Defenses of any Underclass: None, From the System. Poverty, Their Fault?

No Consideration for Extenuating Circumstances.
Poverty as Defense to Crime - Little Recognized

Fault for Retrievals, Takings, Lie with the Individual, Not the System.
Parallels to American black history?

Roma, in Romania, retrieving in a dump

Roma at a dump in Romania. Issues of poverty for many. Take what is needed, retrieve what is owed. There is a line in 'Zoli', something like,

"From what is broken, I will make what is required."

Hunger, ingenuity, survivors; and then the other end of the scale - wealth, fine cars and clothes, Roma upper groups, enjoying the casino at Sibiu, Romania, getting out of the fine, big cars, in charge.

In many cultures, the reason for the theft, an extenuating circumstance, see ://www.answers.com/topic/extenuating-circumstances-1may mitigate a sentence. Where an economic imbalance has become part of a system, however, the system may refuse or be unable to see its role in the extenuation. It is easier to recognize a single set of circumstances as emergency, after which the person recovered balance. Not so with Gypsies, Roma. Is this true, that the fault is seen as theirs.

Compare incarceration of blacks in the United States with incarceration of Roma in Eastern Europe, other areas. Parallels. See The Black Commentator at ://www.blackcommentator.com/82/82_prisons.html/ The treatment is said to reflect implicit national policy, approval of disparate treatment. The Roma are not seen in many areas as legitimate citizens.

Like any other group, people divide into gradations, social stratification, even degradation in the status for some. Getting what is needed from a dump is not necessarily a degradation however; it is also a means to remaking, earning a living. One culture's view may not be another's. Is our dumpster-diving so different, any less needed.

In connection with poverty comes to mind another issue -we read, and lines in "Zoli" (pp____ coming) comment that Gypsies were expelled, caravans forced out of towns, and a reason is the accusations against them as to theft. It is said that they stole. Or cheated people. And there are examples of that happening in the book, especially at the close of the novel.

A start on figuring this out. Go to Studying War, at the section addressing roles people take or are assigned in their overall cultural setting. Then, look at how their interactions lead to conflict. within a group, and with others. See an analysis of conflict sliding into violence, other into national and international settings (forcing migrations out), at ://www.zef.de/441.0.html

Poverty also has been used as a defense to crime. See "Shifting the Blame:How Victimization Became a Criminal Defense," by Saundra D. Westervelt, Rutgers Univ. Press 1999. The issue is neither new nor simple. No conclusions here, just raising concerns here so far. Is criminality and theft too focused on the lower strata, where the crime do minimal "damage," but may be more personal --compared to the humungous economic thefts going on higher up, but where it is less personal. Less in the face. Is that so?

Fostering theft, the taking back, or the taking to get what is needed, or the taking in order to regain some self-respect, whatever reason. Including sheer greed and disregard. What behaviors do develop, and where may some kind of responsibility lie, when a group

• is set aside as a virtually permanent underclass,
• identifiable by physical characteristics or custom, and
  
• targeted easily by others who refuse them assimilation or even acceptance of difference (if the people did not seek assimilation, as the Gypsies did not seek assimilation) and
  
• are subject to continuing prejudice because the group still can be spotted by physical or cultural difference
  

Among the groupings* that may be useful to look at in the targeting process, are the relationship between:

a) a society's extractors - each seeking to get what he or chs can for self FN1 - those who victimize others, in the name of the right to self-seek.

b) a society's lifestylers, groups that seek to preserve their financial and social rank in the society - who may well fear others, fear loss, and seek to entrench; and

c) a society's fodder, groups that are defined out of consideration - lose out to others

What does Zoli say and do: Perspective. Look back at Zoli, I am looking for the page____, a Gypsy character notes, as I recall, that a Gypsy may steal a chicken or two out of need; but an outsider would take the whole henhouse and then burn down the place. This is not to romanticize any group. It is to say that fodder defends itself; and also that societies create a need for fodder - a foundation that does not move. Someone is always there. The poor always with us, and shrug, as though we should care.

Elsewhere forms: Allegations of "welfare fraud" The tax games, the exorbitant profits, economic abuse, all the rest - Gypsies - who have developed their own sense of purity against outsiders, in a sense justifying takings, in the same league as takings by higher economic groups and their dodginess. Extractors are in every group, as are all the other groupings. Is that so?

And should it make a difference. Ongoing thoughts. See also "Justifying Justice: Therapeutic Law and the Victimization Defense Strategy," J.L.Nolan and S.D.Westervelt, Sociological Forum Vol. 15, No. 4, Dec. 2000, pp.617-646, at
www.ingentaconnect.com/klu/sofo/2000/00000015/00000004/00229364.

Issue may be more the cycle of abuse. The abused then abuse others. That is recognized in other areas. Look up domestic violence. Apply it here. Also, go to RomNews Network Community@RomNews.com/de. URL at http://www.romnews.com/community/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=41.

