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A time to live,
28 Burma
The path to enlightenment
Monasticism plays a central role in
Buddhism in which it is considered to be a
means to the achievement of "enlighten¬
ment". Buddhist monks receive intensive
instruction and in the countries of south
and south-east Asia, where Theravada
Photo Ernst Scheidegger © Rapho, Paris
(Way of the Elders) Buddhismsometimes
called Hinayana (the Lesser Vehicle)
predominates, monks also dispense both
religious and lay education. Above,
Burmese monks deep in their studies.
The
UnescoCourier
A window open on the world
Editorial
MISUNDERSTOOD and maligned, the victims of
prejudice and even of persecution, Gypsies form
one of the minorities whose image has been the
most grossly distorted throughout their long and troubled
history.
Subject to pressures from other cultures which threaten
both their cohesion and their traditional way of life, the Gyp¬
sy community throughout the world is today facing new
social and cultural problems. It is therefore more than ever
vital to make known the true nature of the Gypsy identity,
of the Gypsy past and present, so that greater understanding
and closer co-operation can be established between Gypsies
and the rest of the world.
The Gypsies have established their own associations
worldwide through which they have made their voice heard
by governments and international organizations. In 1979,
the United Nations Organization, already long aware of the
problems of this as of other minorities, accorded the Romani
Union consultative status. In addition, the Association des
Etudes Tsiganes (Association for Gypsy Studies), a non¬
governmental organization associated with Unesco,
publishes Etudes Tsiganes (Gypsy Studies), a quarterly
magazine that gives international coverage to matters of in¬
terest to the Gypsy community and to the problems that it
faces.
This issue of the Unesco Courier aims to help achieve a
wider international recognition and understanding of the
Gypsy personality. The articles are written by authors who
are themselves Gypsies or who have studied them and shared
their life.
Most Gypsies refer to themselves as Rom, and this is the
designation adopted by the United Nations. However, they
are known by a variety of names in different parts of the
world: in the English-speaking world they are called Gypsies
or Romanies; in French-speaking countries, Tsiganes; in
Spanish-speaking countries Gitanos; and so on. For the sake
of clarity we have adopted these more familiar appellations
in speaking of this varied but united people.
Cover: Detail from a painting by Zbyslaw Bielecki, a Polish worker who
lives in a Gypsy community in Poland.
Photo © Joachim Swakowski, Düsseldorf
Editor-in-chief: Edouard Glissant
October 1984
37th year
Photo © Joachim Swakowski, Düsseldorf
4 The Gypsy destiny
by Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow
5 The world their homeland
by François de Vaux de Foletier
8 The Gaduliya Lohars: India's wandering blacksmiths
by Esteban Cobas Puente
11 Bridging the culture gap
by Jacqueline Charlemagne
15 The Gypsy craftsmen of Europe
by Miklós Tomka
18 The sharing, caring family
by Rosa Taikon Janush
21 'A wandering voice'
by Giulio Soravla
24 Half a million Gypsies victims of the nazi terror
by Myriam Novitch
26 From campfire to footlights
by Nikolai Slichenko
29 Flamenco... 'a taste of blood in the mouth'
by Félix Grande
32 The Gypsies of Brazil
by Atico Vilas-Boas da Mota
2 Atimetolive...
BURMA: The path to enlightenment
Published monthly in 27 languages
by Unesco,
The United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris.
English Italian Turkish Macedonian A selection in Braille is published
French Hindi Urdu Serbo-Croat quarterly in English, French, Spanish
Spanish Tamil Catalan Slovene and Korean
Russian Hebrew Malaysian Chinese
German Persian Korean Bulgarian
Arabic Dutch Swahili Greek ISSN 0041-5278
Japanese Portuguese Croato-Serb N° 10- 1984 -OPI - 84- 1 -415 A
THE GYPSY
DESTINY
BY virtue of its endurance and tenacity, the Gypsy people
has succeeded in preserving, throughout its wanderings,
its authenticity and its personality.
Its nomadism has brought it into contact with the most
diverse nations and yet it has never dissolved, nor even become
diluted. Perhaps this is because it has not taken root physically,
in earth, but in something far more profound: in a conscience,
in social and human values. Hence its journeyings throughout
the world remain, through all its vicissitudes, a movement of
continuity and fidelity. For these two reasons, the history of
this people which is so original and, perhaps, by virtue of its
historic trajectory, the most international, is of particular in¬
terest to Unesco because it strikingly illustrates some of the
great principles on which Unesco's action is based.
Unesco seeks to encourage recognition of cultural identity for
all nations and for all communities, to promote relations bet¬
ween cultures, and to broaden as far as possible the dialogue
between civilizations. For Unesco there can be no such thing as
a culture of secondary importance. Whatever its political,
economic or numerical power, every people has the absolute
right to free itself from ethnic or linguistic discrimination of
whatever kind, to achieve recognition and respect for its own
values. No hierarchy can be established between majority
cultures and minority cultures, for the seemingly most humble
and least-known culture may enshrine truths which are
necessary to all the rest.
Thus universality and cultural specificity are for Unesco two
complementary notions. The destiny of the Gypsy people is ex
emplary, affirming as it does the permanence of its culture
through its place in different societies.
As an African, I cannot but add to these general considera¬
tions a number of more personal observations on the oral tradi¬
tion and the precious values of a nomad culture.
The oral tradition has made a strong contribution to the
vitality of African nations, preserving their soul and steadfastly
sustaining their dignity. The oral tradition which is at the heart
of the Gypsy culture may likewise have sheltered it from the
assaults of history. Preciously transmitted from generation to
generation along paths which recall the initiation methods com¬
mon to all traditional cultures, it has in large measure enabled
the Gypsies to remain true to themselves.
Nomadism, also widespread in the African Sahel, in close
proximity to farmers who are most deeply rooted in the soil, ex¬
ists in a relationship of mutual exchange and sometimes of sym¬
biosis with the sedentary communities and has, too, been a
guarantee of cultural authenticity and independence.
It can therefore be said, without fear of paradox, that the
Gypsies, "these wanderers over all the earth", are, in terms of
the ethical and aesthetic landmarks which guide them, one of
the most stable of peoples.
Thus, thanks to its fidelity to itself, this people crowned with
the halo of legend remains an authentic people, the subject of
its own history. Even if its way of life is destined to change,
there is no doubt that its tradition will last, a source of moral
values, a rule of life, an inexhaustible inspiration for a culture
which offers an outstandingly original contribution to the rest
of humanity.
©
The world their homeland
by François de Vaux de Foletier
FOR centuries the origins of the
Gypsies were shrouded in mystery.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
these bands of dark-skinned nomads with
strange habits aroused the curiosity of
sedentary populations, and many writers
constructed a variety of often far-fetched
hypotheses in an attempt to explain the
enigma.
In the nineteenth century, although scien¬
tific investigation had already provided the
answer, the most fantastic myths were still
being made.
This jumble of ingenious superstitions
and shaky hypotheses did not survive
serious study of the language of the Gyp¬
sies. As early as Renaissance times scholars
had some notions of this language, but they
did not connect it to any linguistic group
nor locate the area in which it originated. At
the end of the eighteenth century, however,
scholars were able to determine the origin
of the Gypsies on the basis of scientific
evidence.
Since then eminent linguists have con¬
firmed the analyses of these early scholars.
The grammar and vocabulary of the
language of the Gypsies are close to those of
Sanskrit and to such living languages as
Kashmiri, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and
Nepali.
Modern scholars no longer doubt that the
Gypsies originated in India, but many
problems concerning ethnic group, social
class, and the period of their earliest migra¬
tions still need to be elucidated.
Linguistics is the discipline best able to
locate the origin of the Gypsies, but an¬
thropology, medical science and ethnology
also have a contribution to make.
. Documentation on the period that may
be called "the prehistory of the Gypsies" is
extremely limited. The writers of ancient
India were only interested in gods and
kings, and paid scant attention to the
people known as the Zott, the Jat, the Luli,
the Nuri, or the Dom.
From the time of their first migrations
westwards we have somewhat more ac¬
curate information about the Gypsies,
primarily in the form of two Persian texts in
which legend and history are mingled.
Writing in the mid-tenth century AD, Hamza
of Isfahan describes the arrival of 12,000
Zott musicians in Persia. The same story
was told half a century later by the Persian
chronicler and poet Ferdowsi, the author of
The Epic of the Kings.
The story may be to a large extent legend¬
ary, but it informs us that there were many
Gypsies from India in Persia; they were
already noted as musicians, allergic to
agriculture, inclined to nomadism and
somewhat given to pilfering.
These are the only ancient texts to speak
of the wanderings of the Gypsies across
Asia;'the story can be filled out by linguistic
evidence.
In Persia the Gypsies enriched their .
vocabulary with words which would later
be found in all the European dialects. Then,
according to the British linguist John
Sampson, they split into two branches.
Some continued on their way towards the
west and the southeast, the others headed
northwest. The latter journeyed through
«* MB» i
iÄ fl î-a'
Armenia (where they picked up a few words
which have been preserved as far away as
Wales but which were not known to the first
branch) and through the Caucasus where
they borrowed words from the Ossetes.
Finally they reached Europe and the
Byzantine world. From then on texts refer¬
ring to the Gypsies are more numerous,
especially the accounts of western travellers
on their way to the Holy Land.
In 1322 two Friars Minor, Simon Simeonis
and Hugh the Enlightened, noted
the presence in Crete of people who were
considered to belong to the race of Ham;
they observed Greek Orthodox rites and
lived in low black tents like the Arabs or in
caves. In Greece they were known as
Atkinganos or Atsinganos, from the name
of a sect of musicians and fortune-tellers.
Modon, a fortified town and leading port
on the west coast of Morea, was an impor¬
tant port of call on the voyage from Venice
to Jaffa and the main centre where Gypsies
were observed by western travellers. "As
black as Ethiopians", they tended to be
metalsmiths and to live in huts. The place
was called "little Egypt" perhaps because,
like the Nile delta, it was a fertile area in the
midst of dry terrain. This is why the Gypsies
of Europe came to be known as Egyptians,
Gitans, or Gypsies. Their leaders would
often be called Dukes or Counts of Little
Egypt.
Greece was a source of new words for the
Gypsies but above all the presence of a host
of pilgrims from all the countries of
Christendom revealed to them new ways of
living. The Gypsies realized that pilgrims
enjoyed the status of privileged travellers
and when they took to the road again they
also succeeded in passing themselves off as
pilgrims.
After a long stay in Greece and such
neighbouring countries as the Romanian
According to a Hungarian saying "A
Gypsy without a horse is not a real
Gypsy". Throughout Europe, from the
Bosphorus to the Atlantic, Gypsies have
thrived on trading In horses. Even today,
for a Gypsy, a horse is not just a mount,
a beast ofburden ora commodity for sale,
but also a true friend. Above, a Gypsy
shows off his horse 's paces in the streets
of Appleby, In Westmorland, England,
during the annual horse fair, one of the
most famous In the world.
principalities and Serbia, many Gypsies
continued their journey westward. In pro¬
vinces which had been fought over, cap¬
tured and recaptured many times over by
Byzantine and Turkish armies, their situa¬
tion was not a comfortable one. Evidence
that this was so can be found in the ac¬
counts they produced later in their exodus,
when attempting to win the confidence of
the spiritual or temporal authorities. They
would tell how, after leaving Egypt, they
were at first pagan but were then converted
to Christianity, lapsing back into idolatry
before becoming Christian again under
pressure from monarchs; they were forced,
they said, to make a long pilgrimage
throughout the world.
In 1418 large bands passed through
Hungary and Germany, where the Emperor
Sigismund agreed to give them letters of
protection. They appeared in Westphalia,
in the free cities of the north, and on the
shores of the Baltic, then turned south
once again and travelled to Leipzig
and Frankfurt-am-Main before entering
Switzerland.
In 1419 they crossed the frontiers of what
is now France. It is known that they showed
passports from the Emperor and the Duke
of Savoy at Châtillon-en-Dombes on 22
August, at Macon two days later, and at
Sisteron on 1 October. Three years later
other groups visited the Low Countries,
provoking the astonishment of the citizens
of Arras. But there as at Macon it was ex¬
plained to them that they were on land
belonging to the king and that their imperial
letters of protection were of no value.
They now realized that if they were to
continue freely on their travels through the
Christian world they would need to prove
that they enjoyed a form of protection of
universal validitythat of the Pope. In
July 1492 Duke André passed through
Bologna and Forli with a large retinue,
declaring that he was on his way to see the
Pope.
However, neither the Roman chronicles
nor the Vatican archives contain any trace
of this visit to the capital of the Christian
world.
Nevertheless, on their return the Gypsies
described how they had been received by the
Pope, and presented letters from Martin V.
Were they authentic? Whether they were or
not, for more than a century the papal let¬
ters ensured for the Egyptian companies an
extremely favourable reception and enabled
them to go wherever they wished.
In August 1427, the Gypsies appeared for
the first time at the gates of Paris, then oc¬
cupied by the English. For three weeks they
encamped at La Chapelle-Saint-Denis,
where crowds of the curious flocked to see
them.
Certain untoward episodes took place; it
was said that purses disappeared while
crafty sorcerers were reading palms. The
bishop of Paris reprimanded the credulous
and superstitious faithful. The Egyptians
were forced to move on and took the road
to Pontoise.
Soon these companies had travelled the
length and breadth of France. Some of
them then crossed into Aragon and
Catalonia, maintaining that they were on
the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
They traversed Castile and journeyed to
Andalusia where Gypsy counts and dukes
were splendidly treated by the former con¬
stable and chancellor of Castile, count
Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, in his castle at
Jaen.
Several authors have maintained without
the slightest evidence that the Gypsies
reached Andalusia from Egypt after sailing
along the coast of Africa. Yet the Spanish
Gypsies had no Arabic words in their
vocabulary, and their itinerary was fully in¬
dicated: on their arrival in Andalusia they
claimed the protection of the Pope, the
King of France and the King of Castile.
In Portugal the Ciganos are first men¬
tioned in literary texts at the beginning of
the sixteenth century. Around the same
time Egyptians were landing in Scotland
and England; the route they had taken is
not known. Perhaps they attracted less at¬
tention than they had on their early stays in
Germany, France and the Low Countries,
for since time immemorial there had been
tinkers in the British Isles whose way of life
was similar to that of the Gypsies.
The Egyptians who settled in Ireland had
a much harder time. The tinkers who were
already there in large numbers considered
the newcomers as rivals and did all they
could to repel them.
