THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES. 541 



should be to consider what are the principal nomadic tribes of gypsies 

 in India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of 

 the Romany of Europe, That the Jats probably supplied the main 

 stock has been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India 

 which at one time had such power as to obtain important victories over 

 the Caliphs. They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century 

 by Mahmoud, many thousands of them wandering to the West. They 

 were without religion, " of the horse, horsey," and notorious thieves. 

 In this they agree with the European gypsy. But they are not habit- 

 ual eaters of mullo halor, or " dead pork " ; they do not devour every- 

 thing like dogs. We can not ascei'tain that the Jat is specially a 

 musician, a dancer, a mat- and basket-maker, a rope-dancer, a bear- 

 leader, or a peddler. We do not know whether they are peculiar in 

 India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged to old age, 

 as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of these things are, however, 

 markedly characteristic of certain different kinds of wanderers or gyp- 

 sies in India. From this we conclude, hypothetically, that the Jat 

 warriors were supplemented by other tribes ; chief among these may 

 have been the Dom. 



The Doms are a race of gypsies found in Central India to the far 

 northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appear as the 

 Domarr, and are supposed to be pre- Aryan. In " The People of In- 

 dia," edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum, 

 1868), we are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms 

 indicate a marked difference from those who surround them (in Behar). 

 The Hindoos admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the 

 Shastras is sopxichh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers, they 

 make baskets and mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending 

 all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning 

 corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which 

 have died a natural death, and are jjarticularly fond of pork of this 

 description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them at- 

 tain the age of eighty or ninety ; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five 

 that their hair begins to get white." Travelers speak of them as 

 "gypsies." The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, 

 and robbers. A specimen which we have of their language would, 

 with the exception of one word, which is probably an error of the 

 transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be called pure 

 Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his wife 

 a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Dom- 

 nipana, D in Hindostani is found as r in English gypsy speech — e, g,, 

 dot, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as roi. Now, in common 

 Romany we have, even in Loudon — 



Rom A gypsy. 



Romni A gypsy wife. 



Eomnipen Gypsydom. 