Buy a T-shirt there, a dignified black one with white letters, "Gypsy Power."
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FN 1 A society's extractors -- those in any economic or social bracket who get what they can whenever they can. Do they see their job as to look out for themselves, regardless, and they feel unfairly dealt with otherwise, as they look around. If it's there for the taking, including crop subsidies that are not financially needed, take it. Maybe.

Roma. History of Persecution. Hate Crimes, Expulsions. Holocaust. Poverty: Survival Responses

Hate crimes
Holocaust

1. How to get at the scope of the persecutions against Roma. Narratives are fine, but timelines may give a better start. Overall fodder background discussion of those in any culture who are designated as fodder, expendable: The Common Good, Who Speaks for It.

According to this site, //www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html:

• France - expelled Roma from Paris 1539

• Spain - punitive laws 1492, after the Roma had lived free under Muslim rule

• England - forced out Roma in 1563, under threat of death (travel to Ireland, Wales, Scotland, then back?)

• Hungary, Romania - enslaved many in 14th Century to work the large estates

• Also says 500,000 killed in WWII Nazi camps (figures vary from 300,000 to a million - no birth or death records, figures not consistent in including the non-camp slaughter)

2. Timeline in history. See ://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/timeline.htm

3. The why of persecution and hate crimes - a start.

See a start at ://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm, a site with information to help healthcare providers address needs of eastern European Roma -a cultural history, taboos, health issues and practices. That article gives some clues, from very specific legends, myths.

• Genesis 9:25 quoted there as applying to the Gypsies - (how could that be? Genesis and Roma??) "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants He shall be to his brethren." The West can always find something in its scripture to justify anything. Is that so? Not in the Baylor article, but an observation.
  

• There is a legend in Balkans that Roma made the nails for the Crucifixion and/or stole the fourth nail, that would have hastened the process if it had been pounded in; so the Crucifixion was made more painful by the theft.
  

Rankism. See Common Dreams at ://www.commondreams.org/views05/0510-33.htm/ Rankism supplanting racism. The somebodies vs. the nobodies.

Rankism. Feeds a simple need for an undercaste. Why do cultures need an undercaste. Is it economic, the fear that, if any abundance is allowed them, above survival, it reduces what is available to others; or is it psychological, that if this person is down, at least I am up.

Poverty creates a permanent underclass that then defends itself as best it can, by whatever measures needed. See one analysis, shaky but in process, of groups and their interacting at Studying War. There is pressure to suppress, from governments, to leaders, to people acting to protect their lifestyles and positions on some ladder hierarchy; other behaviors develop in response. Gypsies have often been kept at bottom, at least since the 16th Century, some better conditions before then. Force theft to get the basics, then punish the theft, while withholding the acceptance and tolerance that would enable a a group to do otherwise? Is that it?

4. How did Jews and Gypsies survive at all, given the centuries of hate.

Look at this old text, from 1898, "The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam," by Sir Richard F. Burton (it says he translated the 1001 Nights, etc,) that details understandings he researched at the time, for these particular groups. It is at ://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/The%20Jew,%20the%20Gypsy%20and%20El%20Islam%20JR.pdf

Scroll down to page 160 ff, give or take. Note the cultural prejudices and derogatory attitude of this colonial era, and then the similarities between target groups, the Jews and the Gypsies.

Both been outcast, had their own customs, and in past times, an overall appearance that was overall different from the "aryan" and other European physical groups, each had its own language, own names.

Survival at all - how could they survive. But the site (again, this is 1898) notes that the wealth that the Jewish groups accumulated in developing financial and commercial skills, and settling down; brought on a corresponding backlash of persecutions and confiscation.

Look then at the poverty of the Gypsy. It actually gave some protection. They survived by language ties and consanguinity, not accumulating wealth and settling down. Full circle. Both were hated groups, opposite cultural responses toward their common enemy, one to become well-to-do, the other in poverty and transience, and continuing persecutions with each surviving in its way.

5. History of events.

At the "The Jew, the Gypsy and el Islam" site, also read of the migrations, reactions, Papal bulls against them, laws, etc. Go to page 200 or so. People have really worked at putting the story together, some things were right, some off base, but worth reading old sources.

Read about Gypsies in Spain, other parts of Europe, Africa, and contrast the state of Islam and Jewish traditions in the same volume.

Read "The Pariah Syndrome, A History of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution" by Ian Hancock, at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/pariah-contents.htm. Find a detailed table of contents on background, practices in different locales.

Romney - Rom'nie --Surname from English Gypsies? Romnichel. Romani.

 Many family tree roots, one main trunk perhaps, but many branchings.

Of all the branchings, which do we choose as our identity.

Does that conscious choice negate in any way 

the other branches we elect to ignore, 

in order to better ourselves.

Family trees. Romany surnames, see http://www.20000-names.com/gypsy_names.htm.

The Romnichels are a distinct group of Gypsies, with origins in England. Derivations include Rom'nie. Sounds similar to Romany, the term in older literature for Gypsies, or Romani. Or Romney.