Count Antoine Gagino of Little Egypt
arrived in Denmark in 1505 on a Scottish
vessel. He had been expressly recommended
to King John of Denmark by James IV of
Scotland. On 29 September 1512, a Count
Antonius, who is almost certainly the same
person, solemnly entered Stockholm to the
great amazement of the inhabitants.
The first Egyptians to appear in Norway,
in 1544, did not enjoy the same
recommendations. They were prisoners
whom the English had got rid of by forcibly
embarking them. Just as their compatriots
had found an indigenous population of
tinkers in England and Scotland, the
Experts today are all agreed that the
Gypsies originated in the Indian sub¬
continent, although they are less sure of
the date (generally thought to be around
1000 AD) when they began their long
migration westwards. The Gypsies were
to spread across the whole ofEurope and
eventually throughout the entire world.
Below, the village of Kadlrpur (Pakistan),
near the left bank of the Indus river.
During their long sojourn In Greece,
where they lived In a region known as
"little Egypt" (hence the names, "Egyp¬
tians", "Gitans" and "Gypsies", by
which they became known in Europe), the
Gypsies noticed that the pilgrims whom
they saw passing through on their way to
the Holy Land enjoyed a special status as
privileged travellers. Later, as they
travelled westward, the Gypsies often
passed themselves off as pilgrims. Thus,
the first leaders from Little Egypt to set
out for Spain, In the 15th century,
declared that they were going on a
pilgrimage to Compostela. Above, the
cathedral shrine of Santiago de Com¬
postela, In north-western Spain; wood¬
cut dating from 1491 by the German artist
Michael Wohlgemuth (1434-1519).
Gypsies who landed in Norway came upon
the itinerant Fanter.
Some groups of Gypsies emigrated from
Sweden to Finland and Estonia. Around
the same time, the kingdom of Poland and
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania welcomed
the "mountain Gypsies" from Hungary
and the "plains Gypsies" from Germany.
Around 1501 Gypsy bands were travel¬
ling in the south of Russia; others were
crossing from Poland to the Ukraine. Final¬
ly, in 1721, the Gypsies of the Polish plain
reached Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia.
They declared their intention of going to
China, but the governor did not allow them
to continue their journey.
©
Over the centuries Gypsies have used a
variety ofcarts and tents for travelandac¬
commodation, but It was not until the
middle of the 19th century, In England,
that the true caravan, or Vardo, first ap¬
peared. Although today many caravans
are motorized, the horse-drawn caravan
Is still In use In many countries. Between
about 1875 and 1920, an elaborate type of
living van, the "Reading Van", which
became very popular, was built In
England at Reading, In Berkshire. The
more luxurious vans, such as the model
depicted above, were richly ornamented
with decorative carvings.
Thus between the fifteenth and the eigh¬
teenth centuries all the countries of Europe
had received Gypsies. But although they
settled as far afield as the colonies of Africa
and America, they did not do so entirely of
their own volition.
Spain sent a number of Gypsies across
the Atlantic, followed by Portugal which,
from the end of the sixteenth century on¬
wards, deported large numbers of Ciganos
to Angola, to Sao Tomé, to Cape Verde,
and above all to Brazil.
In the seventeenth century, Gypsies were
sent from Scotland to Jamaica and Bar¬
bados to work on the plantations, and in the
eighteenth century to Virginia.
In the reign of Louis XIV, Gypsies con¬
demned to penal servitude were released on
the order of the king on condition that they
went to the "islands of America". Bohe¬
mians figured among the colonists recruited
by the Compagnie des Indes for the ex¬
ploitation of Louisiana. Like other col¬
onists they were given houses in New
Orleans. A century later their descendants
who had settled in Biloxi in Louisiana still
expressed themselves in French.
Since the beginning of the nineteenth cen¬
tury large numbers of Gypsy families have
freely emigrated from Europe to America.
They may be found in Canada, in Califor¬
nia, in the suburbs of New York and
Chicago, in Mexico, in central America and
further south, in Argentina and Chile. They
practise virtually the same occupations as
they do in Europe, follow the same rites,
and feel at home wherever they find
themselves, for the place where they happen
to be becomes their homeland.
FRANCOIS DE VAUX DE FOLETIER,
French archivist and historian, is a former
director of the archives of the Seine and of the
city of Paris. A student of Gypsy history, he
has also lived among Gypsies and accom¬
panied them on their pilgrimages. Among his
many published works on the Gypsies are
Mille Ans d'Histoire des Tsiganes (1970) and
Les Bohémiens au XIX» Siècle (1981). The
present article has been extracted from his
latest book. Le Monde des Tsiganes, publish¬
ed by Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1983.
The Gaduliya Lohars: India's
RESEARCH in linguistics, anthropo¬
metrics, ethnology, and other fields
has conclusively established the
Indo-Aryan origin of the Gypsies. But the
precise nature of the kinship between the
Gypsies as we know them in different parts
of the world and the various groups which
live in northwestern India has not yet been
determined. One nomadic group, the
Gaduliya Lohars of Rajastan, has attracted
attention from Indian and European
specialists because of the many similarities
observed between its members and those of
other groups which have been studied in
Europe. These similarities occur in
language, family and social structures,
dress, and certain forms of popular
literature and folklore.
Lohar means "smith", and Gaduliya is
the name given to the distinctive type of ox¬
cart used by this group. The term Gaduliya
Lohar may thus be translated as "wander¬
ing smith", as distinct from the sedentary
Hindu smiths belonging to the maru and
malviya castes who live in the same region.
This dual status of smith and nomad deter
mines their place in India's complex social
system.
Rajastan is the region of origin of the
Gaduliya Lohars, and they claim to belong
to the famous Rajput group. Many orally
transmitted accounts agree on this point.
The present-day Gaduliya Lohars are
descended from groups which served the
Rajput princes, for whose armies they made
and serviced weapons. Consequently, they
enjoyed special esteem and consideration
until 1567-1568, when the repeated assaults
of the emperor Akhbar overcame the
seasoned defenders of the Fort of Chittorgarh,
bringing the Rajput dynasty to an
end.
The defeat of the arms manufactured by
them was felt by the Lohars as a serious
blow to their reputation, and they swore to
give up this traditional activity until the
dishonour was repaired, devoting
themselves in the meantime to the peaceful
manufacture of domestic utensils and
agricultural implements. In order to avoid
conflict with smiths belonging to other
castes who were already established in the
large centres of population, they decided to
take to the roads and serve towns and
villages far from the main highways.
To cover the great distances involved, it
was necessary to adapt the traditional cart
of the region and create a modelthe
gaduliyathat would meet their new re¬
quirements. This model, created in the six¬
teenth century, can still be seen today on the
roads of northern India. The original size
and layout of the interior, used to store
utensils, tools, and food, have not changed,
although nowadays the cart is used only for
transport and no longer as a dwelling as in
the case of other nomad groups.
The gaduliya is made from kikar (Acacia
Arabica) wood, and is stronger and heavier
than other types of cart. Its peculiar
features are the thalia and the pheechla.
The former is a fairly spacious triangular
chest which forms the forepart of the cart.
The middle and rear parts, which are un¬
covered, constitute the pheechla, to which
side panels are attached. The carts are built
wandering blacksmiths *»***« o*»»*«»
only by a small number of craftsmen who
are established at Gangura for the north
and west of the region, and at Barmer for
the south and east.
The side panels, or pankhalas, the out¬
side of the chest, and the wheels, are the
only surfaces which the owner can decorate
to give a distinctive aspect to his gaduliya.
This decoration consists of bronze plates
fixed to the wood. Those whjch cover the
side panels are invariably divided into four
sections, each containing sixteen compart¬
ments, and it is by means of the motif
chosen to decorate each of these compart¬
ments that the family gives a distinctive ap¬
pearance to its vehicle. These motifs include
squares, lozenges, stars and stylized
flowers. The long shaft by which the oxen
are attached to the cart is decorated with
plaited strips of buffalo hide.
The gaduliya is the real centre of family
life. All the family belongings are stored
there according to an unchanging order. In
< This young Gaduliya Lohar is wearing,
suspended from the black cord around
his neck, an amulet in honour of Ramdeo-
Jl, a protective divinity who bestows
health, prosperity, fertility and hap¬
piness. He Is also wearing the men's ear¬
rings known as murki and, unusually, at
top of his left ear, an organia, a piece of
women's jewellery. The woman at his
side is wearing ivory and silver bracelets,
betokening her married status. On her ear
can be seen the mark left by a heavy silver
ring, which, like all these Jewels, is used
as security in borrowing and lending.
Traditionally the Gaduliya Lohars use
goatskin bellows to stoke the fire of their
open-air forge, but today some of them
have adopted instead the more
sophisticated mechanical devices used
by sedentary craftsmen, such as this
bicycle wheel attached to a pulley and
turned by the smith's wife or daughter
using the pedal as a handle. In
background is the Gaduliya, the waggon
from which this group of Indian nomads
takes its name. The Gaduliya's design
has not changed since the 16th century.
Decorative motifs on the rectangular side
panels are the family's distinctive
emblem.
the triangular chest in front, the small door
of which can be locked for security, are kept
cash, jewels when not being worn by the
women, gold, sweetmeats, solidified butter,
needles and thread, the looking-glass, kohl
and other cosmetics. In a word, the thalia is
the family treasure chest. In the open part
of the vehicle sacks of rice, lentils and flour
are placed in the centre, while domestic
utensils are placed on one side and the
smith's tools on the other. The family
clothing is stored between the sacks and the
thalia.
As soon as a camp has been established,
family life takes place exclusively around
and under the cart; matting provides pro¬
tection from sun and rain.
The new activities of the Lohars after the
defeat of Chittorgarh must have been in¬
fluenced by the nature of the environment
in which they found themselves. They must
have had to devise a balanced economic
system based on the relationship between
man and nature, between the natural and
the artificial in a region like Rajastan where
natural conditions and features can vary
sharply from area to area and from season
to season. For instance, the rainy season
puts a stop to nomadism, and so fixed camp
sites were established for the Lohar groups.
Even today the Lohars still stay at these
sites, known as thiya, every year from mid-
May to mid-September. The period from
May to July is devoted to rest, visits, wed¬
dings, and meetings of the group's ruling
council. From July to September visits are
made to local livestock fairs to purchase
draught animals.
The remaining eight months are spent
travelling, according to a pattern which has
not changed since the sixteenth century and
which enables each group to cover a par¬
ticular part of the region. Every group has
established relations with the peasants in its
area, and these relations have been kept up
by both sides for generations.
Life for the Gaduliya Lohars is lived
mainly within the group. They do not stay
long in populated centres. Much of their
time is spent travelling, and contacts with
individual peasants or peasant groups tend
to be brief. This explains how they have
managed to preserve their customs un¬
changed since they decided over 300 years
ago to devote themselves to the service of
agriculture. Their style of dress, their
jewellery, even the men's hairstyles, have
scarcely changed over the centuries. The
same goes for their family customs, and
their birth, wedding and funeral rites.
In the cultural mosaic of India, the
Gaduliya Lohars occupied a distinctive
place in Rajastan; they were accepted as an
essential factor in the region's social and
economic structure. They were not in com¬
petition with sedentary smiths. Each group
had its own clientele. This situation prevail¬
ed for more than 300 years until in this, cen¬
tury large-scale industry began to alter the
pattern of India's economy.
The impact was such that many groups of
Gaduliya Lohars were obliged to abandon
their traditional circuits and sought new
customers in other areas. It was a severe test
for a nomadic smith to have to compete
with other nomadic or sedentary smiths
from neighbouring areas, to give up old
connexions, and above all to face the risk of
coming into contact with other cultural
models which were powerful enough to
undermine his group's stability. The roads
westward lead to the desert regions of the
Sind, which are ill-siyted to agriculture.
The only practicable route led eastwards,
where lay prosperity and promise. Many
groups migrated in this direction; others
stuck obstinately to the old circuits. The lat¬
ter have suffered greatly from the changes
which the invasion of the market by massdistributed
industrial products has brought
to the region's economy.
During the past two or three decades at¬
tempts have been made by the authorities to
solve the problem. As in other times and in
many other places, the solution propos'ed
was the sedentarization of the nomad. The
Indian sociologist Professor Satia Pal
Ruhela, a leading authority on the Gaduliya
Blacksmiths at work. The anvil Is a cube
of steel which, as the home of Lakshml,
goddess of wealth, Is Invested with divine
powers. The family's most precious
possession, the anvil must never be lent
to others nor used for any other purpose
than metalwork. The head of the family,
crouched beside the anvil, uses a small
hammercalled a hatoda. Contrary to what
Is shown In this photo, It Is usually the
wife who stands in front of her husband
and wields the large hammer, the ghan.
Her place may be taken by her daughter
but never by daughters-in-law, who are
not allowed to work at the forge.
Lohars, has made a detailed study of of¬
ficial plans for "rehabilitation" by means
of "colonies" established on permanent
sites -in the territory. He explains why most
of these attempts have failed. He found
evidence of ignorance or neglect of the
psychological factors inherent in the
nomadic character of the group, as well as
of the mythological factors associated with
the dwelling and the workshop. Above all,
the balance of a number of social and
cultural factors such as the internal co¬
hesion of the groups and families was
destroyed by their dispersal and by in¬
discriminate distribution of land in an at¬
tempt to transform them into farmers
overnight.
Other Gaduliya Lohar groups which have
gradually decided to modify and extend
their circuits have entered into direct con¬
tact with other cultures and groups, and
learned new techniques from them which
have enabled them to improve and even ex¬
pand their production of handmade goods,
to their economic advantage.
The acculturation process which is an in¬
evitable consequence of these contacts is
reflected in a number of changes in the life
style of the Gaduliya Lohars, some of
which are very striking. The style of dress,
especially for women, has been changing,
becoming adapted to the new environment.
Men, too, are changing their appearance
by, for instance, adopting a less traditional
hairstyle.
Faced with a hard struggle for survival,
those who have remained faithful to the
traditional circuits are also finding it dif¬
ficult to preserve all their traditions,
whether they be the decoration of their
vehicles or the feasts and ceremonies of
their traditional calendar. The situation is
one which is not, unfortunately, confined
to the Gaduliya Lohars. A social group is
faced with a terrible dilemma when it has to
decide whether to remain faithful to its
traditions and risk the very survival of its
members as a group, or to abandon these
traditions and expose itself to all the risks of
acculturation but ensure a level of
economic well-being that satisfies its
members' needs.
