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Roma, 2(1):7-23 (1976)

Romance vs. Reality: Popular Notions of the Gypsy

Ian Hancock

In an earlier monograph1 I referred to the fascination which Gypsies and Gypsy-related affairs hold for non-Gypsies: students and laymen alike. In the case of the former, there are of course some fine and brilliant minds represented—individuals whose involvement is both sympathetic and scholarly; but it is not to this small group that the present paper refers.

There is in addition to these, as Richardson Wright noted in 19382, a much more colourful group of purely “mental or sedentary Raia [i.e. non-Gypsy students of Gypsy-related matters] who read the findings of the higher caste and understand them, or pretend to understand them, according to their lights.” The brotherhood of Raia (a self-applied label; when Romanies use it, it refers to an authority figure—in American VIax for example it means ‘policeman’) shades imperceptibly into another large group of devotees who have come by their knowledge not by the academic writings of scholars, and much less through first-hand contact with Gypsies themselves, but through literature, and the news and entertainment media.

The gulf separating the popular image of the Gypsy and the Gypsy in real life, is vast. Why are such people attracted to Gypsies in the first place, and what motivates them to continue to accept and foster an unreal image? While he has been taken to task for his point of view that “gypsies persist because they, or groups like them, are needed in our culture”3, Werner Cohn seems to have been trying to make this point in his book The Gypsies (Reading, Massachusetts, 1973, page 6l). In other words there exists a need—one supposes in all cultures—for an avenue of escape for those individuals who either lack certain personality traits to function fully within their own society, or who have genuine grievances against their society and opt out.  Cohn’s statement is misleading because he does not clarify it by saying that what attracts the “hippies, fanatiques, etc.” is very rarely Gypsies themselves, but the imaginary popular image which the hippies and fanatics help to sustain.

Several authorities connected with Gypsy-related organizations have commented that the greater part of the “fantasy correspondence” received from individuals attempting to make contact with Gypsies, is from young single women between the ages of 16 and 26.  From an examination of 43 such letters received between 1969 and 1975 by three organizations, the Komitia Lumiaki Romani in the USA and Canada, the Institute of Contemporary Romani Research and Documentation In London, England, and the Romani School in Richmond, California, it was found that 37 were from women in this category, 30 of whom claimed Romani ancestry.  The remaining seven were from men, two of whom claimed Romani forebears. These figures exclude the much larger body of correspondence received at these offices from more formal sources.

This raises as a side issue the question of what is a Gypsy–an important one since it bears directly upon the interpretations in the literature and in the media and how as a result the individuals under discussion here regard themselves.  The attitude of Romanies to such individuals must be a further consideration, although one requiring noncontextual interpretation since while each Romani group knows what a “Gypsy” is, the criteria for inclusion in that group may easily exclude members of other groups also regarding themselves as “Gypsy.”  Since, as I summarise elsewhere5 Gypsies may have as many as three distinct historical origins, language and culture are perhaps better conditions than race for inclusion.  Apart from the large European genetic admixture evident in many groups6, a Romani family continuum acknowledged by other members of the same group, the maintenance of a style of life based upon the traditions of that group, and an unbroken transference of the Romani language from generation to generation, are the principal ideals for inclusion from a Gypsy point of view.  “Purity of blood” and means of 1ivelihood, while also significant are less so, although they are the factors which appear to be of the greatest importance to the Raia.  There are exceptions to these; groups who speak some form of Romani but who have abandoned many of the traditional beliefs and customs (such as the Johns and Palmers in Illinois), or who maintain parts of the culture but not the language (e.g. the Alabama-Mississippi Ludari or the Hungarian-Slovak Romungre in America).  In addition there is the small number of persons of Romani ancestry who, although not brought up in the Gypsy manner, for one reason or another decide to enter the ancestral culture.  For those with close known relatives still 1iving, absorption into Romani life is not necessarily difficult since blood ties are a very significant factor; though whiIe this may be seen as a sensible move by the relatives receiving the individual, it may also cause dissention between that individual and his immediate family, which chose to leave the old way of life behind in the first place. From the non-Gypsy point of view, and hence from the main point of view being discussed here, a Gypsy may be many different things.  The term, listed without a proper noun’s capital letter in most dictionaries, often refers not to a member of a distinct ethnic group, but to a vagabond or roguish idler. In Texan law, for instance, “prostitutes, gypsies and vagabonds” are listed in the statutes under this single heading: two groups defined by social behaviour, and one by ethnicity.  For this reason, representatives of Gypsy organizations are vociferous in trying to persuade publishers to capitalise the word when it refers to a distinct ethnicity so that this distinction may be emphasised.  The Manchester Guardian8 and the TV Guide9 have been among the first publcations to agree to this, Since the word is a derivative of ‘Egyptian,’ it is odd that it hasn’t always had an upper case initial.