They sound alike for good reason. Romana, Romney. Gypsy surnames dating from 1567, see, fair use from the PDF site,

"ROMANA/ROMNEY 1567-1623 (int) Shrophshire, Suffolk) (See Robert Dawson ARITF)",  from JJ Gypsy Index PDF.

See also Romney Marsh Gypsies, at  http://gogowhippet.com/wordpress/marsh/tag/gypsy/

We have an interest in geneology as it may or may not be evidenced in last names, for recreational thought, and here focus on the last name, Romney. The Gypsy Lore Society addresses the Romnichels or Rom'nie, at ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html. .

Actual Romneys may well have their own family tradition of origins, but the name Romney - Rom'nie standing alone suggests English Gypsy roots: dealing in draft horses, horses for transporation, horse traders, basket makers and that term included making rustic furniture, and fortune telling.

See this Gypsy Lore Society site for description of this group and many others, along with the trades that the groups specialized in: Scroll down to Romnichel. The information is from a further book's introduction, "Gypsies and Travelers in North America: An Annotated Bibliography," by William G. Lockwood and Sheila Salo, that book linked at ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/books.htm.

Update - here is a young man in Kent, England, who identifies as a "romney gypsey" in a message board entry dated 1/29/06 at ://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/have_your_say/community/romany_voices_archive21.shtml.

Compare the Rom. The Rom were Gypsies not from England, but from Serbia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary says the same Gypsy Lore Society site. Coppersmiths, including "repair and refinement of equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectionaries...." They also told fortunes. The Kalderash are a Rom subgroup.

The "Black Dutch" group of Gypsies has largely been absorbed into the Romnichels. Same Gypsy Lore Society site, scroll down to "Black Dutch." This group was from Germany, but the term is also used for other non-Gypsy groups apparently. Again, horse traders, basket makers, and many provide to the Mennonite and Amish communities. See Pennsylvania Dutch. Hard to get reliable info on "Black Dutch," says site.

So: the papers already have found an ancestral link between Vice President Cheyney and Senator Barack Obama, ://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/view.bg?articleid=1040896, and this adds a possible Mitt Romney to the ancestral Rom'nies.
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In a name. See ://website.lineone.net/~rtfhs/gypsy.html
Other Romani first names: Dangerfield, Cinderella, Britannia, Sabina 9those Sabine women?)
And surnames: Lee (Gypsy Rose Lee?), Ayres, etc. and the site notes that all with those names are not Gypsies, just that Gypsies with those names traveled in England. At Geneology Forum you can join the fray in searching for answers with probably no way of checking what you get. Still, recreational.

Transportation - Horsecart, Caravan, Wagon, Auto

Not necessarily easy to tell which persons are from Gypsy heritage, and which are impoverished non-Gypsy.

Roma, Poland: Horsecart. How to tell Roma from the poorest of peasants. Our understanding is that Polish peasants are better off, and do not need the horsecart. Is that so?

Horsecarts do not necessarily mean Roma - and we saw few horsecarts on the roads, compared to Romania where they were the rule, nearly none here even on back roads. alone means economic resources, probably. An outsider does not know what to look for.

Horsecarts are mentioned in Zoli, p 75, and as her transportation from time to time, and this is one, in Poland, near Zakopane, by the High Tatra mountains that border with Slovakia. Horsecarts are small.

The wagons are large, flat or with open slanted sides. The wagon picture is from Romania. I do not know if the man is Gypsy or not.

Roma, Romania: Horsecart. Or a Romanian peasant, not Roma? Not clear.

Zoli - book refers to a "Big Halt" law that stopped the nomadic travel some years ago, forcing settlements. Zoli at ____.

See this fine photograph of a caravan in 1911 - at ://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/tradition.htm

Romani origins; myths, linguistic connections

There seems to have been a flurry of scholarship-research-speculations in the early 1800's about Gypsy origins - see for example all the countries and issues addressed in the 1848 "Zincali" by George Borrow, online at ://www.fullbooks.com/The-Zincali--An-Account-of-the-Gypsies-of1.html

Skim that, then move to the modern analyses - some at:

Hungary - Oral tradition in Hungary seems to have two ideas - a separation from the surrounding cultures, and a completely independent creation apart from them - see Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at ://oraltradition.org/bibliography/show/804.

Myths of the Czech Gypsies - see //findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3342/is_200104/ai_n8057947

National Geographic places them in Rajahstan, India, in the 11th Century; then then to Egypt (the Gypsy name) and then Turkey, to Europe through Armenia, then Balkan area, and Greece. Was the Turkish killing of Armenians in the early 20th century focused on Gypsy Armenians, or not? Looking it up.

This site says they did not go to Egypt, and the Gypsies name was in error. See //www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html

See the groups post here for tracing migrations of separate groups.

1898: For a roots-type book on how thinking evolved in the west about the origins of Gypsies, here is an online book, "The Jew, the Gypsy and El Islam," by Sir Richard F. Burton (it says he translated the 1001 Nights, etc,). This source, old as it is, details understandings he researched at the time, for these particular groups.