The solution does not seem to lie in either
of the two relentless alternatives to con¬
tinue being Gaduliya Lohars and die slow¬
ly, or to cease being Gaduliya Lohars and
survive. Between these two extremes there is
a broad area full of possibilities which
should be explored and exploited in order to
save the cultural identity of those concern¬
ed. The benefit will not be for them alone.
When a social group prospers and lives an
active life, the whole of society benefits
thereby.
ESTEBAN COBAS PUENTE, of Cuba, is a
member of the Association des Etudes
Tsiganes (Association for Gypsy Studies), a
non-governmental organization associated
with Unesco, whose membership consists of
researchers from many disciplines. This article
is based on a study made for the Association
on the Gaduliya Lohars (itinerant blacksmiths)
of India. Since 1969 he has been studying the
Sinti Gypsies of northern Italy, in particular the
semi-sedentary communities of the Milan
region.
Bridging the culture gap
by Jacqueline Charlemagne
Even among families that have adopted
the sedentary life of the town, young Gyp¬
sy girls, whose main ambition seems to
be to leave home and get married, are
obliged to spend much of their time at
household tasks and In looking after their
younger brothers and sisters. Among
nomadic families, Gypsy girls, like this
one (above) In a Gypsy encampment In
Greece, work even harder and longer at
these tasks.
THE wide diversity of the groups of
which the Gypsy people is composed
emerges strongly from the variety of
names given to them, none of which defines
them fully and precisely.
In France today the word Gitan is com¬
monly used to designate all Gypsy and
nomadic people, whereas the Gitans are ac¬
tually a highly specific ethnic group whose
migrations culminated in Spain and
southern France. Non-Gypsies, or gadje,
sometimes simply refer to these people
whose social organization is based on travel
as "travellers".
Apart from the Gypsies, who are
themselves divided into ethnic groups and
sub-groups (Rom, Manush or Sinti,
Gitans), there are the Yenish who are said to
have come from Germanic Europe, and
other groups which also lead a nomadic life
but which are difficult to categorize.
11
Home for a Gypsy is wherever he or she
happens to be, whether crossing the
marshlands of the Camargue, In southern
France, in a donkey-drawn traditional
caravan (far right), in a gleaming new
caravan fitted with all modern con¬
veniences on the outskirts of an English
town (centre right), sheltering from the
winter cold in a cave In Yugoslavia (op-
Various groups of Gypsies can also be
distinguished from one another by dif¬
ferences in their life-styles. In France,
where more than half the Gypsies are still
nomadic, some are great travellers, while
others restrict their movements to a region
or even to a département (county).
The Gypsies practise various trades, but
their activities remain traditional: tinning,
basket-making, collecting scrap metal,
music. In addition, they often have a
seasonal activity, such as grape-picking and
the harvesting of fruit and vegetables. The
travellers are also itinerant vendors, pedlars
and hawkers, shop-keepers and craftsmen.
Few of them are salaried workers.
Their living conditions also vary. The
caravan is the most common form of dwell¬
ing used by the travellers. As for those who
lead a sedentary life, most of them (apart
from a small minority who live like the sur¬
rounding population) are to be found in
temporary settlements established on the
outskirts of large cities, on waste land or in
shanty towns, their caravans immobilized.
Though most of these wanderers move
about by caravan, some use waggons. The
Rom also often travel by train. Other forms
of shelter are the tent (older even than the
caravan), the cave (as in Spain), and huts
made of branches. The travellers sometimes
buy houses but as a rule do not live in them.
Those who have become sedentary
sometimes live in deplorable conditionsin
shanty towns, old railway carriages, or in¬
salubrious huts. In central and eastern
Europe, where sedentary life is often com¬
pulsory, they concentrate together in streets
and districts.
These groups of people who left India
centuries ago and scattered throughout the
world have always maintained their identi¬
ty; but even more than the Gypsies' own
conscious efforts, the attitude of the people
among whom they lived has kept them
apart. What are the common traits which
make it possible to speak of a specific Gyp¬
sy identity? They are not to be found in the
Gypsies' life style, as we have seen, nor in
their dwellings, their travelling habits, their
dialect, their way of dressing, their rites.
Over and above these customs that vary
from group to group and from country to
country, the Gypsy feels a desire to be a
Gypsy in a non-Gypsy society and to adopt
forms of behaviour that stress his specifici¬
ty. More than a common "Gypsyness"
shared by all members of the group, a
culture gap separates Gypsies from the rest
of the community, whatever their country
or place of residence.
For centuries groups of Gypsies were
regarded merely as wanderers eking out a
posite page), In a shanty-town, or In a
prefabricated building in Avignon
specially provided for them by the local
authorities (right). Throughout their long
history the Gypsies have developed the
ability to adapt which has enabled them
to cope with the vicissitudes that face a
marginalized minority.
living from begging or larceny, or
sometimes as slaves fit to be worked to
death, as recorded in certain tales from
Hungary and Romania. The "Bohemians"
whose task it was to entertain noblemen
were treated somewhat better, but their
position was precarious and it was con¬
sidered compromising to mix with them.
The authorities viewed with suspicion these
wanderers on whom it was impossible to
keep a check.
The traditional activities of the itinerant
Gypsy pedlar, chairmender, sometimes a
kind of sorcerer were easier to practise in
rural communities before the twentieth cen¬
tury. Today, the development of transport
has encouraged sedentary trade by ensuring
the rapid supply of a wide variety of goods
at fixed prices established in advance. In
this context the Gypsies are reduced to
eking out a living on the fringes of society
and they regard this precarious existence as
a loss of their collective and individual
identity.
Despite official statements calling for
understanding between cultures, in¬
tolerance seems to be the rule, with the host
community jealously guarding its own
values as the Gypsies look to their past for
ways of resisting what they regard as the
destruction of their personality.
The Gypsies' legal status encourages this
feeling of insecurity. In France, special
travel documents were established by the
law of 3 January 1960: a circulation book
for those who have a regular professional
activity, and a circulation record for French
and other nationals who practise no regular
craft or trade or industrial activity and have
no regular income. The latter document has
to be presented to the authorities every
month. Moreover, persons with no fixed
place of residence have to register with a
local authority. The right to set up camp,
which in theory is freely recognized, is in
fact strictly regulated.
One thing emerges from all these regula¬
tions: the characteristics of the travelling
people that are perceived by sedentary
society are those which contrast with that
society, and the socio-cultural identity of
the Gypsies is never considered except when
it creates a problem for the community.
Elsewhere in western Europe, and in the
United States, legislators show a similar
concern for assimilating the Gypsies and
regulations regarding them are equally ar¬
bitrary. In Belgium, the concept of an "in¬
determinate nationality" deprives the Gyp¬
sies of many rights. In Spain, persecutions
have never ceased since the Pragmatic Sanc¬
tions enacted by the kings. In the Federal
Republic of Germany, the Gypsies have still
not been able to obtain the compensation
provided by law for the victims of Nazi
persecution. In the Nordic countries where,
for the same reasons as in the rest of
Europe, the Gypsies' living conditions are
not always favourable, a special effort has
been made by the authorities in the field of
literacy work and schooling.
In eastern Europe, since the advent of
socialism, the "social problem" of the
Gypsies has been solved through their
gradual adoption of sedentary life. But
special facilities have been granted to
enable them to preserve their cultural
heritage.
In many countries the Gypsies have been
forgotten by social policy-makers. Under
French law, for example, regular school at¬
tendance is obligatory for Gypsy or nomad
children, and the payment of family
allowances is linked to the child's record in
this respect. Compulsory education thus in¬
creases the Gypsy population's dependence
on national insurance benefits. The school¬
ing of Gypsy children leaves much to be
desired: the lack of suitably adapted pro¬
grammes and specially trained teachers, a
lack of interest on the part of parents who
fear a break with traditional values, and re¬
jection by the surrounding community have
led to illiteracy and a low level of scholastic
achievement among most of these children.
Housing also contributes to enclosing the
Gypsies in a separate system, even when
they have become sedentary. Families
relodged in low-rent housing units have
often lost their traditional social structure,
for in such a situation the clan can no longer
perform its controlling and socializing
functions and is no longer a focus for iden¬
tity. Traditional activities also change: it
has become more difficult for families to
find sufficient space to collect and sort
scrap metal, for example.
For nomadic families, the caravan has a
great cultural and symbolic importance.
Yet the law offers no facilities for caravandwellers:
credit establishments reject re¬
quests for loans, basing their refusal on the
lack of sufficient guarantees, for a caravan
is not regarded as a dwelling. Families
whose caravan has been damaged or is out
of commission and therefore unfit for the
road simply have to stop travelling. Lack of .
money makes it impossible for them to take
to the road again; all they can do is solve
their subsistence problems on a day to day '
basis in the sedentary conditions that have
been forced on them. Camping areas
created with the avowed purpose of pro¬
moting nomadism become a kind of ghetto
for families which find it hard to abandon
itinerant life.
12
Photo Joseph Koudelka © Magnum, Paris Photo H.W. Silvester <£> Rapho, Hans
j^bH
'ir
*
j
'^; 1 Ivfttf *"* «*3T
4 ^^
idfl
\.
fi
\i
^ How do young Gypsies face up to the
hard daily confrontation with the non-
Gypsy community? Failure at school, de¬
viance and a crisis of identity are the sorry
paths offered by a society which has shown
itself incapable of giving its most deprived
members a chance to overcome their
handicaps.
These young people show a growing
disaffection for school many of them do
not know how to read or write. After the
age of fourteen none of them continues in
school: the boys, at a loose end, become
great "consumers" of television pro¬
grammes, cassettes, and motor cycles, while
the girls are kept busy with household jobs
or looking after younger brothers and
sisters. To all intents and purposes they take
no part in the activities of the youth centres,
cultural associations and other organiza¬
tions serving the general community which
they regard as expressions of the dominant
culture.
When these young Gypsies are asked
about their plans for the future, the boys
answer "I want to pass my driving test" and
"travel", while the girls say they want to
"leave the family" and "get married".
These replies are indicative of the strong in¬
fluence still exercised by tradition, and a
desire to perpetuate tradition through
"family travel".
Indeed most young Gypsies feel strongly
that they belong to a cultural minority
whose values are as important as those of
the non-Gypsy community. This leads to a
certain pride which expresses itself in a nar¬
cissistic concern for dress. But the Gypsy
identity to which these young people cling is
no longer the same as that of their elders.
Though the general framework remains the
same, and the way of life and even the
language are preserved, relations imposed
by the social policy and increasingly coer¬
cive regulations of the dominant society in¬
evitably introduce alien elements. This
onslaught of contradictory influences
alienates them increasingly from their own
culture with the result that they are drawn
towards other underprivileged groups with
which it is possible to organize exchanges or
to become integrated.
Does this mean, as some people main¬
tain, that we are witnessing the last flickerings
of the Gypsies' centuries-old resistance
to assimilation? It may be so, unless we suc¬
ceed in finding a meeting place between the
two cultures, a way of reconciling two dif¬
ferent worlds, before the gap becomes too
wide to bridge.
Present trends which encourage par¬
ticularisms of all kinds and the publicity
given to statements by minority groups
have given rise to cultural demands such as
the rehabilitation of regional languages,
festivals and traditional costumes. As far as
the Gypsies are concerned, the growing
number of people of Gypsy origin showing
an interest in their past and their language,
as well as the large number of publications
on the Gypsy question and the interventions
of certain Gypsies in the press, on radio
and in public life in generalall this in¬
dicates beyond a shadow of a doubt that
"something is happening". Morever, the
growing number of social and cultural
associations created by the Gypsies
themselves is another example of the revival
of Gypsy self-awareness.
Associations with a political colouring,
such as the International Gypsy Commit¬
tee, are older still. It is not surprising that
the Gypsies should choose an international
context to try to acquire a more precise legal
status. Their main characteristic, mobility,
puts them in an uncertain position with
regard to national legislations, and they
have come to realize that an international
framework can enable them to assert their
rights and put an end to discrimination.
The meetings of the "Romano Congresso"
held during the last few years have
reasserted Romany identity, recalled the
Gypsies' Indian origin and called for the ex¬
tension to Gypsies of all the benefits of
social progress. Less well known is the at¬
tention being paid to the Gypsy community
by a number of international organizations.
The recommendation on the social situation
of nomads adopted by the Council of
Europe in 1975 is beginning to be widely
known and to serve as a legal basis for the
Gypsies' claims. Both the United Nations
and Unesco have also shown great interest
in the cultural and social problems of the
Gypsies and nomadic peoples.
"... the Gypsy identity to which these
young people cling Is no longer the same
as that of their elders..."
The Gypsies also believe in acting in¬
dependently. Some, striving to establish
their own means of cultural expression, are
challenging their rejection by the dominant
community and calling for equality and
justice. Others are searching for their
historical roots; one of their projects is to
raise monuments in memory of the victims
of Nazi persecution: For the Gypsies the
past lives on in the present. Centuries of op¬
pression have left their mark, and all too
often relations between them and non-
Gypsies are coloured by suspicion. The
Gypsies cannot forget; we must try to
understand them and establish a new
dialogue.
JACQUELINE CHARLEMAGNE, of France,
has devoted many years to the study of the
legal status of Gypsies in France. She is a
member of the French Centre de Recherches
Tsiganes (Centre for Gypsy Research) and of
the Union Nationale des Institutions Sociales
d'Action pour les Tsiganes (National Federa¬
tion of Institutions for Social Action for Gyp¬
sies), and a contributor to the magazine
Etudes Tsiganes (Gypsy Studies). Her book
Populations Nomades et Pauvreté (Nomad
Populations and Poverty), published this year,
is an analysis of the isolation and marginalization
experienced today by Gypsy families in
the European Economic Community.
" *^> "SES e3=sfeáíS6^
The Gypsy craftsmen ofEurope
by Miklós Tonika
ACCORDING to biassed contem¬
porary studies, Gypsies are regard¬
ed in Europe as work-shy riff-raff,
vagabonds who only occasionally practise
some of their traditional occupations such
as metalworking, woodcarving, or carpet
and horse dealing. At the same time it is
assumed that during the 600 years of their
presence in Europe they have always lived
and pursued their occupations on the fringe
of society. On the contrary, we maintain
that for hundreds of years Gypsies were
welcome and highly respected craftsmen in
their first European homeland, in central
and eastern Europe, and that it was only the
bourgeois-industrial revolution that drove
them to the fringes of society. Moreover,
we believe that opinions about Gypsies in
western Europe, which varied greatly from
the outset, were due to the conflict between
differing types of economy and life-style,
one of them clearly pre-feudal and the other
late feudal and then bourgeois.
