544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are Tchangar gypsies of Jat affinity in the Punjaub. Wondei-ful it is 

 that, in this war of words, no philologist has paid any attention to 

 what the gypsies themselves say about it. What they do say is suf- 

 ficiently interesting, as it is told in the form of a legend which is in- 

 trinsically curious and probably ancient. It is given as follows in 

 " The People of Turkey, by a Consul's Daughter and Wife," edited 

 by Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, London, 1878 : "Although the gypsies 

 are not persecuted in Turkey, the anti]5athy and disdain felt for them 

 evinces itself in many ways, and appears to be founded upon a strange 

 legend current in the country. This legend says that, when the gypsy 

 nation were driven out of their country and arrived at Mekran, they 

 constructed a wonderful machine to which a wheel was attached." 

 From the context of this imperfectly told story, it would appear as if 

 the gypsies could not travel farther until this wheel should revolve : 

 " Nobody appeared to be able to turn it, till, in the midst of their 

 vain efforts, some evil sj^irit presented himself under the disguise of a 

 sage, and informed the chief, whose name was Chen, that the wheel 

 would be made to turn only when he had married his sister Guin. 

 The chief accepted the advice, the wheel turned round, and the name 

 of the tribe after this incident became that of the combined names of 

 the brother and sister, Chenguin, the appellation of all the gypsies of 

 Turkey at the present day." The legend goes on to state that, in con- 

 sequence of this unnatural marriage, the gypsies were cursed and con- 

 demned by a Mohammedan saint to wander for ever on the face of the 

 earth. The real meaning of the myth — for myth it is — is very appar- 

 ent. Chen is a Romany word, generally pronounced Chone, meaning 

 the moon, while Guin is almost universally rendered Gan or Kan. 

 Kan is given by George Borrow as meaning sun, and we have our- 

 selves heard English gypsies call it kan, although kam is usually as- 

 sumed to be right. Chen-kan means, therefore, moon-sun. And it 

 may be remarked in this connection that the Roumanian gypsies have 

 a wild legend stating that the sun was a youth who, having fallen in 

 love with his own sister, was condemned as the sun to wander for ever 

 in pursuit of her turned into the moon. A similar legend exists in 

 Greenland and the Island of Borneo, and it was known to the old Irish. 

 It was very natural that the gypsies, observing that the sun and moon 

 were always apparently wandering, should have identified their own 

 nomadic life with that of these luminaries. It may be objected, by 

 those to whom the term " solar myth " is as a red rag, that this story, 

 to prove anything, must first be proved itself. This will probably not 

 be far to seek. If it can be found among any of the wanderers in 

 India, it may well be accepted, until something better turns up, as the 

 possible origin of the greatly disputed Zingan. It is quite as plausible 

 as Dr. Miklosich's derivation from the Acingani — 'KroiyavoL — "an 

 unclean, heretical Christian sect, who dwelt in Phrygia and Lycaonia 

 from the seventh till the eleventh century," The mention of Mekran 



