A beautiful book about a beautiful people. Anyone tempted by the idea of escaping "civilized" society will be fascinated by the Rom people, as they get to pick and choose from the trappings of modernity in ways the rest of us simply cannot.
The author, a Belgian, left his own society when he was just twelve and lived with a Rom clan for some ten years--astoundingly, with his parents' consent! This book is one of the rare first person accounts of a notoriously misunderstood culture.
[A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site Casual Kitchen, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
The Gypsies[1] live by their wits, by their remarkable resourcefulness, by barter, and at times by petty theft. What they don't do is sit in traffic to drive to a job filing TPS reports all day to pay their mortgages and HOA fees.
Instead, they live a practically near-possessionless life that's mobile, can't be taxed, can't be controlled, and won't be indoctrinated. It's tantalizing. Do you think these people worry about their FICO scores? About the interest rate on their car lease? No. They live in a sort of timeless present, surrounded by family and clan, trusting and relying on themselves in a way long since lost in Western life[2]. You can see how these people strike both fear and fascination in us. They threaten the assumed order of things, and they show us that most of the traps of modernity aren't really there.
Footnotes:
[1] Note that even the word "Gypsy" has joined the long and lengthening list of words we're no longer allowed to say, despite it being the very word our author constantly uses to describe his much-loved family.
[2] The closest example I can think of that echoes this book's various themes is the striking book Shantaram, also a story of a Western man joining a radically different culture--and changing radically because of it.
[Readers, what follows are my notes and quotes from the text: I record them to help me better remember what I read. Feel free to skip or skim.]
Notes:
Introduction:
5 "The Gypsies, seemingly immune to progress, live in an everlasting Now, in a perpetual, heroic present, as if they recognize only the slow pulse of eternity and were content to live in the margin of history."
5 "Oral traditions survive only through strong genealogical awareness; their memories do not extend beyond four, or at best five, generations, limited to those ancestors a living person still remembers--and at his death these ancient ones are forgotten, since no one else has known them alive. There are no mythical or legendary heroes, no stories about their origin, no need for any justification of their worldwide nomadism." [See Elizabeth Vandiver's comments in her lecture series on Herotodus about the "three generation reachback" concept, across which preliterate and early post-literate civilizations were able to preserve information.]
5-6 Distinction here between the sedentary or seminomatic gypsies like the Gitanos of Spain, the Gypsies of England, the Sinti of Germany, the Rudari of Romania, the Musicians of Hungary, and describing these as "practically detribalized and well on the way to acculturation" as opposed to the purely nomadic Rom, who travel extensively across entire continents; see for example the Lowara and the Kalderash tribes that can be found anywhere from the USSR to the USA to Malaya to South Africa, Brazil, etc. "The Rom are a unique exception among those nomadic groups adhering strictly to archaic tribal allegiance, in that their nomadism is on a worldwide scale and is superimposed on Western rural, industrial or urban society. In this they are unlike any other wandering tribes who cover restricted areas, mostly desert or wasteland, and who were often the original settlers, pushed back or displaced by later invaders... These are the Rom I want to write about."
7 On the concept of "subsistence thieving": the Rom take what they need from farms, fields, via pickpocketing or other methods, but nothing more.
8 Striking abbreviated version of the story of how the author came to join the Rom: "It was because of a unique chain of circumstances (not the least of which was my parents' amazing broad-mindedness in letting their twelve-year-old son run away) that I was permitted to enter their world in the first place. Later on, my thorough mastery and fluid use of their language were an important factor in their acceptance of me... Therefore, I can say that everything I talk about in this book, I saw, I heard, I was part of." His parents discouraged him from reading about the Gypsies until he had made his own observations and became settled with his own knowledge about them. [What a huge insight! This is true of all sorts of information: you never want to consume meta-content, you want to go to the original source document and reach your own conclusions. You never want someone else's pre-chewed conclusions contaminating your own! This is true in appreciating art, literature and music, in understanding what world leaders say in their speeches/transcripts, even in understanding what company managements say on a company earnings transcript/call. Make your own determination based on their words before reading anyone else's determination. Avoid contamination from other minds or you will be letting others do your thinking for you.]
9-10 Some of the first historical references to the presence of Gypsies was in the 15th century; in Serbia and Greece as early as the 14th century; note also that the descriptions were just as inaccurate as anything written since, as the Gypsies use a sort of protective "mirage" of different behaviors towards outsiders to mask who they really are. Also the great Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote in 1011 in his Book of Kings about 10,000 Luri musicians imported from India in 420 BC, this is perhaps the earliest reference. 18th century philologists wrote about the linguistic commonalities between Sanskrit and the Gypsy dialects.
