BAZEEGURS, a tribe of Indians, inhabiting different parts of the peninsula of Hindostan. The appearance and manners of mankind are so much diversified in the various countries where they dwell, that animated controversies have been excited, whether all have had a common origin; or whether they have sprung from protoplasts whose conformation, at the beginning of the world, was dissimilar. Some maintain, that, in consequence of the changes produced by situation, climate, and circumstances, the present generations may possibly exhibit figures and proportions altogether different from those that distinguished their ancestors thousands of years ago; while others hold that no such differences could appear, unless they had actually formed part of the original conformation of a race. The partisans of either theory have appealed to that uniformity of features and customs known to be continued among tribes, who preserve their own descent pure and unmixed with others, of which the Jews constitute a striking example; and a case something similar, though not equally prominent, is that of the Bazeegurs. This class of people is recognised by several appellations, as Bazeegurs, Panchperee, Kunjura, or Nuts; they follow a mode of life distinguishing them from the Hindoos, among whom they dwell; they also abstain from intermixing their families with the Hindoos, and from any intercourse by which they can be united. The name Bazeegur is said to signify a juggler; and some etymologists find a probable derivation of conjuror from Kunjura, which might certainly find a corroboration from the similarity of professions. In India they are dispersed throughout the whole country, partly in wandering tribes, partly adhering to fixed residences, but the greater proportion lead a nomadic life. '

The Bazecgurs are divided into seven castes, Charee, Athbhyeea, Bynsa, Purbuttee, Kalkoor, Dorkince, and Gurgwar; but all these are the same people, intermarrying as such, and avoiding alliances with other tribes. According to their own traditions, they are descended from four brothers, who, finding it difficult to provide for their numerous followers, resolved to separate, and to direct their course respectively to each quarter of the world. In cotise-1 quence of this one of them, named Sa, arrived in Bengal from Gazeepour or Allahabad. He took up his abode at Hoogly, and having governed his tribe peaceably during many years, died at Uncourpoor, whither his posterity still repair to offer up their prayers to his manes. Sa left three sons who succeeded each other; and the succession having afterwards regularly passed through several generations, at length devolved to Munbhungee, many years ago. At the same time some of the castes considered a woman called Toota as the chief of the whole; but the power ascribed to the chief seems merely nominal, scarcely amounting to restraint, and not at all to coercion. Munbhungee only resisted the entrance of any of the people acknowledging the superiority of Toota, to seek a livelihood in the territory occupied by his own sect; and the latter were under the same prohibition with respect to the places frequented by her and her dependents. Besides those who are united into sets or castes, there are individuals who wander about endeavouring to pick up a precarious livelihood.

It is not evident, although the Bazeegurs are certainly distinguished by their manners and customs from the natives of Hindostan, that their features discriminate them as a separate race. Some of their women are reputed very beautiful, and arc thence sought after in those temporary alliances common in the East. The manners of the Panchperec are somewhat different from those of the Bazeegurs, and some of the sects are more civilized than others. It has already been observed that they are not in the exclusive occupation of any district in particular, but their villages or respective quarters are found in the same places as those of the Hindoos or British settlers. The Panchperec form neat little encampments in the upper provinces; their huts are small and regular, and each is surrounded by a small inclosure or court-yard, generally disposed in such a manner that the whole hamlet, formed of portable matting, obtains a kind of circumvallation by means of them.

The Bazeegurs, more especially distinguished by that name, are the most civilized of the whole; they are Mahommedans in food, apparel, and religion. The Panch-peree profess no system of faith in preference, adopting that of any village indifferently, whither their wanderings may guide them. Some traverse the country as Mahommedan Fakeers, and live on the ill-directed bounty of devotees; and a particular association among them, of bad repute or abject superstition, has been accused of sacrificing human victims. Notwithstanding their ignorance of the established religions, they seem to venerate a female deity, Kali, probably the sanguinary goddess of the Hindoos, and many perhaps in this way seek to purchase her protection. The Bazcegurs arc circumcised, and have priests to officiate at their marriages and funerals; but their knowledge of the prophet Mahomet is very imperfect, for they can give little account of him, except that he was a saint. They seem to acknowledge an omnipotent Being, and conceive that all nature is animated by one universal spirit, which the soul, as being part of it, will rejoin after death. At the birth of their children, some Brahmin, supposed an adept in astrology, is called in to aid them in choosing a propitious name.

