Romani in Film; Topics

 Update:

1. EMIR KUSTURICA:

Try director Emir Kusturica's groundbreaking 1988 film The Time of the Gypsies., This clue from the National Geographic site, ://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/roma__gypsy__music_778/  He was born in Sarajevo, not of gypsy parents, but has found an affinity with them.  See 2005 NYT at ://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/magazine/08EMIR.html

Then Black Cat, White Cat - see review of this film and other works in the New York Times, Sunday, September 5, 1999.  See videos related, on YouTube, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBbzcj1t2WY&feature=related/; and at  ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdRPRvhXSCo&NR=1/.  Enjoy the music. Mr. Kusturica characterizes the music as Unca-Unca, or oontsa-oontsa, a 2/4 beat, combining rock 'n roll, reggae and elements from times gone by - "a mess,  but a nice mess."

And find, in Images for Black Cat, White Cat, even more fun.

He is the only child of Muslim parents, but apparently they were not practicing Muslims. See article. By 1999, he lived in Normandy with his family.

2. JASMINE DELLAL.

PBS has this: "American Gypsy: Stranger in Everybody's Land," film by Jasmine Dellal, at ://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2000/americangypsy/index.html. The estimate there is about 1,000,000 Gypsies in America. See review at ://www.americangypsy.com/the_film/full_description.html

 
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Cross reference to another of our sites - see comment there about Roma in Cesky Krumlov - populations living well together - Roma in Czech city, Cesky Krumlov

We have no ethnic connection to Roma, but a deep interest in why humans need to scapegoat others. We also have no information on dialects, but would like to know more.

Desegregation, Civil Rights, Self-Determination Issues. Roma Leaders, News. Updating Coming.

Conferences, Refugee Camp Issues, Schools Desegregation Progress;
issues pending; or otherwise to be discussed. *

Alarms.  Hopes.  Despairs. Cheers.  Steps ahead and back. Ongoing research for progress.

1.  Conferences.  From 2002. Lodz, Poland. Romany National Congress.  Site of largest ghetto for Jews and Gypsies in WWII, at the Marysin district.

• Populations compressed, deprived. Racial bias. Chairman Rudko Kawczynski.  Issue:  He warned that the Roma face a "demographic time bomb" -- that the populations are growing so rapidly that a Palestinian problem, of others keeping Romany people in the equivalent of camps, may result. The young people will not be quiescent during that process, and the numbers of Roma may approach 20 million in Europe and Eastern Europe.  He sees parallels between anti-Gypsy sentiment and anti-Semitic sentiments, both primarily a European phenomenon.  "We will face a Palestinian problem in Europe." See NYT 5/10/2002.  How many are there?  Western Europe 7-15 million -- nobody knows, see Pohl NYT article below. Add 5-10% more for Eastern Europe.

• Disparate groups. Romany Civil Rights Foundation, Hungary. Agnes Daroczi, a leader. Issue:   Need for unity.  Without unified voice, she suggests, how to pressure nations to improve Romany life. See Lodz conference, NYT 5/10/2002. Example of the diversity:  a memorial service was held at Lodz for victims of the Holocause, officiating:  "a Romany mullah from Macedonia, an evangelical Romany pastor from Sweden, and the rabbi of Lodz." Needed, says Pohl NYT article #3 below, is a unifying figure: so far the Roma have no equivalent of a Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or Rosa Parks (who sat on the bus, as a black, in the forbidden white area, sparking a decade of protests) to carry on the Roma cause.

• Holocaust compensation. Further from Agnes Daroczi:  This has been uneven.  Romany prisoners in Austrian camps received both reparations and pensions.  Those imprisoned in Hungary have received nothing even though the funds have been set aside (is this too broad? examples were given).

• Rom exclusion from post-communist era prosperity in western Europe, shunted aside into refugee camps, discriminated against, attacked.

•  Children segregated, sent out of mainstream to schools for the "learning disabled", perpetuating underclass.  School desegregation lawsuits were planned in other news accounts, see Lawsuits, at #2.
  

• Refugee camps.  Wars in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo. Squalor. Cut off from traditional homes, sources of income.

• Assimilation - pressed by most nations - at the cost of Roma identity.  This from Nicolae Gheorghe, a delegate. Is self-determination the best way.

2.  Lawsuits.  

• Service and hiring.  Anti-discrimination. Many modeling after USA civil rights issues (as in Brown v. Board of Education). From 2002:  The Romani Baht Foundation, founded in Bulgaria in 1995, see ://baht2000.free.bg/en.html/.  This organization  filed a lawsuit against a Bulgarian coffee shop in Stara Zagorra for refusing to serve a Roma. Dimitrina Petrova. Mikolsc, Hungary, Dateline. This one won.  Bulgarian Court, Sofia District. Further actions in the pipeline about hospitals, hiring by nightclub owners, etc.  See NYT 5/7/2006, article, Gypsies Gain a Legal Tool in Rights Fight, by Otto Pohl NYT.  An appeal was pending, but already changes had been made at state policy levels.