10 Population estimates: the USSR claims close to a million Gypsy peoples; roughly 200,000 each in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary Turkey and Greece; Czechoslovakia and Poland have 150,000 each; all groups are under pressure to give up nomadism and become integrated. Note also close to half a million were exterminated by the Germans during world War II. Also on forced settlement campaigns under by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in England as well as Charles III of Spain and Frederick II of Germany.
Part One
Chapter 1
13ff The author tells about how a Rom tribe arrived to a vacant lot in his town when he was around 12 years old; when he walked over to their camp, some of the boys his age ran over to meet him. One of the boys showed him how to shave the quills off of a hedgehog before eating the animal, much later the author writes he came to very much enjoy the taste and texture of it. Suddenly an older woman, Lyuba [we will meet her again in this book] shrieked at the author to go away. He ends up staying the night in the company of one of the other boys his age.
20 The next morning he's awoken by one of the boys mothers, given some food, instructed to wash before eating, and then he sees some of the Gypsy mothers and older sisters returning from town with her pockets full of treasures, things they had stolen or pickpocketed; soon dinner was being prepared, and then the Rom men returned, imitating and mimicking the local people "to the visible pleasure of their audience." The author's new friends dragged him away and brought him around to the different family campfires, they asks if he preferred the Gypsy way of life to his own and could hardly believe when he answered yes, just as the Rom would be unwilling to trade their ways for the "Gajo" [Western/"civilized" or "normie"] way of life.
25-6 He stays a second night and then the next morning the police should arrive to chase the Gypsy group away; the large group was forced break up into four groups traveling in four different directions "with total disregard for their family allegiances." The author later finds out that they will all eventually converge again. "They were like the quicksilver that constantly merges and divides." The author writes that he let himself be carried off further and further from his parents home, staying six months with the Rom and not communicating at all with his parents during this time [again, the author is only twelve years old at this time. (!)]
27ff He stays with one of the families in two wagons that went about as a subgroup, losing track of the days over time; there's no observing of the days of the week, as "days and weeks simply flow into one another without punctuation." The community is unaware of the historical years: they refer to the passing of time as "the summer Pipish died" or "the year Zurka was born."
29ff He learns to belch appreciatively at every meal [one of life's most important skills!]; initially he was fed overwhelming quantities of food until he learned that he never belched loudly or proudly enough to indicate a state of satiety. The Rom asked him all sorts of questions about the use of bathtubs and handkerchiefs, things that they consider to be disgusting habits.
31ff The police arrive with a large group of townspeople, some armed with pitchforks and shotguns, and they spread throughout the entire site searching the wagons and the people, and actually arresting one of the gypsy women and leading her away--we learn later it was for stealing chickens. The author, again as a young boy but writing much later, was "overwhelmed by a sense of outrage" at the behavior of the Gaje [Gaje is the plural for Gajo]. He also experiences a mix of emotions, both bitterness and amazement, as he learns that the source of the Rom food and hospitality is from theft. He learns that from the Gypsy standpoint stealing from the Gaje was not a misdeed as long as it was limited to basic necessities: taking anything more was greedy and wrong.
Chapter 2
35ff Comments here on the "monotony of constant moving" but also the total lack of routine in Rom day to day life. The author is distressed when they leave a particularly pleasant or convenient camping spot and he's chided for this, he's told that by losing it he would cherish the memory of this place even more; he's also told that he would start to live more fully and without regrets. He is also awed by the Gypsies' physical endurance and their resistance to fatigue, cold and hunger, as well as their resourcefulness and adaptability. He also struggles with the wish for physical shelter as he spends his time living exclusively in the open, there isn't the same sort of privacy or ability to "close the door" that you'd find in Western culture.
38 "Most of my memories of that early period among the Rom were visual or tactile, as at that time I was still not in full command of their language."
40ff The group returns within a few miles of the author's place of birth some six months later and he's sent away by his friend, who tells him they would meet again after the winter. He returns to his parents' house [to quite an objectively odd reception]: "I arrived there at dinner time and as usual they had a number of guests, painters and writers. Nothing was said in front of them about my long absence, nor was my disheveled appearance explained. I was sent to bed early. I waited tensely for the schooling and punishment I knew I well deserved... With rare psychological insight and wisdom they replied that although of course this had caused them sorrow, since they loved me, they nevertheless wanted to respect my personal choice and they trusted me to know my mind even at the age of twelve. I was shocked. It was so entirely unlike my anticipation of the event."
