Gypsy Genealogy Read online

  At first, I thought this was just the same story for the Balkan Gypsies since most had lived in the Kingdom of Serbia or Yugoslavia. But later when I found this same story being told by the Gypsy blacksmiths in Spain and in Calabria in southern Italy, I went to see if in my caste books on Old India this was a story that had originated there and that the Gypsy blacksmiths had brought it with them to Europe.

  Sure enough, in every book I had on the castes of Old India, I found that the Lohari caste had the oral tradition that all blacksmiths were descended from nine Lohari brothers. But as an Indian historian later explained, this was not just a Lohari story. The blacksmiths had borrowed this story from the Vedas, written more than 3,000 years ago. In the Vedas it was written that all “artists” were descended from nine brothers. Since the nomadic Lohari blacksmiths had always considered themselves “artists in iron”, they borrowed this old legend to make it fit their genealogy.

  Whenever I go to India I visit the Lohari in Bikaner. Although they have the reputation of being a quarrelsome people, and are reputed to get very drunk at their weddings, I usually find them peacefully camped in a field outside the city working in the shade of their huge boatshaped canvas-covered wagons. The entire family is usually involved in their profession of making their wares at curbside. A small hole is scooped out for water, another for their coals kept red hot by the blacksmith’s wife turning a fixed bicycle rim to run the blower while their children seek out buyers for their homemade chisels and pliers.

  Supposedly the ancestors of these itinerant blacksmiths were once great warriors who made their own weapons. Legend has it they originated in Chittorgarh but were defeated in the siege of that city in 1308. They then took a vow to become and remain nomadic.

  Today whenever I interview blacksmith Gypsies, I always ask if they have heard the story of the nine brother blacksmiths. Recently, when I was in Prague, I had a few beers with a Rom from north Bohemia. When I heard his ancestors were blacksmiths, I asked if he had ever heard the story that all Gypsy blacksmiths were descended from nine brothers. He seriously told me that only Czech Roma blacksmiths were descended from nine brothers. When I told him that the story was more than 3,000 years old and that it originated with the Lohari caste in India, he looked at me as if I had just arrived from the moon. “My God,” he said, “maybe that is why our cousins in the Carpathian mountains always name one of their sons Lohar!”

  Chapter 5 THE CURE FOR EAR ACHE In 2003, I was living with a Romani family in Kosovo whose baby daughter spent the night crying non-stop from an ear ache. The next morning I offered to drive the family to the hospital in Grachanica to see if the doctor there could cure this child’s pain. I even offered to pay the doctor and buy any medicine needed to help the child. Much to my surprise, the child’s father insisted we visit an old Gurbeti woman who specialized in curing children’s ear aches.

  I tried my best to convince the family to let me take them to the hospital in Grachanica. I had seen too many Roma spend their money foolishly, in my opinion, on getting fortune tellers and quack imams to cure them of the black magic they had supposedly stepped in. But my protests were to no avail. I had to drive them for more than an hour to a small village outside of Ferizaj to visit this old woman healer.

  Upon arrival the old hag inspected the child ’s ears and then told her to lie down on the sofa while the old woman went to get her equipment. Fifteen minutes later, the old woman came back with a straw which she placed in the child’s right ear and then sucked. A few moments later, the old woman spit out some white worms into her own hand and then solemnly declared that this was what had caused the ear ache. These white worms had been in the child’s brain.

  The father immediately asked his daughter if she felt better. The child brightly smiled and said she now felt normal. She no longer had an ear ache.

  The only problem then was that the father and the old hag argued over the price of the “medical treatment.” It was not cheap. The old woman asked for a fortune and accused the father of not appreciating that his daughter had been relied of a great pain.

  A few months later when I was back in the United States on a visit, I told this story to my brother-in-law who is a medical doctor. He was amused by the old woman’s scam but agreed that placing a straw on the ear drum and sucking usually relieved some painful pressure on the ear drum. But the worms?

