[176] Two ram’s horns and two spoons, crossed, are sculptured on the tombstone of William Marshall, a Gipsy chief, who, according to a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, died at the age of 120 years, and whose remains are deposited in the church-yard of Kirkcudbright.
A horn is the hieroglyphic of authority, power, and dignity, and is a metaphor often made use of in the Scriptures. The Jews held ram’s horns in great veneration, on account, it is thought, of that animal having been caught in a bush by the horns, and used as a substitute, when Isaac was about to be sacrificed by his father; or, perhaps, on account of this animal being first used in sacrifice. So much were ram’s horns esteemed by the Israelites, that their Priests and Levites used them as trumpets, particularly at the taking of Jericho. The modern Jews, when they confess their sins, in our month of September, announce the ceremony by blowing a ram’s horn, the sound of which, they say, drives away the Devil. In ancient Egypt, and other parts of Africa, Jupiter Ammon was worshipped under the figure of a ram, and to this deity one of these animals was sacrificed annually. A ram seems to have been an emblem of power in the East, from the remotest ages. It would, therefore, appear that the practice of the Gipsy priest “wearing a ram’s horn, suspended from a string, around his neck,” must be derived from the highest antiquity.
[177] Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol, x.
[178] Mr. Borrow bears very positive testimony to the personal virtue of Gipsy females. I have heard natives of Hungary speak lightly of them in that respect; but I conclude that they alluded to exceptions to the general rule among the race.—Ed.
[179] What our author says, relative to the sacrifice of the horse, by the Gipsies, not being known to the people of Scotland at large, is equally applicable to the entire subject of the tribe. And we see here how admirably the passions—in this case, the prejudice and incredulity—of mankind are calculated to blind them to facts, perhaps to facts the most obvious and incontestible. What is stated of the Gipsies in this work, generally, should be no matter of wonder; the real wonder, if wonder there should be, is that it should not have been known to the world before.—Ed.
[180] Grellmann says, of the Hungarian Gipsies, “The greatest luxury to them is when they can procure a roast of cattle that have died of any distemper, whether it be sheep, pig, cow, or other beast, a horse only excepted.”—Ed.
[181] It appears that the Jews, when they lapsed into the grossest idolatry, dedicated horses to the sun. “And he (Josiah) took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech, the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire.” II Kings, xxiii. 11.
[182] This Gipsy mentioned one particular instance of having seen a couple separated in this way, on a wild moor, near Huntly, about the year 1805. He particularly stated that a horse found dead would not do for a separation, but that one must be killed for the express purpose; and that “the sun must be at his height” before the horse could be properly sacrificed. From the fact of Ramsay stumbling upon the Gipsies “a little after day-break,” it would seem that circumstances had compelled them to change the time, or adjourn the completion, of the sacrifice; or that the extreme wildness of the victim had prevented its being caught, and so led to the “violent swing which McDonald gave his wife at parting.” And it might be that Ramsay had come upon them when McDonald and his wife were performing the last part of the ceremony, or had caused them to finish it abruptly; as the old Gipsy stated that not only are none but Gipsies allowed to be present on such occasions, but that the greatest secrecy is observed, to prevent discovery by those who are not of the tribe.
[183] It appears all the Gipsies, male as well as female, who perform ceremonies for their tribe, carry long staffs. In the Institutes of Menu, page 28, it is written: “The staff of a priest must be of such length as to reach his hair; that of a soldier to reach his forehead; and that of a merchant to reach the nose.”
[184] That I might distinctly understand the Gipsy, when he described the manner of crossing and wheeling round the corners of the horse, a common sitting-chair was placed on its side between us, which represented the animal lying on the ground.