42ff He returns to his normal life, including returning to school; discussion here of the fact that he spoke French to his mother, Spanish to his father, German to the students who worked in his family household, and then Flemish because he went to a Flemish school [holy cow, how lucky!]. Then his father casually mentions that a band of Gypsies was camping on the outskirts of town, and suddenly the author faced a decision: his father tells him that he should join the gypsies if this was his desire, but only on the condition that if he got into trouble he would remember to reach out to his parents for help--under any circumstances. "I joined the Gypsies again." This group knew the Rom family that he had stayed with previously, and later caught up to that family many weeks later.
44ff Occasionally the author was overcome by a desire to go back to the world of the Gaje; his Gypsy family understood and asked him no questions. They knew he would come back. In the following years he would faithfully visit his parents every year, but he became more and more of a Gypsy despite the Rom saying "With one behind you cannot sit on two horses."
Chapter 3
48ff Comments here on how the Rom saw mostly the worst parts of the Gaje world, in the form of over-aggressive police, people looking for fortune-telling, who would share all of their sufferings with the Rom as they told fortunes; also comments here on how the Rom children would do aggressive panhandling on anyone who came too close to the wagon camps, and this "gave the onlooker a totally false picture of the real condition in which they lived, unless one was also aware of their vivacity, their health, their cheerfulness and their theatrical skills, and overlooked the ragged state of their clothes."
50 A wild story here of the author seeing one of the Ron unselfconsciously count her gold pieces in front of him, and then another instance where a young woman, acting on a bet with friends went and used her best theatrical skills to get a Gajo to pay her money, but the bet with her Rom friends was 10 times the donation they had challenged her to get from the Gajo. "Money was not the object at all, but rather a professional pride of sorts."
50ff Also anecdotes here about Rom interrogating anthropologists with so many questions that the anthropologist never had a chance to ask them anything, and when the anthropologist would return to do follow-up contact the Gypsies had left the region; other instances of the Rom giving the Gaje inconsistent and bewildering answers, or pretending they were sick and coughing violently to drive away curious Gaje.
52ff The various aliases and Gaje names that the Rom would use; also they would establish points of contact among the Gajo community, maybe with a wealthy landowner that took a fancy to their people and would protect them on their land, or someone else who could act as a "node" in their network via telephone or mail, or whose services might be used in an emergency.
54ff On Rom women doing fortune-telling; something that they would only do to the Gaje as a source of money; it was considered taboo to do it for the Rom people themselves. On their technique of stopping a passerby, gripping them by the wrist and insisting on reading the person's future in the lines of their hands. "The suddenness and the dark intensity of their approach made it difficult to deny them." Note the interesting comments here where one of the Rom tells the author that a Gajo's interest in fortunately came from their inability to cope with anxiety, and that it was a form of greed to wish for a prophecy; in fact the entire act of seeking a fortune from someone was vain and self-defeating and "was caused by an unwillingness to face life as it was." [Very, very interesting. He's not wrong.]
Chapter 4
58ff Comments on how occasionally a Gajo would be intrigued by the author's fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair and would offer to help him escape from what he assumed was some form of captivity; also one of the Rom built up a bunch of tall tales about literally capturing the author and told many of the Gaje until at one point the Rom community was surrounded and raided by the police and the author was actually taken away and returned to his parents. But then his parents arranged to have him return to the Rom while they made contact with a highly placed person in the Belgian government who would minimize future misunderstandings with the Belgian police; the author went back and joined his old kumpania, which (this was during the period of Nazi government) had fled the Rhineland into the Netherlands and then into France via Belgium.
62ff Comments here on the Rom's indifference to material possessions, their lack of interest in "mere objects." Also a scene here with a Flemish peasant girl that really highlights the incredible cultural differences between Rom and Western culture: different eating habits, different perspectives on using the bathroom, on the use of flypaper even (the Rom were disgusted by seeing flypaper sitting above the Flemish family's table, with dead flies stuck all over it).
67ff Fascinating anecdote here where one of the lighter skinned Rom goes with the author on an unknown errand, where they go to a village affected by a recent wildfire: the Rom boy strikes up a conversation pretending that he had a brother-in-law who owned racing dogs, and he managed to negotiate getting some pig carcasses that had been killed in the wildfire to feed to these racing dogs so the carcasses "wouldn't be wasted." The two of them managed to pass themselves off as Flemish rather than Rom, and they obtained an enormous amount of free meat for the kumpania.
72ff Compelling story here about how the young Rom members went to a local country fair to dance, scuffles broke out and Putzina, the author's friend, was accidentally killed, hit by a truck. The author is horrified by the vehement, violent grieving of the Rom as they brought the boy's body back to the Gypsy camp. "The violence of their grief shook me out of my own frozen stupor and I was afraid of them and of their unsuspected vehemence. The collective sound of the frenzy weeping rose and fell like an angry sea." He is actually consoled by Lyuba [the older woman from Chapter 1] who now calls him Putzina, the boy's name.
