A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY, ORIGIN, CULTURE, AND PERSECUTION OF THE ROMANI PEOPLE, FORMERLY KNOWN AS GYPSIES

By examining the lives of the Romani people throughout their history, the harsh judgments and brutality of the hegemonies and the mainstream societies against this people is brought to excruciatingly painful light. Examples of ethnocentrism and fiercely affirmed mass stereotyping are demonstrated against this people in its severest forms. Ethnocentrism is defined as “the judging of people from other cultures and backgrounds by one's own cultural standards and beliefs" (Meanings, 9). Culture is not only the “capabilities and habits held by members of a society", but it is also a learned system of behavior patterns including the “many forms of dress" (3). In short, it is “what people know, feel, think, make, and do"(3).

Stereotyping involves adopting a faulty belief system regarding an entire group based on hearsay, physical appearances, dress, and other superficial means of pre-judging and group classifying without regard for a group member also being an individual with unique character traits (3).

Some individuals hold to a stereotype so rigidly that they become prejudiced against a group and discriminate against the group regardless of information that the stereotype is unfair or untrue. When a stereotype is widely held in a culture, prejudicial treatment of the group on a broad scale is likely to occur in that society (3).
This definition of cultural stereotyping and the result of mass stereotyping as described is illustrated in the phrase that the “zigeuners" (Germany's word for the Romani people) were decided to be “lives undeserving of life", and justified the forced sterilization, persecution, and the calculated eradication of the Romani people along with the Jews, the people of African descent, and the “incurably mental ill" (Hancock, 36). The belief held in German society especially during the 1920's through the 1940's was that the entire Romani population was a criminal by birth, and as such were transmitters of the genetic disease of criminality (36).

This prompted the belief that they (the Romanies) were inferior and dangerous to the more pure population and deserved to die (36). By adopting this mentality, any shred of guilt for their treatment of this people was glossed over and justified. “Much of the so-called criminal propensity ascribed to the Gypsies is based on disregard or ignorance of the rules of Romaniya that are followed by the Roma" (Weyrauch, 6).

As you take this voyage into the world of the Romani people, be aware of the internal reactions to the information presented. Consider if the reactions are based upon the perspective of pluralism. Pluralism is “the acceptance of differences in others while not necessarily wanting to adopt those differences for the self" (Meanings, 9). One can gain a better understanding of the ‘self', can expand one's ideas and appreciations for other types of aesthetics when pluralism is adopted into the ‘self' (9). Adopting a pluralistic approach fosters creativity and personal progress in many ways (9). Consider how the hegemonies of various societies have treated the Romanies. Hegemony is the leading and most influential as well as powerful group within a society. The hegemony “leads the minorities and less powerful groups within their society" (4). They tend to “set the standards of behavior and ways of thinking"(4). Hegemony also influences the standards of the human ideal of what is considered beautiful as well as what is considered ugly. This has a direct effect on “gender dress" and the “social status of ethnic groups" (5).

The Romani are a people that had, for several centuries, lost the identity of their roots, their origin, their “Baro Than" (“homeland" in the Romani tongue). Over years of not having a written language to remain constant with, the spoken language has splintered and evolved. For many centuries the Romani people have been known by the names that the mainstream, non-Romani societies have called them. Names such as Gypsies, Tsiganes, Czigany, Cigany, Zigeuner, Gitanos, Heiden and other names — all of which have had negative connotations in their history. It was not until November of 2000 that the “Library of Congress officially changed its subject heading from ‘Gypsies' to ‘Romanies'".

Also, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and all but two Romani organizations have adopted the spelling Romani. The variation Romany is also acceptable but is considered more out-of-date (xxi). The Romanian government supports the word Rromani instead, because they feel that it more effectively aids the populace in setting them apart from being mistakenly identified with the Romanian people (Hancock, xvii, xx, xxi, xxii). For an ancient people who have had negative names imposed on them for centuries, it is about time they were able to officially adopt a name that truly describes them and validates them universally as a societal and biological group.

Due to the hegemonies' powerful hands in their affairs, the Romanies have been divided and isolated from each other. There are a great many tribes and language variations as a result of this separation. Amazingly, despite the many hundreds of years of separation between the groups, a great many similarities exists, still containing the unique signature imprints of their origins.