In Britain, the term is occupational rather than racial. House-dwelling Gypsies, such as those in the large communities in Battersea and elsewhere, are denied acknowledgment of their ethnic affiliation by the government because they don’t conform to the nomadic stereotype10. In the USA Gypsies have been recognize as a discrete ethnic minority only since 197211.  At the Second World Romani Congress held in Spring 1976, in Chandigarh, India, Romani leaders with the official backing of the Government of India petitioned the eastern European governments for recognition in those countries of the Romanies as a distinct nation.  At present, anti-Gypsy prejudice in Europe is at a stage similar to the 19th century situation for American Blacks.  This similarity in fact provides the theme for Grattan Puxon’s newest book Road of the Rom12, in which he treats Romanies as the Blacks of the Communist world. Certainly there are many parallels; the similarities would serve to fill a separate article.  One might compare W,S, Scarborough’s observations on the African American slave population (“Negro folk-lore and dialect, Arena, 18: 186-192, Jan. l897 p. 188), that “the primitive negro is on intimate terms with the wild animals and birds, with the flora and fauna of the wild stretches of pine woods among which for generations his habitation has been pitched” with Paul Kester’s similarly condescending picture of “the gypsies, [who], like the birds and all wild things, have a language of their own, deep and warm and full of the charm of the out-of-doors world.” Equally familiar is the advice given in a slave-owner’s primer from Mississippi dated 1851 to curb fiddle-playing among the black slaves there.13  The exchequer of the l9th century Hapsburg Empire ruled that “the Gypsies’ new masters were to beat them if they worked badly, and were instructed to take particular care that they ‘waste no time on music’.”14

From the point of view of Europe, the Americas and slavery there are records of Romanies being transported by the Spanish (to the West Indies as early as 1580),15 the Portuguese (to Brazil by 1591),16 the French (to Louisiana by l600),17 the Dutch (to New Jersey by 1650)18 and the English (to Barbados and Jamaica by 1665 and to Virginia by 1695).19 Bercovici20 mentions “a curious document in Schenectady containing the charge of four pounds ten shillings for whipping Gipsies, prov[ing] that torturing Gipsies was a lucrative business for the men in charge of the whipping posts in Schenectady and elsewhere, for nowhere is any reason given for inflicting punishment.” A charge of rape laid by a Gypsy woman in Henrico County, Virginia, in l695 was dismissed by the magistrate because “ye Act ag’st fornication does not touch her, she being an Egyptian & noe Xtian woman.”21

Gypsy slavery was established in Europe by 1380.22 Wlislocki wrote of the “appalling and unmentionable punishments” inflicted by Hungarian masters on Romanies for offences as minor as the theft of a pear.23 Samuel Gardner, writing to the Royal Geographical Society from Rumania in 1856 reported that Gypsy slaves there were “still subjected to the iron collar and a kind of spiked iron mask or helmet, which they are obliged to wear for every petty offence.”24 In other places, attempts were made to exterminate the Gypsy population rather than enslave it; in Czech lands during the 17th century ‘‘Gypsies were slaughtered and their mutilated corpses hung along the border . . . hanging awaited all Gypsies who entered the country.”25 The mass murder of perhaps a million or more rassenverfolgte Zigeuner —racially undesirable Gypsies—by the Nazis during the last war has passed largely unnoticed, but it represented a further stage in the progression of persecution which continues against the Romani people in the laws and in the popular press in all countries with a Romani population, even at the present time.  Thus is the harsh reality of Gypsy life.

            Attraction of the Gypsy Image

Those who write fantasy correspondence asserting their Romani ancestry may well be making legitimate claims, but in no instance has any such person been able to provide support, in the form of a traceable name or clan affiliation, and to judge from the content of such correspondence, few have much idea of what Gypsy life entails. The following excerpts illustrate this:

