Research Items

Abstract

Nomad Gypsies of Hungary BIRTH, marriage, death, are the central incidents of gypsy life in the Sárrét of Hungary, as described by Istvan Nagy of Budapest (J. Gypsy Lore Soc., Ser. 3, 19, 1–2; 1940). The Sárrét, a territory of mighty morasses at the eastern end of the great Hungarian plain, which did not begin to be drained until the middle of the nineteenth century, was peculiarly adapted to their nomadic life; but social and economic circumstances forced them to settle in the villages at the beginning of the present century. Some still tend, however, to move from village to village. The Nomad or Tent gypsies were divided into tribes (now obsolete) and clans, with a head of the tribe and head of the clan, offices which have become mere titles without power. The names of the clans are derived from trades or from famous forebears, for example, the Kolompára clan (bell-founders) and the Simonado clan, so called from a famous ancestor. Some names are totemic, as the Makara or 'fish' family and the Tsarneštyi or 'fowl' family. Each clan had its specific trade and characteristics. The Patrinara clan are horse dealers, a distinguished, proud people of deservedly high repute. The gypsies are very prolific. Ten to twelve children in a family are quite common and sometimes there may be so many as sixteen or eighteen. Marriage is by elopement; consent of the parents is given and the marriage feast held after the return from the unofficial honeymoon. It may also be a child marriage contracted by the parents, when the two fathers enter into a binding contract kneeling before a lighted candle. The bridegroom, often not six years old, leads the bride, aged about four years, to his father's house and they grow up together. Formerly, marriage was matrilocal, the man sometimes even changing his name, but now marriage is patrilocal, owing to the influence of Hungarian laws. Divorce was easy, and no great importance was attached to virginity. The death ritual shows the double influence of the desire to be free of the dead person and his spirit, and the celebration of a joyous occasion. Hence on one side the dedication of personal possessions and gifts to the dead, on the other the wake or funeral feast at which the young people are permitted considerable sexual freedom.