  As always, I had to do some research to see if this was a cure/scam that also had its origins in Old India. Once again I poured through my old Indian caste books until I found this “cure”. The only caste in India that practiced this “medicine” according to my caste books was the nomadic Sansis of Punjab and Rajasthan. It was written that before sticking a small bamboo shoot in the patient’s ear, the old Sansis woman (it was always an old woman) would secretly get some white worms from a dead tree, hide them under her tongue or in her tooth cavities, and then spit them out in her hand after performing the sucking operation. By including the worms in the medical operation, no one else could duplicate the “cure.”

  Later when I moved to Serbia, I heard from several old timers that before WWII Gypsy women with begging bags draped over their shoulder would visit the villages seeking handouts. Some were not just beggars but knew how to suck maggots out of an ear especially in children. Some Serbian mothers were so grateful that the Gypsy healer was often rewarded with a live chicken to take home.12

  In India I once visited a Sansis camp to interview them about their oldest traditions and professions. Of all the castes in Rajasthan these Sansis reminded me of the Chergari Roma in the Balkans. The Sansis like to kidnap girls of other groups (as wives) since it was against their tradition to marry first-cousins until at least three generations had passed. They are also renowned story tellers, and are among the few castes that buy their brides (if they have money, rather than steal them). They fear the dead returning as ghosts to bother them. They hide their valuables (money and jewelry) in the hollowed out legs of their tables, chairs or beds. All their disputes are settled by a council of their own men. Most of their women beg or sell homemade medicines, such as baby mice dissolved in a jar of oil or water. They are very fond of dogs and keep a large number to guard their camps. But above all, they are proudest of the fact that their old women can suck white worms out of your head to cure you of ear ache. They claim they are the only caste, the only tribe in all of India, who can do this.13

  12- Sansis taking a ne st of maggots out of person’s ear/head was explained in detail in an article in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 6, p. 133, 1912/1913

  13- Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 6, p.132, 1912/1913: Sansis women disguised as doctors assert that they take out worms from the nose, ears or brain.

  Chapter 6 GYPSY GENEALOGY, VILLAGE BY VILLAGE In 2008, I interviewed a Turkish Gypsy living within view of the snowcapped mountain of Ararat.14 He claimed to have distant cousins in nearby Armenia, and in Iran. Although he had never met these cousins, he knew the names of their villages because his ancestors had originated from there. He also knew he had Gypsy cousins further west in Izmir, and in Greece and Germany.

  I asked him why his people were in so many different places. He said it was their tradition to travel looking for work or escaping a war. He said half usually left, and half usually stayed.

  That remark really made an impression on me because in September 1999 when I was living in the UN camp for Gypsy IDPs by Obilich (Kosovo) the conditions became so bad and with the additional threat of Albanians claiming they were going to attack the camp if the Gypsies didn’t leave that one Monday morning everyone lined up to depart. About 1,000 Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians stood in line dressed in their best clothes as if they were going to a party. The few horse-drawn wagons we still had in the camp overflowed with their luggage. Although UN police and British KFOR soldiers tried to stop the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians from leaving the camp to march to freedom in Macedonia, the Gypsy leaders finally blew their whistles and the people started to f
ollow them. But at the last second half the Gypsies rushed back to their UNHCR tents. It seemed to be a gut reaction. Half left and half stayed.

  Back in 1997, I heard a similar story when Lubo, my Romani interpreter in Czech Republic, invited me to visit his “ancestral home” in Eastern Slovakia. Although he had read that his ancestors probably had their origins in Old India he only knew where his father and grandfather had been born, in Eastern Slovakia. As far as he was concerned that was his family’s origin. But being the ever inquisitive genealogist (I believe it is in my blood) I was determined to see if I couldn’t trace his family back a bit further.