“. . . because I feet that I am a minority of one, and I know that I would be accepted by the gipseys.”
“My hate for the gorgios makes me the more certain of my Romani blood.”
“As a child I became mentally and emotionally aware of my Rom blood. Nothing can erase this awareness of having Rom blood. It is to me as inborn. Should you reply do not reply to me either indirectly or directly [by] the term gajo”.
“There is a bit of the gypsy in me.”
“I feel my gipsy blood and although I never met my aunt I know I belong with the Romanies. How could I meet some?”
“. . . I mean Romany Gypsies, what I believe is called ‘true bloods’ and not a conglomerate that has crossed with other peoples and which I do not consider Gypsies. Can you—will you—help me?”
“In spite of the fact I’m not from Rumania, at the same I am partly gypsy . . . my grandmother was a beautiful gypsy.”
“My father is Rom. We were Kale from Spain in the 1700s.”
“. . . and maybe meet them by visiting a gypsy neighborhoods, I have a gypsy dress and scarf.”
“I like to wear the kerchief around the kher but I am hesitant to wear it elsewhere such as a local grocery store for I do not as of yet feel that I am an accepted part of Romanestan.”
“I do not speak any Calo although I do speak some Romany. My parents live among the gaje.”
“I have an autoharp . . . I have always loved the Rom (also the “drom” as I have traveled from Mexico to North Carolina and California).”
"I have never been told I have any Gypsy in me but for some reason for a long time I have felt the people in my blood. I am wanting to find such information as the language, clothes, food, etc. . . . because I would love to raise any child I may have with this knowledge since I still feel this is a part of my heritage. Any information you can send me [would be appreciated].”

Yvonne Slee, a Sinti Romani living in Australia and author of a number of books with Romani themes, wrote of another such woman who had contacted her (letter dated July 2nd 2005):

She told me her dad ran away and she wasn't sure if she was a white Aboriginal or a Gypsy. I felt a bit sorry for her and wrote back. Then she just wrote e-mails about her work on the Internet and that she was made redundant. I asked her to send me a picture of herself and she did . . . looked Irish to me. Then she asked me if I eat spicy food and feel and hear things: sort of psychic stuff and stare into the fire like she does. I told her no. I eat weight watchers meals to stay trim, ride my exercise bike and type and promote my books as well as look after my children. After she read [my book], she was going on about how she feels rejected. I thought she must be a bit lost as she didn't know who her dad was.

Dr. Andrei Simic, professor of anthropology at a Los Angeles university, tells of one student who half way through a term began to identify herself very strongly with Gypsies. When she was questioned on one occasion as to why she had not turned a particular term paper in on time, she replied that “we Gypsies are a secretive people and are not required to account for our actions.” When the professor patiently explained who and what Gypsies were, and why there was no way that she could legitimately call herself one, the student broke down and cried. Professor Simic comments further on this: “this behavior is not limited solely to those who “seek the company” of Gypsies.

“The Serbian colony [in Los Angeles, and of which he is a member] is beseiged by such types wanting to become ‘ethnics,’ ‘peasants’ or the like, almost always claiming a ‘Bosnian grandmother’ or some such distant tie. The Serbs on the whole treat them with kind condescension, or simply look through them. What is Interesting is their distorted and romantic view of what life and values in the ethnic colony are like. Sexual exploitation of girls so afflicted is common.
“There are several dance-bars in Los Angeles frequented by Serb, Greek and Bulgar men, and young American girls looking for ethnic identity. The trade-off is apparently identity for sex.  Like the Gypsies, Serbs and Croats also make a 1inguistic insider/outsider distinction, insiders being called nashki people, from nash ‘our own,’ and outsiders fureshti (from the Italian word forestieri ‘foreigners’) or chuvari (‘Americans,’ from the English root chew, that is, people who chew gum).”26

Robert K. Tanenbaum, author of Hoax (Simon & Schuster, NewYork, 2004, pp. 185-186) describes in familiar terms the same appeal Native Americans have to the mainstream, especially to young “de-ethnicized” women:

Generally, Jojola steered well clear of white women. He'd found they either wanted to rescue him or get him into bed, sometimes both. Years ago when he first got back from 'Nam, he'd gone along for the ride, so to speak, only to regret it in the morning. The worst were the lost women who thought that they wanted to be Indians. Some claimed that they'd discovered that they had one-tenth of a percent of Cherokee blood in them; others just knew that in some past life they'd been an Indian princess and were desperate to get back their roots. Those saw him as their ticket into the tribe.

Another young woman in Madison, Wisconsin in 1974, dressed in stage Gypsy costume with beads, bare feet and a headscarf (usually only worn by married women within Romani society) was able, through one of the above-mentioned organizations, to get herself an introduction to the local Romani community leader with the intention of being considered for marriage to one of his sons.  When they saw her, she was immediately recognised as a puyi (i.e. one who seeks the company and copies the behaviour of Gypsies; masculine puyo, plural puyuria literally ‘young animal’) and as a result, although formal contact never developed, she was pestered for some time after for sex by several of the young men in the community who considered her to be a kurvuryaki rakli or ‘easy’ non-Gypsy girl.

