subject: Gypsies in India [print this page] Gypsies belong to a wandering race supposed to be Hindu origin with dark skin and hair, living by basket-making, horse-dealing, fortune-telling and other allied occupations. They speak a very corrupt form of Hindu in the northern parts of India. This race, when it first appeared in England in the early sixteenth century, was supposed to have come from Egypt and even now this race of people goes by the name of Egyptian Gipsy race', perhaps the name of the country they originally came from.
The language spoken by the European Gypsies is called Romany. In general terms, this Gipsy race is described as a vagabond race whose tribes coming originally from India entered Europe in the fourteenth or fifteenth century and now are scattered over Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Spain, England and other countries living by theft, fortune telling, horse jockeying, tinkering and so on. Further investigations reveals to us the fact that this race of vagabond tribes is scattered over North America and even along the northern coast of Africa in addition to the countries in Europe and the greater part of Asia.
The language spoken by the Gypsies is called Romany from the word Rom which means a man or husband. There are some who connect this word Rom with the name of the Indian God Rama. But the explanation identifying the name with Doma or Domba, the Sanskrit expression for a low-caste musician appears to be more reasonable. Though innumerable tribes of Gypsies have been described, the Gypsies in India alone may be considered. The thieves of different countries are supposed to have a jargon of their own and as Gipsy tribes have some such dialects among them, they may be catalogued under thieves which they were and are at least most of them even at the present day.
It is a fact acknowledged by all that Gypsies wandered forth from India, but the question of when' and from what part or parts' has not been significantly answered. But the fact remains that some connect the word Rom referred to above with the Indian dialects and go to the extent of deriving it from languages such as Hindi, Marathi, and so on.
Wanderers from place to place without any fixed place of residence, they stole away not only cattle but also children with impunity in the bygone, unsettled days. In spite of their evil reputation, it may be said, that these people, or at least many of them, did posses certain mysterious powers and people believed in them. It is a fact that the Todas living in the Nilgiris do posses certain miraculous powers. Even today lads in their teens have, it seems, the peculiar power to hypnotize birds by gazing at them and to catch them without the use of snares or birdlime.
Another noteworthy point in dealing with the subject of Gypsies is the fact that many of them carry a taboret called in Tamil udukku and use it when invoking the aid of invisible beings or elementals. As the Hindu believe in the potency of harmonious sounds and music in invoking the presence of good elementals and employ musicians on all auspicious occasions, and, as they make use of certain strains of music on funeral occasions when one is dead, it may be safely concluded that the sounding of the taboret used by Gypsies may be either for the purpose of imposing upon the audience or for genuine hypnotic purposes. .
