Читать книгу Dissertation on the Gipseys - Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann - Страница 9

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On the Dress of the Gipseys.

It cannot be expected that the description of the dress of a set of people whose whole economy belongs to the class of beggars, should exhibit any thing but poverty and want. The first of them that came to Europe appeared ragged and miserable—unless we perhaps allow their leaders to have been an exception;—in like manner their descendants have continued for hundreds of years, and still remain. This is particularly remarkable in the countries about the mouth of the Danube, which abound with Gipseys; namely, Transylvania, Hungary, and Turkey in Europe, where they dress even more negligently than in other parts.

The Gipseys consider a covering for the head as perfectly useless: the wind will not easily blow his hat off, who never wears any thing of the kind, excepting when he has a mind to make a figure, and even then a rough cap usually supplies its place. During the winter, if the female Gipseys do not knit socks, which those in Moldavia and Wallachia do, with wooden needles, he winds a couple of rags round his feet, which in summer are laid aside as unnecessary. He is not better furnished with linen, as the women neither spin, sew, nor wash. For want of change, what he once puts on his body, remains till it falls off of itself. His whole dress often consists of only a pair of breeches and a torn shirt.

We are not to suppose, from what is said above, that the Gipseys are indifferent about dress; on the contrary, they love fine clothes to an extravagant degree: the want proceeds from necessity, which is become with them a second nature, forgetting that labour and care are the means to procure clothes, as well as nourishment. Whenever an opportunity offers of acquiring a good coat, either by gift, purchase, or theft, the Gipsey immediately bestirs himself to become master of it: possessed of the prize, he puts it on directly, without considering in the least, whether it suits the rest of his apparel. If his dirty shirt had holes in it as big as a barn door, or his breeches were so out of condition that one might perceive their antiquity at the first glance; were he unprovided with shoes, stockings, or a covering for the head; neither of these defects would prevent his strutting about in a laced coat, feeling himself of still greater consequence in case it happened to be a red one. Martin Kelpius therefore says, that the Gipseys in Transylvania spend all their earnings in alehouses and in clothes. It would excite laughter in the sternest philosopher, to see a Gipsey parading about, with a beaver hat, a silk or red cloth coat, at the same time his breeches torn, and his shoes or boots, if perchance he have either, covered with patches.

Benko, also, assures us, that this kind of state is common in Transylvania; and adds, the Gipseys are particularly fond of clothes made after the Hungarian fashion, or which had been worn by people of distinction. The habits and properties of the Gipseys in Hungary are precisely the same. The following passage, which appeared in the Imperial Gazettes, is very much to the purpose: “Notwithstanding these people are so wretched, that they have nothing but rags to cover them, which do not at all fit, and are scarcely sufficient to hide their nakedness, yet they betray their foolish taste and vain ostentation whenever they have an opportunity.”

In Transylvania, some of them wear the Wallachian dress; but in Hungary they are so attached to the habits of the country, that a Gipsey had rather go half naked, or wrap himself up in a sack, than he would condescend to wear a foreign garb, even though a very good one were given to him. Green is a favourite colour with the Gipseys; but scarlet is held in so great esteem by them, that a man cannot appear abroad in a red habit, though worn out, without being surrounded by a crowd old and young, who, in the open street, are solicitous to purchase of him, be it coat, pellisse, or breeches. Unless severely pinched by the cold, or in case of the greatest necessity, they will not deign to put on a boor’s coat: they rather choose to buy for their own use cast-off clothes; and if they happen to be ornamented with lace or loops, they strut about in such dresses, as proudly as if they were not merely lords of the district, but of the whole creation. Thus all the money they can spare, is expended in obtaining a sort of clothes not at all becoming their station, and which answer no other purpose, but to betray their weak silly notions, and expose them to the ridicule of the more sensible part of mankind. They do not pay the least regard to symmetry, nor care what reasonable people think of their dress: provided they can only get something shining to put on, that will catch the eye, they give themselves no concern if the rest of their clothing be very bad, or though they be nearly in a state of nudity. It is no uncommon spectacle to see a Gipsey parading the streets in an embroidered pellisse, or laced coat decorated with silver buttons, with a dirty ragged shirt, barefooted, and without a hat; or with a pair of embroidered scarlet breeches on, and perhaps no other covering but half a shirt.

Nothing pleases Hungarian Gipseys more than a pair of yellow (tschischmen) boots, and spurs: no sooner do the latter glitter on his feet, but he bridles up, and marches consequentially about, often eying his fine boots, at the same time totally regardless of his breeches, which may have lost a portion before or behind, or be in some other respects quite shabby.

The usual dress of the women is no better than that of the men; indeed they have generally been thought rather to go beyond them in filth and nastiness. Their appearance is truly disgusting to any civilised person: their whole covering consists of, either a piece of linen thrown over the head and wound round the thighs, or an old shift hung over them, through which their smoky hides appear in numberless places. Sometimes, in winter, they wrap themselves in a piece of woollen stuff like a cloak. Occasionally, their dress partakes of the other sex; as they do not hesitate to wear breeches, or other male habilament. They use the same covering for the feet as the men;—either a pair of coarse socks, knit with wooden needles, which is commonly done in Moldavia and Wallachia; or they sew them up in rags, which remain on till the stuff perishes and falls off, or till spring arrives, at which season both men and women go barefooted. [29]

The women are as fond of dress as the men, and equally ridiculous in their choice of it; they are often seen in a dress cap, while their rotten linen jacket scarcely serves to cover their nakedness. In Spain, they plaster their temples with great patches of black silk; and hang all sorts of trumpery in their ears, besides a number of baubles about the neck.

The Gipseys were at very little trouble respecting the dress of their children; these ran about naked, in the true Calmuc style, till ten years of age, when the boys got breeches, and the girls aprons. But this nuisance is at an end in the Imperial dominions, both in Germany and Hungary, where an order to suppress it was issued out by the emperor Joseph.

Before we dismiss the subject of dress, we may mention a laudable custom established among the Gipseys, in order to save their clothes when they have quarreled, and mean to fight. Before they proceed to action, a truce takes place for a minute or two, to give the combatants time to strip to their shirts, that their apparel may not suffer in the fray: then the storm breaks loose, and each lays on the other as hard as he can. The custom has this use in it, that whenever any body appears in a ragged coat, he may affirm, on his honour, that it was not rendered so in a Gipsey brawl.