|
[ Home Page | Message Boards | News | Archive | Books | Buy Stuff | FAQs, etc. ]
A Staff Report by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
26-Jun-2007
Dear Straight Dope:
What are gypsies? Before I left the good ol´ U.S. of A., I thought they were just carnies and traveling bohemian types. Turns out that in Europe, where I have seen them all over, they have a totally different language, clothing, and everything – in fact, they are considered here to be of a completely different ethnicity. Also, are the traveling carnies of the U.S. any relation ethnically? —Jim
Dear Straight Dope:
My mother grew up in the late 40s and early 50s in south Philadelphia. She says
she remembers gypsies living on the outskirts of town
– dark-haired, dark-complexioned, gold-laden
people she was warned about time and time again. She wasn't allowed to get her
ears pierced until college because she was admonished that she'd look like a
gypsy. Where did they all go? Did they just decide to take out the earrings,
sell the ponies, and join mainstream America? —B.
Devon, Oakdale, CT
Dear Straight Dope:
Who or what is a gypsy? Gypsies have been featured in countless movies and
books but those depictions seem to be very different from the modern-day ones
turned up by a simple Internet search. And the term "gypsy" seems to have been
made over to convey a spirit of romantic wanderlust... but I'm betting the first
gypsies weren't so taken with life on the road. So what's the truth? What race
of people, if any, does the term refer to? When was the term coined? Who really,
does it refer to today? And was Johnny Depp's character in Chocolat
anything close to the real thing? —Andrea
Gonsalves
Dear Straight Dope:
How come we never hear about gypsies anymore? How does one go about becoming one? Are they accepting applications, and if so where would I turn one in? —Briguy
SDStaff Gfactor and guest contributor Silenus reply:
All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.
—J.R.R. Tolkien
We'll take these questions in order:
1. It's complicated.
2. Yes, basically.
3. About as close as Jack Sparrow is to a Caribbean pirate.
4. They're still around, but they aren't recruiting.
Seriously, this is a complicated subject. If you saw Borat, you saw
some Romani people, the ethnic group most often associated with Gypsies. Borat's
home town was really a Romani village in Romania, but the Romani were portraying
Kazakhs, not themselves. (Just the same, they weren't happy
– they
sued the filmmakers over it.) How did the Romani people come to be called
Gypsies? Anthropology professor Anne Sutherland in Gypsies: The Hidden
Americans (1975) says the word Gypsy derives from the time when the Romani
entered Western Europe and "represented themselves as Egyptians," the name
subsequently evolving into Gypsies.
In The Gypsy-American: An Ethnogeographic Study (2002), cultural
geographer David Nemeth of the University of Toledo adds some color to the
story, which dates back to Romani prehistory, when the first traveling bands
arrived in medieval European towns. Their "leaders professed to be Christian
[royalty] of a kingdom in the East, which they called 'Little Egypt.' They
claimed to have been driven from their Christian land by infidels, meaning the
Islamic Turks." Professor Ian Hancock of the University of Texas says there are
a few other explanations for the association between "Gypsy" and "Egyptian": One
is that Europeans of the time called lots of foreign populations Egyptians; another is that the Romani people stayed in an area called
Little Egypt when they first entered Europe.
That brings up a related point: Is the name Gypsy offensive? Another complicated issue. On one hand, although the Romani call themselves by other names in their own language, most would translate these names into English as Gypsy. On the other hand, many don't like it – the label, as we will see, has often led to persecution and stereotyping. In an e-mail to one of the authors of this report, Ian Hancock pointed out that "Gypsy has been acknowledged as an incorrect and offensive ethnonym (the Library of Congress for example changed its main subject heading from Gypsies to Romanies)."
Who exactly are the Gypsies? Here's where things start getting really complex. Sutherland says:
There are many distinct groups of people who are brought together under the word 'Gypsy' or who in some way refer to themselves as 'Gypsy' or 'Romanies'. In America some of these groups are the Kalderasha, Machwaya, Lowara, Xoraxai, Romanitchal (English Gypsies), Gitanos (Kale), Boyash, Ungaritza, (Hungarian Gypsies), and so on, and in Europe there are also the Scottish Travellers (Tinkers), and others.