79ff Interesting comments here about the Gypsy grief process. "They gave themselves totally to sorrow. They lived the moment, oblivious to all else, with a single-mindedness and intensity of the disturbed the Western mind." There was fasting for a number of days, they poured wine and brandy on the boy's grave, they covered their mirrors and permitted no drinking, singing, rejoicing, dressing up or bathing for some period of time. Immediate relatives of the boy fasted on only bread and water. The rules of mourning were very strict. They also burned his few personal belongings. "The Gypsies did not believe in keeping anything that had in any way been connected with a deceased person."
81ff Ultimately this event caused the author to be named Putzina and be adopted into the tribe.
Part Two
Chapter 5
85ff On the author's difficulties in finding the Gypsies during his periods back in society; a foreshadowing here of times during World War II where the Gypsies covertly crossed borders and played unsung roles in the war, "both as heroes and as victims."
86ff Descriptions here of the author spending winters with the Rom and the hardships they had to endure while they stayed in place for the season.
91 Striking scene here where one group of Gypsies merged with another group, in a patshiv, a sort of reunion celebration; during one of the evenings during such a celebration the sons of one of the members of the author's tribe began singing a song to toast the other tribe's men, an ancient song they had composed and sung long ago in honor of their own family, and on this night they sang it back to them to show their ancestor how much he and their family remained in their family's memory; afterward and the men from the family crowded over to the man and his son, thanking them for the memory of their long deceased ancestor. [The songs and the tale-telling described here remind me of an old Anglo-Saxon gathering, or a maybe even a Klingon festival.]
95ff Another fascinating story about a ten day truce struck between the police in one town and the Gypsies; the Gysies then spent freely in this town, both cash and gold coins, bringing all kinds of business to the community, rather than stealing by their usual "license of the road."
101ff Discussion here of horse trading: how Pulika, the author's adoptive father, managed to rejuvenate horses and resell them some distance away. Comments here on the annual horse fair, how the Gypsies were respected as horse traders, how they settled for the day in a local inn, which was a point of contact for them to have mail delivered, from which to make long distance phone calls, etc.
Chapter 6
108ff On the birth of a new baby among the tribe: the rules to separate the mother-to-be, who was considered impure until she gave birth; also there was no discussion of her or the baby until the birth was safely over; also the Rom rode into town to report the birth, but using a different woman's name listed as the mother--because the true mother was only 13 and both the baby and mother might be seized. "In this way and quite unwittingly the Rom made lies of the written records of Gajo society."
110ff On how the Rom were considered "stateless" with temporary IDs and temporary papers; on the different arrangements for "residence" they would make depending on the country, some even emigrated to the United States but later returned to Turkey and the Middle East. "During and after World War II their freedom of moving increased as they joyfully joined the ranks of displaced persons and political refugees. It opened many new horizons for them." [!! Talk about being antifragile!]
112 "Today in most parts of Western Europe and the United States they travel in large private cars, with a marked preference for the Mercedes Benz, the Opel and, on the American continent, the Cadillac."
Chapter 7
117ff Discussion here of how Gypsy wagons grouped together near a country border and covertly crossed the border cross-country, usually through rugged terrain. Note the anecdote here where the author and his friends slept in a wet shirt, taking off their mud-caked pants, "as none of us--in true Gypsy style--possessed a change of clothes."
119 This border crossing was done en masse with several Gypsy kumpanias but then once across the border they broke up discreetly into smaller groups to avoid bringing attention to them.
121 Comment here on the nature of the Gypsy kumpania: "The kumpania of Pulika, like any other kumpania for that matter, was at best a loose, temporary association, forever kept fluid, scattering and regrouping as new patterns of interests developed, alliances shifted and old relationships waned. Like the flowing of water, the kumpania adapted itself to all circumstances, without in any way changing its own nature, endlessly remolding itself but forever remaining true to its own essence." Discussion here of how different regions and countries were divided into "territories" belonging to a specific kumpania and when another group passed into an area not its own it was customary to compensate the current Gypsy owners by posting a bond in the form of gold pieces; then the native gypsies would teach the new/foreign ones languages, trades, laws, customs, things in that country that were essential for them to survive; this would build goodwill for future repayment if necessary if the reverse situation happened. The author describes it as "complex legal ties, despite the superficial impression that Gaje have of Romani life as completely free." Also comments on how the Rom would never deplete their "hunting reserves": in other words they wouldn't stay in a place to the point where their presence (and their pilfering) exceeded the tolerance of the local population.