  When we got to his ancestral village (Revuca by Rosnava), I asked his father’s oldest cousin, a Rom about 80 years old, if it was true that this Slovakian village was their ancestral home. Much to Lubo’s surprise, the old man said no. He claimed their ancestors had arrived several hundred years ago from a village near Split in Croatia. They came to Slovakia looking for work. I asked if all the Roma from that Croatian village came to Slovakia. The old man said no. He said many stayed behind, just as many had remained in this village when Lubo’s family had gone to the Czech lands looking for work after WWII. The old man said it was one of their ancient traditions that when there was a war or the need to look for work, half stay and half left.

  Several years later when I was filming my oral history project of the Roma survivors of WWII in every republic of the former Yugoslavia, I visited a Roma community near Split. Several old men knew that they supposedly had cousins in Slovakia but they had never been in contact. It was just part of their oral tradition that many generations ago half the community had left looking for work while half stayed.

  I then asked if Croatia was the home of their ancestors. One old man said no. Their ancestors had come to Croatia from Bosnia a very long time ago.

  I am sure you have already guessed the results of this story. In a Roma community in Bosnia I found that their ancestors had come from Montenegro and in Montenegro that their ancestors had come from Albania and in Albania that their ancestors had come from Greece and in Greece that their ancestors had come from Turkey and in Turkey I followed the story almost village by village from western Turkey to eastern Turkey to where the Dom there said their ancestors had come from Iran.

  So in my experience the Roma/Dom never really knew the origins of their people, but they knew the last village that their ancestors had come from.

  I have collected more than 500 oral histories of Gypsies in more than 30 countries. And the story was often the same. The Gypsies knew the last village and/or country their ancestors had came from in the east; and they all knew that they had/have cousins in the west.

  So for me to do a Gypsy genealogy it is much easier and more interesting to follow them village by village than by church or civil records. After all, from my experience, community genealogy is probably much more accurate than individual records.

  Not every village along the way will have Gypsies who identify themselves as the same kind of Gypsies in previous villages, but it has been my experience that the different groups/castes, although they usually don’t intermarry and don’t socialize, still follow one another. It was also interesting to discover in the Balkans that there was seldom (at least in my research) a Jewish community without Gypsies and vice versa. From the oral histories of the Balkan Gypsies, many Romani women before WWII worked in the homes of the Jews as cleaners, cooks and maids. According to their stories they were the last witnesses to see the Jewish families taken away by the Gestapo.

  14- Locally they are known as Luli but call themselves Doom just like the Posha/Bosha (Turkish word for worthless) and Mutrub (Turkish word for beggars) do. The Luli also call themselves Multani.

  Chapter 7 THE KALE Many scholars and gypsyologists today refuse to use the word “caste” when discussing the origins of the European Gypsies. For them, caste is a derogatory word. They prefer to use the word group or tribe or clan. But the ancestors of all Gypsies from Old India once belonged to a caste. So to understand their origin and genealogy you have to find out which caste they came from.

  Caste in Old India was based on profession. 15 Sub castes could be based also on profession or where they came from. Most Spanish Gitanos and Gypsies in Wales and the Nordic countries call themselves Kale. Because Kalo is a Punjabi/Romanes word meaning “black” many people including the Gypsies themselves have over the centuries come to believe that their people (their caste) were/are called Kale because of their dark skin.

  No caste or tribe in Old India was named because of skin color, only by profession or where they came from. And if you follow through research the Gypsies that left Old India you see that they or others often named them from where they said they came from. For example, many Gypsies in Kabul, Afghanistan, were called Multani because their ancestors supposedly originated in Multan, the old capital of Punjab.

  But when many of these Gypsies migrated from Kabul to Iran, they were then called Kabuli.

  I have many examples of Gypsies being renamed as they made their way west. But along the way they were never called “Kale” until they got to western Turkey.

  I have collected several oral histories about Gypsies arriving in western Turkey from their last jumping off place in Armenia and Kurdistan. And I will cover some of those stories in other chapters.

  So why did the Gypsies after arriving in western Turkey finally pick up the name Kale? It wasn’t because of their skin color. I believe it was because they lived in the caves or dugouts beneath the walls of the Turkish castles which were called Kale.