• European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  This was founded in 1959, and is located at Strasbourg, France. It upholds the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is different from Court of Justice of the European Communities, that deals with the European Union, or the judicial arm of the UN, the International Court of Justice at the Hague.  This , See ://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/SiteMap.aspx Spotty record.  Case protesting shunting of Roma children to schools for lesser-abled failed, is being resubmitted.  See School Segregation below.  This from the Otto Pohl article, NYT, below.

Note, in lawsuits, that a decision does not automatically mean change.  Civil law may remain in place for a long time. 

• Desegregation. School segregation.  Roma Anti-Discrimination lawsuits. Otto Pohl NYT article notes Strasbourg Court, European Court of Human Rights (see site above at ECHR), "rejected a case about 18 non-handicapped Czech Roma children allowed to enroll only in schools for the handicapped..."  Why? Estimates:  75% of Roma children are so shunted to the special schools. 
• How can that be?  Look again at the European Court of Human Rights above.  What is going on?

3.  Salute to Special Supporters.  This from NYT 5/7/2006, article, Gypsies Gain a Legal Tool in Rights Front", article by Otto Pohl.  Then we add our own updates.

• George Soros - a supporter of Roma groups, among other causes. He is "global financier and philanthropist," see bio at ://www.soros.org/about/bios/a_soros/  Named at Otto Pohl NYT article.  See this site, Roma Initiatives, at ://www.soros.org/initiatives/roma/  See the broad range of Soros Foundations at ://www.soros.org/about/foundations/ at the Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network, "Building Vibrant and Tolerant Democracies".  We need you in the US, also, Mr. Soros.  Thank you.  Search that site by country to see opportunities, activity there.

• Panayote Dimitras - This (in 2002) was the "executive director of the Greek branch of Helsinki Monitor (Finland had sponsored the conference at #1), a human rights group that also operates in the Balkans", had cited cases from Eastern Europe in Greek matters.

• Roma Police Association, Budapest.  Look again at the American model.  This is framed like the National Black Police Association in Illinois, founded in 1972, to foster race-neutral and ethnic-neutral police enforcement practices. 

• Chance for Children Foundation, Hungary, Andras Ujlaky, President (as of 2006),  focusing on desegregation for  Roma children

4.  Formal representation - Progress

• European Union, Brussels. Hungary was elected to the EU in 2004, and elected two Roma to the Parliament there.  This from the Otto Pohl NYT article, in #3.

To be continued. 
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For those who have asked, we in our family have no known connection to any Roma ethnic group.  But we are all minorities in some way or another.  Here, this writer in particular feels  a) a kinship,  b) selfish gratitude that I have not been targeted as others, but c) concerned that the discrimination, supremacy issues that underlie any Perceived-Weaker target, can - if hidden as it operates against any group - be used against anyone.  Targeting one, for purposes of advantage, targets us all. Is that so?

The Gypsy Quarter of Nis, Serbia. Conflicting Cultural Claims

 Issues of Competing Ethnic Groups Seeking Preservation, 

Avoiding Assimilation and Cultural Oblivion. 

Nis, or Nish, Serbia

Are there signs of cooperation in preservation of culture issues in Nis, Serbia: Jewish v. Gypsy, or "Romany" as they are known there; and if so, did it last. Read about Nis and the cemetery in the New York Times archives, from several years ago, August 22, 2004, Serbian Gypsies and Jews in Dispute Over Cemetery, article by Nicholas Wood.

Nis - or Nish -  is the third-largest city in Serbia. There is an endangered cemetery there - what is its present status.

Back in 2004, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Kosova Roma Refugee Foundation together were reported to be clearing rubbish from a remaining section of this old graveyard. A Paul Polansky was in charge. The Montenegro army was helping on weekends. And there was soon be at least some linking to a sewer system. But this may be short-lived, with the remaining Romany families relocated, and money up in the air for building new homes. Many displaced Serbian refugees from the 1990's wars also need homes, and the Romany are not popular with others. It may take a decade to approach resolution.  Is that too optimistic.

Where is this:  Some Eastern European - Balkan areas are so unfamiliar to us that the best way to picture their location is a simple maps search.  Plug in Nis, Serbia, then expand outward until you find familiarity:  the Adriatic Sea, Sarajevo, Greece, those can be anchors. Nis is an inland town, think of a trip, perhaps from Belgrade, Serbia, to Sofia, Bulgaria.