Go to ://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/The%20Jew,%20the%20Gypsy%20and%20El%20Islam%20JR.pdf
Scroll down to page 134 ff. Note the cultural prejudices and derogatoriness of this colonial era, but also the detail and (I think) keen interest in following linguistic and other clues. Also read the lengthy claims-counterclaims between the researchers.

Romani law and culture; religion; Sites, sources

How to begin to understand a different culture, one heavily laden with negative stereotypes from those with an economic or status interest in keeping the different group down.  See the Gypsy Lore Society at http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/. Click on "information on Gypsy and Traveler Cultures, then start on your own.

1.  Theft-type events.  Is it?

a.  The reputation for theft, taking advantage, is often attributed to Roma, Romani. Is that a cultural backlash from those who indeed experienced those matters, and who then focus only on the behavior and not the context (exclusion, prejudice, deprivation) from which they stem.  Are those behaviors a defensive survival accommodation, or malice.

b. Linguistic clues to viewing behavior.  A possible connection, may be in the language of one group, the Sea Gypsies of Sri Lanka, and the others that migrated north and west out of India, see Andaman Sea Gypsies at Gypsies, Roma, Andaman Sea Gypsies.

 The language of the Andamans apparrently (experts, please check) includes only the joint concept of give and take; and not "take" as an isolated act, in the sense of "steal."  The idea seems to be in that culture: If you need it, you can have it. Period. For those not obsessed with accumulation, that works.

b. Another source refers to the myth that Gypsies are allowed to steal because it was a Gypsy woman who hid the Baby Jesus from Herod - see (here is a long URL - do the best you can) http://books.google.com/books?id=CByPU90k6rMC&pg=PA362&lpg=PA362&dq=steal+gypsy+babies&source=web&ots=1XdpU1wIoY&sig=lZmvic0XnnQXla9jBPTccWTSg_k.

c.  Common sense suggests that taking what you need, or want, is a way of leveling the playing field agaist the majority culture who persecute, or something more. See this fair use quote from http://www///romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/ethn/groupscz/cz-vlax.en.xml:

"The relationship between Vlachi and the gadže is rather antagonistic. According to a general law 'to do harm to an enemy is rather heroism than a sin', a theft commited against a gadžo is praised and has become a traditional subsidiary way of providing livelihood. To steal from a is of course considered a violation of Romromano sokáši, (Rom habit, norm, law), and is punishable by the internal court (trial) kris."

d. For us at this site, having enjoyed our improvised road trips including in Roma areas, we mind ourselves, and retain admiration at techniques that allow surviva.  Manye internal laws and cultural practices have kept gypsies intact and unassimilated overall, with all their variations in individual groups.

 They seek to remain that way, and do not approve public displays of their essential business. So, do a search for gypsies roma, just that way, and many fine sites come up. Right now, with no expertise in the area at all, we are uncomfortable summarizing. Take the sites we find and read all about it there.

2. Fortune-telling.   This is common sense:  if offering a service results in cash to the provider of the service, why not engage in it.

Among the Roma, this is not an admired route, however.  Fortune-telling is low status, compared to other ways of making ends meet.

See the novel,  Zoli,  at 244. At another place, make them answer four times, all of them wrong.

3. Religion:

This site notes that the Roma often adopted the religion of the countries where they were, see http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html.

But was that voluntary, or forced -- and acceptance was seen as the way best to survive. In the contemporary Czech Republic, the Roma are said to be largely Roman Catholic now - see //romove.radio.cz/en/clanek/18906, with beliefs in souls that survive death, read that site carefully because there is so much there. Their only saint appears to be Sara-la-Kali, or Sara the Black, see Gypsies, Roma, Sara the Black.

Other sites:

1. See http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html.

2. Book - not read yet - "Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture" - in paperback, Walter O. Weyrauc. Look it up on Amazon and see many other related books.

3. This site is excellent for how the Roma govern themselves within their communities - customs, rules, taboos. http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm

Individual Roma poets, composers, musicians

To begin a cultural look, see YouTube for this dance from Romania at www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxd41_5UsYg&feature=related. . Also, look up neo-gypsy hybrid music, Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beat Box 9/29/07 at ://thephoenix.com/article_ektid48030.aspx.

1. Emil Cina, from site ://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/museletters/blCZmuse106.htm; scroll down to Romani literature. I could not follow the link given to Emil Cina. Concern there is also for non-Gypsy writers writing about Roma is this: the likely stereotyping, romanticizing and mythologizing that went on with the Native Americans - an appropriation. This is an oral tradition, so the publishing is coming from non-Roma

2. Dezider Banga, from site //poetry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/poet.htm

3. Hans'che Weiss, Sinte group musician, from site ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti (made a record in Germany about the Holocaust in 1970 in Romani dialect, his people did not want outsiders to know the language, anger, read at the site). The link to Hans'che Weiss does not go anywhere.

4. Individuals and sources at ://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/museletters/blCZmuse106.htm. Scroll down to the Romani Literature section.