Among the Panchperee, the marriage ceremony is commenced by the bridegroom repairing to the hut of his elect, and calling aloud for her to be delivered to him. A near relation, guarding the door, resists his entrance, and rudely pushes him away, while he is the object of taunts and jocularity; but when his patience is supposed to have been sufficiently put to the test, the bride is brought out. Both receive an exhortation from the priest to p ril ^ ιs , e mutual kindness; and the bridegroom, marking the bride s [7:4:469]face with ochre, declares her his wedded wife; and she, on her part, does the same in return. The little fingers of their hands are now joined, and a scene of merriment, from which the bride alone is exempted, commences. But this consists chiefly in the progress to intoxication, for all these people are addicted to the most immoderate use of spirits; and after copious libations, a cavalcade, formed of the two parties, whose little fingers are again joined, and their parents and friends, departs for the hut of the bridegroom. Before the door there are some enigmatical ceremonies performed; the mother of the bridegroom advances with a sieve containing rice, paint, and grass, with which the foreheads of the couple are touched, after being waved around them; and the bride is led into the house, before which there stands a small fresh branch of the mango tree in an earthen pot of water. The meaning of these ceremonies is not well understood; and it is to be observed, that the origin of most of the customs of the modern races of mankind is lost in the darkness of antiquity. Some of the peasantry in Britain have various ceremonies both at marriages and funerals, such as breaking a cake above the head of the bride, or strewing flowers on the bier of one deceased, which have descended from remote ages, and arose from sources at this day unknown. When these ceremonies are completed among the Bazeegurs, a new scene of mirth is resumed; and towards evening, for the whole day from the breaking of dawn is thus occupied, the bride is conducted to her own hut, when those who are able retire; but the majority, and in general the bridegroom among them, pass the night in a state of insensibility on the neighbouring plain.

From the earliest period they are accustomed to intoxicating draughts; even infants of five or six months old are supplied with spirits, though their mothers suckle them during five or six years; and it is not uncommon to observe several children of different ages hanging on their mother, and struggling to extract their scanty portion of nourishment, which is gradually diminished by her own insatiable propensities to the same beverage. Many of the sects are very indiscriminate in food; scarcely any thing is rejected; dead horses, jackals, and bullocks, are alike acceptable; and it has been suspected that they can even enjoy a repast of human flesh. However, this fact is not authenticated, and if analogical reasoning may be admitted here, we should be inclined to deny it, because there is no proof that any tribe, however savage, is addicted to anthropophagy, if dwelling among a more civilized people.

The chief occupation of the Bazeegurs seems to consist in feats of address and agility to amuse the public, in which both males and females are equally skilful. The former are extremely athletic, and the women are taught dancing, which, instead of the graceful motions seen in the north, consists there principally in a display of lascivious gestures. Most, if not all, the men are jugglers, tumblers, and actors, in which they are very adroit. The people of each sect, or dramatis personae, are hired out by a sirdar or manager of a company, for a definite period, generally one year, after which they are at liberty to join an y other party. But no person can establish a set of actors without permission from the Nardar Boutah, a chief θι the Bazeegurs, who receives a proportion of the profits, and a tribute or tax from each female, somewhat analogous to what was called milk-money, a revenue levied by Ce Holy See from licenses to prostitutes. On the return θ a party from an excursion, this money is paid to the ardar Boutah, who convenes his people, and they connue feasting until the whole is expended. Should any 0 γ 1 . e managers be suspected of giving an unfair account 0 his profits, a court is assembled, where the accused must undergo the ordeal of applying his tongue to a piece of red-hot iron. It thus appears that these tribes have a kind of civil government among themselves; that each of five sets, at Calcutta at least, has a sirdar or ruler, and that the whole are subject to the Nardar Boutah. These sirdars and the chief apparently constitute a court for the trial of any infringement of their regulations, which may be followed by punishment. Thus if, on application of the red-hot iron, the suspected manager be burnt, he is declared guilty of a fraud, which is expiated by a fine, and, if it be an aggravated offence, by the additional punishment of having-his nose rubbed on the ground. The same penalty is attached to disclosures to strangers of matters which it is the interest of the tribe to conceal. The fine is generally converted into liquor; but should the offender be either unable or unwilling to discharge it immediately, he is banished from all society, or he is universally execrated, and even his wife and children avoid him. He soon finds compliance indispensable, and although the Bazeegurs pique themselves on their honesty, it is conjectured that on such occasions they do not entertain many scruples in acquiring what is so essential to avert the indignation of their fellows. The mulct being paid, is converted to the general behoof, and affords a new opportunity for gratifying the strong propensities implanted in these people for ardent liquors. All differences among this set are the subject of reference either to a punchy at or a general assembly; but, before commencing the business, both plantiff' and defendant must provide a quantity of spirits proportioned to the importance of the case. The party non-suited ultimately bears the whole expense, and the assembly is regaled with the beverage produced by the litigants.

