); any more than the Portuguese and Spaniards (Gitanos). The Clementines, in Smyrnia, use the appellation Madjub; and the inhabitants of the lesser Bucharia, that of Diajii. The name of Zigeuner has obtained the most general adoption: the Gipseys are so called not only in all Germany, Italy, and Hungary (Tzigany), but frequently in Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia (Cyganis). Moreover the Turks, and other eastern nations, have no other than this name for them (Tschingenés); and perhaps the before-cited Diajii of the Bucharians may be the very same. It has been said, they call themselves Moors; but that is false; Moor is only an adjunct, not the name of any people: it is really a pity, since this name would have been so fair a pretence to make Amorites of them, as some writers have done! It is not by any means proved, that the modern Greeks called them Athingans; this opinion is supported more by the arbitrary assertions of some learned men, than by real facts: which is also the case with the rest of the catalogue of names that have been dispersed, in various treatises on the origin of the Gipseys; as will be hereafter demonstrated.