iad58 | Всесожжение

Ei! dórdi! chawáli. So mándi keróva kenáw? Meéro chóro pooro dad see moólo konáw. So shom te keráw te lésti koláw, so yov muktás pálla lesti?
Hótcheróva-len sor. Sórkon koováw tálla saástera kóli. Woóseróva sor dúlla ’dré o baúro paáni.
Delóva meéro lav káter mi Doóvel, yov te jal káter yov te atch odóï adré Koóshtoben, sor mi Doóvelésti chaíros.

Alas! alas! my friends. What shall I do? My poor old father is no more. What must I do with all he left behind?

I will burn them all.* Everything except those things that are of iron, and those I will cast into the deep.

God grant he may rest in peace with Him for ever.

Cuthbert Bede sent to “Notes and Queries” (2nd Ser., iii., 442), in 1857, an account of a grand funeral of a Gypsy, followed by the destruction of his property, clothes, blankets, fiddle, books, and his grindstone,—the last being thrown into the river Severn, and the others burnt.

Something about Gypsy burials.—Those who know little about Gypsies would have been astonished had they visited the encampment at Ashton, outside Birmingham, last week. Many who were led by curiosity, or “to have their fortune told,” or for some other equally good reason, to pay the Gypsy camp a visit last Wednesday, must have thought the demon of destruction possessed the nut-brown people. Men were smashing up a van, such as the Gypsies use for their residence; women were breaking chairs; children tearing up dresses, breaking crockery, and setting fire to whatever of the remains would burn; whilst the Queen of the Gypsies superintended the work. Those whose curiosity led them to inquire the reason, discovered that it is the Gypsies’ custom after a funeral to destroy everything that belonged to the deceased member of the fraternity. They had just returned from the burial of a dead sister, and straightway commenced to break up and burn everything that belonged to her. Even the horse that drew her residential van had to be shot; and the husband and children through this folly are left for a time without home comforts.—Catholic Times, Dec. 13th, 1873.
One instance came under our notice, not far from Manchester (at Cheadle), where a favourite dog of the deceased was destroyed, and its body added to the funeral pile.

*“Des verstorbenen Zigeuners Kleider, insoweit er sie nicht mil in die Erde genommen, sein Bett oder was sonst ihm zum Lager und gar Decke gedient hat, werden unter freiem Himmel verbrannt.”— Vide Liebich’s Zigeuner, p. 55.

—B.C. Smart, M.D., & H.T. Crofton:
The Dialect of the English Gypsies,
London, 1875.