History of the issue:  In Nis, in the 1960's, during an atheistic period in the old Yugoslavia under Communism, Roma began living in areas that once were full of the Jews of Nis. As the Jewish population moved out, the gypsies moved and settled, now generations of them, without formal permissions for building or sewers, apparently condoned and undisturbed.  One Jewish congregation sold their synagogue as they left, apparently.

The problem now is, among the usual clashes combined with periods of peace and coexistence, is sorting out claims of prior residents to what was left behind:  the cemetery. 

There is a cemetery there, an old Jewish cemetery, centuries old, with large "rectangular gravestones" still there with new Gypsy buildings around and on top. The stones are used for daily purposes, much as Abbeys in the British Isles were raided for their solid rock riches with the various purgings between Catholic and Protestant. And the desecration of religious artifacts of the other side. 

How language frames issues.  What is intentional desecration, and what is necessity for use of resources when a place has been abandoned.

Because the Romany have been using the cemetery for their living area, and living purposes, that has been deemed "desecration" - as though there is specific intent to descrate - an accusation by the Jews who had left it, see  ://www.forward.com/articles/6058/  The article from 2004, Historic Cemetery in Serbia Desecrated, describes the living activities as though the gypsies intentionally set out to desecrate.  Is that so? Photos had been collected as of 2003, the year before:  see ://www.makabijada.com/NisEnglish.htm/  At that site, the town is listed as 'Nish', and scroll down to the narrative history.  In 2003, all had seemed lost. 

But that was not so.  Part was saved, and we are looking now for an update to the 2004 New York Times article.  What happened?

What started the new interest

A timeline:  In October 2004, the town gave permission for water and sewer pipes, and a Jewish population, in Belgrade, resumed its interest.  Would the utilities further damage the graveyard.

Nis has about 300,000 people, and there are only about 800 Gypsies. And fewer Jews - say 36, and those may be Serbian Orthodox who married Jewish women. This dwindling leads many to believe that the cemetery will soon be the only evidence of a thriving Jewish population. Only one Jew returned after WWII. There was a substantial Jewish population before, beginning in about 1695, see  ://www.makabijada.com/nishSinagoga.htm/  What when a group leaves. What claims remain. When can a subsequent group rely on the condonation of their settlements in a Gypsy Quarter that had become vacant - perhaps not, but there is a claim to compensation?

The Orthodox Christian Church dominates, see the new Patriarch, who had been Bishop Irenej, at Nis, at ://www.euronews.net/2010/01/23/serbian-orthodox-church-picks-new-patriach/

Here is an email for Jasna Ciric, President of the Jewish Community at Nish, jasnacir at eunet.yu - an address probably changed since there is no more Yugoslavia.  We know there is a huge shortfall in charitable resources, see ://ejewishphilanthropy.com/a-nis-350-million-shortfall/as with any other group, but would like an update.

Roma, Gypsies, at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria WWII

Mauthausen Concentration Camp, near Linz, Austria, originally was populated with criminals deemed detrimental to the commonweal, in 1938.  That category then broadened to include ethnic minorities, and "undesirables;"  German Sinti were decimated.

We understand there is a Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelburg, Germany, see this general overview we just found (we have not been there) at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation_and_Cultural_Centre_of_German_Sinti_and_Roma/  We were at the Nazi Documentation Center in Nuremberg, however, and if this is of the same calibre and thoroughness, it is worth at least a full day's visit.
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Mauthausen was built by prisoners from Dachau, Germany, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthausen.html. A year later, not only criminals but racial, religious, national and political groups seen as undesirable groups were designated as detriments, and imprisoned at Mauthausen. By 1939 there were already 300 gypsies from the Burgenland area there. See "Gypsies in the Holocaust" at ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypsies.html

Memorial, Mother Germany, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Mauthausen concept included this main camp, and 49 "permanent sub-camps". In looking at death statistics, other concentration camp complexes or hubs like this only counted the deaths at the main camp. Say 35,000 for the main camp, and 2,000,000 including the larger complex. Maybe "just" 100,000+.  Or 200,000. The records were intact upon liberation, but somehow nobody was made to put the figures together, so nobody did. See Death Statistics for Mauthausen at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/.  See the breakdowns by group.
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Exhibit, Zigeuner (Gypsies) at Mauthausen KC, Mauthausen, Austria. Photographs, text.

Data on the Roma genocide:  See the Holocaust Encyclopedia at ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219/  There are also photographs there.
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Wall Plaque Memorial, Roma and Sinti, (Gypsy groups), Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria


Guard tower, barbed wire, wall, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Death by execution (shooting), disease (especially typhus), gas, hanging, malnutrition, exhaustion, at a rate of some 300 deaths per day upon liberation. This was a punishment-labor and death camp where trying to get down the long staircase into the quarry and breaking rocks killed many itself.  Many more, the exhibits state, were simply pushed off the cliff above into the quarry - those killed in that way were called "the parachutists."