It is probable that all the Gypsies of
Europe, except, perhaps, those of Spain,
passed through central and eastern Europe,
and even today this region is the home of
more than three-quarters of the Gypsy peo¬
ple. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth
century this region was relatively thinly
populated; there were very few towns and
the population was repeatedly decimated by
wars and frontier conflicts. Political
organization was decentralized and often
rudimentary.
Distinctive features of feudal culture
were its ethnic diversity and active contacts
with the peoples and cultures east of the line
formed by the river Bug and the Car¬
pathians, and sometimes with those of
Asia, as well as with those of western
Europe. The social system was prepared for
population movements and caravans of
exotically-dressed people of unusual ap¬
pearance who spoke foreign tongues. In the
midst of traders, emissaries, monks, the
With the spread of Industrialization since
the Second World War and the Increasing
use of vehicles and agricultural
machinery, many Gypsies have had to
give up their traditional trades and
become factory workers or find seasonal
employment with which to supplement
their Income. Above, a Gypsy at work dur¬
ing the grape harvest in a vineyard in
eastern France.
multifarious personnel of royal and oligar¬
chic courts, travelling craftsmen and groups
of mercenaries, and above all in the midst
of systematic settlement operations, Gyp¬
sies did not attract much attention. Their
assertion that they were pilgrims or
penitents was readily accepted.
Although their communities were
sometimes very large, they were always
given the hospitality to which they were en¬
titled. The increase in the number of vir¬
tually ownerless estates made gradual in-
15
Photo © Diane Tong, New York Photo © Roger Viollet, Paris
filtration possible without leading to any
major conflicts or opposition on the part of
the indigenous population. Nor was there
any cultural conflict, especially since the
last waves of ethnic migration had only just
subsided and the arrival of relatively large
groups of new settlers was still remembered
by many.
Religious, linguistic and behavioural dif¬
ferences were regarded as normal, as was
progressive assimilation through mastery of
the local language, conversion to the
"right" religion, and other such channels.
National and cultural identity were not im¬
portant in those times and did not con¬
stitute obstacles to socio-cultural integra¬
tion. The decisive question was whether and
how the new arrivals could earn their
livelihood. In theory all paths were open to
them and were often tried even simulta¬
neously. Feudal deeds of endowment speak
of Gypsy villages or Gypsy families who
earned their living as shepherds or peasants.
Patents of nobility granted to families
bearing the name of Cigány or Czigány sug¬
gest participation at an early date in'
military operations and prove, not only
complete integration, but also the accession
of individual Gypsies to the ruling class.
From the outset Gypsies favoured certain
activities, such as goldwashing, which in¬
evitably brought them into close contact
with feudal lords, non-Gypsy villages,
military institutions and other parts of the
fabric of the socio-cultural system. These
contacts, the means of pressure available to
the powerful, the inherent potential of the
occupations they practised, combined,
perhaps, with the desire to exploit the
available economic and social possibilities,
led to steady assimilation. The Gypsy
origins of many families and villages was
soon forgotten.
The occupational opportunities mention¬
ed above were not, of course, always equal¬
ly good. Prolonged periods of warfare such
as the Tartar invasions of Poland and
Hungary, and especially the Turkish ad¬
vance from Asia through the Balkans and
across Hungary as far as Viennaa powershift
which was probably one of the chief
reasons for Gypsy immigration to
Europe caused a decline in the indigenous
population and created extensive
depopulated areas. However, subsequent
political stabilization soon led to the settle¬
ment and division of the lands, so that the
possibility of freely acquiring land became
the exception rather than the rule.
Likewise, a military career cannot be
regarded as an habitual form of Gypsy life,
and although some individuals may have
pursued such a career, it could not have
provided sustenance for the extended fami¬
ly group. Typical Gypsy occupations were
those which met the real social needs of the
host country while providing temporary
employment at a given place, sometimes for
several persons. Such occupations were
metalworking and woodworking, in which
women were often equal partners, basketmaking,
with the women and children pro¬
viding the twigs and the women peddling
the finished articles, and brickmaking. In
this way families or groups of families
formed a working community.
Although wrought-iron nails, gimlets
and kettles, wooden tubs, troughs, plates
and spoons, wicker baskets and cartbodies,
rush mats and brooms, were essen¬
tial to life on a farm, many small villages
could not maintain their own smith, still
less trough-cutters and basket-makers.
Moreover, neither serfs nor poor freemen
could pay in cash but only in kind, and so
they were of little interest to urban crafts¬
men. For centuries articles of this kind, as
well as bricks, wood charcoal for metalsmelting,
and bells for herds, were mainly
produced by Gypsies.
The growth of villages and their needs
eventually led many families of craftsmen
to settle down permanently and become
village smiths, smiths to big landowners, or
weaponmakers in castles. They made
wooden spoons and supplied bricks to sur¬
rounding villages. Those, such as troughcutters,
who produced rare and durable
goods, continued to lead an itinerant life.
Like the others they fulfilled an extremely
important role. Until the mid-nineteenth
century Gypsy craftsmen were regarded as
irreplaceable in central and eastern Europe.
It was not until the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth century
that conflicts arose with urban craftsmen or
guilds. These conflicts became increasingly
acute with the emergence of industry and
the resultant hardships for those engaged in
handicrafts. A certain proportion of the
permanently settled craftsmen of Gypsy
origin had meanwhile become fully
assimilated and for them there was no going
back. As a result of industrialization they
became proletarians or workless, or were
forced to emigrate. Those who were not ful¬
ly assimilated were ousted from a society
that was itself in the birth-throes of a new
era. They reacted to the loss of their means
of livelihood and incipient discrimination
by withdrawing into their own milieu. Con¬
fronted by non-Gypsy society, they sought
and found support in family ties which grew
into a competing social system.
The old Gypsy crafts continued to be
practised but they were no longer enough to
guarantee an adequate livelihood. Social
marginalization went hand in hand with in¬
creasing poverty and such consequences of
poverty as ill-health and high infant mor¬
tality. What were formerly highly respected
occupations now merely attracted curiosity,
and those who practised them were often
outcasts. Gypsies were obliged to supple¬
ment their traditional sources of income by
mastering new techniques of survival, and
thus their isolation became complete.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth cen¬
turies a Gypsy problem emerged in central
and eastern Europe; by the turn of the last
century, it was increasingly becoming a
criminal problem. In 1900, for instance, the
crime rate for Gypsies in Hungary was 1.7
times higher than that for non-Gypsies. Fif¬
teen years later it was 4.3 times higher; it
had increased almost threefold. Whether
the crime rate had really increased or the
vigilance of the justice authorities had in¬
tensified is not a question to be debated
here. At all events statistics reveal the rapid
growth of the Gypsy problem.
A new factor appeared after the Second
World War. The growing use of agricul¬
tural machinery and motor vehicles made
horses redundant and transformed horse
dealers into figures of the past. Isolated col¬
onies of Gypsies continue to practise their
crafts in associations, but the vast majority
of those in central and eastern Europe are
abandoning the old handicrafts and becom¬
ing unskilled industrial and construction
workers. The acquisition of new dwellings
16
Photo Bruce Dale © National Geographic Society,
Washington, D.C
Woodwork, metalwork and basketwork
are among the crafts traditionally
associated with Gypsies. Right, an Irish
tinsmith repairs a bucket, and, top left, a
basket-maker at work in Thessaloniki,
Greece. Many Gypsies, however, have
had distinguished careers In activities In¬
volving closer Integration with the socie¬
ty around them. Notable examples in¬
clude the Belgian-born French Gypsy,
guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt
(1910-1953), above centre, who created a
unique form ofjazz imbued with Gypsyar¬
dour, and physician Sabl Yordanoff
(above), pictured here In the laboratory of
a hospital at Sllven, Bulgaria.
or old farmhouses, and a few years of
school attendance, have once again
facilitated integration into non-Gypsy
society, this time not by practising tradi¬
tional occupations but by abandoning the
past. Thus, Gypsy occupations are now of
interest only to students of folklore.
Gypsies were given a friendly welcome
when they arrived in the countries of
western Europe, because they were able to
produce good letters of recommendation
and were regarded not as settlers but as in¬
offensive passing strangers. (We now know
that at least some of these letters were
forgeries). However, a somewhat prolong¬
ed stay prompted people to ask questions:
on whose land should they live, and with
what money? A higher population density,
close-meshed political organization and a
more highly developed economy left no
room for settlements and no certainty of an
income.
The number of occupations which could
be practised legally such as showbusiness,
which was more dangerous than
remunerative in the period from the fif¬
teenth to the eighteenth century was very
low. Most of these activities lay outside the
prevailing economic order (this was the case
for most trades and handicrafts), or, as in
the case of fortune-telling, conflicted with
the official philosophy and the law.
Weaknesses and uncertainties in the
system, such as differences in the economic
situations and jurisprudence of the coun¬
tries concerned, were cleverly exploited by
the Gypsies. Nevertheless, legislation oblig¬
ing them to leave the country under pain of
severe punishment and in some places
declaring them to be outlaws, together with
a policy of repeated prosecutions, succeed¬
ed in scaring them away. Most of them
either stayed in, or returned to, central and
eastern Europe. A few small groups led a
marginal existence, eventually merging with
other rejects of late feudal subsequently
bourgeois society.
Post-industrial societies, concerned for
human rights but also nostalgically turned
towards the past, present a new scenario. In
the welfare society all kinds of ex¬
travagances are possible, from a life on
wheels or on water to the successful
marketing of old-style handicraft goods.
Thus, some Gypsy families are enabled to
maintain their time-honoured life-style and
occupations or to create new traditions by,
for instance, entering the antiques and
carpet business. It may be asked, of course,
whether these are in fact old occupations,
or whether they are not rather the activities
of uprooted, alienated people, or indeed no
more.than tourist attractions.
MIKLOS TOMKA, Hungarian economist and
sociologist, is engaged on research at the
Budapest Mass Communication Research
Centre, and lectures at the Eötvös Lorant
University. He is vice-chairman of the
sociology of religions research committee of
the International Sociological Association and
a specialist in the problems of ethnic
minorities.
17
mß
SS
V
Where is Gypsy truth?
From as far back as I remember
I have roamed the world with my tent,
In search of love and affection
Justice and fortune.
I have aged with life,
I have not found true love,
I have not heard the just word.
Where is Gypsy truth?
Rasim Sedjic
V*
The sharing, caring family
by Rosa Taikon Janush
Left, visa check for Gypsies of Italian
origin leaving Sweden on their way to
France,
Above, Gypsy tent in the snows of
Sweden.
IN the early 1960s, my sister Katarina
Taikon and I set out, with the aid of
our husbands, Björn Langhammer
and Bernd Janush, to change the attitude of
society towards the Gypsy people which in
Sweden as elsewhere has been relegated to a
ghetto on the edge of society, without ac¬
cess to schooling or housing and deprived
of any kind of social security.
No one ever asked us why the Gypsy
people has always lived on the fringe of
society nor how this way of life has affected
the structure of the Gypsy family. Like
ostriches people buried their heads in the
sand. They did not want to see or hear; they
did not want to face the facts. It is so much
simpler and so much easier on the con¬
science to believe that the Gypsy people
consists of the "picturesque" survivors of a
nation that specialists who are no more than
charlatans dare to criticize with rash
judgments and prejudices, using such ex¬
pressions as "They don't want to live in
houses ", "They must be as free as birds" or
"They are always happy, singing and
acting".
In point of fact, the conditions in which
the Gypsies live and their need to protect
themselves in an aggressive environment
have shaped the structure of the Gypsy
family. In her book Ziganare är vi ("We are
Gypsies") Katarina Taikon has written:
"From Greece, the Gypsies spread into dif¬
ferent parts of Europe. Some went to the
north, towards Moldavia and Wallachia,
which formed part of Romania, but many
were reduced to slavery... This slavery
lasted until the middle of the nineteenth
century. In 1845 the sale of 200 Gypsy
families belonging to a Romanian boyar
19
was advertised in the Bucharest
newspapers. In 1851 a list was published in
an official Moldavian newspaper giving the
names and description of 94 men, 85
women, 86 boys and 84 girls of 'Gypsy race'
who had been the property of the late
minister Alecu Sturdza and were actually
advertised as being for sale with a part of
his furniture".
Katarina Taikon goes on to draw up a
long list of the repressive measures taken
against the Gypsy people all over Europe,
from the fifteenth to the twentieth century.
When these atrocities are described to those
who bury their heads in the sand, they say,
"very well, but all that happened a long
time ago. What does it matter to Gypsies to¬
day?" I do not claim to belong to "history"
yet, but I should like to cite a passage from
the same book which refers to an official
survey dating from 1926, the year in which
I was born.
"In a report published in 1926, we find a
reference to 'the need to adopt effective
measures against the Gypsies.' The authors
of the report intended these measures to
'create special homes for the education of
the children of Gypsies'. 'According to the
law these children should be put in these
homes at a very early age and be brought up
according to the norms of society'."
You do not need to be a psychologist to
understand how such atrocities have af¬
fected a whole people. Since families were
bound up together, their survival depended
on the internal solidarity of the group and
the more the group was crushed by society
the more it had to strengthen its bonds.
The Gypsy people were forced to protect
themselves; they were compelled to
establish their own society within society
and to issue verbally their own laws and
moral rules which must be applied to the
letter.
We Gypsy children were taught to obey
our elders and to rely on them; their word
was our law. Since we were excluded from
schools and educational institutions, we
depended entirely on the knowledge they
could transmit to us. They applied to the ut¬
most of their ability the theories of Plato
"when they stressed the significance of
education in preserving society", although
they were illiterate themselves and had
never been to school. As for myself, I never
went to school until I was thirty-three years
old although I was born in Sweden and am
a Swedish citizen.
The principle of sharing which is follow¬
ed by Gypsies in their camps is the only
authentic form of democracy that I have
ever come across. The money earned by the
different members of the camp was shared
out equally without any reference to the
work each person had done. If a man fell ill
and could not work, he continued to receive
the same share as the others and his family
was taken care of. A family consisted not
only of father, mother, and children, it
might also include the elder sister or brother
of one of the parents, and the family assum¬
ed responsibility for them.
Often in a family, the maternal or pater¬
nal grandmother looked after the children
and these children were never left alone.
