Gypsy Life and Gypsy Lore

gift from Joyce Crutcher

GYPSY Travellers in the UK

Within Britain the roads have thronged with travellers of various sorts over the centuries, even before Romanies arrived about 600 years ago. All types and descriptions of Travellers moved around looking for work; selling, buying, spreading the gospels. There has always probably been friction between nomads and the sedentary population - partly from competition for resources and partly from the inherent fear of the free by the settled population.

This reached xenophobic heights in the 16th and 17th century when Gypsies were banned on pain of death from Scotland and several were hung just for being Gypsies. In 1530 an Act concerning Egyptians required them to leave the country on pain of imprisonment or forfeiture of goods. This was followed by various other Acts relating to punishment of vagabonds "calling themselves Egyptians, both genuine and counterfeit, all to be treated as criminals and suffer death and loss of land, goods, without benefit of clergy."

Since then although persecution has continued Gypsies and Travellers have become an established, if not accepted feature of our country. In addition to the Romanies who arrived during the time of Henry VIII the population of Travellers has been swelled by Irish people working on the canals and railways, fleeing from the effects of the mid-nineteenth century famine and after the last world war in response to difficult economic conditions in Ireland.

House dwellers have constantly trickled on to the road through force of circumstance or choice - for example it is known that some of the people forced to flee the London bombing and live in the countryside in vehicles during the last war continued to live in vehicles and took to the road never to return to settled accommodating.

Traditionally Travellers integrated with the local rural economy via seasonal agricultural labour and also by supplying other needs of the rural population. With increasing mechanisation the need for seasonal labour slackened during the 1950’s and many travellers forsook the rural for the urban and semi-urban environment. Increasingly employment opportunities centred around scrap dealing, car dealing and tarmac laying.

Current accommodation sites for Travellers are diverse and some of them represent the worst examples of ‘housing’ to be seen in Britain. Although some Travellers live on well maintained, well run council sites there are many examples which are no more than ghetto's.

These sites are usually fenced off from the rest of the population in places, usually next to the railway tracks where no one else would want to live and where they cannot be seen. Sites are often dangerously close to industrial premises and some have high tension power cables a few feet from the tops of the caravans which most traditional Travellers live in. However, at least these sites have access to some services - water and toilets are readily available, as is physical access to local schools.

On unauthorised sites which can be in such diverse urban locations as yards of disused factories, underneath urban motorways (which have all the attendant health hazards from traffic fumes) access to normal facilities can be nonexistent. Water may have to be obtained from garages or churches, toilets in garages or public toilets used. For a bath many traditional Travellers used to resort to public baths but with their demise access to such facilities have become nonexistent. Since unauthorised sites can change frequently due to evictions, access to health, education and social services can be difficult or impossible for Travellers.

(Taken from an article by Steve Staines of FFT: "Travellers and the Built Environment".)

Gypsies are known as a vagabond race, traveling from one place to another. Most fiction portrays them as having loose morals - thieves, lustful, and dishonest. But that is a generalization that truly only applies to a few, not the entire race. Gypsy women are actually very faithful to one man at a time. Of course some gypsies are thieves and tricksters, but you can find those in any culture.

Origin

The technical term for a gypsy is Roma. Originally the Roma came from India, which can be traced back through their language and culture. They were likely called "gypsy" first by Europeans that thought they came from Egypt. Now Romani can be found all over the world, but the majority in central and eastern Europe.

Culture

Their culture, trades, and language are passed down from one person to the next. Most do not read or write. Caravans are formed of related families. Each band is led by a kris, a tribunal leader who passes judgment based of their religious beliefs and customs.

A common feature of gypsies in fiction is their magic: fortune-telling, curses, and the like. The specific beliefs and cultures vary from group to group, as they have spread far and wide without a collective location.

Most modern Roma have absorbed local religion and culture, so a modern gypsy curse would be unlikely. The traditional beliefs were centered on their Goddess Kali. Her symbol was a triangle. They believed in the power of curses, healing rituals, good luck charms, reincarnation, and purity taboos.