Many deaths were not recorded toward the end of the war because the Austrian police had taken over and most of the staff escaped. See ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/  Three thousand more died after the Americans took over, including the handover to the Russians soon after liberation, from similar causes to before - exhaustion, disease, but now there is note of inmates killing each other (no further information on that), and the starving dying of sudden abundance of over-rich food.

A crematory oven, two layers. Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Gypsies.  Records are sparse, compared to the fates of other populations. How many were executed at gullies, and pushed in, and never arriving at the camp. As a refresher course in the variety among this population, read the Summary for Gypsies, not only listing how they were killed in the camps, but their identifications.  See the "Sinti" and "Roma" specified in particular at Mauthausen.  See ://summary.jeetu.co.in/s/Gypsies/.

The listing of Gypsy groups is similar to earlier posts here from other sources, but this is more extensive:

• "Romanichal , the Gitanoes , the Sinti , the Rudari , the Manush , the Boyash , the Ungaritza , the Luri , the Bashald , the Romungro , and the Xoraxai ."  

Add the four Rom tribe-nations:

• the "Kalderash , the Machavaya , the Lovari , and the Churari ." 

 Other names for the Romani:

• "Gypsies, Tsigani, Tzigane, Cigano, Zigeuner, and more. 

•  Roma linguistically are in three basic groups:  Domari in the Middle East, and East Europe; Lomarven of Centrare divided into three populations:  "the Domari of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the Lomarvren of Central Europe, and the Romani of Western Europe.

Tens of thousands. How many. Mother Germany. Mother Austria. Beyond comprehension. Are we also so seeded.
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Bucolic view of the killing quarry down there, here at the cliff-top, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Amulets of our Lives. The Tradition of the Thing as Comfort, Guide, Pathway. For Fortune and Fetish.

A shell in our pocket, a smooth stone kept in the bureau drawer, under the liner; perhaps a coin from a far place. Read the history of amulets, things that we do not part with, and that, eventually seem to attach as though they wanted to remain. A long-forgotten bit, re-seen.
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Things that go with us.

For gypsies, the ability to "see" through things, by means of things, facilitated by things, to sense truths perhaps in things, or find the way among many paths because a thing indicated this direction or that, all a part of long tradition and culture. How different from us. Any different in substance, or just in smaller aspects of form.

Book of experiences.

Go back to the 19th Century through this book, Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, by Charles Godfrey Leland, 1891, online at ://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/gsft17.htm/ That site is to Chapter XIV, entitled "Gypsy Amulets." The author takes us to London, where there is an Indian Gypsy, Nano. who had much to say of the origins of a particular broad-bladed knife the author held dear, and substantiation for what he said - such knives were used for execution, and the author came across others. Follow the accounts of knives in gypsy lore, the sharp tip and its significance, what pointed gifts really bring (quarrels), the charm that results from the sticking of the knife into the table (that signifies piercing someone's heart, not the table).

Amulets.

For luck, perhaps a Maria Theresa silver dollar, 17th to end of 19th centuries, currency, Arabian peninsula and elsewhere. See its history at ://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=3&id=6038/. This Austrian "thaler" was high in silver content, good for jewelry, Maria Theresa had 16 children so it was hoped its holder would become pregnant, and men kept it for the luck of the double-headed eagle on the back. The site references a book on the amulet use of the Maria Theresa thaler. The Saudi Riyal replaced it. Also used in Ethiopia, see ://ethiopundit.blogspot.com/2004/08/salt-to-thalers-to-birr.html/ Thaler. Dollar.

More: Interest in the author's fossil shark's tooth, a shell, and shells of the revered sea snail is especially revered; an Indian arrow-head, but of no value was a mere English sixpence with a hole pierced. The author was in Homberg (Hamburg?) at the time, and the police allowed no gypsies to remain in Homberg, so he lost touch with one group before he could give them his amulet. He gave the shell to another, a young girl who expressed absolute faith in the power of it. He had said it would do her no good unless she had faith, and her response was faith in the thing itself. He passed it on to her.

The Object: From symbolism to embodiment

Our religions, too, ascribe a sanctity to things - we are all of a piece. Just touch the image, kiss the icon, you will be healed. Rub the toe of the Bishop.

Gregory of Nin, Croatia, 10th Century Bishop. Rub the toe. Sanctity there.

When does the symbol cross over, into becoming an amulet where an aspect of deity resides. From page 237:

And it will last, while one fetish endures, that the hierophant will call it a mere "symbol," and the ignorant worshipper, absolutely unable to comprehend him, will worship the symbol as the thing itself—as he is really expected to do.

