should be to consider what are the principal nomadic tribes of gypsies in India and Persia, and how far their occupations agree with those of the Romany of Europe. That the Jãts probably supplied the main stock has been admitted. This was a bold race of Northwestern India which at one time had such power as to obtain important victories over the Caliphs. They were broken and dispersed in the eleventh century by Mahmoud, many thousands of them wandering to the West. They were without religion, "of the horse, horsey," and notorious thieves. In this they agree with the European gypsy. But they are not habitual eaters of mullo bãlor, or "dead pork"; they do not devour everything like dogs. We can not ascertain that the Jãt is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat-and basket-maker, a rope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a peddler. We do not know whether they are peculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged to old age, as do pure-blood English gypsies. All of these things are, however, markedly characteristic of certain different kinds of wanderers or gypsies in India. From this we conclude, hypothetically, that the Jãt warriors were supplemented by other tribes; chief among these may have been the Dom.
The Doms are a race of gypsies found in Central India to the far northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appear as the Domarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In "The People of India," edited by J. Forbes Watson and J. W. Kaye (India Museum, 1868), we are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms indicate a marked difference from those who surround them (in Behar). The Hindoos admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the Shastras is sopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers, they make baskets and mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white." Travelers speak of them as "gypsies." The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. A specimen which we have of their language would, with the exception of one word, which is probably an error of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English gypsy, and be called pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his wife a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective gypsydom, Domnipana. D in Hindostani is found as r in English gypsy speech—e. g., doi, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as roi. Now, in common Romany we have, even in London—
| Rom | A gypsy. |
| Romni | A gypsy wife. |
| Romnipen | Gypsydom. |
