[Callers] Advice about "gypsy"

[James Saxe via Callers]

Jeff Kauffman referred us to:

> http://www.jefftk.com/p/history-of-the-term-gypsy

That page mentions Playford's 1651 description of the
dance "Cuckolds all a row," which includes the directions:

    ..., goe about the Co. We. not turning your faces.
    ..., goe about your owne not turning faces.

[I'm using spelling from

     http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/playford_1651/074small.html

Jeff's page seems to have facsimilie pages of a different
edition.]

Jeff writes that

> Sharp interpreted this section as a series of whole-gips,

where "whole-gip" is a figure from Morris dancing, and noted
that this leaves us with the question of how the Morris figure
got that name.

Let me point out that the 1651 edition of Playford also
includes a dance titled "The Spanish Jeepsie" (listed as
"Spanish Jepsies" in the contents).  This dance has a similar
figure to the one in "Cuckolds all a row":

    ... go all about your We. not turning your faces. ...

In fact the second and third parts of "The Spanish Jeepsie"
have

    ... go about your own as before ...

So the figure occurs more often in that dance than it does in
"Cuckolds all a row".

I don't know of (and haven't looked for) any specific evidence
linking "The Spanish Jeepsie" to the terms "half-gip" and
"whole-gip" in Morris dancing.  I also don't know of (and
haven't looked for) any evidence linking the choreography of
"The Spanish Jeepsie" to anything that occurs in traditional
Romani dancing (or it traditional Spanish dancing).

None of this historical stuff helps with the issue of the term
"gypsy" causing offence of with the task of picking a preferable
term.  One thing I think I can safely predict is that those who
are offended by the term "gypsy" would be even more offended by
"gip" (pronounced the same as "gyp", meaning to swindle).

--Jim

> On Oct 24, 2015, at 7:32 AM, Jeff Kaufman via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 5:17 AM, Chris Page via Callers
> <callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>> "Gypsy" comes from Cecil Sharp, when he was trying to name a figure that
>> appeared in the literature of two dancers going around each other.
>> 
>> My hearsay understanding is that he named it after some Romani dances he
>> knew of where partners didn't touch each other.
>> 
> 
> Sharp called the figure "Whole-Gip" in The Country Dance Book Part II,
> and seems to have taken the name from Morris:
> 
>    The figures which occur in the course of the dances described in
> "The Dancing Master" are very varied and very numerous. With the
> exception of the Set, the Side, and the Honour, and others of a like
> character, all of which are essentially Country dance figures, I have
> been able to connect nearly all of them with similar evolutions in the
> Morris or Sword dances. The Whole-Poussette and, of course, the Roll,
> are sword-dance figures, and I believe that all those Country Dance
> figures, in which an arch is made by the joining of hands,
> handkerchiefs, or ribbons, were originally derived from the same
> source. Other evolutions such as Whole-Gip, Back-to-Back, Cross-over,
> Foot-up, Corners, etc., are familiar Morris figures.
> 
> If anyone knows where to look for how Morris dancers got "gip" I'd be
> very curious.
> 
> http://www.jefftk.com/p/history-of-the-term-gypsy
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