Her task was very important because she
had to bring up the child while its parents
were out working. If there were grown-up
Many Gypsies continue to exercise their
traditional crafts whilst making use of
modern tools and techniques. Above,
designs for Jewellery; top photo, a silver
belt buckle being worked by the author of
this article, Rosa Taikon Janush.
daughters in a family, the eldest had to
marry first since the family would have felt
dishonoured if she continued to live at
home.
The parents arranged the marriage of
young people. The father of a young man
would ask for the hand of the girl. The wed¬
ding would take place a few days later, for
kinsfolk and friends sometimes had to
come from far afield to attend the wedding.
The women vied with each other in prepar¬
ing the best meal. The guests were entertain¬
ed by the best singers and dancers. The
father of the bridegroom symbolically gave
a sum of money to obtain the bride, a prac¬
tice which was not exclusive to Gypsy socie¬
ty. The bride also had to be "pure", that is
virgin, and her purity had to be confirmed
by one of the oldest women of the camp
who, after the wedding night, inspected the
bed-sheets for "evidence" that the young
woman had been pure. When this rite had
been performed, a feast began that was as
important as the wedding itself.
Many non-Gypsies have asked us why
women should marry so young. This
custom, which still exists in India, is based
on a moral principle. Once marriageable
the girl will marry only once and she will
have to live with her husband all her life.
When young people get married, they live
with the parents of the bridegroom, for they
are still young and need practical and moral
advice and support. (Today it is often the
young people who choose their partners
themselves, and marriages may even be
dissolved).
When a child is born in the camp, no one
is admitted into the mother's tent or
caravan except her husband and the old
women. The mother is considered to be im¬
pure during the two weeks following the
birth of the child. She has her own dishes,
her own linen, her own washbasin, and her
own sheets. After the two weeks, all the ob¬
jects the woman has used are thrown away.
Many of these customs were simply a
product of the Gypsies' instinct for selfpreservation
and their practical common
sense. The woman and her child had to be
presented to all who were living in the camp
and ran the risk of catching a disease.
Neither hospitals nör doctors took care of
Gypsies in the past and so it was very impor¬
tant for the woman to be protected by these
traditions.
When an elder fell ill and was at death's
door, everyone gathered to bid him
farewell, and above all to receive his bless¬
ing, as prescribed by Gypsy religion. Today
this custom may create problems for doc¬
tors and hospital staff when a member of a
Gypsy clan is hospitalized. Our traditions
lay down that one member of each family
must be present to receive this blessing but
as a rule there are usually ten members pre¬
sent from each family.
Unfortunately it is to be feared that the
price the Gypsies may have to pay in order
to live in more decent conditions, with ac¬
cess to housing, schooling and other forms
of education will be the loss of their many
fine traditions which are tending to disap¬
pear as young people adopt modern ideas
and laws instead of the conventions of their
own society. Nevertheless, the esteem, the
respect and the consideration shown to our
elders cannot disappear for they are the
core of our education.
In conclusion I should like to add that the
terrible injustices of which the Gypsies have
for centuries been the victims, with the
result that my generation and those which
preceded it were deprived of all civil rights,
might have continued in our country if,
around 1960, Katarina Taikon had not
decided to combat prejudice and racism in
all its forms. She wrote books and countless
newspaper articles, approached prime
ministers, the Government, Parliament and
all the political parties.
But it is hard to stamp out prejudices
from adult minds, and so Katarina decided
to speak to children instead. She wrote the
Katitzi stories to help young people to
understand a minority more fully. But she
paid dearly for her work for human rights
and was laid low with a heart attack. Since
1982 she has been in a coma.
Nevertheless, the great work she ac¬
complished in the last twenty years and the
sympathy she has shown to all, whether or
not they belong to her own people, will live
on in the Katitzi stories which have been
translated and read by children in many
countries.
Perhaps it will be possible that, thanks to
Katarina, the Gypsy people will become
better integrated into society and enrich it
by its art and culture.
ROSA TAIKON JANUSH was born in
Sweden into a family of Gypsy silversmiths.
Admitted for the first time to an educational
institution at the age of 33, she continued her
education at the Stockholm school of in¬
dustrial art and learned the craft of a modern
"sedentary metal engraver". Continuing the
family tradition of craftsmanship, she works
as a silversmith at Ytterhogdal, Sweden.
20
HBMMMMHHHHMJI
wandering voice' i
by Giulio Soravia
These two young Gypsy girls, at a State
school in Thessaloniki, Greece, are learn¬
ing about the history and culture of the
country in which they live.
THE Rom or Romany people provide
a particularly striking example of
the notion that language is a key to
a people's identity.
Scattered all over the world in a diaspora
which has lasted many centuries, the Rom
are united only by a common origin for
which their language has provided decisive
proof. Subdivided into as many dialects as
there are groups of Rom on the five con¬
tinents, this common language bears the
imprint of their travels and links them to
India, their original homeland.
What is remarkable, and what surprised
the first students of the subject, is the per¬
sistence of grammatical forms which are in
many ways similar to those of the Indo-
European languages spoken in India today,
and of a basic vocabulary which, in spite of
certain phonetic changes, contains words
found in Hindi, Punjabi, and the Dardic
languages.
This is not surprising. When, a thousand
years or more ago, the nomadic ancestors
of today's Rom began their long journey
westwards, they often had to halt,
sometimes for a long period, in regions
where they lived in proximity to peoples of
different languages and customs from
whom they borrowed certain cultural and
linguistic traits. As a rule, however, they
did not stay in these countries long enough
to become totally assimilated or to become
so far integrated as to lose their identity or
their originality.
But even when they paused in a given
region they continued to practise nomadism
on a local scale. In the Middle East were
groups which were given various names by
their neighbours (such as Nawar in
Palestine) but called themselves Dom. In
Armenia they changed this name to Lorn. A
few decades later, in Greece, they became
the Rom, a name they would retain
throughout Europe and elsewhere in the
world, thus breaking with their origins.
The phonetic evolution of their ethnic
name makes it possible to trace the history
of the Rom right back to the beginning.
Thus, the language spoken by European
Rom today contains many words with an r;
words quite similar to these are found in In
dian languages, containing a corresponding
phoneme, the cerebral d*. There is even a
group of Indian nomads today who call
themselves the Dom.
Many other nomadic peoples of India
recall what must have been the origins of
the European Rom. The most notable of
these peoples are the Banjara and Lamana,
who speak a language which is quite distinct
from that of their European brothers and is
closer to Hindi, for although they have re¬
mained in their country, their language has
been influenced by the strong pressure of
the sedentary culture. This explains its
gradual divergence from the Rom language,
while not invalidating what has been said
above.
The course followed by the European
Rom was slow but inexorable. Their traver¬
sal of Asia did not leave a profound mark
on their language, in spite of the affinity
between Indian and Iranian languages.
* A cerebral consonant is articulated by curling
the tongue tip up and back until its under surface
touches the hard palate.
21
However, Romani chib, the language of the
Rom, undoubtedly contains Iranian and
Armenian borrowings.
Words of Iranian origin are found in all
the dialects such as baxt (luck, fortune),
ambrol (pear), khangeri (church), angustri
(ring), ruv (wolf), vurdon (waggon). Words
of Iranian or Armenian origin are: zor
(strength), cikat (front). Words of Arme¬
nian origin are: bov (oven) and grast
(horse).
The language of the most westerly group
of Rom was decisively influenced by their
sojourn in Greece, which was probably one
of their longest and which brought about
the assimilation of a vocabulary and gram¬
matical forms to be found later in all the
Rom dialects of Europe.
The following words are of Greek origin:
drom (path, road), karfin (nail), klidi (key),
kokalo (bone), papin (goose), petalos
(horseshoe), tsox (skirt), zumi (soup),
(v)amoni (anvil), and isviri (hammer).
Many Rom dialects have morphemes of
Greek origin including: -mé, which is used
to form the past participle (ramomé: writ¬
ten; pahomé: frozen; vezlimé: em¬
broidered) and -mos, which is used to form
nouns derived from verbs or adjectives,
taking the place of the suffix -pé, which is
of Indian origin and is still used in certain
dialects (pimos or pibe: beverage, from pi-:
to drink; nevimos or nevipé: novelty, news,
from nevo: new; temimos or ternipé:
youth, from terno: young; barvalimos or
barvalipé: wealth, from barvalo: rich).
From the fourteenth century on, the
language of the Rom was transformed,
sometimes profoundly, in the different
European countries they "visited". It is a
rich and flexible language, with complex
declensions for nouns and verb conjuga¬
tions which allow for a very wide degree of
communication. In the Balkan dialects,
where declensions have survived, a
masculine or feminine noun, singular or
plural, may have eight cases. Let us take the
example of the plural of phral (brother):
nominative: phrala (brothers)
genitive: phralengo (of the brothers)
dative: phralenge (to the brothers)
accusative: phralem (the brothers)
vocative: phralale (brothers!)
ablative: phralendar (by the brothers)
locative: phraleste (at the brothers')
instrumental: phralentsa (with the brothers)
Verbs have five tenses:
present: kerav (I do)
imperfect: keravas (I was doing)
past: kerdem (I did)
perfect: kerdemas (I have done)
future: kam-kerav (I shall do)
The declension of nouns survived with
less difficulty in eastern Europe because of
the influence of the Slav languages in which
the noun is fully declined. Other dialects,
however, such as that of the now extinct
group of Welsh Gypsies, preserved declen¬
sions of remarkable richness. Nevertheless
in western Europe the tendency was for
declensions to disappear and for the noun
to be "declined" using prepositions. In
some Sinto dialects of central Europe
prepositions taken from German are used:
fon u pral (of the brother)
an u pral (to the brother)
mit u pral (with the brother)
The Romani vocabulary was enriched by
many borrowings from the Slav languages,
from Hungarian, from Romanian, from
German, from Italian and from other Euro¬
pean languages.
The flexibility oî Romani is also revealed
in a capacity to create new forms,
sometimes by means of astonishing com¬
binations of words of different
etymological origin. In one Sinto dialect,
for instance, the word svigardaj (mother-inlaw)
has been composed from daj (mother)
a word of Indian origin, and an adaptation
of the German word Schwieger (Schwieger¬
mutter: mother-in-law). The word ledomé
(frozen) occurs in the dialect of a group of
Muslim Gypsies in the south of Yugoslavia;
it is composed of the Slav word led (ice)
followed by thésuffix mé, which is of Greek
origin, as we have seen.
Thus, instead of degenerating, the
language of the Gypsies changes in tune
with a process similar to that undergone by
other languages. Its vocabulary is enriched
and adapts in accordance with new needs,
changes in living conditions, periods and
environments." But clearly this also makes
the difficulties of understanding between
the different groups more acute, since there
is increasing divergence between the
dialects.
What are these dialects?
At least two-thirds of the world's three
million Rom (this is the most conservative
estimate; it is impossible to give precise
statistics) speak the Danubian dialect which
the English specialist B. Gilliat-Smith nam¬
ed vlax, a term which emphasizes the
notable Romanian contribution to its
vocabulary but which is today perhaps no
longer appropriate. Certain groups, in spite
of their Rom origins, have abandoned their
language and adopted that of their seden¬
tary neighbours (one example is that of the
Rudari and Romanian). The other dialects
are presented in the following list, which is
not exhaustive. It should also be
remembered that classification by
geographical groups is today only used for
the sake of convenience, since these dialects
have spread all over the world with those
who use them.
1) The Danubian group (Kalderash,
Lovara, Curara, etc.);
2) The western Balkan group (Istrians,
Slovenes, Havates, Arlija, etc.);
3) The Sinto group (Eftavagarja, Kranarja,
Krasarja, Slovaks, etc.);
4) Rom groups of central and southern
Italy;
5) British (Welsh, now extinct; today only
Anglo-Romani survive, speaking a mixture
of English and Romani);
6) Finnish;
7) Greco-Turk (their existence as a separate
group is debatable);
8) Iberian (today represented by Calo, the
Hispano-Äomaw dialect of the gitanos).
According to a theory set forth by R.L.
Turner, the origin of the Gypsies should, in
view of their language, be sought in central
India. Others maintain that they originated
in northwestern India. Because of their con¬
stant mobility and the fact that at least ten
centuries have gone by since their exodus
from their homeland, it is difficult to say
with certainty whether or not they
originated in the Punjab. What is not in
doubt is the number of Indian words that
occur in the vocabulary of this so-called
"European" people to express the most
common concepts:
house: kher (Hindi ghar)
tree: rukh (Hindi rukh)
salt: Ion (Hindi Ion)
land: phuv (Hindi bhu)
man: manus (Hindi manus)
spoon: roj (Hindi dot")
Gypsy children at an encampment Install¬
ed at Vllleplnte, a suburb in the Paris
area, greet the driver of the "school on
wheels" which they attend. The integra¬
tion of Gypsies Into modern society
usually implies that education Is dispens¬
ed in the language of the host country.
This can be a source of enrichment pro¬
vided that it does not lead to a loss of their
own cultural Identity.
22
References to Gypsies In the works of
Shakespeare have been cited by several
specialists. In The Tempest, for example,
the name ofthat tenebrous figure Caliban
Is derived from the Romanl word kaliben,
which means "perfidious". In As You
Like It, "the melancholy Jaques" com¬
poses a song In which the word "ducdame"
is repeated three times. This
word, which Jaques declares Is "a Greek
Invocation to call fools Into a circle", has
long puzzled Shakespearean commen¬
tators. In fact, It Is of Romanl origin deriv¬
ing either from dukdom me (I have wrong¬
ed others), or from drukkerdom me (I tell
fortunes). Other references to Gypsies
are to be found In Romeo and Juliet, An¬
tony and Cleopatra and, above all, In
Othello. "The Moorof Venice" Is accused
of winning Desdemona's affections by
"spells and magic bought of
mountebanks". Othello himself tells
Desdemona that the handkerchief he
gave her as a gage of fidelity and whose
loss sparks off the tragedy, "did an Egyp¬
tian (I.e. a Gypsy) to my mother give; she
was a charmer and could almost read the
thoughts of people". Above, engraving
of Othello and Desdemona by Théodore
Chassérlau, a French artist of the Ingres
school.
black: kalo (kala in Punjabi)
white: parno (panar/parana in Dardic)
young: temo (tarun in Hindi)
walk: ga (Hindi ja)
sleep: sov (Hindi so-)
outside: avri (Hindi bahir)
In recent years a marked desire for union
has appeared among the Rom of different
countries; not for political or territorial
union, but for cultural union based on their
common origins and values. Although this
movement is still restricted to a circle of in¬
tellectuals, there are some indications that it
is growing.