Examples: The shell

Veneration of the shell: That appears also in our art, "Venus on the Half Shell," do an Images search. Conch shells, the large ones with the sound of the ocean, or, some say, a voice inside, that mysterious sound some traditions, especially the Jewish, call the bath kol, see ://www.bible-history.com/isbe/B/BATH+KOL/. But it recurs. The voice that tells you which way to go. Or is inaudible, when you want to know. But you hear something. The conchomateia oracles use such a shell. Hearing can be deceptive. We can deceive by ear.

In the Lord of the Flies, by William Golding in 1954, a novel (routine in school curricula), a conch shell is the horn to call the group, a symbol of order, of civilization, civilized behavior, see ://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/themes.html/

Our interest: the Hindu, if the Roma or Gypsies originated in that area, see ://www.economicexpert.com/a/Conch:shell.htm/. It is there. The conch shell is the announcer, the sea-oriented bugle for military alerts and religious practices.

Recognizing things with power.

Killing victims to get luck, to get luck back perhaps, to ensure a strong foundation. Part of western culture as well as others. Read pages 241 ff- remember, this is entirely online.

Gypsies among Witches.

Witches to gypsies are not horrible, evil servants of the devil (once immutable dogma). Just women with supernatural powers, using them as they wish.

Witch's cage, Levoca, Slovakia (Inquisition period)

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Trace the "witch" flying in storms, that may have begun as an image of one riding to clear the air of plague, and when plague persisted, blaming her; to images from the Algonquin Indians of the great bird, a giant eagle, Wuch-ow-sen, stirring up storms and thereby actually healing the air, clearing it. When the eagle was hindered by a magician, the people died. Or to the Hebrew Azrael, Angel of Death. Track western humanity's history of barbarous beliefs.

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What we did is far worse than what any gypsy believed, is that so? Who does the harm here, except as perpetuated in the mind of the persecutors.

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The gypsy witch in the tower of Homberg: read at page 245-46. The raven, the little black granny, all that remained from the smoke of her burning. Come here, save me as well, cries the girl in the tower.

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The witches' tower in Heidelburg was taken down.

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Heidelburg, Germany. No witches' tower left.

Then go to Rouen, France:

Tower, Rouen. Joan of Arc, Witch, was held there

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Gypsy forms in theater and literature.

Find gypsy roots in theater, and literature. This, from page 248, after a long presentation of Punch and Judy and Faust plays, puppeteers and stage.

This is the true Faust drama of the Middle Ages, with the ante-Shakespearian blending of tragedy and ribald fun. But this same mixture is found to perfection in the early Indian drama—for instance, in "Sakuntala"—and it would be indeed a very curious thing should it be discovered that the gypsies, who were in all ages small actors and showmen of small plays, had brought from the East some rude drama of a sorcerer, who is in the end cheated by his fiend. Such is, in a measure, the plot of the Baital Pachisi or Vikram and the Vampire, which is borrowed from or founded on old traditions, and the gypsies, from their familiarity with magic, and as practical actors, would, in all probability, have a Faust play of some kind, according to the laws of cause and effect. In any case the suggestion may be of value to some investigator.

Bosnia, Slavonia, Hungary, beliefs and those beliefs transported into the minds of rulers and lore. Queens wanting cradles made of seven kinds of wood, or to be made by blind people for luck. Then, of course, the thunderbolt and its meaning. Look in any culture, probably. To the Slavonian gypsies, a connection between the thunderbolt and a prehistoric axe form. Not unique. Cultures sharing. Serbian gypsies - the double nut, making a heart shape - a powerful amulet, encased, like a casket, a shell, with mystical directions - plant it and ..... Jack and the Beanstalk?

Other cabalistic signs. The serpent. Track it not only to gypsies, but to Egyptians - gyptians. Gypsies. Names. Links. Even to Brahma.

O, internet. What surprises await the nimble-fingered clicks. The lightish rub on the touchpad. AAh.. Now I see....

Survey Sites - Roma

A must read is ://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm. This is a site to help healthcare providers understand Roma customs, in order to provide better care, accommodate relatives and their interest, and other areas that may be different from our approach. We like those sites that are intended to assist practical relationships, rather than those that just seem to take a recreational look at other people, a kind of cultural voyeurism. There is a fine line between that detached curiosity and genuine human interest. We value the human interest, and offer information in that way. We try.

More on the Baylor survey site, Charles Kemp. This one looks exhaustive - http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm. It is geared to informing those treating the Roma or otherwise dealing with them, to clarify health concepts, social system, beliefs, any background that would assist in understanding. How they stay invisible, by design, taboos, some origins of persecution.

