NOMADISM, WITH SPECIAI, REFERENCE TO HEREDITY. II 



Gypsies probably originated in India, since their language is akin to 

 Sanskrit; some of them made their way into southeastern Europe, 

 and in 1 893 there were 2 75 ,000 of them in Hungary, of whom only about 

 9,000 were nomads. Rumania had over 200,000 in 1895; and the 

 other southern countries had each some thousands. Referring to their 

 early incursions into Central Europe, Gaster says: "Their inborn 

 tendency to roaming made them the terror of the peasantry and the 

 despair of every legislator who tried to settle them on land." "They 

 have no ethical principles and they do not recognize the obligations of 

 the ten commandments. There is extreme moral laxity in the rela- 

 tions of the two sexes and, on the whole, they take life easily and are 

 complete fataUsts; at the same time they are great cowards."^ Their 

 life has been set forth in fiction by Barrow, Iceland, and others, and 

 scientific archives {e. g., The Journal of the Gipsy Lore Society) con- 

 tain important results of study. 



Among the natives of America, also, numerous nomadic races 

 appeared interspersed with the non-nomadic. Such are the Muras of 

 the Amazon region, who "wander about on the banks of rivers and 

 lakes catching fish and tortoises" (Kingsley, 1885, p. 247); the Tupis, 

 who are scattered about Brazil; and numerous other native tribes of 

 South America. Many of the tribes of Indians of North America were 

 nomadic, which is why the tepee was a favorite form of dwelling. Such 

 are, or were, the Sioux, the Comanches, and other tribes of the plains 

 and mountains. 



A general consideration of the foregoing cases of nomadic tribes, only 

 a portion of all, leads to the conclusion that a wandering tendency — 

 an absence of fixed abode — ^is widespread over the globe. Indeed, it 

 might be said that fixity of abode is a relatively recent acquisition, as 

 yet found only in certain peoples in which the sedentary habit is highly 

 developed; and that, consequently, it is not to be wondered at if even 

 in a non-nomadic people like most of the Chinese, the Erench, or the 

 Swiss, the racial trait of nomadism should persist in certain families or, 

 after having been eliminated, have crept in again. In modern America, 

 which has lured to itself the restless and those in whom the love of 

 ancestral home is weak, we are not surprised to find many families 

 showing the nomadic trait. It is such that have yielded material for 

 our study. For the most part individuals of our civilization who have 

 the nomadic impulse are capable of inhibiting it to some degree, since 

 it is incompatible with the mores. But in certain individuals whose 

 inhibitory mechanism is slightly developed and in others in whom it 

 is readily paralyzed from time to time this nomadic tendency shows 

 itself. 



'In almost every case the nomadic tribes are characterized by a love of hunting — of the chase; 

 by fondness for horses, where they are available; and by a thieving propensity, or at least a lack 

 of appreciation of property rights. 