It has been established conclusively that they are not aliens from another planet sent to pollute and destroy us. So then, where are they from? What are their origins as far back as can be adequately proven? Since the Romanies have had no known written language over the centuries, the clues and proof rest upon the development of their spoken language and serologic genetic findings. Many theories have been formulated and published, making it extremely difficult to find the most accurate origins. However, the most recent and most reliable source of information is the book, We are the Romani people, by Ian Hancock. It is from his book that I will present the findings of my search. The initial clue to the discovery of the Romanies' main country of origin was found by ‘chance'.

It happened in Holland in the year 1760. A Hungarian student named Valyi Stefan was at the University of Leiden in the common room. He overheard a conversation spoken in Sanskrit (an ancient east Indian language) and recognized key words and phrases that mimicked the words used by Romani workers in his homeland. He happened to mention the similarities of the two languages to a printer named Nemeth Istvan, who related the discovery of the similarities to an army captain named Szekely von Doba, who mentioned it to a scholar named Georg Pray. If this linguistic “game of telephone" was not unusual enough, it was sixteen years later when the scholar named Pray, published that observation in the Vienna Gazette in 1776 (2)! This produced a starting point for other researchers and specialists who were interested in studying these peoples' origins. “Romani Studies had begun" (2). A great many more years passed before the correct origins were more precisely pinpointed. Even recent publications are in error and this fact is proven by Ian Hancock's findings in We are the Romani people. Ian cites the language clues to various possibilities and historic markers. He writes of the historic connection between the Rajput warriors from Northern India that fought against the Ghaznavids some time after the year 1000 A.D. at Nishapur in Khorasan (today's east Iran). “The Indian militia was composed principally of Rajputs, whose name means ‘sons of princes'" (10).

The antecedents of the [Rajput] tribes are unknown…it is possible that some of these tribes came from Central Asia in the wake of the invasion of the Huns and became part of local tribes…in the year 747…all Rajput clans were purified and admitted to the status of Kshatriyas…the constant division of Rajput tribes into small exogamous clans led to the development of a complicated network of martial alliances. This in turn produced a fusion of the leadership of the Rajputs and gave rise to a common Rajput culture, which is still characteristic of Rajasthan today (10, 11).

The Rajput warriors were taken as prisoners of war and were pressed into military service. The Seljuks of Rum defeated the Ghaznavids between 1038 and 1040, bringing the Rajput captives with them to the Byzantine Empire (8).

A geneticist named Vijender Bhalla performed a series of “serological analyses" and as a result, was able to identify “a common ethnic substratum in India that Romanies share with Jat Sikhs, Panjabi Hindus and Rajputs" (9). Bhalla also concluded, “Romanies are genetically most like the Rajput populations in India and least like the present-day Dom" (13). This statement dispels the theory that the Romanies descended from the Doms. From a linguistic examination by two prominent linguistic researchers on the subject, Kochanowski and Ronald Lee both are under the opinion that their vocabulary suggests that the “Romanies began as settled peoples rather than nomadic peoples" (14).
The Seljuks were proponents of Islam and they with their captives migrated through Persia, Turkey, and the Balkans. This pattern is also suggested in the language of the Romanies (14).

The Rajput warriors did not go into battle by themselves. They were assisted by the shiviranuchara. The shiviranuchara were a mixture of non-warrior caste men and women who resembled in function like a traveling city. They performed a variety of services, including “clearing the battlefields, erecting tents, cooking for the soldiers, entertaining them, mending broken weapons and attending to the wounded" (11).