UNESCO - article on preservation of Roma cultural identity. This also has an excellent for ordinary people about the Gypsies: focus on continuity and fidelity, roots in conscience and human and social values, and ongoing identity without rooting itself in a particular geographic spot. See and read carefully at "The Gypsy Destiny," http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1984_Oct/ai_3455602.

The Patrin Web Journal, at ://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/index.html. This one - has it all. Any area you want to know, longer than the Baylor site, but each topic so clearly laid out. I could and should put it in every post here.

Cycles of Abuse: Anti-Roma in Belfast

Current Events

Is there a hard-wiring for sameness, identifying security with being among others just like us. Ireland has had its centuries of pitting religious group against religious group; with that possibly waning, see the targeting move to other groups more easily victimized. See the prejudice in Belfast now against Roma from Romania.

These Roma are not the traditional Irish Travelers with their own "gypsy" roots. These come from Romania, see video at ://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=Romanian+gypsies+Belfast/ and news at ://www.clickromania.co.uk/content/view/609/44/ . Apparently they had been "hounded out" from Romania.

Inadequacy of news coverage:

This issue was not addressed in any account we have read so far. How will the Travelers still in Ireland, and this new European group, relate; or aren't there enough left in the Travelers actually on the road still; to come in contact with a settled group from Romania. What has the immigration pattern been for European Roma to Ireland? Perhaps there will be little cultural recognition? Who can follow? Would the Travelers and Romanian Roma welcome one another, as needed support; or will the Travelers reject them as different, and engage in their own targeting. What has happened elsewhere.

The Gypsy Lore Society notes at ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html that the Travelers and other gypsy groups have differing languages, roots, history, before coming to America, and keep their distance. Will that be the case in Ireland.

Roma in Great Britain - a history, as elsewhere, of prejudice. Roma sometimes called "Rom"

Voices of regular people. Go to this line of comments, descriptions of ongoing prejudice, this site in Kent, England. ://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/have_your_say/community/romany_voices_archive21.shtml. Find the one where the whites live on the first floor of the building (is this public housing?), the disabled live on the second floor, and the rom live on the third, and the food passes up, so if there is not enough, the rom go hungry. Scroll down to the 2/19/06 entry by one who identifies as a "romney gypsey."

The idiom in the entries is difficult to read, for this US person, and so many words we do not know - best to pick an entry that moves you and read it aloud as though you were the person writing. Then it becomes human drama again, even at the everyday level - as poignant as the stars.

Do we need a global kind of exorcism. Is this abuse of populations an outgrowth of what we see in relationships among individuals. What kind of interventions can channel the urges to productive results. Impossible?

In the area of domestic relations violence, there is an established concept of the cycle of abuse: this site addresses in a low-key way the three stages: tension building; acting out the abuse; stated remorse; followed by gradual but as time goes on, shorter and shorter periods of tension building, then more abuse, more extreme, more stated remorse, and the victim is pulled between wanting to believe stage 3; unwilling to act in stage 1 when there might be time to address it with help; enduring or dying in stage #2. See basics at The Cycle of Abuse, at ://www.drirene.com/cyclesof.htm/

Is abuse learned. See the dynamic at Domestic Violence at http://www.gmdvp.org/domestic_vio/gen_info/dynam2.htm/ But in domestic abuse, there is the chance, the option, of getting out of the relationship.

What do entire populations do. Domestic violence. Population violence. Outlets for hard-wiring, or learned and unlearnable.

"The Walking People" - resource novel, Irish Travelers; Migration, NY.

To visit Ireland is to see great poverty in various communities, encampments, but without the formal designation of Travelers to set them apart. How is an outsider to determine the background of the people there - indigenous-Irish-Norse/Irish; or the traditional tinker, Traveler. We did not see real Traveler wagons. Business thrives for the cushy rubber-tire, waterproof clip clops, however.

Tourist "Gypsy" Wagon, Ireland

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Tourists can rent these caricature wagons with the slow horse plodding from town to town and back again- my aunt caught pneumonia that way some years ago, we think - but that must get dull. Does the isolationist slow ride do any justice to the lives that were lived in wagons, and in community.

The Irish and Scottish nomadic groups do not refer to themselves as "Gypsies." The groupings are distinct, see overview of the Rom, the Romnichel and Hungarian-Slavic nomadic groups, traditionally thought of as "Gypsies," and then the Irish and Scottish "Travelers." See The Gypsy Lore Society at ://www.gypsyloresociety.org/cultureintro.html/.

