"Bury Me Standing "- Customs, Contemporary social/economic issues - Countries

The proverb will stay with you: "Bury me standing, I've spent my whole life on my knees,." See "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, Alfred A. Knopf 1995.

For a narrative account of gypsy life, contemporary, from true life, this book is excellent, see review at ://www.shira.net/bookrvws/bury.htm. It is appalling in the cumulative impact of persecution in gypsy life over the centuries. There is no better introduction to the topic of current gypsy life - more below.

Scope. Gypsy groups are in any country where immigrants have moved. The culture(s) stress group unity and self-identification with taboos and norms they do not usually willingly share, and so have survived and declined assimilation. Yet - look at the cost of that survival, in terms of the impoverishment and persecution that others inflict on them. That says more about us than them. Learn a little. Do people travel because they are never allowed to stay anywhere. In some cases, yes. In others, the travel is part of the life. For others, settlement happened centuries ago, and has worked, reasonably. If abundance is what you enjoy, rather than what you have, who has life more abundantly. See what is happening in countries now:

Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland-
Read the story of the experiences of Isabel Fonseca, in her book, "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and Their Journey," NY Vintage 1996. She lived with various groups, had her own translators, learned much of the language, researched history and records (the enslavement of Gypsies in Romania in particular was recorded in books not yet translated, in some cases).

Romania - a period of newspapers and other focus on the minority Gypsies, but the needs of the majority were so great, the minority again fell away, see p. 143. Government kept issue alive, perhaps as distraction from other issues. Civil rights issues. P. 143. Gypsies as "parasites against the socialist order." Read about the Czacky family, pp. 170 ff. Came back after being run off, status.

Hungary - Paper on "The Political Significance of the First National Gypsy Minority Self-Government, by Martin Kovats, UK at//www.ecmi.de/jemie/download/Focus11-2001Kovats.pdf; the role of Lungo Drom or the "long road" group, founded in 1990 by Florian Farkas, see "Race and Ethnicity, Critical Concepts in Sociology" ed.Harry Gouldbourne, a google book online, search for the Roma parliament.

Spain -"Practical Examples - Employability" at //www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lungo+drom+Gypsy&btnG=Search

Customs referenced:

1. No euphemism, when someone mentally challenged. Physical disability same as mental. Life is life. Page 36: Candor not considered "brutal." "Among them it was recognized that truth in itself was not painful, only ignorance could bring suffering. Consequently, euphemism was eschewed -- except in (strenuously avoided) reference to bodily functions of any kind." See linguistic license granted to older women, and other use of idiom at p.59.

2. Many have no idea of the larger group of "gypsies" - even other Albanian groups. Little grasp of own history, even though their name in one instance meant "tent-dwellers." The past, unimportant. "As for the present, there was little to be said: there was no work, and they lived on the eggs of their ducks and their chickens, supplemented by the sunflowers and apricots that grew everywhere around." Page 75.

3. Dealings with outsiders restricted, to commerce. Like Jews, they worked for themselves in trade, not as employees of others, or in agriculture for wages. Page 98. The idea of their making a profit was threatening to others in the communist era who "under the communists, expressed their contempt or their despair by doing as little as possible in the jobs that were their birthright." Gypsies and Jews as migrant middlemen. But as to Gypsies, their work came to be valued, but they were also enslaved, like Blacks. Pages 98099.

3. Marriage - read at pages 134 ff, customs for separation, divorce, when permitted, how, and where the newly single or left woman goes.

4. Outsiders' reactions: the sedentary outsiders strongly against the itinerants, itinerant gypsies skilled at the Swindle, then moved on. No Gypsy would do fortune-telling for other Gypsies, only to get cash from outsiders ("gadje"). Hidden pockets in skirts, " 'Designed for stealing,'" Elena said admiringly." Page 137.

5. Governments settling Gypsies by force. See p. 167. Conditions of the new highrises, flats. Resulting deterioration of social life.

Contemporary authors, writers, songs, sites - and roots of bury me standing

Meet people and resources today - in addition to the "Zoli" website itself at ://www.colummccann.com/books/zoli.htm - Colum McCann, author.