The problem of the unification of the
Romani language has been discussed in
various Rom congresses held in Paris,
Rome, Geneva and Göttingen. For the mo¬
ment this remains a legitimate but scarcely
feasible aspiration; the unification of a
language cannot be decided in an office,
and it is not enough simply to discuss the
theoretical side of the question.
On the other hand, there is an increasing¬
ly widespread tendency to write in Romani,
a language which has hitherto been oral.
Not only are the words of Gypsy songs and
fables being transcribed, but also "private"
documents and even literary works which
have little to do with traditional folklore.
Periodicals are also being published and in
Yugoslavia a Romani grammar written in
Romani has been published. The study of
Romani grammar is thus no longer the ex¬
clusive privilege of non-Rom students.
Even though still confined to a handful
of dialects, the publication of literary works
in Romani and the propagation of the
language in written form may be a first step
towards its unification and may lead to a
deeper self-awareness among this people in
search of itself.
Today this movement is contributing to a
transformation of the traditional, not .
always positive, image, of the Gypsy
(whether he be called a Tsigane, a Gitan, a
Zigeuner, or a Cygan) with a view to his
becoming a full member of modern society,
strengthened by his culture and his capacity
to communicate in his own language.
GIULIO SORAVIA, of Italy, is associate pro¬
fessor of linguistics at the University of
Catania. He has written several works on the
theory of linguistics and now specializes in the
study of Gypsy languages. His works include
Vocabulario Sinto delle Venezie (The Sinto
Vocabulary of Venezia), 1981, and Grammatica
del Dialetto dei Rom Xoraxane (Gram¬
mar of the Xoraxane Gypsies), 1983.
23
Half a million Gypsies
victims of the nazi terror
by Myriam Novitch
THEextermination of the Gypsies was
part of the programme of the nazi
party. However, official discrimi¬
nation against Gypsies as a group can be
traced back at least as far as 1899, when the
Bavarian police created a special Gypsy Af¬
fairs Section which received copies of ver¬
dicts delivered by the courts concerning of¬
fences committed by Gypsies. In 1929 this
Section became a National Centre, with
headquarters in Munich, and from then on
Gypsies were not allowed to move from one
place to another without permission from
the police. Gypsies aged over sixteen who
could not prove that they had a job faced a
sentence of two years' labour in a refor¬
matory institution.
After 1933, the year in which Hitler came
to power, these measures became even more
severe. Gypsies who could not prove that
they were of German nationality were
deported; others were interned as "asocial"
persons. Interest in their racial
characteristics began to grow. In 1936 Dr.
Hans Globke, one of the drafters of the
Nuremberg Laws, declared that "Gypsies
are of alien blood" (Artfremdes Blut).
Unable to deny that they were of Aryan
origin, Professor Hans F. Guenther
categorized them as Rassengemische, an in¬
determinate mixture of races.
The study of the racial characteristics of
Gypsies came to be admitted as a subject for
doctoral theses. Eva Justin, the assistant of
Dr. Ritter of the Health Ministry's Race
Research Division, declared when submit¬
ting her thesis that Gypsy blood was "very
dangerous for the purity of the German
race".
The situation of Gypsies was worsened
by a decree of 14 December 1937 which
declared them to be "inveterate criminals".
In late 1937 and in 1938 there were
widespread arrests, and a special section
was created for Gypsies in Buchenwald con¬
centration camp. Gypsy names appear in
the death lists of many camps including
Mauthausen, Gusen, Dautmergen, Natzweiler
and Flossenburg. Many Gypsy
women were the victims of experiments by
SS doctors at Ravensbriick. A certain Dr.
Portschy submitted a memorandum to the
Führer proposing "forced labour and mass
sterilization of the Gypsies because they are
endangering the blood purity of the Ger¬
man peasantry".
In 1938 Himmler intervened personally,
ordering the transfer of the Gypsy Affairs
Centre from Munich to Berlin. In the same
year 300 sedentary Gypsies, the owners of
fields and vineyards, were arrested in the
village of Mannwörth.
Himmler stipulated that Gypsies should
be classified as follows: pure Gypsies (Z);
mixed race Gypsies of predominantly Gyp¬
sy blood (ZM + ); mixed race Gypsies of
predominantly Aryan blood (ZM-); and
mixed-race Gypsies with half-Gypsy, half-
Aryan blood (ZM).
In his study L'Allemagne et le génocide
the historian Joseph Billig identified three
methods of committing genocide: the sup¬
pression of fertility, deportation, and
homicide.
Gypsy women married to non-Gypsies
were sterilized in the hospital at Diisseldorf-
Lierenfeld. Some died as a result of being
sterilized while pregnant. In Ravensbriick
camp 120 Gypsy girls were sterilized by SS
doctors.
The deportation of 5,000 Gypsies from
Germany to the ghetto at Lodz in Poland
was an example of genocide by deportation.
The living conditions in the ghetto were so
inhuman that no community could have
survived.
But the Nazis' chosen method of
genocide was mass killing.
The decision to exterminate the Gypsies
is believed to have been taken in the Spring
of 1941, when the Einsatzgruppen or execu¬
tion squads were formed. First of all the
Gypsies had to be rounded up. Since
Himmler's decree of 8 December 1938 the
addresses of all Gypsies were known to the
police. A decree of 17 November 1939 for¬
bade Gypsies, on pain of internment in a
concentration camp, to leave their place of
residence.
Thirty thousand Gypsies deported to
Poland were destined to perish in the death
camps of Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor and
Majdanek. Thousands of others were
deported from Belgium, The Netherlands,
and France, and died in Auschwitz.
In his memoirs, Höss, the commandant
of Auschwitz, revealed that the deportees
included people nearly a hundred years old,
pregnant women, and large numbers of
children. Some of the survivors of
Auschwitz, such as Kulka and Kraus in
their book The Death Factory, describe a
terrible massacre of Gypsies which took
place on the night of 31 July 1944.
In Poland and in the Soviet Union Gyp¬
sies were killed both in death camps and in
the open countryside. War between Ger¬
many and the USSR broke out on 22 June
1941. On the heels of the armies of Von
Leer, Von Bock, Von Rundstedt and other
generals marched the death squads of the
SS. The Baltic States, the Ukraine and the
Crimea were pitted with mass graves. At
Simviropol 800 men, women and children
were shot on the night of 24 December
1941. Wherever the Nazis passed, Gypsies
were arrested, deported, or murdered. In
Yugoslavia, executions of Jews and Gypsies
began in October 1941 in the forests of Jajnice,
where peasants still remember the
cries of children being driven in trucks to
the places of their execution.
It is difficult to estimate either the
number of Gypsies who were living in
Europe before the Second World War or
the number of those who survived. One
historian, Raoul Hilberg, has estimated
that there were 34,000 Gypsies in Germany,
but the number of survivors is unknown.
According to reports made by the Ein¬
satzgruppen responsible for the killings in
the Soviet Socialist Republics of Russia, the
Ukraine and the Crimea, there were
300,000 victims in those territories. Accord¬
ing to the Yugoslav authorities, 28,000
Gypsies were put to death in Serbia alone.
The number of victims in Poland is hard to
establish. The historian Joseph Tenenbaum
asserts that the Gypsies lost at least 500,000
people.
An ancient people, prolific and full of
vitality, the Gypsies tried to resist death but
the cruelty and might of their enemies
prevailed. Sometimes their love of music
brought them consolation in their martyr¬
dom. Starving and verminous, they
gathered in front of the vile huts of
Auschwitz to make music and encourage
the children to dance. Some of the younger
Gypsies tried to escape. In the camp diary
kept by Danuta Czech can be read the
names and dates of execution at the Wall of
Death of those who were recaptured.
Eyewitnesses have described the courage
displayed by the Gypsy partisans who
fought in the Nieswiez region of Poland.
According to some accounts, they carried
only knives as they flung themselves against
their heavily armed adversaries.
Forty years have passed since the
genocide of the Gypsies. These lines are no
more than a reminder of the terrible crime
committed against this group of human
beings.
MYRIAM NOVITCH, of Israel, is the director
of the Ghetto Fighters' Museum founded at
Lohamel Haghetaot kibbutz by a group of sur¬
vivors of the Warsaw ghetto. She has for 30
years been engaged on research into the nazi
genocide of the Jews and Gypsies.
24
®
During the Second World War the Gyp¬
sies were one of the groups to become
victims of the nazi extermination cam¬
paigns. Above, newly-arrived at a con¬
centration camp, these Gypsy prisoners
are still wearing their normal clothing.
Right, dressed In the sombre stripes of
prison garb, marked with the inverted
triangle to Indicate their classification as
Gypsies, these prisoners were photogra¬
phed at the Infamous Auschwitz concen¬
tration camp to which many Gypsies from
Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and
France were deported.
Dated December 8, 1942, this letter con¬
cerns the transport of Gypsy prisoners to
Auschwitz. Written by an official of the
nazi criminal police of Brunn (Brno) dur¬
ing the nazi occupation of Czecho¬
slovakia, it Is addressed to his counter¬
part in Prague.
Imprisoned in the concentration camp at
Auschwitz, Dinah Gottlieb was ordered
by Dr. Mengele, a notorious SS doctor
who carried out hideous experiments
using the camp 's inmates as guinea-pigs,
to paint portraits of a number of Gypsy
prisoners. Of the twelve water-colours
she painted only seven have been
recovered, Including this portrait of a
Gypsygirl. Dinah Gottlieb survived her In¬
ternment and now lives in the USA.
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ib ai*
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Dan B.Daj.nfcar 1942.
la > r m k
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Uj« in imch.it».
Ti
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«lata* T-Oaaantur 1942 Ina Inhalt alagar U ¿atabal ta fetl Katuâil
aUc*ll*f*rt »nrd«n,iorgali(t.
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T. Il 1.19 4^ on 13.70 TJnr dar Da u tan han 5*údarnaTia nbargaaan.
//
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-ttíe
25
From campflre to footlights
by Nikolai Slichenko
AN Oriental sage once said that to
know the truth one must go beyond
one's limits. We should never have
realized the validity of this maxim if we had
not crossed the borders of our country for
what was the first foreign tour of our
Romany theatre troupe, Romen. It was in
1982, and we were to perform in distant
Japan "We the Gypsies", one of the fifteen
plays in our repertoire. After playing for six
weeks to packed houses, sometimes to over
2,000 spectators, we realized that trans¬
lation of our dialogue and lyrics was not
necessary. The public called us back for en¬
cores many times, and the famous Japanese
singer Okada Yoshika said, "Their songs
resemble our traditional songs but differ
sharply in their passionate spirit".
What I value most in my people is their
ability to be themselves, everywhere and at
all times; their capacity to follow their
destiny along the many paths of history, to
draw new strength from one generation to
the next; their fight to preserve their vita¬
lity; their creative impulse and the poetry
with which they remember their ancestors.
Long ago on the banks of the Ganges
there lived a tribe of strong and handsome
men who had the gift of creating delight
through their songs, of arousing strong
emotions, laughter, and sometimes tears.
Their songs were sweet and harmonious,
their dancing supple and rhythmic. Did
they perhaps already know that the power
of their art would feed the irresistible long
ing which would drive them to seek their
fortune elsewhere?
Prosper Mérimée's spirited and reckless
Carmen, Victor Hugo's graceful
Esmeralda, Pushkin's rebellious Zemphira,
Tolstoy's voluptuous Masha the Gypsy,
Leskov's heroine Grushenka, the very in¬
carnation of beauty... were not produced
by their creator's imaginative genius. These
are real people, alive and warm, who came
out of their tents and their caravans and
strode directly into literature.
Although the first Gypsy choirs were
formed in Moscow in the eighteenth cen¬
tury, the true folk art of the Gypsies long re¬
mained unknown. Until the 1920s variety
theatres, restaurants and cabarets presented
26
E
©
«I A scene from "Life on Wheels", a threeact
musical Inspired by Gypsy life which
was staged by the Romen Gypsy theatre
troupe In Moscow over 50 years ago.
the extravagantly exotic charms of Gypsy
songs and dances, a pseudo-art which was
called "Tsiganchtchina". This was a slur
on the authenticity of Gypsy folk art and a
major threat to its survival.
It was decided to end this state of affairs.
The idea was born of creating a Gypsy
theatre which could perform the noble task
of becoming a focus of cultural activity and
education, and a source of inspiration for a
new life.
The experimental theatre was solemnly
inaugurated on 24 January 1931. At first it
faced many difficulties. Almost half the
performers were illiterate. Roles had to be
learned orally, by constant repetition.
Dramatic art in the strict sense was absent,
and the problem of creating a repertoire
was particularly acute.
The first productions, a variety show
called "Today and Tomorrow", and "Life
on Wheels", a musical drama based on a
work by Alexander Guermanov, contained
an appeal in favour of sedentarization, with
all that sedentarization had to offer in the
way of education, real participation in the
new life of society, and access to the values
of world culture. For the first time in their
history the Gypsies could describe on stage
in their mother tongue what was most im¬
portant in their lives.
A major theatrical event of both civic and
artistic importance was the staging of
Bodas de Sangre ("Blood Wedding") by
Federico García Lorca, an author endowed
with extraordinary poetic feeling for
everything that is truly of the people. The
play was directed by Mikhail Yanshin, an
outstanding actor with the Moscow Art
Theatre and pupil of Stanislavsky who
directed the Romen theatre for five years.
Under his leadership the theatre moved
away from ethnographic and exotic themes
and ventured into the realms of the mind
and reason.
Inspired by noble ideals, Bodas de Sangre
exalts the unique value of each individual
and his life, of his right to remain himself
until his dying breath. The production pro¬
vided a foretaste of the later brilliance of
Lialia Tchernaia, who played the role of the
fiancée, not only portraying the tragedy of
a woman who loses her beloved but also ex¬
pressing a philosophical idea rooted in folk
wisdomthat it is better "to bleed to
death" than to ignore the message of the
heart. This sublime tragedy by the great
Spanish poet was brought to life by the pas¬
sion inherent in the Gypsy vision of the
world. The actors learned the psychological
motivation of the characters with the help
of their colleagues at the Art Theatre. In
Garcia Lorca's work the originality of a
people was not expressed in a striving for
exotic effects; instead the people's true
character was summoned from the depths
of its history.