In “fifty years or less", the Romanies moved through the Middle East to reach Anatolia. It would be there that the early Romani ancestors would remain for about two hundred and fifty years. While in Greece, they became “metal workers, carpenters or entertainers" (16). Being enslaved in Romania was to be the fate of the half of the Romani population at that time. They were called tsiganes (whose meaning is synonymous with “slave"). This lasted over 500 years. Slave labor was divided into various categories. The various occupations of the Romani slaves give further insight into the future generations of Romani tribes. Occupations such as “Gold-washer, Charcoal-burner, Bowl-maker, Flower-seller, Basket-maker, Fortune-teller, Sieve-maker, Blacksmith, Handyman, Seamstress, Hut-builder, Torturer, Fisherman, Bear-trainer, Spoon-carver, Metal-worker, Cauldron-maker, Whitewasher, Brush-maker, Knife-grinder, Locksmith, Violin-player, Musician, Cook, Laundryman, Boot-mender, Executioner. There were Slaves of the Crown, Slave of the Church, Slaves of the householders, Slaves of the Court, Slaves of the noblemen, Slaves of the Boyars (Barons), and Slaves of the small landowners (Hancock, 19).

There were Romani slaves called scopiti who were castrated male slaves assigned to the noblewomen. All of these slaves had no legal rights for redress of wrongs done to them. They were considered foreigners and non-Muslims in an Islamic world. “By the 1500's the word tsigan had come specifically to mean ‘Romani slave' (18). The House slaves were not allowed to speak their native tongue, so generations of not being allowed to use their native tongue separated and isolated them from the other Romani. The female House slaves were often forced to serve as sex slaves to entertain the guests of their master. The children born from this were also born into slavery. Slaves were punished by “flogging, the falague (shredding of the soles of the feet with a whip), cutting off the lips, burning with lye, being thrown naked into the snow, and hanging over smoking fires and wearing a three-corned spiked iron collar" (21).

The infamous “Vlad the Impaler" was known for the inventive and inhumane tortures he inflicted on the Romanies. Russians took over after the Ottomans in 1826. The Romani people yet remained as slaves. Slavery was abandoned by 1790 in Transylvania, while slavery still existed in Moldavia and Wallachia. The 1850's brought the Industrial Revolution that made the “ownership, care and feeding of the slaves a liability rather than an asset". Romanian students returning to Romania from Sorbonne University in France brought with them views of slavery being backward and “old-fashioned" (23). On 23 December 1855, the Moldavian General Assembly unanimously voted to abolish slavery. They were not fully freed until two years after Romania became a country.

That was when Mihail Kogalniceanu, the new leader of new Romania “abolished serfdom and redistributed the land to the lower classes of society," including the Romani. Tsigane did not mean slave anymore, but was continued to identify the Romani people by the Romanians. The Romani people had been scattering and spreading throughout the world during the time the group in Romani were enslaved in Romania. In the other countries, the Romani did not fare much better. In the sixteenth century, Romanies were to be “branded with a V on their breast, and enslaved for two years…if they escaped and recaptured, they were then to be branded with an S and made slaves for life."

The Romanies in Spain were treated poorly also. Three Romanies from Spain were aboard Columbus' third voyage in 1498 to the Americas. Spain, England, and Scotland used the Americas as a ‘dumping ground' of Romani slaves. Forced labor workers consisting of Romani were shipped from Portugal to Brazil, Angola, and India. Russia made the Romani in their country “Slaves of the Crown". Scotland forced the Romani there to work as slaves in the coalmines. It is estimated that half of the original group of Romani were taken into slavery by the various countries, while the remaining half were able to continue their exodus to various lands and into Europe. The Europeans and their monarchs did not look or behave kindly to the new arrivals of Romani in their lands. A variety of notions and ideas about their character were based on their appearances and unusual behavior. As a result, negative stereotyping caused declarations and laws that would try to undermine the Romani people. Laws were passed that made it illegal to speak the Romani tongue. There were laws regulating the “movement" and “treatment" of the Romanies.

The German “Emperor Karl VI called for the extermination of Romanies everywhere throughout his domain." In the year 1740, any Romani person found in Bohemia was killed by order of an edict. In 1782, 200 Romani were taken on charges of cannibalism and were tortured and then executed. The charges were proved false when the ‘victims' of the supposed crime appeared alive. In England and Finland it was “illegal to be born a Romani". In short, they were not even allowed to exist (32).