Some of the Bazeegurs are owners of land, which they entertain a great desire to obtain; but they are never cultivators. They are collected, as already observed, into various associations in different parts of India. The dancing girls, however, have no regular and settled habitations; they dwell merely in temporary huts, erected near the place of their exhibitions. The duration of their lives is supposed to be much abridged by the course of life which they lead, particularly from the violent exercises practised from early youth, and habitual indulgence in intoxicating draughts. Both males and females undergo such a regular progress of debauchery, that few live beyond forty, and many do not attain their thirtieth year. But from the pursuits of the females being productive to their parents, their marriages are deferred to a later period than is usual in India. There prostitution is free from that odium and contempt which it incurs in Europe, and those females who are considered so unfortunate and depraved by us are under the special protection of the laws. The female Bazeegurs who are taught singing and dancing only are under no greater personal restraint than the common dancing girls of Hindostan; but the chastity of those whose particular department is tumbling is strictly enjoined until their place be supplied by others more youthful. When this substitution comes they join the companies of dancers alone; and the men, though quite aware of their incontinence, do not scruple to select wives from among them. But after marriage a total change of conduct is expected, and it is said that such expectations are commonly realized. Nevertheless, among the Panchperee, the fidelity of those employed in different vocations in the towns becomes suspected if they have not returned to their homes when the cry of the jackal is heard, and their husbands are by no means disposed to overlook the offence. It does not appear, however, that they have either the power or the inclination of the Hindoos, who sometimes, in such cases, decoy their own daughters to a lonely place for the purpose of perpe-ι[7:4:470] trating a barbarous murder on them, as the punishment of their indiscretion. The Bazeegur parents and husbands are content with slighter expiations; but if the paramour be not of their own particular caste, the incontinence of the female is judged a much more grievous fault.

The females now alluded to are those who do not attend the juggling exhibitions of the men, or their feats of activity; they practise physic and cupping, and perform a kind of tattooing on the skin of the Hindoos of their own sex, called Godna. As the men, besides their usual occupations, collect medicinal herbs, and a certain bud, the latter is dried, and the former prepared by their wives as curatives, especially of the complaints of their own sex. Thus they find employment in the towns, in such vocations, or by the sale of trinkets, though both afford but a precarious subsistence. Some tribes also exhibit wild beasts to the vulgar, or offer mats fabricated by themselves for sale. Before the establishment of the British government in Bengal, the Bazeegurs were subject to the arbitrary exactions of a tax-gatherer, whom they greatly dreaded; and the apprehension of the renewal of that officer’s powers has proved a considerable impediment to investigating their manners and customs.

A general coincidence in the mode of life, the vocations, manners, and language of all the different sects of these people, determines them as belonging to the same race. The distinctions seen among them are too trivial to admit of their being considered of separate and independent origin. They are different from all the other tribes dispersed throughout Hindostan, and have two dialects also peculiar to themselves, the one most probably a jargon, which is spoken only among the public performers; the other in common use among the whole. The Bazee- ’ gurs are supposed to present many features analogous to the gipsies scattered over Europe and Asia, where they subsist as a distinct race from all the other inhabitants of the countries frequented by them. The Bazeegurs, as well as gipsies, have a chief or king; each has a peculiar language, bearing some reciprocal analogy, and different from that of the people among whom they reside; and this analogy is so decided, that it is difficult to deny that in both cases it has had a common origin. In India and in Europe they are equally an itinerant race; their pursuits, excepting in as far as these are modified by the manners of countries distant from each other, are alike; for the discrepancies they exhibit may reasonably enough be ascribed to an insensible acquisition of the habits of those near whom their various tribes happen to dwell. They are totally indifferent as to the quality of the food serving for their subsistence, and entirely ignorant of systematic religious principles. All preserve the strictest adherence to their own sect, and sedulously abstain from intermixtures or intermarriages with that of any other nation; and where infringements of these rules are seen, they are to be ascribed more to necessity than inclination. Another resemblance, which has probably been lost in the lapse of time, is supposed to consist in the three-stringed viol, introduced into Europe by the jugglers of the thirteenth century, which is exactly similar to the instrument now used in Hindostan. Separate and disjoined, these analogies may not carry conviction of the identity of the European gipsies with the Indian Bazeegurs; but, on uniting and combining the whole, it does not seem unlikely, that if Asia be their original country, or if they have found their way from Egypt t0 India, they may also have emigrated farther at a period of remote antiquity, and reached the boundaries of Europe. (n .