ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES.

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3209, 20 September 1934, Page 3

ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES.

A PICTURESQUE PEOPLE Many facts regarding the origin and characteristics of gipsies were given by Lieutenant-Colonel C. P. Hawlces in a lecture on “Gipsy Blood,” delivered to members of the Society of Genealogists in London recently. Colonel Hawkes said that the gipsy blood might be implied in two ways, from names and from physical characteristics, and in some favourable instances from both. The name alone was poor evidence, for the gipsies had ever been shy of disclosing their true Romany names, and even lived in public for years under what they called travelling names. The most familiar gipsy names found in the British Isles, with rare exceptions, were occupational names, or names adopted by the Romany from plaje names, or those of well-known families who had befriended them. From what part of the world did this mysterious people come, homogeneous so many centuries, and in the English form of their generic name, with an implied origin in Egypt? Taking philology as a guide, they might believe that the ancestors of the present-day gipsies tarried for centuries in North-western India, in. the region of the Indus Valley, a region which they left with their faces towards the west not later than about A.D. 1000. En the twiddle Ages. There were, many indications of the existence of gipsies in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it was clear that they came into special prominence during the fifteenth century. Instances of their being regarded as Christian pilgrims were by no means exceptional. After the fifteenth century the gipsies lost more and more of their influence and position, and their right to live upon others degenerated into “masterful begging.” At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth the gipsies began to -adopt a sedentary in place of a nomadic life. House-dwelling in town and village broke down the Romany exclusiveness;, community of social and commercial interests led to inter-marriage with those who were not of gipsy blood, and there were consequently many families to-day whose members had forgotten their gipsy origin. It was among those that there still survived peculiarities of temperament and character and a physical type which pointed back to a tent-dwelling ancestry. Great aptitude for sport was another side of gipsy character, and possibly the transportation of so many gipsies to Australia last century had something to do with Australian excellence at cricket. Proud of Gipsy Strain Sussex was full of the Lees, one of the oldest gipsy clans in England. The Ilearne family of Kentish cricketers was undoubtedly of Gipsy descent. The gipsies had always been attracted to the army, and they had always excelled in sports demanding a lithe agility of body and a lightning quickness of eye and hand. While gipsy characteristics were more strongly evident and easily observed in the individual woman gipsy, if she married a “Gorgio” she failed to transmit them to her offspring, while the reverse was the case with the men; so that the name remained, and in almost all cases which he had noticed the type recurred through male descent and in families whose name indicated a possibly gipsy-origin. The gipsies were an old, mysterious, and derelict race, which persisted in surviving, even if only in its vestiges. The late Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith) was among the notable people mentioned by Colonel Hawkes as being decidedly of gipsy descent. Smith, he said, was a well-known gipsy name. Lord Birkenhead had “the sleek black hair, sallow complexion, and those peculiar eyes, which , seem to look right through you and beyond—ln fact, all the mental and physical characteristics of the gipsy, including the extraordinary love of horses.” Colonel Hawkes said he believed Lord Birkenhead’s grandmother and her husband were both pure gipsies; therefore his father was one. Lady Eleanor Smith, daughter of the late Lord Birkenhead and well known as a writer on gipsy life —she is the author of “Red Wagon”—stated in reference to Colonel Hawkes’ remarks : “It has never been definitely established that my great-grandmother was a gipsy, but my father always believed that he had some gipsy blood, and ho was very proud of it. He had a passion for horses, liked bright colours, and would sleep in a tent in the garden when the weather permitted, rather than in the house. He also adored travelling. These are tastes common to gipsies, it is true, but they are also shared by other people, so that they do not really prove anything.” >