Russian and other classics began to ap¬
pear on the playbills: "Grushenka"
adapted from Leskov's Enchanted
Wanderer, "Makar Chudra" from Gorki;
"Olessia", from Kuprin; "Aza the Gyp¬
sy", from the Ukrainian writer Mikhail
Starits; Mérimée's Carmen; "The Little
Gypsy", adapted from Cervantes;
"Esmeralda", from Victor Hugo, and
many others.
The Gypsy theatre gave birth to a na¬
tional intelligentsia, whose first university it
was. It also provided a training ground for
dramatists and poets.
In our productions, the mystery of the
origins of my people and its destiny is sus¬
tained by humanism and goodness. We
refer to universal values: the vocation of
man, his responsibility in this beautiful but
fragile and threatened world; good and evil;
whatever is of ethical concern. There is
nothing new in this; any "theatre of ideas"
is concerned with these questions.
But our Gypsy theatre also has a special
mission. Of the millions of Gypsies all over
the world, the 200,000 Soviet Gypsies were
the first to have a professional theatre. This
confers on us a special responsibility for
strengthening awareness of our existence as
a people and safeguarding our artistic and
cultural identity.
I believe that an authentically Gypsy
theatre is not only a means of staging
dramatic performances but an instrument
for shaping the conscience of a people. It
creates a moral climate in which the Gypsy
not only questions himself about life in the
encampment or about his guitar but, like
Hamlet, asks the question "to be or not to
be?".
We try to combine the emotional ef¬
fusiveness of the past with the economy of
expression of modern art. As director and
actor I am not content to evoke an isolated
"The Brothers", byZota Tobolkln, Is the
story of two Gypsy brothers, the virtuous
Matvey and the unscrupulous Efim. In
this scene from the Romen theatre pro¬
duction Efim Is threatening to kill Masha,
who has come to teach the Gypsies to
read and write.
27
destiny, however exciting, swept along in
the great upheaval of history. Our era, so
rich in heroic poetry and faith in the ideals
of humanity, with all that we have won and
lost, is expressed in the poems of Anna
Akhmatova with their vibrant emotional in¬
tensity, in the verse of Sergei Essenin with
its boundless freedom, in the romantic
lyricism of Mikhail Svetlov. The poets com¬
ment on events. The burning passion of the
Gypsies gives them a symbolic splendour.
Our theatre seeks to be a dialogue bet¬
ween different nationalities, with the aid of
two Gypsy "languages": the language of
our times and the vocabulary of the past.
In "We the Gypsies" we have tried to
speak not of individuals but of a people. We
chose to stage a production in the form of
a folk festival, a kind of chronicle being
recorded in the presence of the audience
using dramatic techniques. We wanted to
communicate to the public through singing
and dancing the gaiety of a folklore imbued
with the most authentic inspiration.
The soul of this people plunges its roots
into its roving, which began with its exodus
from India when, according to legend, the
Gypsies had for some unknown reason
(perhaps because of the magic effects of
their art on the spectators or because of
their eternally rebellious nature) angered
God, who sent against them a wind so
strong that men, horses and wagons were all
scattered. When the storm abated the men
looked around them and could not believe
their eyes: they were in unknown places and
among unknown people, and no one knew
where their country was nor even if it had
ever existed...
This marked the start of their endless and
always dangerous roaming in search of the
unknown. But the bare feet were already
advancing along a path which would lead
this people to its maturity, make it an
organic part of the human community, and
lead it towards spiritual renewal. We invite
the public to share the dance of Esmeralda,
as brief and passionate as her life, amidst
the noisy crowds of medieval Paris. We
wish to transmit to our audiences some of
our knowledge of the irresistible force of
love, so well illustrated by the impetuous
Carmen. And the Russian Gypsy Masha,
after piercing the heart of Fedia Protassov
in Tolstoy's "Living Corpse", will sing her
ballad of eternally elusive perfection.
Lialia Tchernala, a legendary
figure in the Soviet theatre,
was the first Carmen in a
popular adaptation of Pros¬
per Mérimée 's story staged
by the Romen theatre during
the 1930s.
Audacity of thought, which is to a certain
degree acquired in the theatre, allows us to
stage a work by Tolstoy and with Fedia Pro¬
tassov to question ourselves about the
meaning of life, to recreate the pure and
eternal love of Kuprin's heroine Olessia,
and to evoke the implacable sadness of
Hemingway's masterpiece For Whom the
Bell Tolls.
It seems to me that the more artistic our
language is and the more human the sub¬
jects we treat, the more familiar, understan¬
dable and reliable will be the relationships
between human beings, so vital in today's
world when we run the risk of breaking
forever what Shakespeare called "the suc¬
cession of the ages".
NIKOLAI ALEKSEYEVICH SLICHENKO,
Soviet actor and singer, has played over sixty
roles in the Romen Gypsy theatre whose chief
stage director he has been since 1977. His
productions include Grouchenka, based on
Leskov's The Enchanted Traveller, and a
musical entitled We the Gypsies, written and
composed in collaboration with Rom Lebedev.
In 1980, he published in Moscow an
autobiographical work entitled Born by the
Campfire in which he tells the story of the life
and spiritual quest of the founders of the
Romen theatre group.
Flamenco songs were a |
development from Spanish
ballads In which were com¬
bined Moorish and Castilian
influences. The early songs,
which were without musical
accompaniment, were im¬
bued with a rich expressivity
that the popular ballads
never attained. It was not un¬
til the 19th century that the
guitar was introduced, to ac¬
company certain types of
song, bringing to flamenco,
through its extraordinary
range of rhythmic modula¬
tion, its undertones ofJoy, of
melancholy and of majesty.
Right, singer Camarón de la
Isla is accompanied by
guitarist Tomatito; both are
Gypsies from Andalusia.
28
FLAMENCO
L a taste of blood in the mouth'
by Felix Grande
THE history of the Spanish Gypsies is
that of a state of unbroken vigilance
that has lasted for five centuries.
It is the story of discord between a tradi¬
tionally nomadic people and a sedentary
society that is generally suspicious, often
authoritarian and sometimes cruel. It is the
story of a persistent sorrow which at the end
of the eighteenth century found expression
in flamenco, which grew out of the age-old
musical tradition of Andalusia to become
one of the most beautiful musical idioms,
full of grief and consolation, that has ever
been invented by the genius, the anguish
and the memory of men. In flamenco song,
in the music of the flamenco guitar, in the
precise, expressive rhythms of flamenco
dances, a voice of sadness and resistance
from a distant past brings echoes of the pain
and pride of a marginal existence trans¬
formed into a work of art.
In Spain, as elsewhere in the world,
Gypsies have not been left in peace.
©
One of the world's most famous Gypsy
communities lives In the Sacromonte
caves, Grenada, Spain. In the past, the
Gypsies of Grenada lived with the
Moorish minority In a sort of sympathetic
association of outcasts from society.
They provided the Inspiration for two
masterpieces by the Spanish poet
Federico García Lorca: Romancero
Gitano (Gypsy Ballads), 1928, and
Poemas del Cante Jondo (Poems from
Jondo Song), 1931. Right, Gypsies of
Sacromonte photographed at the beginn¬
ing of the century.
Marginalization and extermination (pro¬
portionately more Gypsies than Jews were
massacred by the Nazis) have left an indeli¬
ble mark on the collective memory of this
proud people, despised and persecuted all
over Europe since the fifteenth century, and
have inspired Gypsy communities to create
forms of music and dance which now form
part of Europe's musical heritage. The
spirited dances of Russia, the plaintive airs
of the Romanian violin, the melodies of the
Magyars, all owe some of their splendour to
the profound sense of rhythm and the
boundless sorrow of Gypsy communities.
But nowhere else in Europe did Gypsies
contribute to the creation of a music which,
in complexity, variety, beauty and com¬
municative power, can be compared with
flamenco. The human genius always owes a
debt to suffering. Flamenco, for which
Spain and above all Andalusia is world
famous, is the fruit of the ancient musical
tradition of Spain allied to the sorrows of
the Gypsies.
It is impossible today to say when this
sorrow began. It seems that some 5,000
years ago the Gypsies, whose culture was
already relatively advanced and who were
living amongst the mysterious Hindu peo¬
ple, were already forced by the caste system
of India to be nomads in their country of
origin. The Aryan and, later, Muslim in¬
vasions probably forced the Gypsies to
disperse in a double diaspora which lasted
for several centuries.
After centuries of wandering marked by
poverty, incomprehension and hope, the
first Gypsy tribes to reach the Iberian
peninsula entered Spain at the beginning of
the fifteenth century. In January 1425
Alfonso V of Aragon ordered the
authorities of his kingdom to place no
obstacle in the way of John of Little Egypt
or his people during the three months
following the signature of the order. This
safe-conduct, which was signed at
Saragossa and is now preserved in the
Aragon Crown Archives in Barcelona, is
the oldest surviving documentary evidence
for the arrival of the Gypsies in Spain. Four
months later, in May 1425, Alfonso issued
another safe-conduct to Thomas of Egypt
and his people, authorizing them to cross
and reside in his kingdom. On 19 June 1447,
Dona Maria de Castilla, deputizing for her
husband Alfonso V, issued a safe-conduct
in Barcelona in favour of Andrew "Duke of
Little Egypt", and of Peter, Martin and
Thomas, "Counts of Egypt", authorizing
them to travel throughout the land of
Spain.
Shortly afterwards, other groups joined
these first-comers and more safe-conducts
were issued. During a few short decades
these Gypsies would roam through the
Iberian lands with the blessing of the
authorities. Some claimed that they were on
a pilgrimage to Rome or Santiago de Com¬
postela. This produced a benevolent reac¬
tion from the authorities and ensured the
tolerance of the public. But the success of
the strategem was short-lived.
The titles of nobility had in fact been
forged or bought from obscure holders,
and the pilgrimages to Rome and Com¬
postela were pretexts to secure tolerance for
their presence in the heart of Christendom.
Pilgrimages, penitence, high-sounding
titles, glorification of the papacyall deeprooted
features of European, and especially
Spanish, life at that time were merely a
cover to enable the Gypsies to travel the
highways and to pass discreetly through
towns and villages.
However, the true characteristics of the
Gypsies soon began to be viewed with a less
friendly eye. People found it hard to
understand why the Gypsies were always on
the move. Their submissiveness was found
to be feigned, their language strange, their
clothes exotic, their behaviour incom¬
prehensible and therefore disturbing.
Everything about them was strange,
frightening, alien. The intransigent Chris¬
tianity of those times could not tolerate
their magic and witchcraft. The pride of the
powerful could not accept their insubor¬
dination. The earthbound peasant, depen¬
dent on the whims of rain, sun and hail, was
alarmed by the nomadic habits of these peo¬
ple who were indifferent to the tyranny of
climate. Townsfolk and villagers alike were
amused by the trained bears, the dancing
goats and the fortune-telling, but these
skills made them think of the devil. And for
the wretched who toiled the year round in
order to pay exorbitant taxes, the mere theft
of a hen, a bedsheet or a donkey (legendary
Gypsy practices) verged on the scandalous
if not the heretical.
The honeymoon between these two pro¬
foundly antagonistic cultures, one seden¬
tary, one nomadic, was bound to come to
an end. One side carried the use of force,
the other of cunning, to extremes. This cun¬
ning caused the Gypsies to be rejected by
the culture of the settled majority, and this
rejection provoked in them a bristling, ag¬
gressive pride. The gulf thus opened could
only become deeper. Legal means were
adopted to bring the presence of Gypsies in
Spain to an end. Measures of expulsion
were followed by physical punishment,
mutilation and slavery. In January 1499
Ferdinand and Isabella signed a decree pro¬
hibiting Gypsies from pursuing a nomadic
existence (at the end of the fifteenth century
this was tantamount to depriving them of
their identity) and threatening violation
with banishment, whipping, mutilation of
the ears or lifelong slavery.
This decree was of historic significance: it
was the first of a series of anti-Gypsy laws
that were to remain in force for three cen¬
turies. From its promulgation until the
decree signed by Charles III on 19
September 1783 and entitled "Regulations
to curb and punish vagrancy and other ex¬
cesses committed by so-called Gypsies",
more than a hundred laws were passed
against Spanish Gypsies, condemning them
to hideous punishments. These penalties
were not always inflicted because the Gyp¬
sies had committed crimes of violence,
cattle-stealing or other infringements of the
laws of property. In many instances they
were imposed for mere disobedience, for
the presence of Gypsies in a village, for their
way of fleeing the town and settling in
uninhabited spots or at the roadside, for
using their own language or dress, for
fortune-telling, or for allegations of can¬
nibalism concocted against them by
superstitious or malicious individuals. The
reasons for punishing the Gypsies were thus
often ambiguous and sometimes non¬
existent, and could be reduced to resent¬
ment of a way of life that embodied
insubmission.
But there was nothing ambiguous about
the punishments, and the threats could not
be forgotten. The Gypsies were liable to
30
punishment for their nomadism, for their
language, for their customs, for their posi¬
tion as itinerant craftsmen, in a word for all
that they were. They risked the lash, a slow
death in the galleys, branding. One law
forced them to live in small towns, another
forbade them to live in small towns. One
law required them to live among non-
Gypsies, another required them to keep
away from non-Gypsies. They were liable
to prosecution if they bought or sold
livestock at fairs. They were prohibited
from living in towns where there was a law
court, so that they would not bring lawsuits
against non-Gypsy neighbours. One edict
condemned them to be transported to
America; another refused them permission
to travel there. One law sought to separate
male from female Gypsies in order to en¬
sure the extinction of this "infamous race" .
Another decreed that their children should
be taken away from them and placed in in¬
stitutions. Yet another allowed Gypsies to
be hunted down even inside churches; this
was at the beginning of the eighteenth cen¬
tury, during the reign of Philip V, when
even a non-Gypsy parricide could find tem¬
porary asylum in a place of worship. This
law was an exact replica of a measure
adopted earlier in the United Kingdom.
Several laws authorized constables to shoot
Gypsies on sight if they were caught outside
the quarters assigned to them. This persis¬
tent campaign lasted until the end of the
eighteenth century. It was then that the first
flamenco songs were heard in Andalusia.
During the nineteenth century these first
simple songs were enriched by astonishing
new forms and styles. At the beginning of
Photo of an Andaluslan Gypsy woman
taken at the beginning of the century.