For a glimpse into the lives of the Irish Travelers, read the novel, "The Walking People," by Mary Beth Keane, see review by Jonathan Yardley May 10, 2009, at ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050801409.html/

The book does not hold interest intensely once the characters leave Ireland; but there find a cultural retrospective, the story of an Irish mid-20th Century tinker boy, a member of the Travelers. The "tinker boy" and two Catholic farm girls cross paths, have ups and downs, and migrate, with families' knowledge, and the girls' mother's approval, all together to New York. They settle in their various ways, and he becomes part of the great digs beneath Manhattan to New Jersey for water tunnels and the like, below the subways. Electricity had not yet come to the west country areas, in the 1950's. Most interesting for us was the Irish part, and the first few years in New York. No spoilers to be given here.

Then hear and see the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem (complete with Irish Aran sweaters that are not Traveler in origin, see ://clanarans.com/ca/catalog/) sing, "The Whistling Gypsy Rover" at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0kAZJy_3o&feature=related/. Here are the lyrics: ://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/Gypsy_Rover.shtml/. This next version is too polished. Go if you must to://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_egTUhbfD0/.

Ah, the ideal - then the reality. As in looking at any lifestyle, any set of issues, any people.

Melungeons - Parse for American Roma, Gypsy; Other European, Moor, Native American, Black,

Origins of Melungeons

An Ethnic/Racial Mix.  Which?
Components of a Blend: Difficult to Parse

A Roma heritage may sometimes be claimed by others, who examine histories of population, but not necessarily conform to the oral tradition of some of a mixed group. Is that what has happened with a possible/probable connection of a group known as Melungeons; and a Gypsy or Roma branch within that group. Even a deep root. Whether from enslaved Roma brought to the South Carolina shores, or otherwise entering, even as early as with early explorers, as sailors; or other "undocumented immigrants" collected and dropped.

• Updates:  Melungeon origins by DNA --  South of Sahara African and then White roots 5.26.2912. Melungeon origins.  A DNA study in Tennessee shows connections within narrower sets of ethnic and racial roots:  merely black, south of the Sahara in Africa, and white. See http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120526/NEWS21/305260028/Melungeons-aren-t-who-they-thought

•  Update:  Melungeon Moorish origins 4.18.2011 -- See this site, Islamic in origin, tracing Islamic peoples to the Melungeons, see Moors -- Islamic Roots of Melungeons   Earlier here, we noted "Moors" as among the possible-probable components of the melange of Melungeons, and this site adds detail to the theory. For you to vet.  

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1.  Our start. We read "The Secret Life of Bees," by Sue Monk Kidd; and saw the film, and made connections at The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

We saw a thread among various cultures in different scenes from the book and film: 

a) see the iconic painting of the Black Madonna in the book and film (if you know the story, this is the picture on the honey jars), and ask how it got to a slave-descended family.

b) see the Black carved female figure in the parlor, like an intermediary, a source of inspiration to women in kinds of bondage and suffering from "slavery days;"  and ask who that might be, what blend of African roots and other cultural intersections, reinforcing the principles,

c) see the slave-descendant culture, and slave culture more broadly - how many other groups were enslaved, not just Blacks, and that would have intermingled with other slave groups, including enslaved Gypsy or Roma; and other indentured servants. When freed, who joined up with whom, where did they go.

The American South was and is a complex geneological place. We see traces of other ethnic groups particularly in the dialect of the Old South, Uncle Remus Tales, Translations: Inland Slave Heritage.  Find there traces of the Portuguese in the words used, especially "palaver" that is Portuguese; think of all the Portuguese sailors landing in the south.

2.  We came across a name for one group of mixed heritage, the Melungeons. 

Now mostly in Appalachia, there is a group with a varied background, reflected in the name itself. The Melungeons are named perhaps after the Greek "melan" for Black; or the Portuguese "melungo" for shipmate;  or the Italian "melongeno" for eggplant; the Turkish "melun can" for accursed one; old English "melangin" for guile; or the French "melange" for mixture. See "The Malungean Heritage Association" at ://www.melungeon.org/node/4/. Their first documentation stems from southwern Virginia, bordering on Tennessee; also southern Ohio, parts of Kentucky. Groups like them, or vestiges, are also along the Atlantic Seaboard.

3.  Some find a Roma or Gypsy connection with the Melungeons. 

It is like a missing link, geneologically. How to explain the origins, the broad variation in characteristics, where they came from.  This Roma connection is explored by Linda Griggs in "Patrin," a Roma Journal. The article is "The Black Dutch, German Gypsies, or Chicanere, and Their Relation to the Melungeons," by Linda Griggs.  See ://www.geocities.com/~patrin/melungeon.htm/

With a landing point at the South Carolina coast for many enslaved Roma, see "The Never-Ending Road American Roma (Gypsies), Travellers and "Others," at ://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/, this makes sense. Start there, many end up in Appalachia.by Henry Burke at two sites --

a.  "Origins of the Appalachian-Melungeon Subculture: A More Plausible Explanation for the Origin of Melungeons." See ://www.coax.net/people/lwf/HRB_MEL.HTM/. and

b. "A Possible End to the Mystery of the Melungeons," at ://www.melungeons.com/articles/mysteryBurke.htm/ 

4.  Other accounts of origins, including some Melungeons themselves, and according to the Melungeon Heritage Society site, however, do not include Roma or Gypsy. 