122ff Note this quote: "...communism and capitalism alike were merely reflections of the foolish Gaje's fixation on the accumulation of things, which in time enslaved men." Also: "The main defense of the Rom was their mobility and their feigned poverty... They did not fight back; they simply moved away." [This sounds like the philosophy of Perpetual Traveler.] Also on the Rom's unusual definition of money: the enjoyment of possessions and of money was only in the spending or use of them; also a comment on one particular Rom who was referred to by everyone as "the millionaire," but it was because he had spent a million, not that he had it.
Chapter 8
125ff The gypsies during harvest time are being treated with more hostility than normal, peasants are barricading themselves in their cottages, refusing to sell milk, bread or meat to them, vigilantes are preventing the gypsies from grazing their horses in grasslands. In response, the kumpania broke up into much smaller units to be less noticeable. It turns out that a separate kumpania had been in a fight with these peasants recently, so their guard was up already.
126 Comments on the vurma: leaving bits of brightly colored cloth at the height of a man standing on the driving board of a gypsy wagon (well above the habitual line of vision of passersby), to indicate the travel direction of a Rom group so that others could follow.
128ff [Interesting example here of the tyranny of small differences]: the author describes their group camping next to another tribe of Gypsies, from the Tshurara tribe, who were leaner, tougher, less well-fed, with teeth missing, quite unlike the people of his own kumpania (his tribe had gold teeth for example). This other group did various things that their tribe would never do: like their young women washed themselves while bare to the waist, also their women combed and braided their hair in full view of people who are not part of their tribe; the author was warned to stay away from "those people" even though they spoke the same language and were also Gypsies. Later the author himself describes these people from this tribe as "shiftless and destructive."
132ff Discussion here of different types of Rom: some who are sedentary in Spain, who speak a language on their own corrupted by Spanish words; also sedentary groups in Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey, Romania and Transylvania; tribes in Romania have lost all ties with the Gypsy past, even denying their connection to them; and then there are truly nomadic Rom who speak a common language. And then there are other roving bands who live off the land who are loosely called "Gypsies" but are really of local extraction, people who had gone "feral" and were distinct from the true Gypsies. And then separately, the subculture of fairground and circus performers and other transient entertainers that were associated by a common trade rather than by ethnic bonds, these were also "wrongly classified as Gypsies."
135 The Rom themselves are divided into four main tribes: the Lowara, the Tshurara, the Kalderasha and the Matchvaya. The Lowara and the Tshurara are horse dealers, mainly living in wagons; the Kalderasha, the most numerous group, are coppersmiths and more often live in tents.
142ff An example of the Gypsy swatura, their oral tale-telling tradition, where one of the elder gypsies tells a story about another Gypsy who obtained the ability to become invisible. "The swatura reflected all this plus the entire fluctuating world of the Rom. The whole body of it could never be known by any one single person and it was forever being added to. It was a truly living chronicle, possibly too rambling and at times two formless to the Western mind, but it had an inner coherence of its own nonetheless..." Various examples given here of stories about pre-revolution Russia, of different Gypsies who settled in Spain, Morocco, South Africa and became wealthy, also stories from the period of Nazi genocide as well, which was told by the scattered survivors.
Chapter 9
150 Discussion here of the concept of marhime, a sort of collection of feminine cleanliness rules, taboos and etiquette; these rules both protected women and yet gave them their own form of privacy and dignity in Rom culture. Anything from the waist down of a woman could not touch a man not her own nor anything he used or it would be soiled. The author talks about how he struggled to understand and grasp this concept, but after a long time living with the Rom people he understood better the beneficial results of these taboos.
154ff The kumpania keeps crossing paths with and following in the wake of the Tshurara tribe, as that tribe caused trouble wherever it went, this made it increasingly unsafe for the author's tribe, as anti-Gypsy sentiment grew in general in the region.
156 A moving story here about how the author and his friend were shot with rock salt pellets by a farmer while eating apples in the man's orchard; the author experiences tremendous rage toward the farmer for this mistreatment, but he also rages at his own kumpania as well; his adoptive father both talks out the experience with him, and then ordered two young women from their tribe to go and cast a curse on this farm. This story is complicated and it's a bit difficult to express what is happening here, but the story is quite intense and moving.
Chapter 10
162ff Another interesting anecdote here where a child is taught, via a subtle game with his grandparents, to learn not to have a fear of physical pain and to not develop a cowardly disposition, and to not base his behaviors on the avoidance of pain. [Very interesting.]