By the 19th century the flamenco art of
the Gypsies of Andalusia had developed
Into a finely-balanced union of voice,
guitar and corporeal expression. Words,
music and dance combined to create a
unique art form Imbued with a solemn,
secret sensuality. Below, a Gypsy dancer
in a tavern In Grenada, Spain.
this century distinguished creative artists
such as Manuel de Falla and Federico Gar¬
cía Lorca championed this incomparable
art which is not only a unique form of ex¬
pression but an embodiment of the Gypsy
community, of Andalusia's social isolation,
and of the indomitable capacity of the
human spirit to transmute suffering into
imperishable forms of brotherhood. This
incomparable art form is also an act of
fidelity to the force of memory which helps
to shape the human conscience. Not long
ago an old Gypsy cantaora (singer) known
as Tia Añica la Piriñaca was asked what she
felt when she sang. She replied: "Cuando
canto a gusto me sabe la boca a sangre"
(When I sing as I like, I have a taste of blood
in the mouth). And when another old Gyp¬
sy singer, Manolito El de María, was asked
why he sang he said, "Because I remember
what I have lived".
FELIX GRANDE, Spanish poet, writer and
essayist, is editor of the magazine Cuadernos
Hispanoamericanos (Hispano-American
Notes), published in Madrid. He has been
awarded many literary prizes including the
Spanish National Poetry Prize and Cuba's
Casa de las Americas Prize. He is the author of
a number of books including Lugar Siniestro
este Mondo, Caballeros (This World is a
Sinister Place, my Masters) and two volumes
of essays entitled Memoria del Flamenco
(Flamenco Memories), 1980, on the drama
and popular culture of the Spanish Gypsies.
©
The Gypsies of Brazil
by Atico Vilas-Boas da Mota
ALTHOUGH there have been
Gypsies in Brazil since the sixteenth
century, they have not been exten¬
sively studied. Their history can, however,
be retraced through the work of early
scholars which reveals that they were pre¬
sent at some of the most important stages in
the formation of the Brazilian nation. It is
known that some Gypsies belonged to the
bandeiras, groups of adventurers and ex¬
plorers from the region of Sao Paulo who
trekked inland in search of gold and
precious stones. Gypsies were also involved
in the black slave trade: a nineteenthcentury
engraving by the French artist Jean-
Baptiste Debret, court painter of Emperor
Pedro I of Brazil, shows the residence of a
rich Gypsy slave trader at Rio de Janeiro.
In 1808, when King John VI of Portugal
and his family took flight from the invading
French army and settled in Brazil, there
were already large Gypsy communities in
Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and
Minas Gerais. Contemporary accounts
describe how for want of an official dance
troupe the organizers of the royal welcome
recruited Gypsies to dance at the palace,
and how in spite of their services many of
the dancers had to vacate their dwellings the
next day to provide lodgings for the Por¬
tuguese exiles.
The presence of Gypsies in Brazil was due
initially to their systematic persecution by
the Inquisition, which regarded them as
socially undesirable heretics and sorcerers.
Transportation to Brazil was one of the
severe punishments meted out to them, and
the first transported Gypsy to land on
Brazilian soil, Antonio de Torres, arrived in
1574. Throughout the colonial period the
activities and residence of Gypsies were
regulated, and measures were taken relating
to the use of their language and their dress.
According to specialists, the Gypsies who
settled in Brazil between the sixteenth and
the nineteenth century belong to two major
groups, the Brazilian Gypsies from Por¬
tugal, or Calones, and the Rom, Gypsies
from elsewhere than the Iberian peninsula
who arrived in Brazil after the country
became politically independent in 1 822. The
Gypsies who have settled in Brazil in the
twentieth century have come mainly from
the Balkan peninsula or from central
Europe. Many came via Mexico; others ar¬
rived in the Rio de la Plata region before
spreading to Brazil and neighbouring coun¬
tries; others landed directly at Brazilian
ports.
The Calones have preserved certain of
their domestic customs but in practice these
are difficult to investigate since most
Calones tend to conceal their Gypsy
origins. In Rio de Janeiro they pass
themselves off as Portuguese immigrants,
and many of them are engaged in small- or
large-scale trade, work in bars, shops and
hotels, or drive taxis. The Rom tend to ped¬
dle such articles as bedspreads, carpets and
cloth, deal in used cars, or repair cookers
and cooking pots in hospitals, hotels and
barracks. They are renowned for their skill
as coppersmiths.
Most of Brazil's Gypsies belong to the
following groups: the Kalderash, who con¬
sider themselves aristocrats and the true
guardians of the Gypsy identity; the Macwaia
(pronounced Matchuaia) who are in¬
clined to abandon nomadism and live a
"crypto-Gypsy" life and are thus tending
to lose their identity; the Rudari, most of
whom are from Romania, live and prosper
in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; the
Horahané who originally came from Greece
32
< Families of Ciganos cavaleiros, Gypsies
who travel on horseback, are found In the
Brazilian Interior. It is not known whether
they have always used this mode of
transport or whether they had to give up
their traditional waggons because of the
nature of the terrain or when they Joined
the bandeirantes, groups of explorers
and adventurers.
Celebration of a wedding, in central
Brazil, between members of two famous
Gypsy groupsthe Kalderash and the
Macwaia. The Kalderash consider
themselves to be the true guardians of
the Gypsy identity, while the Mawaia have
tended to abandon the nomadic life.
Gypsies probably arrived in South
America at the same time as the first
Spanish and Portuguese colonists. Later
in the colonial period, Mexico City and
Lima became major bullfighting centres
and attracted, as well as bull-fighters and
their retinues, Gypsy musicians and
dancers who later moved on to
neighbouring countries. The Gypsies,
seen with Cuban dancers in the photo
below taken in Havana in 1918, may have
come from Mexico.
The voluntary emigration of European
Gypsies across the Atlantic began in the
19th century. They largely gravitated to
central and southern America, but some
groups settled in Canada and the United
States, including Alaska, and seem to
have adopted a sedentary way of life.
Photo below right shows a family of Gyp¬
sies in the United States during a halt on
their annual pilgrimage to Sainte-Annede-
Beaupré in Canada.
and Turkey and are mostly hawkers; and
the Lovara whose culture is in marked
decline and who pass themselves off as
Italian immigrants.
The exact number of Gypsies living in
Brazil today is not known. It has been
estimated at 60,000 but some believe that
the true figure is over 100,000. The
Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics has no reliable data, for the Gyp¬
sies usually claim in censuses either that
they are Brazilian or that they belong to
other nationalities. They all speak at least
three languages: Romani (their own
language, which they call Romanes), Por¬
tuguese, and Spanish.
Those who have remained more or less
faithful to their cultural patterns are almost
without exception illiterate. The "crypto-
Gypsies" on the other hand take pride in
achieving literacy and in making a career in
one of the libérai professions. Among them
are law graduates, medical doctors, dentists
and athletes, as well as radio singers, TV
performers and footballers although they
do not always admit their origins.
The gayos (gadje, or non-Gypsies) know
little about Gypsy life and cannot under¬
stand the Gypsy way of looking at the
world. A wall of mutual ignorance divides
Gypsy from gadje; as long as there is no at¬
tempt to bring them together, each will con¬
tinue to reject the other, and the prejudices
which surround the Gypsy culture will
persist.
Press campaigns have been launched and
approaches made to international organiza¬
tions to promote the idea of a "Gypsy
Statute" based on three fundamental prin¬
ciples: (1) the right to camp in every
Brazilian commune, so that the nomads do
not always come into conflict with
municipal authorities; (2) the right to
medical care and especially vaccination;
and (3) the opportunity to become literate
in Romani and in Portuguese so that they
can safeguard their culture by preserving
their language. It is clear that for nomads
the best educational system is seasonal
schooling.
Thus the Gypsies have been present
throughout the historical, and cultural
evolution of Brazil. Although few studies
have so far been devoted to them, it is im¬
possible to understand Brazilian culture as
a whole without taking into account the
contribution of the Gypsies in the arts,
literature, toponymy, customs, in the tradi¬
tional life of the country.
ATICO VILAS-BOAS DA MOTA, of Brazil,
is professor of oral literature and Ibero-
American folklore at the Federal University of
Goiâs. He is a specialist on popular cultures
and on questions relating to the Gypsies and
other ethnic minorities. A member of the
Centre d'Etudes Tsiganes (Centre of Gypsy
Studies) in Paris, he is the author of a "Con¬
tribution to the History of Gypsology in
Brazil".
11
Further reading on the Gypsies
Bartals, E. et Brun, G. Gypsies in Denmark. Copenhagen, 1943.
Barthélémy, A. Routes de Gitanie. Le Centurion, Paris, 1962.
Belon, P. Les Observations de Plusieurs Singularités et Choses
Mémorables Trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie
et autres Pays Estranges. Paris, 1553.
Bernadac, Ch. L'Holocauste Oublié. Le Massacre des Tsiganes.
France-Empire, Paris, 1979.
Boisard, F. Notice sur les Cziganis de Hongrie. Caen, 1816.
Borrow, G. The Zincali, or an Account of the Gypsies of Spain.
London, 1841.
Coelho, A. Os Ciganos de Portugal. Lisbon, 1892.
Colinon, M. Les Gitans. Vocabulaire, Traditions et Images. Nou¬
velle société Morel, Forcalquier, 1975.
Colocci, A. Gli Zingari, Storia d'un Popólo Errante. Turin, 1883.
Cozannet, F. Mythes et Coutumes Religieuses des Tsiganes. Payot,
Paris, 1973.
Ficowsky, J. Cyganie Polsky skia Historyczno-obyczajoue. Panstowny
Instytut, Warsaw, 1953.
Gobin, A. Le Flamenco. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris,
1975.
Grande, F. Memoria del Flamenco. Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1980.
Groupe ARCA. La Mano alio Zíngaro La Magia di una Cultura.
Igis, Milan, 1978.
Hancock, I. Problems in the Creation of a Standard Dialect of
Romanes. Austin, 1975.
Hoyland, J. A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits and Pre¬
sent State of the Gypsies. York, 1916.
Kenrick, D. and Puxon, G. Destiny of Europe's Gypsies. Heinemann,
London, 1973.
Lafuente, R. Los Gitanos, el Flamenco y los Flamencos. Barna,
Barcelona, 1955.
Liégeois, J.-P. Mutation Tsigane. La Révolution Bohémienne.
Complexe, Brussels, 1976.
López de Meneses, A. Novedades sobre ¡a Inmigración Gitana a
España. Barcelona, 1971,
McDowell, B. Gypsies, Wanderers of the World. National Geo¬
graphic Society, Washington, D.C., 1970.
McRitchie, D. Accounts of the Gypsies ofIndia. London, 1881.
Moraes, M. Os Ciganos no Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, 1896.
Nunes, O. O povo Cigano. Livraria apostolada da Impresa,
Oporto, 1981.
Potra, G. Contributioni la istorical Tsiganilor din Romania. Fun¬
dada Regele Carol I, Bucharest, 1939.
Pott, A.F. Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien. Halle, 1884-1885.
Ramírez Heredia, J. de'D. Nosotros, los Gitanos. Mandri, Barce¬
lona, 1972.
Rehfish, F. Gypsies, Tinkers and Other Travellers. Academic
Press, London, New York and San Francisco, 1975.
Sangan, J.-C. Une Ecole chez les Tsiganes. Droit et Liberté, Paris,
1974.
Starkie, W. The Road to Santiago. John Murray, London, 1957.
Vaux de Foletier, F. de Le Monde des Tsiganes. Berger-Levrault,
Paris, 1983.
Les Bohémiens en France au XIX' siècle. J.-C. Lattes, Paris,
1981.
Vesey-Fitzgerald, B. Gypsies of Britain. Chapman and Hall,
London, 1944.
The Gypsies are also creating, in their adopted countries and
languages, their own international literary heritage. Among the
authors engaged in this enterprise are Katarina Taikon, of Sweden;
Menyhert Lakatos, of Hungary; Joseph Coucou Doerr, Sandra
Jayat and Matéo Maximoff, of France; Rasim Sedjic and Rajko
Duric, of Yugoslavia.
The schooling of Gypsy children
A seminar organized by the Council for Cultural Cp-operation
(Council of Europe) on The Training of Teachers for Gypsy
Children was held at Donaueschingen, Federal Republic of Ger¬
many, from 20 to 25 June, 1983.
The purposes of the seminar were to discuss the educational
problems specific to Gypsy children and to identify the principal
elements of their culture and history with which teachers in Western
Europe should become acquainted.
The report on the seminar highlighted the specific characteristics
of Gypsy populations which must be borne in mind in any con¬
sideration of the schooling of Gypsy children.
"For Gypsies, all countries are host countries; there is no home
country to which they can return, nor any to which they can turn
for aid, be it only symbolic... The Gypsy's territory is within him
and its frontiers are psychological... These living conditions, the
desire of the interested groups to preserve their culture and in¬
dependence, coupled with the type of schooling so far proposed for
them, have meant that the education of their children has been, and
in part continues to be, perceived by Gypsy parents as just one ele¬
ment of coercion among others... The Gypsies can be effectively
helpedand their schooling situation thereby changed for the
betterif we succeed in correcting the image they continue to pre
sent to the surrounding populations. They must be rehabilitated by
those same media which have tended, and still tend, to denigrate
them. . . It may be said that the whole future of Gypsies and of other
nomáds, their rebirth or disappearance, depend on the direction
taken by school curricula and teaching practice.
At the end of this year or the beginning of next year, the Council
for Cultural Co-operation is to publish a document devoted to the
intercultural training of teachers entitled Tsiganes et Voyageurs.
An International Congress on
Turkish Carpets
Some 140 specialists from 25 countries are to attend
the First International Congress on Turkish Carpets,
organized by the Turkish Government under the
patronage of Minister of State Mesut Yilmaz. The Con¬
gress Is to be held in Istanbul from 7 to 14 October
1984 and will be coupled with a "Turkish Carpet
Week".
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Social Science Research and
Women
in the
Arab World
Unesco
Social Science Research
and Women in the Arab
World presents seven
studies prepared for a
Unesco meeting of women
social scientists from
twelve Arab countries on
'Multidisciplinary
Research on Women in the
Arab World'. The authors
address theoretical and
methodological issues, and
present their views on the
objectives and priorities
for future research.
Also includes a survey of
current research trends on
women in the region,
followed by a select
bibliography of Arab,
English and French
language sources.
175 pp., ISBN 92-3-102140-0, 75 French
francs
Co-edition Unesco: Frances Pinter
(Publishers), 5 Dryden Street, London WC2E
9NW, UK, who have exclusive sales rights for
the hardbound edition in the United Kingdom.
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