The women are more voluble in language and licentious in manners than the men. These characteristics, combined with the most absolute repulsion for other favours, even to the knife, explain how many sons of grandees and great officials took part in the nightly orgies and by day favoured the proscribed caste. Moreover, the Gitana protected herself by the possession of family secrets. Besides soothsaying and philter-selling, she had a store of the Raiz del buen Baron (the goodman’s, i.e. the devil’s, root), alias Satan’s herb, which relieved incommodious burdens. At fairs, while the husbands were chapping and chaffering, the good-wives made money by the process called coger á la mano (to catch in hand); that is, pilfering coins by sleight during the process of exchanging. Amongst other malpractices is one called in Romani Youjano báro (the great trick), translated gran socaliña (great trick) by Jermimo de Alcalá in his novel the Historia de Alonzo, mozo de muchos amos (a youth with many uncles), written in the early seventeenth century. Rich and covetous widows were persuaded to deposit jewels and money in dark and unfrequented places, with the idea of finding buried treasure. Useless to say that the Gypsy woman was the only gainer by the transaction.
We read that the old Gypsy dress was repeatedly forbidden by law; but Spanish tradition preserves no memory of what the dress was. I have little doubt that the immigrants of the fifteenth century had retained to some extent the Hindu costume, the Pagrí (head-cloth) and the Dhoti (waist-cloth). So in Moscow I have seen the Gypsy dancing-girls assume the true toilette of the Hindustani Nachni, the Choli, or bodice, and the Peshwáz, or petticoat of many folds. Some writers imagine that the “picturesque vagabonds,” Calós, had borrowed their peculiar garb from the Moors.
In these days the well-to-do Spanish Rom affects the Andalusian costume, more or less rich. He delights in white linen, especially the “biled shirt,” often frilled and embroidered. The materials are linen and cotton, silk, plush, velvet, and broadcloth. The favourite tints are blue, red, and marking colours. The short jacket or pelisse (zamarra) is embroidered and adorned with frogs (alamares) or large silver buttons; the waistcoat is mostly red, and a sash of crimson silk with fringed ends supports the waist; the overalls narrow at the ankle, where they meet boots or buskins (borcegúies), slippers or sandals (alpargatas). Finally, the long lank locks, which hang somewhat like the Polish Jew’s along the cheeks, are crowned with the Gypsy sombrero or porkpie, and sometimes with the red Catalan gorro (bonnet), not unlike the glengarry.
The Romi also has retained the dress worn till lately in Andalusia, and now gradually becoming obsolete. The gleaming hair is gathered in a Diana knot at the neck, and lit up with flowers of the gaudiest hue; it lies in bands upon the temples, and the whole is often covered with an embroidered kerchief. A cloak of larger or lesser dimensions thrown over the shoulders hardly conceals the bodice and the short, skimpy petticoat (saya), which is embroidered, adorned with bunches of ribbons, trimmings, and other cheap finery.
The Spanish Gypsies have not preserved, like the Hungarian, their old habit of long expeditions for begging and plundering purposes. Consequently they have lost the practice of the Pateran or Trail, the road-marks by which they denote direction. These are fur twigs, or similar heaps of newly gathered grass disposed at short distances. At cross-roads the signs are placed on the right side of that followed. Sometimes they trace upon the ground a cross whose longer arm shows the way, or they nail one stake to another. The Norwegian Gypsies trace with their whips a mark on the snow called Faano; it resembles a sack with a shut mouth. In the course of ages they have lost that marvellous power of following the spoor which their kinsmen on the Indus preserve to perfection. They retain a peculiarly shrill whistle, for which the Guanches were famous. By the signs and the whistles two parties could communicate with each other; and if anything particular occurred, messengers were sent to report it.
The Gypsy language was looked upon as a mere conventional jargon, and its Indian origin, as has been shown elsewhere, was not recognized before the middle of last century. It was, moreover, confounded with the Germania (Thieves’ Latin), whose vocabulary, collected by Juan Hidalgo of Saragona, has found its way into the Diccionario de la Academia. The only Gypsy words it contains are those borrowed from the Caló by the bullies and ruffians of the days of Quevedo. Many corruptions and barbarisms, however, have been introduced into books by pseudo-literati of “white blood,” who prided themselves upon their knowledge of Romani. For instance, Meriden means Coral; and as in Spanish reduplication of the consonant changes the word, an inventor, in order to express Corral (Curral, Kraal, cattle-yard), produced the most barbarous term Merridden. This was the work of aficionados (fanciers) like the Augustine friar Manso de Sevilla in the Cartuja or Carthusian convent of Jirez, whose famous breed of horses brought them into direct communication with the Gypsies. Happily, however, the language was spoken, not written; and thus, as Mr. Buckle held of legend and tradition, its purity was preserved.
Gypsy verse is generally improvised to the twanging and tapping of the guitar, sometimes to the guitar and castanet, and oftentimes without music. Much that has been printed appears to be of that spurious kind unintelligible to the Gypsies themselves. The favourite form is in quartettes, more or less carefully rhymed; they are impressed upon the hearers’ memory; and thus they pass from mouth to mouth throughout Spain. Borrow gives a few translations of Gypsy songs in Romani. The Cantes Flamancos of Demófico, in phonetic Andalusian, chanted at the fairs and markets, in the cafés and ventas, the streets and alleys of Seville, date from the last century. The poetry is weak, the moral is not always irreproachable; but the sentiment is strong and touching. These Cantes are sung by many a tailor and many a barber who have not a drop of Gypsy blood in their veins. They can hardly be accepted as genuine Gypsy work.
FOOTNOTES:
[206] Hence probably the Hungarian Hunyadis are popularly supposed to have Gypsy blood. John’s mother (a.d. 1400) is said to have been a fair Wallach, Elizabeth Marsinai, possibly of Romani blood. The legend of the boy recovering his unknown father’s ring from a plundering jackdaw, his appearance at Buda, and his receiving the gift of Hunyad town and sixty villages, is well known. The Turk’s bell was first heard in invaded Hungary during the reign of Sigismund. John Hunyadi drove them from Servia and Bosnia, and vainly proposed a league of Christian powers. When Corvinus passed away after a reign of forty-two years, the lieges said of him, and still say, “King Matthias is dead, and Justice died with him.”
[207] Hungary and Transylvania, 1839. Before 1848 the Church, the State, and the nobles were the only landowners; the peasant, however, had leave to occupy certain tracts (session-lands) under his lord.