5. Bibliography, and book in process about Romanian Romani musicians, at Princeton site, Princeton University's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, here a website from a professor Margaret Beissinger, at ://slavic.princeton.edu/people/faculty/MargaretBeissinger. She is writing a book on Romanian Gypsy Musicians, culture and families. Site gives large bibliography of articles and sources.

Roma groups in Europe, Migrations: languages, self-identification

• These groups are listed here ://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/museletters/blCZmuse106.htm - scroll down to Romani literature section). Some other groups were added later, when found.

• References are to that Museletters site, unless you see this one specifically listed://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html.

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North American Gypsies/ Travelers - immigration to the United States probably from 1850 on

Travelers - Irish or Scottish. In Ireland, they are known as Tinkers. See description of The Gypsy Lore Society at //www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html. Irish Travelers and Scottish Travelers do not refer to themselves as Gypsies. They had different customs before migrating to US. and apparently keep a social distance

Gypsies - All others. In current works, the term Roma or Romani may be preferred

Black Dutch see Rom'nies. See ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html.

Ludar-"Rumanian Gypsies" see www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html

Hungarian - Slovak musicians - linguistic prehistory similar to Rom/Romnichel, but difficult for each to understand each other now

Romani - plural noun; used at site to mean all the dialects and languages

Roma - singular, but not always, see it as plural in a Rom subgroup language ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html

Rom - see www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html. From Serbia, Russia, Austria-Hungary

Romnichel - Groups stress importance of pure, impure, Gypsy-NonGypsy. Linguistic prehistory similar to Hungarian-Slovak musicians. See Gypsies, Roma, Romney surname from Rom'nie or Romnichel?.

Rom'nies. See ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html. English Gypsies. See Gypsies, Roma, Romney surname from Rom'nie or Romnichel?.

Sinte - subgroup of Roma, perhaps from Pakistan. Start with Wikipedia, then doublecheck: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti_

They apparently went to Germany and Austria in middle ages, and split into two groups, the Eftagarvja, The Seven Caravans, who went into France and became the Manouches; and the Estraxarja, another group "from Austria, " moving into Croatia, Romania's Transylvania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, northern Italy, Piedmont. Language - see //www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rmo. Sinte is listed as a language of those countries.

See what the language looks like here, in many dialects: this happens to be the Lord's Prayer - I not go looking for it. At ://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-rom-sinte.html. The Rosetta Project seeks to archive every single human language. See it and Sinte at ://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/rmo.

Kale
Lovara
Curara
Xoraxane
Sinti (see Sinte above?)
Manus

Kalgeras (is this the Kalderash that is a subgroup of the Rom? See www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html. )
If this is the Kalderash, they include the Vlachs, Vlax, also called Nomad Coppersmiths

Machwaya - another subgroup of the Rom, see www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html.

Sinte in German and Dutch - Zigeuner (this in Wikipedia at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti_ ) - there was a piano piece called Zigeuner - remember?
Sinte in Italian - Zingari -Wikipedia at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinti_

Romani literature, oral tradition: geneologies, history

Geneology - here is a family with Gypsy roots that has oral traditions from the mid-15th Century --Charlemagne era and Sultan of the Moors - and has otherwise traced itself back with other records to the 1850's, Spain, Switzerland, more - at ://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/spanishgypsy.htm. The great-grandmother was Barbla Catrina Fazedin.

Romani , the kris (court) and expulsion (like shunning)

Read at "Zoli," at p.17, the customs surrounding the finding of information and pronouncing judgment. This is an area not to be summarized. It is personal, ethnically kept private, and so be it. Get the book. It is a fine accounting of a responsible system, that has worked for survival of the group. See p. 137, 139, 142

Zoli was expelled. Zoli at 10. When a character asks about her,
"[T]he air stalls, the drinking stops, the cigarettes are held at mouth-level, and a silence descends.

"Boshor looks toward the doorway and says: "No, I don't know that name *** and even if I did, that's not something we would talk about." pp.10-11
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Overall, with no expertise here, we are uncomfortable delving into practices and community affairs, and refer you to sites we find instead.

The Gypsy Lore Society at ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html links the "Black Dutch" a Gypsy group originating in Germany, in various ways including close trading relationships with the Pennsylvania Dutch, Amish, Mennonite communities. Scroll down to that section. Hard to get good info here, the site says, but the practice of shunning has a parallel in both? Need to look it up.

This site, providing cultural and health practices information to (I believe) those who are treating the Roma, also discusses the expulsion: ://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm

The Baylor sits is concise, clear, fascinating, great respect for this culture that has survived despite probably universal persecution.

Romani under Communism; under non-Western cultures; seeing the Tatra cars

 The Big Black Tatras

The High Tatras

Tatra

1. Tatras. The Communist years were good for the Gypsies in eastern Europe, until those in power began also riding around in the big black Tatras - must mean big cars. Tatras were in for the authorities at a time when the Gypsies were moving in their caravans, and horse carts. The image of parallel cultures, and the heavies not leaving the other alone to live as they wish, haunts.