In this online exhibit Nemeth (2005) gives a taxonomy of the Gypsy populations in the U.S. and Canada, which he attributes to Dr. Matt Salo, head of the Gypsy Lore Society: "Rom, and Roma, Ludar, Romnichels, English Travelers, Irish Travelers, Scottish Travelers, Hungarian-Slovak Gypsies, Cale or Gitanos, Roaders or Roadies, Sinti, Yenisch." He notes that the category is blurred: some authorities "might also include a variety of small 'g' (non-ethnic) 'gypsies' in their researches." Among these, he includes "snow birds," migrant workers, footloose and/or unlicensed cab drivers, dancers, lumberjacks, and even boat peoples who dwell on various mobile watercraft and barges. Beyond these, anyone who self-ascribes as a "Gypsy" is free to do so in our presently fluid multicultural society of constantly shifting identities."
Andrea's question helps us understand how blurry the definition is. In Chocolat (2000), Depp was trying not to be a Gypsy. He'd played a Romani Gypsy in The Man Who Cried the same year, and set out to be an Irish boat person instead. (Hey, why not?) But by some definitions, both characters are Gypsies. Similarly, the Midland County, Michigan sheriff's department recently issued a warning about a "Gypsy scam" involving "a family of gypsies" (note the small g) that "has been passing through Genesee and Saginaw County, stealing from elderly people." The warning notes that these "gypsies" are of "Mexican heritage."
Not to intrude on anyone's sense of self, but this I'm-a-Gypsy-if-I-say-I'm-a-Gypsy business is precisely why matters are as confused as they are. Some people who call themselves Gypsies are ethnically unrelated to the Romani (the Irish Travelers and Scottish Travelers, for example, are ethnic Irish and Scots), whereas some Romani don't call themselves Gypsies. For the balance of this article, we'll treat Romani and Gypsies as synonymous, but be aware that in reality things aren't anywhere near that neat.
The Romani can be traced back to India of roughly the 11th century through linguistic, genetic, and cultural evidence. Current theory holds that the Romani left India during the 11th century as Hindu armies comprised of various non-Aryan peoples sought to escape the encroaching forces of Islam. Language evidence suggests that the Gypsies migrated west along the Silk Road through Persia and Armenia, finally entering Europe in the early 1300s. As these groups penetrated further into Europe, a few were absorbed into the local population, losing their Romani identity (the Jenisch, for example), while others became more distinct, absorbing local groups into the Romani. There's also evidence of a second and third migration from India, starting as late as the 1300s.
Are all Gypsies wanderers? No, but many are. Part of the reason is surely their long history of persecution. To this day some jurisdictions in Europe won't allow them to settle permanently.
Estimates of the Gypsy population vary widely. Nemeth says the U.S. population is probably between 50,000 and 2,000,000 – a range so wide it barely qualifies as an estimate. In Europe Gypsies are thought to number between eight and 15 million. Part of the difficulty in counting is that many Romani are unwilling to be counted. A 2000 U.S. Census Bureau memo says, "Culturally, the Romani are very suspicious of census-taking activities. Many people still recall the persecution of the Gypsies under Hitler and view a census as a method of identifying Gypsies for potentially negative consequences."
There's no single Romani language, rather a collection of dialects related to the languages of northern India, notably Punjabi. In some cases Gypsies speak the local language mixed with Romani vocabulary. There's no single Gypsy religion either – generally the Romani have adopted the local religion and added some of their own beliefs.
The Romani have an elaborate culture, which includes its own legal system.
Traditional Romani culture separates itself from non-Gypsies, which are called
gaje. Much of the Gypsy legal system is based on the notion of defilement. They
must avoid becoming defiled by gaje and contaminated by the unclean. If either
of these things happens, a Gypsy is considered marime and shunned or banished by
other Gypsies.