Yet another in Palo Alto, California, claimed to hate all non-Gypsies, though she had no Gypsy acquaintances and lived in a totally non-Gypsy milieu.  This kind of behaviour can only keep alive the parallel, untouching existence of the Gypsy dreamworld; its psychological motivation must be explained by others specialising in such matters. Diamond Nick Dimas, of Greek-Ludari background, suggests that the literary image or ‘Gypsy Myth’ persists because the hunger for myth in American society “is almost obsessive in its intensity—and females rather than males tend to drift toward it because they seem to be more prone to the romantic and the occult, while males tend to act out their fuges in terms of more violent myths.” He believes further that it is precisely “because they have no real contact with, or knowledge of, the Rom, other than the myth, that the ‘fantasy correspondents’ are attracted to them.  Thus to them, ‘being a Gypsy’ becomes whatever these troubled people wish it to be.  They feel, for whatever reasons, completely disaffected and cut off from the life and values of their own society, and it is in an attempt to assuage these feelings of isolation and Angst that they are attracted to the Gypsies.  It is an attempt to institutionalise this disaffection.  Such individuals seem to be saying ‘Yes, I’m different, I don’t fit in, but it’s not my fault, it’s really because I’m a member of a group of misfits, a group of people who don’t fit in, so I’m not so bad after all.”27

Talmy Giv6n, who also teaches in Los Angeles, shares this view, but suggests that such persons are deserving of a certain amount of compassion because of their cultural alienation.  He sees a possible external, rather than internal cause which may be rooted in the fact that mainstream Euro-American culture seems to be losing its standards, its spiritual underpinning, and becoming a media-led free-for-all.  Such disturbed romantics are lost because they have nowhere to go, and the stereotype of the Gypsy which their culture foists upon them has traditionally (though less so recently with the emerging negative image) projected an idyllic picture of nomadism, unencumbered with the responsibilities of conventional nine-to-five routine.  Giv6n suggests further that the pull of the myth is so strong that it continues to exert its influence even when its devotees know it to be a mirage; like Andrei Simic he points out that the Gypsy Myth is only one escapist straw being clutched at; there is a substantial body of individuals who are ready to follow any false prophet into any mythological promised land.

Thomas Acton of the Romano Institute in London also believes that one should sympathise with those motivated by romance.  Some, of Gypsy ancestry or otherwise, have been cut off from their ethnic heritage because of parental shame, a common enough phenomenon among first-generation immigrant groups; he further believes that a distinction should be made between those who fantasize wholly and those who are genuinely curious about concrete individuals in their own genealogy.29 Janet Tompkins, a social worker who interacts closely with the northern Californian Romani community and who was a key figure in the running of the Gypsy school there adds to this.  Noting that at least two thirds of her file of newspaper clippings concerning Gypsies deal with Gypsy ‘kings’ or ‘queens’ dying, while the balance relates to assorted swindles, she feels that as a result, the average non-Gypsy whose main source of information is the press is bound to get the impression that Gypsies are

 “. . . a bunch of thieves, and royal thieves at that, and what could be more romantic? This myth of royalty, especially in America, has a lot to do with the romantic appeal, especially to young girls.  After all, what are they raised on?  Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and so on, and they long to be princesses too. Perhaps they have to endure symbolic rags and tatters for a while, but one day Prince Charming will surely come along to carry them off to a castle.  But where is the Prince?  He’s ridden off with Barbie Doll leaving them with the seven dwarfs. It isn’t fair—girls born to be princesses and nobody to recognise the fact.  But maybe they can get their ears pierced, wear gold earrings, put on scarves and long skirts, smear dirt on their faces and run away with the Gypsies, maybe meet a Gypsy prince with a knife between his teeth who will fight duels for them.  Snow White never had it so good . . . such is the nonsense that girls’ fantasies are made of.”30

Perhaps the most blatant example of this kind of fantasizing is illustrated in a 1972 newspaper article:31

Indian Kathy, the girl who has gipsies in her soul: Riding out on a crusade to win back the Romanies’ pride, The gipsies call her Indian Kathy.  Pretty, raven-haired, dressed in bead-and-feather adorned buckskins, she rides her piebald stallion Indian-style along the roads of Kent.  She is seeking out gipsies in their roadside camps to restore their pride and their forgotten crafts (. . . etc.,  zhika shada-ma).