Transportation

The gypsy wagon is traditionally called a vardo. For a great site with pictures and floor plans of a modern vardo, visit http://www.enslin.com/rae/gypsy/wagon01.htm.

The wagons are horse-drawn. Some modern day gypsies have switched to trucks and trailers.

Marriage

In the past, Romani typically married between the ages of 9 and 14. Marriage to an outsider was strongly discouraged. The ceremony consisted of joining hands in front of a chief or elder and promising to remain true to each other, or in other tribes simply jumping over a broomstick together in the presence of family.

DOUBLE GYPSY WEDDING

( FUNERAL OF GYPSY PETULENGRO )

Occupations

Romania are well-known for their musicians, dancers, and fortune-tellers. Drabardi is the term for a fortune-teller, though they only read fortunes for non-Roma. Other traditional occupations are metalworking, horse trading, and animal training and doctoring. As these skills aren't as needed in modern day, many Roma live in poverty.

Folklore

Gypsy tales, like most traditional fairy tales, are adult-oriented rather than childish. As the rest of their culture, these stories were shared orally.

FORTUNE TELLING THROUGH HISTORY

GYPSY

http://larp.com/jahavra/gypsy1.html

ROMA PEOPLE

http://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html

CAROLINE HUGHES Gypsy Queen Dorset Poet

Do you remember the Dorset Gypsy poet Queen

with her words of love she set the scene

the caravans gathered on the old wareham bye pass

with their homes of freedom and their wheels on grass

The view of canford hills of lodge

the windy tracks on the land of God

she wrote the anthems and the folk trail ends

where the dartford warbler thrilled around each bend

They came to visit her the young and wise

with the dust of love within their eyes

she played and sung the words of rhyme

memories of another age another time

The Seegers came to bend their ears

the sixties vogue in the protest years

the traditions stretched and the words were wise

they crafted melodies and turned the tide

The Dorset gypsy queen of poetry

sat and talked amongst birch white trees

the guitars strummed and their voices thrilled

amongst the campfires lit and the rolling wheels

The Manning's heath just a stone throw away

where as a child i ran and played t

he music lived within their hearts

the gypsy song and the horse and carts

Then the master artistes performed her songs

the gypsy queen with lilt so strong

the heathers bend and the lizards squirmed

amongst the adders and fast slow worms

Gone are the travellers who played that day

amongst the gorse on the great highway.

RAY WILLS

Traveller Queen Caroline Hughes (1900-1971)

Pic Caroline Hughes and her husband John.

Born in a Vardo at Bere Regis Dorset Caroline was one of 17 children.

Her mother Lavina Batemn was a hawker and her father Arthur Hughes was a rat catcher.

She was first contacted in 1952.

Caroline Hughes was the matriach of the 'Hughes Group of Travellers' first visited by Ewan and Peggy Seeger on a piece of Canford Heath just twenty yards off the Wareham bypass on old Wareham Road near Poole Dorset in 1963.

Four years later, Ewan and Peggy returned to record Mrs Hughes, who was regarded as the Singer of the group and was custodian of a large body of traditional songs and stories.

In England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, folk tale collectors found a treasure trove of old stories and folk ballads in the oral tradition of the Traveling People. Folksinger and scholar Ewan MacColl, for example, took a great interest in Gypsy lore in the middle of the 20Th century, traveling around the British Isles with a tape recorder and a notebook, preserving stories and songs that were in danger of being lost forever as the Gypsy way of life was threatened by the forces of modernization.

It was Ewan MacColl who, while searching out gipsy people to record and talk to when he was writing one of his monumental and landmark radio ballads, The Travelling People, ran across Queen Caroline Hughes (the “Queen” was not a nickname) in a layby on the A5.

She was sat in her caravan surrounded by kids and paperback books and she sang him songs he could not have dreamed of in his wildest… and like Walter Pardon, or any other old singer for that matter, she knew the worth of what she had.

Apocryphal tales have it that she charged him five pounds an hour (1963 prices) and spun the session out.

GYPSY GALLERY