Research Items

Abstract

English Gypsy Taboos.—In the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, see. 3, vol. 8, pt. 1, Mr. T. W. Thompson has some notes of gypsy uncleanness taboos additional to those published by him in 1922, which were observed by the Midland Boswells. The Locks of Bala were found to be almost as particular as the Boswells. Food and food vessels over which a woman stepped were destroyed, men's and women's clothes were not washed together, or packed together for travelling. The handling of red meat was forbidden to women at all times. Menses might not be mentioned, even to a husband. At childbirth a woman had a separate tent and separate crockery. The latter was afterwards destroyed but the tent blanket was not. A period of a week's seclusion preceded the birth, and the mother did not live with the family for a month after the event. After this period she might cook for the family once more. Among gypsies of Lee extraction, any food in which a hair was found was regarded as unfit to eat and was thrown away, while some gypsies would not eat from a plate that had touched the trodden ground of a camping-place or the floor of a tent or living waggon. Among Boswell women it was a belief that if they let down their hair it would facilitate delivery at childbirth. Hence a rule that a woman must not let down her hair where men were, or indeed anywhere but in her own hut unless she were sure that only women were about. All babies under a year old were regarded as unclean, and some gypsies would not sit down at a meal with or accept food from a couple who had very young children, while some men would not kiss or even touch their own babies. Boswells would not eat the flesh of any unweaned animal. Also, like German gypsies, they regarded a knife which had been used for slaying a horse as unclean.