They name Portuguese and Spanish sailors, Egyptian, India Indian, Native American, Turks, Moors, Jews, Blacks, other European and Middle East. Read the long list of names given to specific groups -  See also "A Brief Overview of the Melungeons" by Wayne Winkler at ://www.melungeon.org/node/4/.

"Dark-skinned, frustratingly European-looking" - and pushed off their purchased land, in an ethnic cleansing effort in Appalachia, see this Google Book, "The Melungeons, the Resurrection of a Proud People: The Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America, " by Robyn Vaughan Kennedy, at ://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=Jqhd3tVSJNkC&dq=melungeon&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_G_P-73RUk&sig=pFnoL0eaXJIhbixjOvmOa8hfZKU&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

But to us, outsiders, this Gypsy Roma possible connection adds to the Melungeon Heritage site, not detracts from it. See origins also at  Poland Road Ways, Black Madonna in American South.

The Roma culture is rich in talent and survival skills. Otherwise, they would be gone after a thousand years of persecution.

Do see "The Secret Life of Bees," see ://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416212/.

The book is by Sue Monk Kidd. As you look for possible Roma background, not dispositive but interesting,  see the talent at the stringed instrument, by the character, June Boatwright.  The drive for independence from men, of June and her sister, August Boatwright.  The heritage of the women managing the household, and the men coming and going if they liked, with cultural support for that role, and in many Roma-descended people, a gender ritual separation, that may not just be slavery-related.  It may not just be because men were sold off - it can be part of a larger heritage, and one that enabled survival of a persecuted people through that thousand years.

American Roma.  Shall we open our eyes that we may see.

Currently - Budapest, Hungary - Roma. Still Mainstream Rejects.

Vlach Rom

There is a long tradition of the Vlach Roma, a branch of those migrating from Romania, in Hungary, see ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary.html/ Are Magyars related to, or the same as, early Roma? For Vlach culture as it exists in Greece and Romania, see Bogomilia: Vlachs, Nomads, Shepherds. See Bogomilia" Vlachs, Nomads, Shepherds, Roma Roots.

From the everyculture site: The "Vlach" is said to derive from the section of Romania, Wallachia, where they had once been enslaved. Others come from Moldavia, where they also were enslaved. And the term, "Gypsy" comes from the Hungarian, Cigany. "Rom" is used for Vlach gypsies. Other groups: "Boyash" gypsies speak Romanian, and "Romungro" gypsies speak Hungarian. The site offers extensive discussion of other aspects of Roma life in Hungary, history, settlements, economy, kinship, family, socio-politics, religious and expressive culture.

Hungary: New York Times 2/6/2008 - There has been a show of Romany art at Bucharest, at the National Gallery. "The exhibition was the latest nod to Europe's most despised, and this country's largest, minority." Article by Michael Kimmelman. A right-wing group, the Hungarian Guard, had been expected to interfere or demonstrate, but this did not happen. A good sign, but not enough to offset their proto-Nazi stridings, under the guise of "safeguarding national culture and traditions."

This sounds like the rationale for US movements afoot against undocumented immigrants - our country's new "gypsy" targets - need to control and reject for the sake of the national culture idea. Not the ethnicity, the reaction against.

The exhibit itself was, apparently, not a "good" one - disorganized, numbing even, says Mr. Kimmelman. But it had been relegated to "attic galleries" and not the glories of the ones on the main floors. When state industries closed, with the coming of democracy-type government in transition, the Roma were among the first to lose jobs. Roma are 6-10% of the population, but unemployment within that group is over 80%.

President of the Roma Parliament (nongovernmental rights group): Jeno Zsigo. Notes official indifference as resulting in loss of programs for children.

Journalist and Radio producer: Gyorgy Kerenyi. Began first Roma-run radio station, "Radio C'. Notes that the Western Europeans fear large migrations of Roma from Eastern Europe to the west.

Rankism: The self-declared somebodies against the nobodies. A global pandemic since The Beginning? See Look at this face and try not to be warmed: Aging in place Is a place to live, even if that is on the road; meaningful work, and social contact too much for a person to ask. Forced settlement. Government policy. The Pottery Barn Rule. You break it, you own it. Problem is, nobody will own up to this one.