165ff A controversy here about strawberries picked by Tshurara women that may have been marhime or unclean. The author's tribe regretfully discarded the fruit. This other tribe did not maintain an appropriate level of decorum according to the standards of the author's tribe, they were ashamed by them and in particular by the behavior of their women. Then there is a case of scabies that got communicated from the one tribe to the other, which leads to a sort of legal ceremony, the armaya, done to deal with it the divisions between the two groups, which then split up. The author gives an extended explanation of the use of the armaya in different contexts.
Chapter 11
170ff A large group of Rom gathers together, an enormous gathering of kumpanias for a protracted stay. This was going to be a large gathering "for the ominous meeting of the Kris." "Without respect for the Kris the Rom would have reverted to savagery long ago and subsequently disintegrated as a people..." This is sort of a legal/judge gathering, and it's interesting to hear how it works because the Rom don't have a police force or jails, and they're largely nomadic, so this is sort of an infrequent event, not fully codified, using whatever qualified men were available to function as judges. There were a number of complaints handled, including the Lowaras' complaint that the Tshurara had hidden their scabies infection and as a result had spread it to others. Several other cases were dealt with as well: a case of a horse that had become unclean because of a female passing in front of it, a case of a theft of gold pieces, etc.
Chapter 12
180 "The camp broke up in the usual anarchistic way of the Rom. Wagons moved away, wave upon wave, like a succession of spasms. The dispersal was swift, as if the Rom were running a race. They scattered in an erratic pattern amid clouds of dust, to the thundering of wheels, the snorting of restless horses and the barking and yelping of dogs."
181ff Now the dominating theme turns to matchmaking and marriages after this unusually large gathering; comments here on how the Rom approach marriage with an "undeceived realism" and that "one should select one's daughter-in-law with the ears and not with the eyes" meaning based on her reputation rather than her looks. "Beauty cannot be eaten with a spoon." (!!!) There's a whole discussion of the qualities, both good and bad, of the various women who are potential mates, as the Lowara "speculated with great sagacity about each young girl's potential as a future wife."
183ff Discussions of some of the jovial, even facetious marriage arrangement discussions; on the nature of their conversations, the negotiation of the bridal price, etc. A lot of this is done tongue in cheek by the Rom although it's very serious business at the bottom of it all.
193ff Some drama here as the author himself may be nearing a marriage of his own, arranged for him by his adoptive father; he's warned of it by one of his friends who knew he was meant for a different path and a different life. They go to Lyuba [this is the older woman who initially rejected the author when he first approached the Rom, but who later welcomed him into their tribe] who helps to release him from the demands of this marriage bond that his adopted father was hoping to arrange. "Prompted by Keja's perceptive affection, I had faced the moment of truth and recognized my inherent unwillingness to accept total unqualified commitment to the life of the Lowara."
196ff The issue is sorted out because the woman he was to be arranged with had an older sister who should be married first, plus there were other young men in the clan/tribe who were still unmarried. Thus this particular match would be postponed to some unspecified future date; thus the whole thing was solved "unobtrusively."
200ff Brief and compelling discussion here of the various preparations for the various weddings; how the local town was brought into the activities as well as the local head of the police; the nature of the celebration; the cash donations; also the way the bride price was negotiated and how some of that money was used by the in-law family to pay for the bride's dress and the celebration; on the various back and forth and good-humored bargaining that happens throughout this process. It's all quite striking, and honestly shocking to a European or a Westerner, but also beautiful. Also it's fascinating to see at the celebration the men eat their fill first, all seated together in order of age or importance in the tribe; after they were done eating they got up and left the table, and "when they moved away, an unruly, yelling mob of women and children swarmed all over the tables like a pack of wolves. They gorged themselves without restraint, making a joyous shambles of what was left from the banquet."
Part Three
Chapter 13
210ff Interesting section here where the author and a couple other young Rom are sent into town to buy gold pieces with leftover paper money from all the feasting from the marriages over the past weeks. They meet with an Armenian gold dealer who sells them English sovereigns, French Louis d'or, Austrian Thalers "and a few rare American twenty-dollar pieces." [This is probably just before World War II if I had to guess, kind of neat to think of these long-gone coins.] Also while they're in town they're sent to collect mail from the city's main post office; the letters were addressed to the author's adoptive father Pulika, but since he was known to the Gaje by various aliases, the names on the envelopes addressed to him therefore contained information on who the sender, as well as a way for him to double check the authenticity of the sender. [Creative!]
212ff Also note the discussion here about how the Rom use telephone calls and how Pulika sends the author to return a phone call, and how messages are exchanged on a call from one city to another.
214ff Something else is happening here, the author is sent on an important mission with some other clan members; they give him his Belgian passport along with a bundle of banknotes, he doesn't know what's about to happen. [This brings to mind the kind of deep trust the author has here: he trusts the outcome, he trusts his family, and he doesn't ask a zillion questions to understand everything ahead of time.]