In addition to dividing their group from outsiders, Gypsies divide the body into
clean and unclean parts. As you might guess, the dividing line is the waist. Different towels must be used to wash each half, at different times. As
you might imagine, oral sex is out of the question (although some authors point
out this just makes it more attractive for young gypsies). Women are considered
unclean during menstruation, and their lower parts are pretty much always
considered defiling.
A Romani woman, according to traditional mores, must not walk in front of a man
who is seated. Romani women have managed to turn this fear of defilement into
power. A Romani woman who is wronged can toss her skirt over a man's head (or
sometimes her underwear or even just expose her genitals). Skirt tossing defiles
the recipient, making him an immediate outcast. He must make peace with the
skirt tosser before he can reenter the group. Defilement from skirt
tossing is permanent; the only way to remove it is to pretend it never happened.
The skirt tosser does just that once peace is made.
In 1975, Carol Miller wrote that "skirt-tossing pollution was probably more
effective before the days of sanitary pads. Shoe-tossing seems equally common
these days, and the exposure of the female genitalia, although less lethal, is
also popular. A pubic hair, applied to the face of a Rom, is also a very strong
sanction at present and indicates 'real hate.'" By 1993, though, the practice
was rare among American Romani. In fact, the skirt-tosser would herself
become marime.
Similar rules apply to encounters with gaje. If a person spends too much time
with non-Romani or has too much contact, the person is marime. Outsider guests
to the home of a gypsy must bring their own towels, but that's just the
beginning. Even involuntary contact can make a Romani marime. Prisoners returning home
may find themselves outcasts. The documentary American
Gypsy tells the story of Grover Marks, the leader of a Gypsy community in
the U.S. The police searched his family's home without a warrant, as well as
individual family members and their belongings. Marks and
his son Jimmy were charged with misdemeanor theft and pleaded guilty. After
the search, their community shunned them because they'd been defiled by
the gaje police.
It's this feature of Romani culture, and a few others, that explain their
persecution, says Ian Hancock. In We Are the Romani People (2002)
he explains where anti-Gypsyism comes from. "The first laws curtailing the
movements of Romanis date from 1416. Both institutional and personal
anti-Gypsyism are still common today," says Hancock, himself a descendant
of Gypsies. He says some of the causes
are:
Hancock omits another explanation for anti-Gypsy sentiment that bears some discussion: the widespread belief that Gypsies are thieves. In the U.S., typically the only time you read about them is when they're being accused of a scam or other crime. (Some believe the word "gyp" derives from Gypsy, although World Wide Words says "direct evidence is lacking, and the term arose in the U.S., where gypsies have been less common than in Europe.") What basis if any this stereotype has in reality is difficult to say; police report forms don't provide a "Gypsy" check-off box.
In any case Gypsies have long been considered undesirables, facing discrimination and oppression in virtually all countries they've traveled in. In Romania they were enslaved for many generations. In 1926, Swiss authorities began systematically taking Romani children from their parents to provide them with a "better life." An organization named Pro Juventute sponsored a program called "Operation Children of the Road" for many years, with the intention of destroying the Romany way of life – a program not halted till the 1970s.
Germany set about systematically persecuting Romani during the latter years of
the Weimar Republic. In 1927, for example, Germany passed a law requiring all
Gypsies to be photographed and fingerprinted. They were forbidden to travel in
family groups, depriving them of their preferred lifestyle. Gypsy civil rights
were totally stripped from them in 1933. The rise of Hitler brought greater oppression. Eugenic sterilization laws were
passed to prevent the propagation of "lives not worth a life." Gypsies were to
be sterilized, along with anyone having a "genetically determined" illness.
The Nuremberg Laws affected Gypsies as well as the Jews. If you had two
grandparents who were even part gypsy, you were condemned. During "Gypsy
Clean-Up Week" in 1938, hundreds were beaten and imprisoned.
