Gypsy People In Europe part 1 Essay - 4,817 words

Gypsy People in Europe Throughout history Gypsy people have been seen as outcasts from mainstream society. It seems that
nothing has changed. We have still not learnt to be tolerant of those whose lifestyles are different to our own. For many centuries
Gypsies have been romanticized and reviled. Their traditional lifestyle seems to attract and repel the popular imagination in equal
measure -- witness the number of travelers or holiday caravaners who seek to imitate their traditional way of life each summer or the
popularity of the music of the Gypsy Kings. Compare this with the angst easily whipped up by press reports of Gypsy scroungers,
anti-social travelers or aggressive Gypsy beggars. As outsiders Gypsy relationships with the non-Gypsy world never have been
easy, but in the last decade or so, old prejudices and fears have risen to the surface once more.

Who are the Roma? Non-Gypsies, known as Gorgio or Gadje by Roma, usually identify the Roma by their nomadic traditions and
marginal lifestyle rather than as a distinct ethnic group. The majority of Roma however, particularly in east Europe, now lead settled
lives. Roma share a common biological and cultural heritage; and many speak, or spoke, a form of Romani, an Indo-European
language, or a dialect of the local language with extensive Romani borrowings. The early history of the Roma is unclear, although
comparisons between the Romani language and Indian dialects suggest that they left their homeland in northwest India in a series of
migrations, moving westwards through Iran and Asia Minor, sometime before the 9th century. By the 14th century they were well
established in the Balkans, which have remained their heartland. The total European population is variously estimated at between
eight and 12 million, with around 12,600 families in England and Wales. After their arrival in Europe, tolerance of the Roma soon
turned to antagonism as successive countries passed anti-Gypsy legislation.

Despite such suppression Europe's Gypsies fulfilled valuable economic roles in medieval and early-modern societies. They were also
hired as soldiers by feudal lords. Their lifestyle influenced national folk culture, particularly popular music, dance and storytelling, in
countries as distant as Russia, Spain and Scotland. One Roma legend refers to their descent from the Pharaohs, or Egyptians, a
story which probably gave them the name Gypsies. Roma live in a world largely closed to outsiders such that there is little
socialization between Roma and Gorgio. According to Ian Hancock, Professor of Romany Studies at the University of Texas, Roma
culture is exclusive and retains many Asian, particularly Indian, characteristics. Close contact with non-Gypsies is seen as
potentially polluting, a concept that may derive from their Hindu origins.

Because of their migratory nature, their absence in official census returns, and their popular classification with other nomadic
groups, estimates of the total world Roma population range from two million to five million. No significant statistical picture can be
gained from the sporadic reporting in different countries. Most Roma were still in Europe in the late 20th century, especially in the
Slavic-speaking lands of central Europe and the Balkans. Large numbers live in the Czech and Slovak republics, Hungary,
Yugoslavia and neighboring countries, Bulgaria, and Romania. Nowhere is this truer than in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Since
the collapse of the communist bloc, combined with the effects of war and the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, Gypsies have been
subjected to increased harassment, discrimination and racially-motivated violence. As a result and partly encouraged by Czech TV
programs giving glowing accounts about generous welfare programs in Britain and Canada, successive waves of Roma have left
Eastern Europe for the West in the last few years. In general their requests for asylum are rejected on the grounds that they are
simply economic migrants.

Experts are of the opinion that the Gypsies originated from central India, from where they had been forced to emigrate in several
great waves. These experts look to the Gypsies old homeland of India to discover the roots of the anthropological, linguistic, and
socio-cultural differences that characterize the main ethnic subgroups of the present European Gypsy communities. Most of the
Gypsies, after their arrival in Europe, lived isolated from the majority of the population in reclusive, clan-based communities. For a
long time they preserved their traditional ways of life, the rituals related to their life, and the myths that told of their origins and
conceptions of life. Being faithful to these traditions ensured the survival of individual communities as well as the whole ethnic group.
During the twentieth century, under the impact of industrial society and the political developments in the communist part of Europe,
there began a rapid destruction and loss of the Gypsies original ethnic cult rural system, with its traditional habits and a wealth of
original verbal art. This destruction has been particularly prominent among the majority of the settled Gypsies.

Researchers in present European Romany literature, using fragmentary historical records and studies of the development of Gypsy
dialects, are looking for the roots of the Gypsies as an ethnic group, and for the routes their waves of migration might have taken.
They pay great attention to the traditional habits and the socio-cultural systems of the Gypsy communities and compare these with
the ways of life of past and present populations in India. Even though there has been a tradition of collecting Gypsy oral folk art in
Europe since the second half of the nineteenth century, no in-depth study has been made so far that compares the Gypsy narratives
with the mythologies of those nations with which the Gypsies had come into contact during their long migrations. The traditional
culture of the individual subgroups among the Gypsy population has mainly been upheld through oral tradition. Some items of this
tradition were recorded and published already during the nineteenth century, but only during the last few years have ethnologists
begun to attempt a more thorough analysis of the diversity of these forms of tradition. In the following, one item of this tradition will
be introduced: a text whose source is not well known among specialists. It is an authentic and rare document written by the teacher
Rudolf Daniel, who was one of the first academic Gypsies in Moravia to write about his people.

In the manuscript, which carries the somewhat poetic title Housle a Kun (Violin and Horse); he describes in detail the history, the
customs, and ways of life of his predecessors and contemporaries in order to preserve knowledge of them for future generations. The
sources that Daniel uses for the text are his own personal experiences, narratives of his relatives and friends, and published
literature that was available at the time of his writing (circa 1955). Among other items, he recorded very old myths that were believed
to have disappeared from the memory of most Czech and Slovakian Gypsies in the second half of the twentieth century. For
specialists in Romany studies, this part of Daniels record is particularly interesting because it indicates that many of the Gypsies
oldest oral traditions that were recorded and analyzed in texts were actually preserved in the peoples minds for a rather long period,
and survived throughout a much wider territory than what the majority of experts have hitherto assumed. The estimates concerning
the size of the Roma population vary very wi
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Gypsy People In Europe part 1