Academia is little affected by this kind of dreamer, although its own inhabitants are no less susceptible to following the well-beaten path.  Einar Haugen, who chaired the language planning session of the World Congress of Sociology in Toronto in 1974, at which this writer’s monograph Problems in the Creation of a Standard Dialect of Romanes32 was first read, felt authorized to note in his commentary on the session33 that “in Scandinavia, Romany is no longer a language of its own but is a pidginised form of the host language,” despite the fact that probably the best description ever published of a fully-inflected dialect is Gjerdman and Ljungberg’s The Language of the Swedish Coppersmith Gypsy Dimitri Taikon (Uppsala, 1963).  Haugen also notes (loc. cit.) that “most Romany are more or less nomadic,” despite the statement in the paper itself that “The majority of European Rom have in fact been sedentary for a long time,”34 –noted also by Thomas Acton (mentioned in footnote 75 of the same paper) who, on the very first page of his Gypsy Politics and Social Change (London, 1974) also stated that “[o]nly a minority of the world’s Romani-speaking communities are nomadic today.”  The Problems paper refers to the harm done by non-Gypsies who set themselves up as spokesmen about Gypsies for other non-Gypsies, especially those who have no first-hand knowledge of the situation.  Since all conference papers are presumably read thoroughly by their discussants, it may be that Haugen’s statements represent an unconscious falling into line with the more attractive fictitious image, a predisposition to keep it alive resulting from conditioning centuries old.

The average non-Gypsy may not be able to say offhand where his notion of the Gypsy comes from; very few have actually knowingly encountered Gypsies, and many Americans are even skeptical of their existence in the United States. The press helps keep part of the image alive, as Janet Tompkins points out.  Despite showing two pictures, one inside and one out, of the Gypsy household it discusses, an article in the Boston Phoenix (April 8th, 1975) is nevertheless entitled “Hustle, hustle, aboard the caravan.”  Crystal balls, non-existent in the community concerned, are alluded to in the headline “Authorties gaze into gypsy’s con game.” (Austin American, May 30th, 1975).  A long-time resident of Montreal is made more appealing in the headline “Roving gypsy swindles carpenter of $37,000” (the Montreal Star, July l4th, 1975).  Other such slanted headlines include “The terrible vengeance of the gypsy queen,” “For gypsies, 1ife is travel,” “Gypsy trouble,” “Gipsy tried to drown daughter,” “Gipsies raped girl,” “Savages! Gang-bang gipsies were cruel, vicious, violent and loathsome, says judge,” and “Cure for a gypsy curse” — the “curse” in this case being lack of “educational opportunity.”35  It is considered poor journalistic policy nowadays to specify the ethnic origin of offenders in the news media, but this bias still operates against the Gypsy population.  In the late 1960s there were at least three comic strips about Gypsies, heavily stereotyped, in certain British girls’ magazines: “Bringing up Gypsy” and “The Oakfield Outcasts” in Bunty and “Gypsy Kim” in Diana.

The foundations were most firmly laid in fictional literature.  Black’s Gypsy Bibliography, which includes nothing later than 1914, 1ists 133 ballads, 199 plays, 351 novels and 262 poems about or including Gypsies, written by non-Gypsies, exclusive of scientific treatments or collections of actual Romani oral literature. Since 1914 literally thousands more have appeared, and the development of the motion picture industry has helped sustain the tradition.

In 1972, a 20-minute documentary was produced by a California television station about the Romani school in Richmond. Despite the serious intent of the film, the commentator (unconnected with the school) could not resist closing with the observation that “although Gypsies still dance around the campfire, the fire is slowly flickering out as Gypsy life gradually fades into obilivion.”  There was of course no campfire, let alone camp, in the film.

Other recent pictures, for example The Bailbondsman starring Jack Lemon, or King of the Gypsies starring Orson Welles, have been produced with scant attention paid to the interests of the Romani community.  In The Bailbondsman for instance, the Gypsy girlfriend of the principal character has his name tattooed twice on her buttocks.  The relationship is exceptional to begin with, but the gajo-inspired sign of affection is totally contrary to what would be acceptable in Romani culture.  This is to remain in the film despite advice received by its producers from someone who lives closely with the California Romani community.  In the case of King of the Gypsies by Peter Maas, author of Serpico, the Komitia Lumiaki Romani was told in answer to a letter written to the American Civil Liberties Union asking to be allowed to advise on the script, that “the ACLU’s function, if it has any in this potential dispute, would be to protect the fi1m maker.”36  When it was announced during the summer of 1975 that the television series Chico and the Man was to introduce a Gypsy character in the autumn, the International Gypsy Committee wrote at once to the producer, James Komack, expressing a hope that the part would be portrayed fairly, offering to provide literature on the subject if needed.  No acknowledgement was received, and when the Gypsy character was introduced complete with guitar, gold teeth, earring, bandanna and sash, all the stock jokes concerning theft, curses, stupidity and immorality were reeled off.  The irony was that its star, Freddie Prinze, was himself of Hungarian Romani descent.

So the popular image is transmitted.  The reasons for its continued existence are syndromatic; those who wish to write a book or make a film about Gypsies gather their background information from other books and films written by people who did the same thing before them.