215ff Their group then boards a train, but because they bought their tickets at the last minute, they are assigned seats in all different compartments of the train. One of the young gypsy girls in their group starts scratching herself vigorously in her train compartment, and it scares away a middle-aged woman sitting next to her (thinking she had lice or scabies or something), and thus the gypsies were all able to sit together!
218ff They arrive to Paris and meet up with a very different tribe of Gypsies there: they wear different clothing, have accents and behaviors; the author and his fellow Gypsies "wondered how it was that some Gypsies could be so different from others."
224ff Some context identifying the time period here, as the author refers to Republican refugees from the Spanish Civil War who were living in the same part of Paris; also refugees arriving from Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, as well as news on Germany and France's general mobilization and Britain's war declaration. So apparently it's 1939, right after the German invasion of Poland, during the time of the so-called "Phony War." The author describes his feelings of what he calls weltschmerz, deep melancholy about the state of the world, and how he longs to return to his itinerant life in the country.
226ff One of the patriarchs of the Rom becomes ill with diabetes, interesting discussion here of how the Rom used increasing numbers of gold coins to try to persuade the doctor to come out into the country to see him, and then when he said there was no cure they offered him still more gold pieces. But then, when the doctor said the only thing to do would be to observe a strict diet and take four daily insulin injections the rest of his life, the Rom were all the more convinced that he was just driving a shrewd bargain with them--and so they increase the gold pieces still more. Finally the doctor had the Gypsies thrown out of his office. The Rom then went to a charlatan miracle-maker, who gave the family the idea of taking him to Lourdes, and the author was asked to come along in the medical charlatan's car. "The Rom were used to wandering in wagons, and had no idea of the distances we were covering." The trip was unsuccessful and the patriarch was brought back to the Rom camp.
Chapter 14
230ff Tshukurka, the patriarch, is now dying; he refuses to go to a hospital; other Rom come to offer and receive forgiveness from him in a ritual exchange. He dies shortly after the author and his adoptive father Pulika arrive with members of their own clan.
234ff We learn about how the Rom handle the death of one of their leaders: the body sits in state under a large canvas canopy, the family and other mourners don't bathe, wash, shave or even comb their hair for a matter of days, other members of the tribe bring them food, water and firewood. Comments on how there should be no feelings of bitterness, regret or contempt towards the departed person. Then a funeral procession led by a hired Gajo brass band processed to the burial grounds, followed by a mob of the Rom walking in a disorderly haze of sorrow, hunger and lack of sleep. "As the procession entered the cemetery, the Rom suddenly emerged from their numbness and wailed and shrieked savagely. Some women tore their hair and had to be restrained forcibly by relatives to prevent them from doing themselves harm. They ripped their clothes, toss their heads back, bared their teeth in horrible grimaces, their faces stained by uninhibited tears." As they returned to their camp a huge meal was organized, the Pomana, the feast for the dead, which was then repeated after nine days, again after six weeks, again at six months and then again on the anniversary of the death. "Beyond the period of one year no one was permitted to mourn."
236 Also, interestingly, the people destroy all of the cups and glasses and plates from which the deceased leader ate and drank, including even his pillow and the rugs on which he rested; and if he had died in his wagon they would have burned that too.
236ff On the Rom having no articulate concept of the hereafter and very little curiosity about life after death, other than a certainty that there was neither hell nor heaven; they also failed to grasp the Gaje's curiosity about these things. "Everyone will go there and then we'll know beyond any doubt." [This is a great metaphor for Western versus Eastern thinking isn't it?] As the author writes: "Why should anybody seek comfortable illusions in a search for the unfindable?"
237ff Comments on certain other traditions following the death of a Rom leader: for example the author's adoptive father would be think about his brother enjoying a certain food or drink, and he would then he would casually offer that specific thing for free to the first stranger he came upon. Also at the annual horse fair, he bought a large number of horse whips and gave them away to Gaje horse dealers, because his brother appreciated a good snapping whip. Also a Rom might buy an entire new suit of clothing and give it away to the first Gaje he met in memory of a particular family member who had recently died, with no explanation given. [This book has taken on of a very beautiful, mournful tone right here, the book's structure is quite subtle, it seems almost accidental, or unplanned, that the story winds down here with the death of this patriarch, the brother of the author's adopted father.]