Tatra - It does mean cars - and good heavens, look at this! Do an Images search.

Looks like all the old Nazi photos or film, the 1920's anywhere, and later with any big government. See picture at ://www.tatra.demon.nl/. Click on cars/history on the left menu. The 1930's through 1950's.

The Tatra Company itself goes back to 1850.

2. Tatra Mountains.

The High Tatras- the car has to be named for these. Without a picture of our own of a Tatra car, here are the High Tatra Mountains, seen from the Polish side - Slovakia just over the top there.

From Zoli, "It was better under the Communists," character Boshor speaking) ***"back with the Communists we had jobs, we had houses, we had food,"*** "They didn't knock us 'round...." pp. 9-10.

3. Roma under Muslim rule in Spain. That was also good. It was only after the reconquest 1492, when the Moors were pushed back, that laws were put in place prohibiting Romani from dressing in traditional ways, practicing their customs. See http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/gypsy.html

Romani and horses: Forced settlement

"We don't even have bridles any more," - character Boshor in Zoli p.2. Go to this site for the close bond between Gypsy and the horse, at "The Gypsy Horse," www.novareinna.com/romani/horse.html

The government effectuated a halt to the traveling, in the book using Zoli's fame and talent as an example for why the Gypsies should be "allowed" to stop the primtivism of moving about, put the in government housing with amenities, living in the forest is bizarre, old-fashioned, see Zoli at 106. So the govt in Slovakia burned the caravan and wagon wheels, and took away the horses, Zoli p.___. Law 74. Zoli 121, 123.

This did not happen in Romania, where so many depend on horses for everyday work and transportation.

This is a scene in Romania, with the owner of the horse just out of view, watching us quietly. We seldom asked anyone to be photographed. Up to them, politely. So many horsecarts, and hard to know who is Gypsy and who is not, among the impoverished. People do not wear distinctive dress necessarily, depending on the occasion. Men working blend in, sometimes with headwear that is different, and some women and young girls may be in long, sweeping skirts, looking out of doorways, half hidden, or at a bus stop with children, but many others are simply poor. Not all, of course.

Placeholders - Work in Process. Roma Modern Music - Fusion. "Buika"

Arts crossing the hemispheres. Gypsy arts morphing into the world. Spanish lyrics, says Jon Pareles in the New York Times, 10/29/07, about Buika's performance, in the music review "Gypsy Spirit Infuses the Fusion, "but the emotion luminous and unmistakable."

Buika was born on Mallorca, with parents from Equatorial Guinea. Her art blends pop, flamenco, jazz, African music and soul. Her album is "Mi Nina Lola. Going now to listen.

"Spanish singer and songwriter who has conceived her own diaspora: one in which the Gypsies, who catalyzed flamenco, crossed the Atlantic to meet Cuban music and jazz."

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Romani medicine, remedies, healthcare

From Zoli p.___ - Wash self and clothing only in running water
From this family's oral tradition about Gypsy participation in healing - going on battlefields to help wounded and using spider web to treat/hold wounds - see site on Geneology

For a survey of Roma history, culture and beliefs, including health practices, see ://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm.

Czechoslovakia in the 1930's - history through a novel's eyes

Overall country: see Czech Republic Road Ways.

We understand from this comment at our Roma in Film post that the Roma population lives peacefully in Cesky Krumlov, the town featured in the photo heading our blog.  Here is the comment:   retoque fotografico has left a new comment on your post "Romani in Film":

I was in a town called Cesky Krumlov in souther Czech. The Roma people are completely integrated and live side by side with the Slavs of the Czech republic.


Posted by retoque fotografico to Gypsies, Roma, Romani. Cultural Diaspora. HUMANITIES, HISTORY. at August 6, 2009 2:54 AM

Prague CZ - not bombed during World War II, so much like it looks now, this view from the Charles Bridge, looking to St. Vitus Cathedral on Castle Hill.

Roma traveled throughout countries as a parallel culture with the urban areas, towns and countryside where the outsiders live.

Czechoslovakia prospered between the World Wars, for a time. See ://archiv.radio.cz/history/history10.html Culture and literature and the arts - a social climate that fostered new ideas. Here is the cubist building in Prague known as the House of the Black Madonna.

See ://www.radio.cz/en/article/47925.

Then came economic collapses, unemployment, especially in the Sudetanland where there was a large German population, and the Nazi movement polarized ethnic Czech Germans, seeking to secede, from the other Czechs. They grew in power and sought to join the border lands with Germany. Then came military moves and Western appeasements, and World War II rolled in.

A well-narrated novel can put history in the mind better than statistics. Zoli does that, by having no table of contents, you do not know where you are headed with her, as even she does not, so you patch in as you go. There are just the occasional section headings when you get there.

1. Go here for an overview in doing a coherent history of this area, the struggles of the historians and others, at "Czech and Slovak History: An American Bibliography."

