FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. Q'1 



snake charmers and sorcerers, who figure in Byzantine 

 history in the ninth century under Nicephorus I (802-11) 

 and his immediate successors, and though friar Simeon 

 Siraeonis describes some nomadic rogues who wandered 

 about, living in black tents, in Crete in the fourteenth 

 century, still their recorded history can not be said to 

 antedate 1417. 



As to their origin and their path before entering 

 Europe, however, we are now pretty certain and the 

 mystery which enveloped the subject has been largely 

 cleared up. 



The great means toward learning about their past is 

 their language. This is a pure Sanskritic tongue, the 

 grammar, as it is spoken in Turkey to-day, being Aryan 

 and the vocabulary, even that which is used here on the 

 Hudson River, being directly related to the Sanskrit, in- 

 deed not further removed from that sacred language than 

 are the modern Hindustani, Bengali, and Guzerati, with 

 which Romany would have to be classed. The language 

 is of course the great proof for the Gypsies' Indian 

 origin, but when once we are on the scent their physical 

 traits, customs, traditions, superstitions form a great ad- 

 ditional mass of evidence. 



There have always been in Northern India a number 

 of tribes, perhaps only semi-Aryan, of distinctly Gypsy- 

 like characteristics. One of these tribes is the Jats, 

 formerly a race of warlike horsemen, of the northwest; 

 another the Nauts of the interior, who are wandering 

 Gypsy-like tribes. There are the Dom, Gypsies par 

 excelence, and the Persian Luri, from whom is named 

 Luristan and who are the descendants of the strolling 

 musicians whom tradition states Shankal sent Vahrahran 

 V or Behram Gour, whose land was without music or 

 song. This connection of the Luri with Vahrahran V is, 

 however, disputed by Rawlinson, who does not think 



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