Probably the greatest challenge to the Romani way of life came in 1942, when
Heinrich Himmler ordered all gypsies sent to concentration camps. Here they fell
into the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele, who had establish a special “Gypsy Family
Camp” at Auschwitz/Berkinau. In this camp they were experimented upon, in
horrific examples of what a “superior race” is capable of. Estimates of the
total number of Gypsies killed in the Holocaust range from 500,000 to 4 million
(80% of the population of European gypsies). The total number may never be
known, as many of the condemned were entered into the records with merely a “Z”
to represent them.
To this day, the remaining Romani in Europe have been seen as “a problem to be dealt with.” Countries including Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia have established agencies to handle what these countries refer to as “the Gypsy problem.” In an article entitled "Hungary's Gypsy explosion" in the World Press Review for October, 1983, a spokesman for the Hungarian government expressed fears that if Romani nationalism were encouraged in that country, "we could have pogroms, with Gypsies killing Hungarians, and vice-versa." The collapse of Communism in many cases has worsened the plight of Gypsies, many of whom have fled unfriendly new regimes in eastern Europe for the west, the UK in particular. The refugees frequently are poorly educated and impoverished; there have been news reports of Gypsy women and children begging in the streets of London.
Gypsies in the U.S. have had fewer problems, and a common perception is that they've disappeared. As professor Hancock noted in email correspondence with us, that's not really true:
The "Gypsies" you aren't seeing so much these days are the Hollywood stereotypes, not real Romanies. The widespread popular perception of a "Gypsy" in this country is that it is a fantasy figure, defined by behavior and appearance rather than by ethnicity. The image is commonly encountered in movies, cartoons and at Renaissance fairs … [K]eep in mind that we're not a homogeneous population; there are several quite distinct subgroups (just as there are Hispanics, Jews, etc.). The Bashalde Roma, for example, very numerous in the northeast, don't engage in fortune-telling; the Kalderash Roma on the other hand, do. Some may conform to what's expected by the public if it's going to bring clients into the parlor, but it's show.
He said the best comparison is to the Jews, some of whom adhere to tradition more strictly than others, but all of whom consider themselves Jews. Similarly, "There are Roma who maintain purity/pollution separation behaviors, and some who only do so a little. Generalization will be misleading – we have lawyers and professors and politicians as well as fortune tellers, and are usually mistaken for Hispanics." To which the smart aleck in us can't help but add: Lawyers! Politicians! Won't these people ever take up honest work?
References
Belton, Brian, Questioning Gypsy Identity: Ethnic Narratives in Britain and
America (2005)
Blurred history of Gypsy terms, BBC News, March 21, 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4368791.stm
Borrow, George, Word-Book of the Romany, or English Gypsy Language, globusz.com,
2003: http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Romano/00000001.htm
Clark, Frank, The Never-ending Road American Roma (Gypsy ), Travellers, &
"Others," 2005:
http://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/index.html
Crystal, Ellie, Roma People - Gypsies, crystalinks.com:
http://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html
Dellal, Jasmine, "American Gypsy: A Stranger in Everybody's Land" (2000):
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2000/americangypsy/index.html
Dragonmir, Marius, Europe's Beggars, Romania's Roma, Central Europe Review,
November 27, 2000: http://www.ce-review.org/00/41/dragomir41.html
Duna, William, Gypsies: A Persecuted Race, 1985:
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Histories__Narratives__Documen/Roma___Sinti__Gypsies_/Gypsies__A_Persecuted_Race/gypsies__a_persecuted_race.html
Fonseca, Isabel, Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (1996)
Gardi, Balazs, "The Roma People," The Digital Journalist, November 2006:
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0611/dis_gardi.html
Garofoli, Joe, "Crystal-ball crackdown – New S.F. Fortune-teller Law: City
Takes Gypsies' Sensitivities into Account," San Francisco Chronicle, July
17, 2003:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/17/MN240405.DTL
Gatlif, Tony, Latcho Drom (1993)
Godwin, Peter, "Gypsies: The Outsiders," National Geographic, April 2001:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0104/feature4/
"Gypsies" in the United States, Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum
Studies:
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/gyp/gypstart.html
Hancock, Ian, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsy Racism in Europe, Other Voices,
v.2, n.1 (February 2000):
http://www.othervoices.org/2.1/hancock/roma.html
Hancock, Ian, Roma, The Handbook of Texas Online, 2001:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/RR/pxrfh.html
Hancock, Ian, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution
(1999)
Hancock, Ian, We Are the Romani People (2002)
Mattras, Yaron, ed., History of the Romani Language, University of
Manchester Romani Project:
http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/Research/Projects/romani/files/11_origins.shtml
Lockwood, William & Salo, Sheila, Gypsy and Traveler Groups in North America,
The Gypsy Lore Society, July 1, 2005:
http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html
McClure, Erica, "Ethnoanatomy in a Multilingual Community: An Analysis of
Semantic Change," American Ethnologist, August 1976, pp. 525-542.
