"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.

Genius of the Itinerant, Un-Propertied. Gypsy Survival - Rome falls, Roma survive

Cultural genius: a familiar concept. Each civilization has something.

• Egypt - Genius in monumental building;
  
• Athens and Greece - Genius in the arts, philosophy, government, sculpture, architecture.
• Rome - Genius in uber-organization and overcoming-overempiring those in their way. Anything with that name still does it.
  

Rome now - crumbling. Here is Ostia Antica now, the old port of Rome. See Italy Road Ways. Lovely to stroll through, but not much left.

This was a center for Mithraism, however, and parts of that survive in differing forms in Christianity and the Gypsies. See

• America: Genius in founders of democracy, now in jeopardy.
• Gypsies: Perhaps the least changed in culture over a thousand years - is that true? How did they do it? How did they survive when Rome did not, and America may well not? Is that true?
  

1. Itinerance; isolation; cultural continuity. There may be its own kind of cultural genius in staying on the move. "Not all men are like trees; some must travel and cannot keep still." Gypsy proverb at ://www.passiondiscs.co.uk/articles/the_roma_gypsies. Read long but good history article there by T. Herbert.

And the taboos, customs, do not change. Enforcement of the group over the individual. Isolation and itinerance may also promote some health - customs, not to use others' utensils, care about absorbing into oneself contamination. Customs of washing in running water, drinking from running water, being on the move. Were the Gypsies hit as hard from plague? or cholera and other dangers of density, overpopulation, the pestilence brought by proximity. Read "The Ghost Map," by Stephen Berlin Johnson, //www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2006/04/the_ghost_map, about sleuthing the causes and transmission of cholera in London 1848. Density, ingestion of others' contamination.

Perhaps travelling was not a help against plague - Gypsies were accused of transmitting it, //www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistoryPre20thC.; and were accused of carrying plague, see timeline for 1496, at //www.florilegium.org/files/CULTURES/Gypsy-tmeline-art.

That moving about itself has been forcibly changed. Many countries by now have stopped by legislation the traveling of Gypsies, largely out of embarrassment at this uncivilized barbaric behavior, or for fear of them, see "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and Their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, Alfred A. Knopf NY 1995. Ms. Fonseca lived with Gypsies in their communities.

2. Foregoing property accumulation. Claiming no real estate, accumulating no wealth other than as carried by wagon. Possessions now are accumulating, with the settling, for some.

3. Self-sufficiency in trade. Carry on a trade, but work for no other man. That is disappearing in areas with the stopping of the caravans and settlement in highrises. The traveling trades are not available.

4. Linguistic uniqueness. Many surnames have had to be changed to meet the ethnic assimilation efforts of the various governments.

5. Consanguinity. Control of who marries whom; marriage laws. Even with the abuses that can occur in relationships in any culture, the taboos and shame appear to be especially strong in controlling the choices and behavior of a woman in he culture. Is it true that a Roma woman would not turn to prostitution. Does that mean she has no escape at all, or is it a protection, and from what. Takes more thinking here.

6. The sum total: re what is behind the attacks on Gypsies through the years? Culturally, it is anathema. Why we can't we leave others alone. Why the drive to impose and reject or re-form others. The threat of difference must be overwhelming. We are becoming like Rome. Organize and force. Force fails, ultimately, but the wagon wheels - on and on, if allowed. Film to see: "Romani Kris - Gypsy Lore." Just saw it on a website.

What an affront to the West - who instead insist, settle down. Get a little land. Hoard. Get a job. Invest! No tolerance for those who chose another path. Genocide. And Gypsies have been and are targeted for it; all the while developing behaviors and maintaining belief systems that promote its own survival still. See ://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/genocide. Look at the timeline of persecution at this site, "Travellers in Leeds: A Permanent Site for Travellers, Gypsies and Roma" - a history of travelling and killing, banishment, imprisonment, and arranged by country - //www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistoryPre20thC.html

This look at a cultural genius is not to romanticize the life of gypsies. It is hardship, abuses within and without, and on-the-brink living.

Still - Roma - succeeding where Rome did not. The genius is in survival.

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.