the tziganes: humor, proverbs, religion, and morality.
the word tzigane is used throughout hungary and transylvania as an opprobrious term by the other inhabitants whenever they want to designate anything as false, worthless, dirty, adulterated, etc.
“false as a tzigane,” “dirty as a tzigane,” are common figures of speech. likewise to describe a quarrelsome couple, “they live like the gypsies.” and if some one is given to useless lamentation, it is said of him, “he moans like a guilty tzigane.”
of a liar it is said that “he knows how to plough with the tzigane,” or that “he understands how to ride the tzigane horse.”
to call any one’s behavior “gypsified” is to stamp it as dishonest. “he knows the tzigane trade” is “he knows how to steal.”
a showery april day is called “tzigane weather;” adulterated honey, “tzigane honey;” coriander-leaves, “tzigane parsley;” a poor sort of wild-duck is the “tzigane duck;” the bromus scalinus is the “tzigane corn;” but why the little green burrs are called “tzigane lice” is not very evident, for surely in this case the imitation has decidedly the advantage of the genuine article.
these phrases must not, however, be taken to express hatred, but rather a good-natured sort of contempt and indulgence for the tzigane as a large, importunate, and troublesome child, who frequently requires to be chastised and pushed back, but whose vagaries cannot be taken seriously, or provoke anger.
the tziganes are rarely wanting in a certain sense of humor and power of repartee, which often disarms the anger they have justly provoked. in a travelling menagerie the keeper, showing off his animals to a large audience, pointed to the cage where a furious lion was pawing the ground, and pompously announced that he was ready to give a thousand florins to whoever would enter that cage.
“i will,” said a starved-looking gypsy, stepping forward.
“you will!” said the keeper, looking contemptuously at the small, puny figure. “very well; please yourself, and walk in,” and he made a feint of opening the door. “step in; why are you not coming?”
“certainly,” said the tzigane; “i have not the slightest objection, and am only waiting till you remove that very unpleasant-looking animal which occupies the cage at present.”
of course the laugh was turned against the showman, who, in his speech, had only spoken of the cage without mentioning the lion.
a peasant, accusing a tzigane of having stolen his horse, declared that he could produce half a dozen witnesses who had seen him in the act.
“what are half a dozen witnesses?” said the gypsy. “i can produce a whole dozen who have not seen it!”
a starving and shivering tzigane once, craving hospitality, was told to choose between food and warmth. would he have something to eat; or did he prefer to warm himself at the hearth? “if you please,” he answered, “i would like best to toast myself a piece of bacon at the fire.”
when asked which was his favorite bird a tzigane made reply, “the pig, if it had only wings.”
another gypsy, asked whether, for the remuneration of five florins, he would undertake the office of hangman on a single victim, answered, joyfully, “oh, that is far too high a price! for five florins i would undertake to hang all the officials into the bargain!”
some tzigane proverbs are as follows:
“better a donkey which lets you ride than a fine horse which throws you off.”
“those are the fattest fishes which fall back from the line into the water.”
“it is not good to choose women or cloth by candlelight.”
“what is the use of a kiss unless there be two to share it?”
“who would steal potatoes must not forget the sack.”
“two hard stones do not grind smooth.”
“polite words cost little and do much.”
“who flatters you has either cheated you or hopes to do so.”
“who waits till another calls him to supper often remains hungry.”
“if you have lost your horse, you had better throw away saddle and bridle as well.”
“the best smith cannot make more than one ring at a time.”
“a pleasant smile smooths away wrinkles.”
“nothing is so bad but it is good enough for some one.”
“do we keep the fast-days? yes, when there is neither bread nor bacon in the cupboard.”
“it is of no use to teach science to children, unless we explain it by means of the broomstick.”
“let nothing on earth sadden you as long as you still can love.”
“it is easier to inherit than to earn.”
“as long as there are poorer people than yourself in the world, thank god even if you go about with bare feet.”
“when the bridge is gone, then even the narrowest plank becomes precious.”
“only the deaf and the blind are obliged to believe.”
“bacon makes bold.”
“after misfortune comes fortune.”
“who has got luck need only sit at home with his mouth open.”
“never despair of your luck, for it needs only a moment to bring it.”
there is no such thing as a gypsy church, and a legend current in transylvania explains the reason of this:
“once upon a time,” so it runs, “the tziganes had a right good church, solidly built of brick and stone like other churches. the wallachs, who had neither stones nor bricks, had at that same time built themselves a church out of cheese and bacon, with sausage rafters and pancake roof.
“this building filled the greedy tziganes with envy, causing them to lick their lips whenever they passed that way, and at last they proposed an exchange of churches to the wallachs, who gladly accepted the bargain. but when the winter came the hungry tziganes began{256} to nibble at the pancake roof of their church; next they attacked the rafters, and there soon remained nothing more of the whole building. that is why since that time there has never been a tzigane church, and why the gypsies, whenever they go to any place of worship at all, prefer to go to the roumanian church, because, as they say, they like to remember that it once belonged to them.”
this story has passed into a proverb, used to describe a man without religion, by saying, “he eats his faith, as the gypsies ate their church.”
their religion is of the vaguest description. they generally agree as to the existence of a god, but it is a god whom they fear without loving. “god cannot be good,” they say, “or else he would not make us die.” the devil they also believe in to a certain extent, but consider him to be a weak, silly fellow, incapable of doing much harm.
a tzigane, questioned as to whether he believed in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, scoffed at the idea. “how could i be so foolish as to believe this?” he said, with unconscious philosophy. “we have been quite wretched enough and wicked enough in this world already. why should we begin again in another?”