Nahabedian, Matilda, "All Ethnic Problems Solved?" Central Europe Review,
November 27, 2000: http://www.ce-review.org/00/41/nahabedian41.html
Nemeth, David, "DX: Gypsies (Romanies) and Travelers" (online version of
exhibit at Carlson Library, The University of Toledo) Summer, 2005:
http://library.utoledo.edu/inf/exhibit/gypsy/beginning.htm
Nemeth, David, The Gypsy-American: An Ethnogeographic Study (2002)
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, Religion and Culture of the Roma,
1998-2005: http://www.religioustolerance.org/roma.htm
Partos, Gabriel, Nations unite to help Roma people, BBC News, February 2, 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4228681.stm
The Patrin Web Journal: Romani Culture and History, 1996-2002:
http://www.geocities.com/~patrin/
Randall, Kay, What's in a Name: Professor Takes on Roles of Romani Activist and
Spokeperson To Improve Plight of His Ethnic Group, University of Texas Feature
Story, June 2003:
http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html
Reinhardt, Claudia & Ganzel, Bill, Gypsies in North America During the Great
Depression, Wessels Living History Farm:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_33.html
Roma (Gypsy) Origins & History, Romani.org, 1998:
http://www.romani.org/local/romhist.html
Roma (people), Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568856/Roma_(people).html
RomaniWorld.com: http://www.romaniworld.com/
RomNews Network Community:
http://romnews.com/community/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=MostPopular
Schneider, Howard & Spolar, Christine, "Czech Prejudice
– and TV – Fuel Gypsy
Migration to Canada," Washington Post, September 1, 1997:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/americas/sep/03/gypsies.htm
Smith, Fergus, Romany Language, 1998:
http://www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/index.html
Sutherland, Anne, Gypsies: The Hidden Americans (1975)
Tong, Diane, ed., Gypsies: An Interdisciplinary Reader (1998)
Van Horn, Carol, "Census 2000 Informational Memorandum No. 3," Census.gov,
January 20, 1999: http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/InfoMem.pdf
Weyerauch, Walter, ed., Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture (2001)
Yoors, Jan, The Gypsies (1967)
Yoors, Jan, The Heroic Present: Life Among the Gypsies (2004)
—SDSTAFF Gfactor and guest contributor Silenus
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
Staff Reports are researched and written by members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, Cecil's online auxiliary. Although the SDSAB does its best, these articles are edited by Ed Zotti, not Cecil, so accuracywise you'd better keep your fingers crossed.
[ Return to the Staff Report Archive ]
The Straight Dope / Questions or comments for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com
Comments regarding this website to: webmaster@straightdope.com
For advertising information, see the Chicago Reader Online Rate Sheet
Copyright 2007 Chicago Reader, Inc. All rights reserved.
No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written
permission.
The Straight Dope is a registered trademark of Chicago Reader, Inc.