2. Here is a timeline for Czechoslovakia history, keeping in mind that the area has changed name and boundaries in the last 100 years - now is the Czech Republic and The Republic of Slovakia. Go to //www.facts-about.org.uk/history-and-events-timeline-czech-republic.htm. At the next page is a chart with all the major events, click and get the overview.

Zoli's book sections: A guide to when she was where, and during which dates. Note that the story may pass back to an earlier place at a different time, or tell more about that place in a later time.

Slovakia 2003
Czechoslovakia 1930's-1949
England - Czechoslovakia 1930's - 1959
Czechoslovakia - Hungary - Austria 1959-1960
Slovakia 2003
Compeggio Northern Italy 2001
Paris 2003

Roma under Fascism, and as a Nazi Satellite: Hlinka Guards

Banska Bistrica, Slovakia. Tanks from the Slovak National Uprising. In Zoli - Gypsy fought as Partisans in the hills, and stories of the Nazi reprisals. See Slovakia Road Ways, Banska Bistrica tanks.
.
Hlinka guards: had been a pro-Nazi militia operating near the Tatra mountains area, see ://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/sk%5Ehg.html. See the flags and emblems there.

This is the area near Zilina, south of the high Tatra mountains, showing a ruin of a castle up there. It is rugged country.

There is a photograph of Hlinka guards at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, see it at ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005466&MediaId=1358. Slovakia had been a satellite state, not "occupied" as had been the Czech areas, I understand. Prague was "occupied." Andrej Hlinka, 1864-1938, was a Catholic priest who founded the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party - read about his issues about his being the father of fascism in Slovakia, and the namesake for the Hlinka guards, and views about his currently being elevated to - well, you read it at ://slovakia.humanists.net/a_profiles.htm. Quieter summary at ://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=182.

The Hlinka guards had forced Zoli's family and extended family (she was away with her grandfather), caravans and horses out onto the ice of a lake, then started fires at the shore so the ice weakened and all were drowned. Zoli 15-17.

Romani Music; Gypsy Harps; Group and Street Musicians

"I had never seen instruments so tall, beautifully carved and strung with catgut. They stood twice my height....They were varnished and carved with wheels and griffins and birds. The plucked sound carried through the trees. There was nothing so lovely. The women who played the harps had very long fingernails. They painted their nails every night, using whatever colors could be found, boiled up fro animals and red riverstone and some from bird eggs, light blue. The colors were brushed on with tiny brooms made from weedgrass...." Zoli at 29-30. Then came the Hlinka Guard and pulled all the nails off one harpist, leaving her with bloody stumps. What is wrong with us?

Gypsy harp - this site shows a tall 22-stringed instrument as a "gypsy harp" - starts on G below middle C, goes to high G. Listen to how it sounds there.

See Welsh harpist William Huw Bowen, who plays in the style of Welsh gypsy harpists at //www.sweetbirdclassics.org/artists/robin.html. It is called a Welsh triple harp, but its origins are mainland Europe. Triple harps were less popular after pedal harps were introduced. Read the details and the differences in kinds of harps there. See and buy your own here: ://www.ninasmusic.com/page7.




Violin, song, brass bands, guitar and voice, flamenco, as different as the regions. Good overview at National Geographic's site ://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/roma__gypsy__music_778

The music here in Romania was said to be Gypsy, but we were only tourists. Just exclude the young lady there who was just from a nearby table and I enjoyed how they Daniel, and we got their Gypsy ID CD, but how is a tourist to know. Difference between gypsy-sounding, and a good traditional group playing "gypsy?" Still, loved the sound, went at a frantic pace, this from Sighetu Marmetiei in Romania.

From Zoli - "She traveled with harpists once" p.10.


These street musicians - from Warsaw, Poland.
Same issue - how is a non-local to know Gypsy from just really fun sounding traditional?

None of the musicians shown in the photos in this post did polka, however, and we left the polka groups out of here. Tucked them in down below.

History, origins, music at National Geographic's site - //worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/roma__gypsy__music_778. The sounds of India echo in the music still


........................
Polka. Differentiate from Gypsy? On the other hand, we know there are Scottish "Travelers," see above, and they did play all kinds of music. Outsiders just don't know, but enjoy anyway.

Sample Poetry, Old song bits, Thoughts of fictional Zoli - Are these quotes from Papusza?

Interest in Papusza and Zoli - from a blast of poems, words like these: "Zoli," by Colum McCann.

"We sing to sweeten the dead grass" Zoli 10
"From what is broken, what is cracked, I make what is required" Zoli 10
"I will not, o, never call the crooked finger straight" Zoli 10
"My grave is hiding from me" Zoli 105

"Zoli believed there was a life-spring that went down to the center of the earth and that it ran both ways but mostly it rose from the well of her childhood." Zoli at 93

"When I cut brown bread don't look at me angrily, don't look at me angrily because I'm not going to eat it." Zoli at 87.

"They broke my little brown arm, now my father he cries like the rain" Zoli at 31. A song bit.