The intentionally misleading information given by Romanies themselves to outsiders must also be taken into account, although it is probably a protective technique which, like the aura of mystery perpetuated by Gypsies, has developed gradually.  Rom alive today in Germany remember with disgust the German scientist Eva Justin who, in the guise of a missionary obtained genealogical data from their families which was later used by her against them in the Nazi death camps.37 A graduate student at a northern US university writes that she is “especially interested in social and communication networks and current patterns of migration,” as well as “the enumeration of Rom and their spatial distribution in the US.”38 This kind of questioning cannot hope to meet with success, and it is to this kind of researcher that false information may most readily be given.  Except with the most persistent interrogator however, the Gypsy technique is usually just to exit from the situation. Anne Sutherland, in her book Gypsies the Hidden Americans (London, 1975, p. 21) gives an amusing picture of her early attempts at making contact with Rom, and being put off by feigned ignorance, deafness and even imbecility.

When a group has no legal means of redressing wrongs done against it, it will make the most of what is available—and fear is an effective weapon, both for keeping outsiders at arm’s length, and as a means of reprisal. A mother in Florida whose child was the victim of a hit and run accident in July, 1975, “vowed to cast a gypsy curse extending over three generations on the driver and his family if he does not come forward and pay the child’s hospital bill”39 [since the time that this was written, a similar ‘gypsy curse’ has made headlines, when James Marks placed a spell on the City of Spokane, Washington, for injustices levelled against him (see the video-documentary American Gypsy: A Stranger in Everybody’s Land)].

The literary image is the product of the non-Gypsy who finds fascination in a life supposedly utterly different from his own, outside the law and free from any restrictions. When restrictions might occur, they are ignored lest they spoil the picture. Others find the image attractive because of its mystique of the exotic and forbidden. Nobody wants to hear that for much of the time Gypsy life is dull, especially for the children, that one’s social circle is usually quite small, and that a Romani household is not too different from that of a non-Gypsy. Far better to keep alive instead a more satisfying and aesthetic parody, even at the cost of human dignity.

George Borrow wrote that “it is utterly useless to write about the habits of the Gypsies unless you have lived long and intimately with them” and, unhappily up to the present time, all the books which have been published concerning them have been written by those who have introduced themselves into their society for a few hours, and from what they have seen or heard consider themselves competent to give the world an idea of the manners and customs of the “mysterious Rommany.”40This has become vividly apparent since the publication of Maas’ King of the Gypsies; journalists knowing little or nothing about Gypsies have parrot-fashion repeated the myths in their reviews of the book. Newsweek’s Peter Prescott going so far as to group the entire race with “mafiosi and corrupt cops,” and to assure the reader that Gypsy life is “in fact startlingly cruel and swinish.”41 Another review called the book “an ethnic sick joke;”42 the film, a work of fiction, becomes an authoritative source—entirely adequate for its reviewers to use to support their statements of “fact.”   The same statements then pass into the subconscious of their readers, who file the information away under “my perceptions of Gypsies.”

Most of the reviews repeat that Gypsies don’t go to school, cannot read or write, have no flag, don’t carry credit cards and so on, yet although letters of protest reached the publisher from France, Britain, Sweden, Poland, Jugoslavia, Hungary, New Zealand and the United States objecting to these fallacies, the author has continued to ignore the truth in public interview, to the extent of saying that the Gypsy community has not protested; protesters are “just not out there” says Mr. Maas.43  In another interview44 however, he maintained that he has received a great many threats by letter and telephone, from the Gypsy community.  One journalist writing for the San Francisco Sunday Examiner included in his review that Gypsies “neither read nor write,” and yet in a letter admitted knowledge of the Romani school which was established near San Francisco. Other publications featuring similar reviews, such as The National Observer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Times, etc., have not even bothered to acknowledge protests from the Gypsy community or allow Romani spokesmen such as Miller Stevens, Thomas Nicholas or the International Gypsy Committee and others the opportunity to present the Gypsy case.  The New York Times featured a double review; Peter Maas’ King of the Gypsies and Anne Sutherland’s Gypsies the Hidden Americans; the former a sensationalist work of fiction, the latter a serious anthropological study.  The former was given four and a half columns, the latter one paragraph.

It has been remarked that “it is strange how a gorgio will exaggerate the romance and glamour of the Roms and then turn and talk about them in scathing and contemptuous terms.”46  This anomaly is familiar to Gypsies, who have for example been both envied and resented for being wanderers, when the wandering has been forced upon them by the settled .population in the first place (according to some historians, since the very exodus from India itself).

