The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1879-02-20
Strange Tribe Of Ottoman GlpsIes

ABOUT their origin they know little,
though the prophet Job, they say, taught
their ancestors the trade they now fol-
low and they have some slight suspic
ion that they formerly came from Per
sia to the country they at present occupy.
The Turks call them Tchinganes, while
the term they know one another by is
Rom, the title which binds the whole of
the widely scattered nomad tribes to.
gether. Their language itself is styled
Romany. There is not the slightest al
lusion to q deity in any Of their most
ancient songs and legends, and they
have no religious observances peculiar
to themselves alone. They have but one
festival, during which for three whole
days they abandon themselves to fasting
and meTTiment. The fatted lamb is
slain BY those who can afford it, the tent
decorated with flowers. and passers-by
freely invited to Join their Tepast; all
iitigations and legal processes are tenn
porarily adjourned. and their annual
tax is then paid to the Turkish govern
ment One branch Of their race, the
Zapari, are the most ferocious of their
kind. They are 10 be found at the viii
lage fetes and large fairs, whittier they
90 to earn a few coins by the dis
play of their dancing bears or perform
ing monkeys. Some few of them are
blacksmiths in winter. The ZepaFi are
all Musselmans, and from their ranks
the Sublime Porte finds its supply of
hangmen. They form quite a instinct
class of themselves, being held in abhor-
renee even by their savage brethren.
Outcasis of outcasts, they stop short Of
no crime, and are fitting companions for
the much-talked-of Bashi-BazOuks or
wild marauders Of the late disastrous
war.
But now to turn to the renegade or
housed gipsy. Still retaining the inher-
ent desire for liberty 80 common TO his
race, he avails himself of his dwelling
as a shelter only by night. traversing the
streets by day, trieked out in dirty, gaudy
clothing, or seated with wife and family
Just without the threshold of his hut
there frittering the precious hours away.
His children, if sent to school at all, are
only dispatched there to be out Of the
way, and his home is as devoid Of fur
nit1re and Well-nigh as comfortless as
the ragged tent of his more Esau-like
brother. Little by little he forgets his
old language, but not his vicious habits,
and very soon ends by intermarTying
with some poor Greek family whose
members are as lazy and apathetic as
himself Their Language descended
from the old Sanscrit-has, besides CIV
ing the only real clue to their origin,
also shed some rays over the dark period
between the first emigration Of the gip-
sies from India, and their appearance IN
Europe. Originally the distinct mode Of
speech of a single and special border
tribe of Northern India, it has, during
the many Wanderings Of the race, appro-
priated words from nearly every country
through which they passed; while on
the other hand it lost many Of Its own
words, and still more Of its own inher-
ent power and elegance and much also
Of its resemblance to the mother tongue.
These adopted foreign words, their rela-
tive number, and their more or less cor
rupted state, point plainly to the gipsies
having passed from India first into Per
sia, to their having remained there q
considerable time, and to their having
wended theirway to some Greek country,
perhaps Asia Minor, and - their de-
scent thence into their present European
homes.
It is worthy of further remark, as
proof Of their Indian origin, that the
speech Of the English gipsies has been
found. on comparison, most marvelously
akin TO that Of the natives Of Bombay,
though some Of their words have,
strangely enough, entirely changed the
meaning they at first possessed. The
speech of the Tchingane is rude, sharp,
strongly accented, and somewhat diff
cult to comprehend. Properly spoken it
is harmonious enough, though rendered
hoarse and almost distasteful by the wild
tribes who employ it. ave SPEAK" ," say
they themselves, "as the birds sing, but
we sing as the lions roar % With them
papa signifies an apple, cat scissors, rat
night, Devil God, while dad seems to
be the only word exactly synonymous
with any in our known language. He
roic in suffering, the true Ottoman gipy
never sheds a tear. On his legs to the
last, he only betakes himself to his
couch when death is too surely nigh, and
departs without a murmur from the life
that has been so full Of unhappiness and
misery to him.