"I will fill the empty cup, it is not so hollow any more, I will fill it with wine, it will come from the palm of your hand." Zoli at 30

"I want no shadow to fall upon your shadow, your shadow is dark enough for me." Zoli at 31

"The old horse is standing though he is not sleeping, he always has a watching eye, a watching eye." Zoli at 259.

"If you have the money you can think what you like." Zoli at 259.

Read longer works at pp.278-283.

The language, relationships, variety, Romani - information

Romani, as spoken by the Vlachs, is becoming a language of literature. See //romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/ethn/groupscz/cz-vlax.en.xml

This is an excellent site for the interrelationships between groups of Gypsies, the ambiguities, their trades, commerce, the admiration for the beauty of the Vlach, the reasons for trade as a profession being admired, but physical work for others not so much.

Much in this area of Gypsy culture is unfirm. One site makes a clear statement. Another makes another. As to the Vlachs themselves (Vlax), one site includes them as Gypsy, see the tie to Romanian gypsies of Wallachia and Moldavia to the Hungarian Vlachs at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary.html. The site notes the history of enslavement of gypsies during medieval times.

This other source, "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, however, documents records that show 16,000 were brought in as slaves by the father of Vlad the Impaler in the 1400's, and a further 11,000 were awarded to Stefan the Great (am checking for the precise pages for these, bear with me) by a Pope, bringing the south-of-the-Danube dark-skinned slave group to a high number for the times. If so, the Vlachs are not "gypsy" if they were there with the Roman Legions. The word "gypsy" can mean slave, however. Anyone enslaved could be called Gypsy.

So: If we can clear up what language the Vlachs speak, we may be able to clue whether they are an indigenous nomadic group, speaking a vernacular Latin; or Romani. Romanian does use the western alphabet, with many words recognizable from Latin roots, and the Cyrillic alphabet, or Greek, are not seen.

Romani customs, collated from "Zoli'; words

Cutting a woman's hair - against the laws, Zoli 16. As a child, she had done so.

Speaking of the dead: not too soon after the death (especially if a violent death?) '"[T]hey would be mule soon, spirit, they did not want to be disturbed." Zoli 18.

"gadzikano" ways - Gadzikano means white majority, seehttp://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/museletters/blCZmuse106., and scroll down to the poetry section. This is as opposed to "romanipe": or gypsiness, or Gypsy society, says the article.

"The last one still alive (of Zoli's grandfather's sons) had taken gadzikano ways, which meant he was dead too." Zoli 19.

Zelfya - Zoli 20 - said to be a hanging cradle, and here is a picture of a Russian one - can't find "zelfya" - at ://www.civilization.ca/tresors/immigration/imb0500e.html. Find a modern one at http://www.hippyshopper.com/2007/01/titan_hanging_c.html

Reviews of "Zoli" - Summaries of the Plot, Comments

The novel, "Zoli," by Colum McCann, is roughly based on the life of Gypsy poet Branislawa Wajs. She was a member of a traveling group of Gypsies in Poland, who achieved literacy. Her poems and songs then were published, and then used against her and the Gypsies as a whole by government policy-makers, who wanted to stop and force the settlement of nomadic groups. The argument was that "these people" -would benefit from release from the primitivism of the caravans. In fact, those policies in most cases took away the livelihood of the itinerant musicians, basket-makers, metal workers and others across Europe as the Halt trend spread, reducing the groups to dependency in crowded high-rises.

Read any of these for the plot outline, the political contexts including Fascism and Communism in Slovakia, WWII and holocaust Slovakia and Poland, post-Communist era, and the Romani people, the character Zoli, inspired by the real "Papusza," in particular.

1. Seattle Times - //seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2003509350_zoli07.html

2. Montreal Gazette ://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/books/story.html?id=48e838be-e37d-4d98-a756-79b3d100508d

Bronislawa Wajs, Papusza, Romani poet - Inspiration for "Zoli"

Bronislawa Waj, born in 1908, was an unusual person in that she was literate and talented, and known in her communities for her singing and poems. She was "found" and her poetic and song works publicized by outsider poets and others, with her work then being, in her view, taken out of context. Her concern was founded - the publicizing of her work apparently was instrumental in leading to legislation banning the nomadic life, and the settlement of gypsies. And her shunning by that community.

Knowing how edits can change entries, a start with Wikipedia needs a caveat. Still, start here for an understanding of the person of Bronislawa Wajs, and the issues of her time, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82awa_Wajs.

Her nickname was "Papusza."

Read her life and times at

• Growing a New Skin: The Life and Poetry of Papusza," by Gigi Thibodeau at //kmareka.com/free-literature-online/growinganewskin.htm
• Papusza (Branislawa Wajs) at ://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/pers/papusza.en.xml

Read her poem, "Tears of Blood," at (how to get you to it, unless you cut and paste on your own?) ://www.thehypertexts.com/Bronislawa%20Wajs%20Papusza%20Poet%20Poetry%20Bio%20Picture%20Gypsy%20Poet%20Romani%20Poetry.htm

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