1. Blog. An adult woman, NE US, on "Zoli" - a blog at //www.gypsygirlpress.net/gypsynews/labels/Zoli.html

2. Book, "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and Their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, NY Vintage 1996 - from the Gypsy saying, apparently, "Bury me standing, I've been on my knees all my life."

See review at ://www.indiastar.com/wallia2.htm. Says that, as of 1996, 12 million Gypsies worldwide, 8 million in Europe. Fonseca is described as a journalist, American, had been asst. ed. of the "Times Literary Supplement."

3. See this Ratdog CD, a protest song, So - "Bury Me Standing" has legs. Lyrics at the Grateful Dead Lyric & Song Finder at //www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/BURYMEST.HTM

4. Tales and Stories. Ilona Lakova, at the Journal of the Mythic Arts, News and Reviews, at Endicott, site at ://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/myth_folklore_fairy_tales/index.html

That site also lists as artists and story sources

• "The Roads of the Roma," ed. Ian Hancock, Siobhan Dowd and Rajko Djuric
• Louise Doughty
• Margriet de Moor
• "The Road That Has No End: Tales of the Traveling People" - article in the Endicott Archives
  

Poet, Bronislawa Wajs, Papusza, Papuscha, inspiration for "Zoli"

Papusza. Romany for "doll." Born 1910, give or take, died 1987. Read the brief summary of her life at "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, Alfred A. Knopf NY 1995 at 3-16. Title from Gypsy proverb, "Bury me standing, I've spent my whole life on my knees."

Papusza is the inspiration for the book, "Zoli," a novel about person who happened to be a woman, happened to be Gypsy, and happened to live at a time when her very talent set her apart, and enabled her to be exploited - and her people "settled" forcibly, much sooner. Probably. See //romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/pers/papusza.en.xml

Here is one of her songs, translated from the Polish. Branislawa Wajs was born in Poland, see rough overview of her life at ://www.answers.com/topic/bronis-awa-wajs-1, and "Zoli" is from Slovakia. The translator from the Polish is by Polish artist and poet Yala Korwin*- at //www.thehypertexts.com/Bronislawa%20Wajs%20Papusza%20Poet%20Poetry%20Bio%20Picture%20Gypsy%20Poet%20Romani%20Poetry.htm

For a regular person's overview of Bronislawa Wajs' life, see //www.answers.com/topic/bronis-awa-wajs-1
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* Yala Korwin - I never knew.
See her art at ://home.thirdage.com/Art/y2723k/.
See her photgraph, and her holocaust poetry, bio and more of her art at //www.thehypertexts.com/Yala%20Korwin%20Poetry%20Picture%20and%20Bio.htm.
Her website is at www.yalakorwin.com. Be sure to click on her doodles.

Runic Signs - Finding your way in the woods

"We followed signs -- a knotted wishbone to turn left, a broken twig for a right fork in the road, a white cloth for a friendly farmhouse where we could water Red (the horse) and fill our canteens." Zoli at 29.

Runic signs. Look them up at ://www.symbols.com/index/wordindex-r.html. They appear in Germanic, Celtic and Slavic cultures. See ://www.zielarze.pl/runes.htm. "The Cambridge Ancient History," book by Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Averil Cameron, is online as an ebook. I did a search for runic signs and the book came up. It says the signs originated about the second century, spread, show connections to various cultures, used probably first as invocations, to increase efficacy of a weapon, for example; but also the kind of wood inscribed was significant - birch for fertility, or the rune for the now-extinct auroch, for strength.

Do an images search for rune signs or runic signs to see them.

While traveling, a band of Gypsies:

"...maintained contact with other convoys of the same clan moving along separate routes. They would leave signs at crossroads - a bunch of twigs tied with a red rag, a branch brokein in a particular way, a notched bone - the signs called shpera* among the Polish Gypsies (and patrin,** or leaf, everywhere else, from Kosovo to Peterborough. Fearing the devil's spawn, villagers steered clear of these markers."

Fair use quote from "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, NY Vintage 1996 at 3.

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* Shpera - road sign or marking, see Roma-English glossary at www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/glossary.

** Patrin - marker, leaf, see "The Patrin Web Journal, Romani Culture and History" at www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patrin, and the meaning of "patrin" as "leaf," and further linguistic offshoots at www.languagehat.com/archives/001314.php