The attitude of the non-Gypsy to the Gypsy has much in common with the attitude which conquering or socially dominant groups display toward their victims.  Again there exists a parallel with the traditional racial situation in the United States where African Americans have been admired for their style, music and so on, and yet despised as thieves, rapists and the like.  One might also refer to the image of the Irish in England. It is a peculiar though recurrent pattern of behaviour which causes the ascendant group to accuse its victims of precisely the same crimes which have been used to subjugate them; nevertheless the despised groups are looked to as a source of vitality and romance, and as having lifestyles of uninhibited and carefree expressiveness.

There are still laws in operation in many countries preventing Romanies from stopping in any one place for more than a day or so; an article which appeared in the Philadelphia Bulletin (April 11th, 1969) by James Smart entitled “A Gypsy can’t be a Gypsy without a Gypsy 1icense” reported that in Pennsylvania “a gypsy may not camp or transact business without getting a $50 license from the county. A gypsy who insists on being what he was born—a gypsy—without a license is liable to up to $100 fine and 30 days in Jail.”  And although he goes on to say that “it is both un-American and discriminatory for the state to require a gypsy to have a license to be a gypsy,” as far as is known the 1909 law continues to exist in Pennsylvania. More recently, in September 1975 a similar law was enforced against the Eli family in Montgomery County, Maryland, in which state there is a “law requiring gypsies to pay a $1,000 licensing fee before they can set up encampments [i.e. homes] or engage in commerce in the state.”47  In an interview with the local press, Sandra Eli, the wife, spoke of current conditions for Gypsies wishing to Iive there:

“Chris, my little six-year-old, doesn’t want to go to school here because the other kids taunt her.  They call her a gypsy and then top it off by singing that Cher song ‘Gypsies, tramps and thieves . . . you think black people have problems.!  They don’t have to pay to live here.”48

The popular, unreal image of the Gypsy is firmly rooted in Euro-American folklore, and as with all caricatures there are superficially some elements of truth in the stereotype.  The reasons for their existence are what need to be understood; that Romanies have travelled for centuries not to satisfy a romantic urge but because stopping has meant transportation, enslavement, and even death.  Theft, another stereoattribute49 would have been less in evidence if Gypsies were not refused service by shopkeepers so frequently; a choice between stealing or starving is easily resolved.  Lifestyles rely upon the environment.  Cannibalism, baby-stealing, lack of responsibility, cunning, laziness, lust, an inborn musical ability, so go the traditional attributes.  And some of these traits are to be found among Gypsies to be sure; but so they are among all human groups.

The Gypsy community has not been particularly concerned with this misrepresentation. Hollywood Gypsies are indeed often greatly enjoyed—an enjoyment seasoned with the assurance that the gaje do not know enough to be able to represent the Gypsy properly.  Since the fantasy Gypsy world exists almost entirely within the non-Gypsy experience, for the most part it does not even touch the Romani environment. When it does, it is put to good use.  What is more significant to Romani leaders, especially in Europe, is the effect it may have at higher, more authoritative levels, which in the past have relied upon non-Gypsies and their literature for their knowledge.  Only now are Romani organizations being approached by UNESCO and similar bodies as sources of information, and only now are Romani organizations themselves taking a stand against racist stereotyping.

The day may be past when statements like “it would be wrong to try to prevent the progressive decay of Gypsy ethnic unity”50 are heard, but there will always be those who will, “at the slightest hint of Gypsies in the neighbourhood, change into disreputable clothes, bid an abrupt farewell, and disappear for hours and days.”51 And the romantically-inclined will never stop their endless quest by mail: “Although I have been unable to find any gipsies, I have read every gipsy book in our library, and I never had the same kind of rapport with any other people . . . ”52

Notes

Sincere thanks for their contributions to an earlier draft of this paper are extended to Andrei Simic, John Velz, Nick Dimas, Janet Tompkins, Gyča Drozdan, Thomas Acton, John McDowell and Stevie Adams.  All correspondence and news items quoted here are dated and on permanent file with the International Gypsy Committee.

1.  Ian Hancock, Problems in the Creation of a Standard Dialect of Romanes. Social Science Research Council on Sociolinguistics Working Paper N0, 25, May 1975, pp. 65.

2.  R. Wright, “Gypsy lore in America 1888-1938”, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, XVI 1.11-18 (1938).  The original quote appeared in the past tense.

3.    By e.g. Mary-Evelyn Porter, Thomas Acton, Anne Sutherland, etc.

4.  So labelled in his “La persistence d’un groupe paria relativement stable: quelques reflexions sur les Tsiganes nord-américains,” Etudes Tsiganes 16(2/3):3-23 (1970), p. 4.