The Germans did the most collateral damage to the population of the Romanies during Nazi-occupied Europe before and during the Holocaust, or O Baro Porrajmos in the Romani tongue. Zigeuner is the German slang word for the Romani. Years before the Nazis, “it was not illegal to murder a Romani and there were sometimes ‘Gypsy hunts' in which Romanies were tracked down and killed like wild animals; forests were set on fire to drive out any Romanies who might have been hiding there" (35). The German Romani are the Sinti people (the name they called themselves). The Holocaust had reduced the Romani population by an incredible seventy percent. Johannes Behrendt of the Office of Racial Hygiene stated that “[a]ll Gypsies should be treated as hereditarily sick; the only solution is elimination. The aim should therefore be the elimination without hesitation of this defective element in the population" (42).

Despite the devastating blow of the extermination of three fourths of the Romani population, the extreme lack of redress was an additional sickening blow. Not one person testified on behalf of the Romani victims at the famous Nuremberg Trials! Regarding the issue of the zigeuner population in the concentration camps, the Nazis attempted to “justify - or differentiate – the killing of Gypsies by stating that they had been punished as criminals, not as Gypsies per se. And they succeeded…" (Fonseca, 274). No reparations were made to the victims or to the Romanies as a people. The United Nations also did nothing for the Romanies nor did the US War Refugee Board. In 1982, “the Nazi genocide against Sinti and Roma was officially acknowledged by Helmut Schmidt" (Fonseca, 275).

In 1998, the “then President of the United States Bill Clinton (himself of Romani descent) appointed him [Ian Hancock, author of We are the Romani people] to represent Romanies on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council" (Hancock, xiii). He was the only Romani on a 65-member panel to represent the Romanies.

The Romani people began anciently as a settled, not nomadic, high caste members of Indian society in the warrior class. From the time of their sojourn into a prisoner-of-war status onward they were classified as foreigners and non-Muslim, placing them lower on the social hierarchy scale. Soon afterwards, the stigma of being slaves dropped them to the lowest member of society. In the areas where the Romani people did not enter a country initially as slaves, the criteria used to form opinions about them was their foreign appearance, their foreign language, and their non-mainstream behavior. The appearance, language, and behavior of the Romanies constitute the core elements of their culture. What are the elements of their culture?

So far, their actual appearance and culture have not been addressed in this presentation. Should it make a difference at this point what they looked like or what they believed in? Would the fact that they had at that time lost their “homeland" identity be sufficient justification in not allowing citizenship in a country they have been forced to live in for over 500 years? Is their nomadic status in other countries also sufficient reason to justify the prejudicial, discriminatory, and harsh treatment they received by the hegemonies and the mainstream locals? If the reader does not agree with a belief or a code of conduct of the Romani people, would that make a difference in how the reader will perceive the historical treatment of them? Should it make a difference from a pluralistic perspective? Also, if the reader has had some negative experience with a Romani individual or individuals, does it change the perspective held on the historic treatment of them? Should it? Or, does the history of the Romani people offer some understanding and create a lowering of the “stereotype wall"?

Amazingly enough, to this day, much of the culture and belief systems of the Romanies remain intact. Family ties and roles, ritual and moral purity, and internal social unity are the core elements of their belief system throughout all of the fragments of the Romani society. What makes them ritually or spiritually unclean also rest at their core. Their appearance and skin color varies widely, as in many cultures, but there are still remnants of similarities within the subgroups of the Romani people at large, which occur with many other cultures as well. It is beyond the scope of this research to explain the individual variations of culture, beliefs, and appearances within the subgroups. However, understanding that there is a wide range of diversity among the people at large is crucial.

The main recognized subgroups of the Romani are:

The Danubian group (Kalderash, Lovara, Curara, etc.);
The western Balkan group (Istrians, Slovenes, Havates, Arlija, etc.);
The Sinto group (Eftavagarja, Kranarja, Krasarja, Slovaks, etc.);
Rom groups of central and southern Italy;
British (Welsh, now extinct; today only Anglo-Romani survive, speaking a mixture of English and Romani);
Finnish
Scandinavian
Greco-Turk
Iberian (today represented by Calo, the Hispano-Romani dialect of the Romani called Gitanos by non-Romani). (http://web.quipo.it/minola/romani/language6.htm).