  If you follow west the historical migratory trail of the Gypsies you still find many living beneath the walls of old castles and fortresses as if it were their tradition, being allowed to live there in exchange for maintaining the castle walls. Today they do not live in caves beneath the castle walls. In places such as Didimoticho in northeastern Greece and in the city of Almeria in southern Spain and even in the caves below the walls of the Alhambra in Granada, the Gypsies have remolded those caves into descent homes. But many are still embedded or attached to the castle walls.

  As some Gypsies moved west out of Turkey, mainly taking the southern route across Greece, Albania and Calabria (south Italy) into Spain they were called/named after the place they had come from, from the walls of the Kale or castle. Before living in Turkey they were never called Kale. But once established and living next to the walls of a Turkish castle that was their identity.

  From Spain many “Kale” went by ship to Wales and later continued their journey to Scotland and the Nordic countries, usually following the pattern of half leaving and half staying behind. 16

  Today in Greece (that used to be part of the old Ottoman Empire) you still have Gypsies living in homes next to the abandoned and crumbling castle/fortress walls. And although their neighbors might be called Roma, the Gypsies living beneath the castle walls are still called Kale.

  15- This is a 19th century neo-Hindu rationalization of a hierarchical system which had ethnic/linguistic dimensions as well as occupational dimensions as far back as we can go. We must not project the conceptualization of race/class of the lst 300 years of capitalism/imperialism back onto our feudal past, when race could mean a lineage which traversed ethnic differences. Thomas Acton

  16- More likely to Somerset, and thence to Wales over a couple of generations. Welsh Romani is definitely a northern dialect, with features shared with Manouche/Sinte. Thomas Acton.

  Chapter 8 WHAT’S IN A NAME: ROMA AND ASHKALI In eastern Turkey there is a town by the name of Erzurum . The word means “the end of the Roman Empire.” Ironically, or maybe not, all the Gypsies east of Erzurum at least before WWII called themselves Dom. The Gypsies west of Erzurum have always called themselves Rom.

  Although today there is no fixed boundary between the Gypsies known as Dom and those known as Rom, geographically the custom still basically applies.

  From Old India until the Eastern Roma Empire there were never any Gypsie
s that were known as Roma. All were known as Dom with many castes and sub castes of the greater Dom tribe. But in addition to their caste name, Gypsies were often called by the name of the place they had last come from. As I mentioned before, in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Gypsies were often called “Multani” because Multan was where they had came from. But when some Gypsies later continued on to Iran, for example, they were then called Kabuli, the last place where they had lived.

  When European Gypsies finally arrived in the Eastern Roma Empire between the 11th and 12th centuries everyone there (Greek, Turk, Arab, Serb, Albanian, etc, etc) was called a Rom. In one of the earliest Turkish dictionaries I found in the British Library, the word “Rom” means “a man.” This is the same definition the Roma and Sinti Gypsies have for a Rom. Just like the Turks and the Greeks and the Arabs who were all citizens of the Eastern Roma Empire.

  It was only after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 that everyone stopped calling themselves a Rom. The Turks called themselves Turks or Ottomans, the Greeks called themselves Greeks, the Arabs called themselves Arabs and the Jews called themselves Jews, etc, etc. Only the Gypsies carried on calling themselves Rom. 17 Of course, further to the east those Dom who had never entered the Eastern Roman Empire continued to use their original tribal name from Old India.

  When some Gypsies left the Eastern Roman Empire (those who had lived in the caves below the Turkish castle walls) they adopted the name from where they came: Kale. And in my opinion, the same happened with that small band of Gypsies from the town of Ashkale, a few kilometers west of Erzurum.

  Today the Ashkali of Kosovo are not sure why their ancestors called themselves by that name. Some believe they are descendants of a Persian King, but in Persian the name Ashkali is a derogatory word meaning “garbage.”