5.  Op. cit., note l above.

6, Werner Cohn, The Gypsies. Reading, Mass. (1972), p. 63 estimates a white admixture of 60% (compare this with the ca. 30% for African Americans).

7. The Second World War was especially significant in this respect.  Such individuals are not uncommon in Romani political movements, their fami1iarlty with both cultures being especially useful in liaison positions.
See Panch Bersh Buti: The 5th Annual Report of the National Gypsy Education Council. London, 1975, p. 10

9.  See the TV Guide, December 8th, 1973, p. A-5.

10.  See for example the article “Caravan man is not a gypsy, Judge decides,” The Courier, February 15th, 1974, p. 21.  Writing in 1807 William Wordsworth distained those non-travelling Gypsies who stayed in “the self-same spot” (Antony Harrison, “Matthew Arnold’s Gipsies: Intertextuality and the new historicism,” Victorian Poetry, 29: 365-383 (1991), p. 370.

11.  See Anne Sutherland, Gypsies, the Hidden Americans, (London, 1975), p. 315, footnote 1 for chapter 9.

12.  In preparation.

13.  In De Bow’s Review, 10:621-627 (1851).

14.  Willy Guy, in Josef Koudelka, Gypsies, New York (1975), no pagination.

15, Mentioned in Konrad Bercovici, “The American Gipsy”, The Century Magazine, 103:507-519 (1922), p. 510.

16.  João Dornas Filho, Os Ciganos em Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte (1948), p. 15.

17. See Alexander Jones, “American Gypsies”, American Journal of Science and Arts, 26:189-190 (1834), and Frederick L. Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, New York (1861), pp. 638-639.

18, See A.T. Sinclair, An American-Romani Vocabulary, Edinburgh (1916), introduction.

19. See David MacRitchie, Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts, Edinburgh (l894), passim.

20. Op. cit., note 15, p. 511.

21. The Virginia Magazine, l1(l):100 (July, 1894). See also William E. Axon, “Laws relating to the Gypsies,” in William Andrews (ed.), Legal Lore: Curiosities of Law and Lawyers, London (l897) pp. l65-178.

22. P.N. Panaitescu, “The Gypsies in Walachia and Moldavia: a chapter of economic history,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 20(2):58-72 (1941).

23. Eric O.Winstedt, “Some Transylvanian Gypsy documents of the sixteenth century,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 20(2):49-58 (1941).

24. Samuel Gardner, “Notes on the condition of the Gipsy population of Moldavia,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1:37-39 (1857).

25.  Willy Guy, op. cit., note 14 above.

26. Personal correspondence, September 4th 1975.

27. Personal correspondence, August 25th 1975.

28. Personal correspondence, August 20th 1975.

29. Personal correspondence, August 20th 1975.

30. Personal correspondence, August 23rd 1975.

31. The Evening News, Friday, September 27th 1974, p. 16.

32. Note 1, above.

33. Einar Haugen, Section on language planning: Commentary. August 1974, unpublished manuscript circulated to participants, pp. 15.

34. Op. cit., paragraph 4.41.

35.  Appearing in The Sun, July 17th 1975, The New York Times, April 30th 1972, The Chronicle Sunday Punch, July 12th 1975, The Kent Messenger, October 31st 1975, The Sun, October 17th 1975 and The Observer Magazine, June 1971, respectively.
Letter dated March 17th 1975.

37.  Eva Justin, Lebensschicksale Artfremd Erzogener Zigeunerkinder. Berlin (1944).

38.  Letter received Spring 1975.

39.  Miami Herald, July 11th 1975, p. 1-B.

40. George Borrow, The Zincali, Vol. I, London (1843), pp. 97-98.

41.  Newsweek, October 20th 1975, p. 103.

42. Oberführer Herr Kristoff Lehmann-Haupt, “Some slag in the melting pot”, New York Times, October 28th 1975.

43. The interview with Alan Simons, entitled “Peter Maas tells about the Gypsies,” appears in The Washington Star, November 25th 1975.

44.  On the Howard Cosell Show Speaking of Everything, broadcast nationally on radio in November, 1975.

45.  Peter Andrews, “King of the Gypsies” and “Gypsies the Hidden Americans,” The New York Times Book Review, November 9th 1975, p. 29.

46. Molly Davidson, “A Gypsy wedding in Virginia”, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 16(3):149-151 (1937).

47.  The Washington Post, September 1975.

48.  The Washington Star, September 1975.

49.  A Hungarian restaurant in Mexico City has a huge mural depicting a group of Gypsies climbing over a wall to steal some chickens.

50.  Jaroslav Sus, Cikanska Otazka v. ČSSR, Prague (1961).  Translation.

51. Wright, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 18.

52. Letter received November, 1974.