The Romani are further classified into categories such as “migratory, semi-migratory, and settled groups." The Roma are also classified by their trades, which is intertwined with their perceived social status, the highest being musicians. They are also categorized into “city-dwelling and country-dwelling inhabitants." The country-dwellers are more able to effectively preserve their culture. Another division to be had amongst the Romani themselves are the “adherence or non-adherence to various traditions and rules, according to which Roma are classified as ritually ‘clean' or ‘dirty'.

Every group or family considers something different as dirty or inferior. However, there are Roma that are universally pronounced unclean. Examples of Romani belonging to this category (not necessarily a group), are those who eat horse meat (considered a sacred animal), or a family whose daughter married outside the Romani group." The Romani are divided by wealth, as in mainstream society. The richest group traditionally has been the musicians, and the poorest “are considered the Roma from the camps in eastern Slovakia."

Appearance, such as how light or dark-skinned the Romani are classifies them. There is a tendency for lighter hair and skin among the Wallachian Romani. They are also “most often seen in the classic Romani attire – long, colorful skirts, three-cornered scarves on their heads or shoulders. Gold has special significance for them, in moveable, wearable, durable money value, but also for medicinal and spiritual protection from diseases. The Wallachian Romani are also fluent in their native Romani tongue. (“Divisions Within the Roma", 26-022000, _ HYPERLINK "http://www.romove.cz/en/article/18844" __http://www.romove.cz/en/article/18844_).

Roles are “positions that people occupy in a group or society. These positions are defined by social relationships; people take on roles in relation to other persons. Performance of a role is guided by social expectations for the role player's behavior (including dress), knowledge, and attitudes (Dress, 7). Sociofacts are “social behaviors or how people organize themselves in relation to one another." Society is “often used to refer to a group of people living and working together in a systematic way" (4).

Romipen refers to the Romani culture. Romipen is the collection of all of the elements that make up a “true" Romani people. It consists of taboos, rituals, roles, conduct, dress and beliefs that unite the Romani. Through Romipen, relationships are defined, especially relationships between a man and woman, including the restrictive guidelines of conduct between Romani and gadze. A common thread in the culture is the concept of exclusionism, a keeping one's distance from outsiders (known as gadze, gadje or gaje). This was a major historic factor that led to the mainstream's attempts at “filling in the blanks" and fantasizing about the culture that the Romani “hid" from their knowledge.

The ability to survive in a hostile environment such as the Romani people have for so many centuries, has been because of their “survival through resistance" or “survivance". The Romani people have maintained their ways not only by “absolutely excluding gadje [non-Gypsies] from their private lives, their law, their personal practices, and their values, but by excluding them even from knowledge about Romani language and social institutions" (Weyrauch, ix).

The responsibility to perpetuate Romipen rests upon the mother to teach her children, her daughters-in law, and her grandchildren. In the Romani culture, it is unacceptable for a Romani girl to marry a gadje boy. Typically, a newlywed daughter-in-law will live with the groom's family until the training in wifehood and motherhood are complete. If a Romani girl marries a gadje, she will not receive the training and therefore most likely not be able to retain the Romani culture. A gadje daughter-in-law would receive training from her groom's mother, thus preserving the Romani ways, and would therefore be considered a more acceptable union (Fonseca, 49).

There are some Romani customs and beliefs that have no known origin – not even in India, such as “symbolically cutting the invisible lupunza or fetters which tie an infant's feet together to allow it to learn to walk" (Hancock, 71). On the other hand, there are distinctly Indian roots in other aspects of Romani culture. The music has Indian roots – the Romani people use the bhairava musical scale. The Romani tribunal, called a kris, has its origins with “the earlier administrative and judicial Rajput body of men called the panchakala…" (71).

It was due to lands refusing settling by Romani that kept them on the move. The survival of the groups rested upon their ability to move out of hostile territory, as was also their need for a trade or occupation that complimented the lifestyle (Hancock, 59). Also, the practice of “telling fortunes" to the gadje offered both protection and persecution. On the one side, one may be less likely to harm a person who can control the future.

In India, “fortune-telling" is an honored and respected institution. In contrast, this was considered heresy among the Christian populace in Europe (59). In Hindi and Muslim populations, to give alms to beggars is “a religious obligation", whereas in Europe and in the West it is frowned upon. To “have too many children" is looked upon by Europeans and some other nations with disgust, whereas in India and among the Romani, children are their most precious treasure. In fact, “many children much luck" (but chave but baxt in Romani) is a universal Romani saying, for the children are the perpetuation of their way of life as well as their future income-earners (Hancock, 60).