Chapter 15
239ff Now the kumpania endures a seemingly interminable winter after the uncle's death; the author learns that his adoptive father was working out an arrangement to get into Spain and then later to the Americas; a related kumpania had obtained Guatemalan passports and spoke of leaving Europe. [This little factoid on Guatemalan passports sent me down a rabbit hole to learn that that lots of Germans--German Jews in particular--held Guatemalan passports after WWI to hide or protect their business assets, and these passports came even more in handy during the Nazi era.] Another Norway based Rom tribe tried to bluff their way across the Spanish border, but were held up between France and Spain under much hardship until they were eventually deported back to Norway. "As if by common instinct the Rom everywhere were becoming restless and were on the move in search of fresh havens." [They sense things more accurately than "civilized" people.]
241ff The Rom learn from some Gaje that there's a new, large group of Rom who have entered the region, and so a subgroup of them go searching for them around the countryside, coordinating telephone calls back to an inn near their main camp.
244 A really beautiful passage here as their group travels through a pine forest and then emerges onto a plain as the sun sets; they see the other Rom group in a long line of Gypsy wagons in the distance, but they can't seem to close the distance to them. They hurry along, "as if we were under a powerful magic spell which, although giving us the sensation and illusion of speed in action, kept us immobilized..." They finally reach the other caravan once it stops for the night along the road; the two Rom groups perform a whole long series of genealogy questions and it turns out that this is the kumpania of Pulika's younger brother Milosh.
246ff It turns out that Pulika had not seen Milosh in nearly seventeen years: Milosh and his kumpania escaped from either Czechoslovakia or German-occupied Poland by paying a huge sum in gold pieces and chartering several open railroad cars in which they lashed down their wagons; the arrived to Holland and later traveled illegally across the border [into Belgium and/or France presumably] in search of Pulika's kumpania.
248ff Lyuba then sings a series of powerful, long and mournful songs about the legendary days. "Long afterward we wondered how such power and inspiration could pour forth from so ancient a woman."
Epilogue
251ff They see a bombing occur from bomber planes, it's May 10th, 1940, "the beginning of the angry years." "There was no choice for the Rom but to join the exodus" of people fleeing the violence. "Unthinking, panic-stricken, the people reverted to near savagery. Used to similar emergencies in their daily struggle for survival, the Rom moved with a clearer sense of purpose, with greater dignity. Numerous Gaje limped from blisters, unused to walking great distances. They were haggard, unwashed, unshaven, uncombed, glassy-eyed, tired and hungry--looking, probably, much worse than Gypsies ever looked under any circumstances." [In times of war and privation, people like the Rom often are the ones who make it through.]
253ff Comments here on how at first the Germans treated the gypsies well, and the Rom could roam the occupied territories in France at will, but then also "with an inconsistency typical of the Rom" they would shelter escaped prisoners of war and downed British pilots due to their "deeply ingrained tradition of compassion for the hunted. This subsequently led them into the organization of 'escape routes' for Allied personnel, but it was a gradually mounting pressure put on them by the Germans that led to a fuller cooperation with the various local resistance movements." Also discussions of Gypsies being named "racially undesirable" by the Reich, how they were more difficult to round up than the Jews because of their elusiveness; also massacres of Gypsies by Croatian nationalists and by Ukrainians. The author comments about flare-ups of violence but also long periods of peace during World War II; also citing that some half million Gypsies died throughout German-occupied Europe in various camps.
255ff Comments here on the Rom's indirect connections to the underworld, which over time brought them into supplying illegal ration cards and false identity papers; comments also from the older Rom who thought that war was a disease of the Gaje, while some of the younger members took up arms and were actively involved in resistance activities. The author finally comments on some of the Rom who died during the conflict, but also many who survived, including one member of his adoptive family who had an older son named Pulika after the father. "...they have all gone back to the old ways, no doubt forming a new kumpania, kept fluid, scattering and regrouping, like the flowing of water, adapting itself to all circumstances, endlessly remodeling itself but forever remaining true to its essence, the eternal Rom."
Vocab:
eiderdown: the soft, lightweight insulating down feathers plucked from the breast of the female eider duck, used primarily for high-end filling in luxury bedding
Gajo: (plural: Gaje) [lit. "peasant" in the Roma language] a pejorative used for outsiders or members of "regular" (non-Gypsy) civilization
swatura: (singular: swato) Gypsy stories, lore and oral tradition
marhime: [lit. "unclean"] a complicated term that has to do with treatment of women in the Rom community; marhime pertains to separation of men from anything that might have contact with a woman from the waist down. This term can also be used to describe banishment from the Rom community
weltschmerz: [German, lit. "world-pain"] deep feelings of weariness and sadness about the state of the world
Media:
Films of Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein
To Read:
Jan Yoors: Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II
Jan Yoors: Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II
Jan Yoors: The Heroic Present: Life Among the Gypsies
Ferdowsi: Shahnameh or Book of Kings [epic poem]