Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-07
ETHICS OF GIPSIES.
They Have but Little Idea of a God
and None of a Savior.
THE LEGION OF BAURIE RON.
1t Has Been in Existence at Least 1000
to 5000 Years.
WORSHIP AND PRACTICE OF VIRTUE

nearly 100 years old-exactly 90 in the sum-
mer of 1877 when l was favored with his
wise companionship among the beautiful
hills and valleys of Western Pennsylvania.
His great age, and certain amount of book
knowledge he had somehow acquired, made
him sort of seer among his race. l always
approached him with real veneration, and
when one day I asked him why Gipsies
were wanderers he instantly answered in
Romany:
because they are Gods chosen people!"
am pretty sure the old rascal did not be-
lieve what he said, because there was a
merry. half-wicked twinkle in his eyes, and
besides we were at that very moment oc-
cupied in dressing some plump chickenE,
over whose manner OF getting into camp 1
thought best to throw the mantle of silent
charity. But he gravely proceeded to draw
host of similitudes between modes of
Gipsy life and those of the ancient patris
archs, laying great emphasis upon the state
ment that Gipsies were the true descendants
of the house of Rechabites, so loved of the
Lord for its peoples faithful observanees of
divine commands. Then he glibly quoted
from Jeremiah: Neither shall We build
houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor
have any; but all your days We shall dwell
IN tents, that ye may live many days in the
land where We be strangers"
PROVED BY THE BIBLE.
If Gipsies may be said to possess ethical
or religious principles whatever they will
all be found underlying and sustaining
their own as against all other modes of life.
Innumerable times have made the direct
Snnnirx- of Gi,c.- nd
friends regarding this matter, and on every
occasion have 1 been met with a similar
answer. The Gipsy's mind is an utter blank
on all matters which the Christian world
regard as sacred. Revealed religion is to
him as extraordinary a tissue of chicanery
as are his black arts to us. He will quote
you yards of Bible to prove his pilgriming
life the only correct one. But he does that
merely to confuse you; not because he him.
self respects the authority to which he has
recourse. Unquestionably he believes with
his whole soul his is the only right way of
living. Whatever you and may believe
about that, l have had too many and indubita-
bic proofs of his integrity of conviction to
doubt it. And so what is his belief, what
his heredity of sacred legend, what the
principles and incentives upon which his
life and effort are planted and what his
hope for, and faith in, the future state, have
been ior % years my most earnest and inter-
estlng, and | must confess most futile and
barren, subjects of study among these tawny
wanderers of the tent and road.
NO EQUIVALENT FOR GOD.
1t is a noteworthy fact that the Romany
(Gipsy) language contains no exact equiva-
lent for God. Indeed, it is almost barren of
words designating the Creator. The nearest
expression that nv most studious and per-
sistent researches and inquiries have been
able to discover is that OF Baurie Rom, or
Great Head, and yet this literally means a
powerful man, chief potentate, and does
not mean spiritual being with omniscient
powers. Nor is this term applied to q
supreme being save in one instance. That
one is in singularly universal and always
secret sacred legend of the GiDsies; their
sole lore pertaining to the infinite mysteries.
This story, tradition or legend relates in a
picturesque, brief and almost poetic man.
ner the contest of the Great Good Spirit and
the Great Bad Spirit as follows:
One day the Baurie Rom (Great Head,
whose shining tent was the sky, went out to
seek wild boar for dinner As no good
being will steal from an open tent, the
Baurie Rom drew not the curtain about the
door literally, mouth). Soon along came
the Baurie Bing (chiet evil spirit, the great
Cevll), who saw the deserted tent and cried
out with great glee:
"Now the Baurie Rom is gone. will
destroy his beautiful habitation and leave
him desolater'
Then the Baurie Bing drank up the
rivers, ate all the pomegranates between the
rims of the sky, and licked up all the
earth's honey. After ieasting, he blew flame
on the world, and split the mountains with
his fiery tail. Then he arose to go, but had
swelled SO broad and high that he could not
get out of the tent-door, and his horns got
fast in the woolly tent-curve (cover, the
sky). The Baurie Bing struggled and bel
lowed, and ten black devils (dasa kala
bing) came to help the Baurie Bing away.
HURLED OUT OF HEAVEN.
Just then the Baurie Rom came back.
The ten black devils ran away, when the
Baurie Rom took the Baurie Bing in his
hand as though light as dust and hurled
him beyond the edge of the sky, into place
where he ever burns, but there never is
Light. From that day the Baurie Rom
placed great chief to guard his tent door.
In passing it is interesting to find in the
three words dasa kala bing (ten black
devils) remarkable proof of the extreme an
tiquity OF the gypsy race. They are re-
spectively Sanscrit, HindoStanee and Ro-
many; and their preservation by these peo-
pie. independent of any written or printed
language, seems almost beyond belief.
But in the tale of the Baurie Rom and the
Baurie Bing are found many symbols of
Gipsy thought and feeling. 1t is thousands
of years older than the Bible, and it is a
curious example of the earliest formulatlye
thought as to a supreme being. He is tvpi-
fed as benign, good, all-powerful, but awful
In just wrath. The devil, too, as the type of
greed, envy and malicious deStructIveness,
was not bad notion for 5000 or 1000 years
ago; while many Of the material instincts of
these strange folk-the sky as a semblanee
of the tent; the hunting of the wild boar for
dinner, once a perfection of attainment
among Gipsies; the feasting and gorging OF
the intruder; his final dIscomforture and
almost Miltonic casting out into an eternal
dark, which Gipsies dread in color, symbol,
and in all places at night, when they say
they 'ieel it hurt" stand out clearly in
these tropes and SMILES.
SENTINEL OF THE SKY.
But the most singular feature of the mat
Ter is that this notion of a supreme being
and an antithesis, the temptation, the fall,
the expulsion from a state of privilege. the
endless punishment for rebellion and sin, and
the final sentineling of the Baurie Rom's
dwelling by "a great chief" like our later
poetic station for ST. Peter, crystalized in
the minds of pilgrims by the Narbudda and
Tspstee rivers from 4, 900 to 5000 years ago,
remain intact in the brain and thought of
every one of their Gipsy descendants that
live; that is, the bare story, the myth of a
substance, the wiaith of some wondrous Has
Been. But that is all. The Great Head is
nothing to the Gipsy heart From wher-