There are other simple misinterpretations of Romani culture. For example, in a hospital in San Francisco in 1995, a Romani parent was praying over his newly born daughter. A nurse overheard the prayer and thought he was a Satan worshipper because she heard the prayer addressed to Devla. Devla, in Romani, means “O God" (61). Ways the Romani say “please" are “I eat your heart"(xav tj'o ilo), or “I eat your liver" (xav tj' o buko). This manner of speaking, though the same types of expressions are found in Hungarian, caused a misinterpretation stating that the Romani people were cannibals (61).

Another simple yet problematic difference between the gadje world and the Romani world stems from the non-verbal moving of the head signaling “yes" (nodding) and “no" (shaking side to side). With the Romani, it is the opposite –to shake the head actually means “yes".
Due to fear of discrimination and persecution, it is not uncommon for a Romani to keep his identity secret (Hancock, xv).

“It is the woman who possesses…the knowledge of spirits and medicinal cures, and ultimately in their ability to pollute men." A woman can make a man mahrime (polluted or ritually unclean) merely by tossing her skirt over her head at him. He must then be made pure again through a hearing of other Romani authority. Until he is made pure again, the other Romani are not allowed to associate with him. “ However, if the woman is postmenopausal, the man would not be contaminated, because they no longer menstruate or bear children (Weyrauch, 31). “Oral sex, sodomy, and homosexuality are considered crimes against nature and are mahrime" (36). Talking and making reference to body parts and bodily functions “brings shame, especially when in mixed company" (36). “Prostitution and infidelity are unusual…Infidelity in marriage…has had serious consequences for the wife, including mutilation or a sentence of marime" (37). The Romani people use their own utensils and avoid sharing them with “gajikane guests", who should provide their own. If the Romani give them a set of dishes and utensils to use, afterwards they are destroyed, in order to avoid pollution by the gadje. The Romani “use the dining table exclusively for eating and keep it immaculately clean."

Large, white aprons that cover their skirt are very Romani, for it shields others from contamination from her skirt (Weyrauch, 37). “These well-defined codes of purity and contamination are the real universal language of the Gypsies, understood if not always rigorously upheld with every district and dialect" (Fonseca, 77). The woman's body is looked upon with reverence and great care. The woman's body is divided into two ritual segments. The upper half of her body is pure, while the lower half, containing the reproductive powers, are considered mahrime, especially when menstruating. Sexual purity is paramount to the worth of the female.

Romani consider it inappropriate and immodest to wear pants or show the knees (they consider knees and elbows to be ugly). Breasts, on the other hand, are not a source of shame or intimacy, but sustenance for babies, who are born pure. It is considered rude for a woman to walk in front of an older man, but if she is holding a baby, she can go wherever she wants (Fonseca, 42). Once the baby becomes a toddler, he is turned over to the responsibility of the older kids in the Romani community to be watched out for. Children are afforded a much greater amount of freedom, for their childhood is shortened by early marriage. Since the life expectancy is one-third that of other nations, it is no wonder that they are married off at such young ages [ages 9-14 years] in comparison (Fonseca, 44).

The importance of the bori or daughter-in-law becomes paramount. Romani culture places great value on virtue, modesty, submissiveness, and hard work for a good wife. Attractiveness of the wife is placed low on the list of virtues. A new mother's job is to feed, to learn the proper care of the newborn, and to heal. The new mother is also taught how to bathe, anoint with specially prepared ointments and powders, and to swaddle (a wrapping process that restricts movement of the arms and legs) the newborn according to tradition. Amulets and charms of protection are often pinned to the swaddling clothes. A red thread is often tied around the infant's ankle to “ward off the evil eye." The new mother is “off limits" to the husband for 40 days, before being considered purified again. The extended family plays an integral role in the care of the household and support as the new family readjusts (Fonseca, 43). The importance of keeping a ritually and physically clean household is taught. There are procedures to washing, for each role-member's clothes must be washed separately (Fonseca, 40, 41).