sometimes their confused notions of christianity take the form of believing in a god, and in his son the young god; but while many are of opinion that the old god is dead, and that his son now reigns in his place, others declare the old god to be not really dead, but merely to have abdicated in favor of his son. others, again, suppose this latter to be not really the son of the old god, but only that of a poor carpenter, and are wont to say contemptuously that “the carpenter’s son has usurped the throne.”
the resident tziganes often nominally adopt the religion of the landed proprietor—principally, it seems, because in former days they thus secured the privilege of being buried at his expense. whenever they happen to have a quarrel with their landlord, they are fond of abruptly changing their religion, ostentatiously going to some other place of worship in order to mark their displeasure.
two clergymen, the one catholic, the other protestant, visiting a tzigane confined in prison, were each endeavoring with much eloquence to convert him to their respective religions. the gypsy appeared to be listening to their arguments with great attention, and{257} when both had finished speaking he eagerly inquired, “which of the two gentlemen can give me a cigar?” one of these being in the advantageous position of gratifying this modest request, the scale was thereby turned in favor of the church he recommended, and the other clergyman was sent away, doubtless with the bitter reflection that for lack of a pennyworth of tobacco he had failed to secure an immortal soul!
another gypsy, in prison for having sworn falsely, was visited by a priest, who tried to convince him of the sinfulness of his conduct in swearing to what he had not seen.
“you are loading a heavy sin on your soul,” said the priest.
“have i got a soul?” asked the tzigane, innocently.
“of course you have got a soul; every man has one.”
“can your reverence swear that i have got a soul?”
“to be sure i can.”
“yet your reverence cannot see my soul, so why should it be wrong to swear to what one has not seen?”
a gypsy condemned to be hung bethought himself at the last moment of asking to be baptized. he wished to die a christian, he said, having professed no religion all his life. his plan was successful, for the execution was suspended, and all sympathies enlisted in his favor. when, however, all was ready for the baptism, the gypsy occasioned much surprise by asking to be received into the calvinistic faith. why not choose the catholic religion, which was that of the place, he was asked, since there was no apparent reason to the contrary. “no, no,” returned the cautious tzigane; “i will keep the catholic religion for another time.”
though rarely believing in the immortality of the soul, the tzigane usually holds with the doctrine of transmigration, and often supposes the spirit of some particular gypsy to have passed into a bat or a bird; further believing that when that animal is killed, the spirit passes back to another new-born gypsy.
however miserable their lives, the tziganes never commit suicide; only one solitary instance is recorded by some traveller, whose name i forget, of an old gypsy woman, who, to escape her persecutors, begged a shepherd to bury her alive.
when a tzigane dies, men and women assemble with loud howling, and the corpse, after having been prepared for burial, is carried on horseback to the grave, which is made in some lonely spot, often{258} deep in the forest. a chieftain is buried with much pomp, his people tearing their hair and scratching their faces in sign of mourning.
the abrupt transitions of joy to grief, and vice versa, so characteristic of the tzigane nature, are nowhere more apparent than in their rejoicings and their mournings. thus each funeral ends with dancing and joyful songs, while every wedding terminates in howling and moaning.
the relations between the sexes are mostly free, and unrestrained by any attempt at morality. unions oftenest take place without any attendant formalities, but in some hordes a sort of barbaric ceremony is kept up. the man, or rather boy—for he is often not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age—selects the girl happening to please him best, without any particular regard for relationship, and leads her before the gako, where she breaks an earthen-ware jar or dish at the feet of the man to whom she gives herself. each party collects a portion of the broken pieces and keeps them carefully. if these pieces are lost, either by accident or voluntarily, then both parties are free, and the union thus dissolved can only be renewed by the breaking of another vessel in the same manner.
gypsy girl.
the number of pieces into which the earthen-ware has been shattered is supposed to denote the number of years the couple will live together; and when the girl is anxious to pay a compliment to her bridegroom she stamps upon the fragments, in order to increase their number.
sometimes, but rarely, the tzigane is capable of violent and enduring love; and cases where lovers have killed their sweethearts out of jealousy are not unknown.
the tziganes assimilate more easily with the roumanians than with any of the neighboring races; and marriages between them, although not frequent, yet sometimes take place.
some twelve or fifteen years ago, an austrian officer, garrisoned in a small transylvanian town, fell violently in love with a beautiful gypsy girl belonging to a wandering tribe. he carried his infatuation so far as to offer to marry her. the beautiful bohemian, however, refused to abandon her roving comrades; and at last the lover, seeing that he could not win her in any other way, and being convinced that he could not possibly exist without her, gave up his military rank, and for her sake became a gypsy himself, wandering about with the band, and sharing all their hardships and privations. how this peculiar union turned out in the end, and whether à la longue the gentleman remained of opinion that the world was well lost for love, is unknown; but several years later the cidevant officer was recognized as a member of a roving band of gypsies somewhere in northern greece.
a touching instance of a young girl’s devotion was related to me on good authority. her lover had been confined in the village lockup, presumably for some flagrant offence; and looking out of the small grated window, on a burning summer’s day, he was bewailing his unhappy fate and the parching thirst which devoured him. presently his dark slender sweetheart, attracted by the sound of his voice, drew near, and standing at the other side of a dried-up moat, she could see her lover at the grated window. she held in her hand a ripe juicy apple; but the only way to reach him lay through the moat. the girl was naked, not having the smallest rag to cover her brown and shining skin, and the moat was full of prickly thistles and tall stinging nettles. she hesitated for a moment, but only for one; then plunging bravely into the sea of fire, she handed up the precious apple through the close grating.
when she regained the opposite bank, the gypsy girl’s skin was all blistered, and bleeding at places; but she did not seem to feel any pain, in the delight with which she watched her captive lover devour the apple.