?Who are the gypsies? Where do they live? What are their strangest and most important customs
Gypsies
?Who are the Roma, where did they come from and what are their origins
The Gypsy peoples, or the Romani people, are basically divided into the Roman Gypsies (in Europe), the Noirs, the Kaulites, and the Domers (in the Middle East). Some of them speak a common language that may be of Indian origin, and some of them have a similar culture and traditions. Until the end of the twentieth century, the Gypsy peoples continued to live a life of movement and travel. .
The Roma have different names depending on the languages and places in which they live, and they are among the peoples who were persecuted by the Nazi rule. In 1992, the United Nations and the European Union designated International Roma Day as April 8th of each year. This is a reminder of the suffering of the Roma around the world and what they face. It is also a reminder of the Roma’s suffering, discrimination and persecution, in addition to introducing and celebrating their culture. With it
Gypsy origin:
There are different opinions regarding the history of the Roma and their origins, including that these people were originally from the peoples of India, Iran, and the regions of Central and South Asia, then they migrated from their lands around the fourth century AD. Some historians explained that in the middle of the fifteenth century (approximately 1440) they arrived in the regions of Hungary, Serbia, and the rest of the world. Other Balkan countries, then after that they spread to Poland and Russia, and their spread continued until they reached Sweden and England in the sixteenth century AD, and they also settled in Spain in large numbers. Gypsy customs and traditions:
- Inherited professions:
The Gypsies were professionals of gathering food and hunting, in addition to their experience with animals and traditional knowledge of herbal medicine.
Gypsies
The Roma in European countries are also known for their acts of theft and fraud, which often cause them to be persecuted by other peoples. In the past, it was easy to distinguish gypsies because of their strange styles of clothing and their special language. Women used to wear loose, embellished clothes and adorn themselves with various jewelry in a dense and striking manner. They would wear large silver rings on their ears on which the rays of the sun reflected, forming a sparkle that gave the gypsy a special aesthetic touch, with decoration. The face has black hair on its sides, while men wear flashy, multi-colored clothes in addition to wearing a wrap around the neck.
- A tent, a cart, and a horse:
In the past, the Gypsies used carts drawn by horses, mules and donkeys, but under the pressure of economic With the discovery of petroleum-powered engines, they abandoned their vehicles. Only 6% of the Roma now live on old-style vehicles. The Roma often live in tents, or on the backs of their vehicles (perhaps this has become a thing of the past), and it is their custom to decorate them with various drawings.
- Strange marriage customs among Gypsies:
A gypsy man marries a gypsy woman at a very early age, and this marriage strictly follows gypsy traditions in terms of the method of celebration. In the beginning, the gypsy gives the girl he chooses for marriage a neck wrap, and if the girl wears that wrap, this means that she has accepted to marry him, and divorce is rare among the gypsies. There is a custom of the couple jumping into the broom, and another strange custom of marriage, which is that the spouses shake hands, then break a piece of bread and pour drops of blood on it from their thumbs, then each of them eats the piece that has the other’s blood on it, then breaks what is left of the piece of the loaf on their heads, and then they leave. The place of the celebration and they do not come until the next day to participate in singing and dancing and thus the marriage is completed.
Other birth customs:
A pregnant woman is considered impure by the Gypsies, and therefore she is isolated in a separate tent far from the cart. When the time for giving birth to the child arrives, the expectant mother goes away alone to a tree where she gives birth to her child, or she gives birth to her child in another tent. The period of isolation for the woman after giving birth continues for a period ranging from two weeks to two months. After that, she goes about her normal daily life normally, and the child’s father does not touch his child until after he is baptized (according to Christian traditions).
However, this situation has changed now, and the gypsy woman is able to go to the hospital to undergo childbirth, and the husband can visit his wife in all his elegance.
- Music :
The Gypsies are known for their mastery of dancing and music, and they are famous for presenting music in parks and in circus games. The Gypsies also have an artistic heritage influenced by the music of the peoples they neighboring. And at the same time, it has their own character. The gypsies of Europe contributed to the birth of flamenco music and dance. In the Arab countries and North Africa, the gypsies worked to draw inspiration from Bedouin music, developed it, and helped preserve it.
The Roma transmit their musical heritage orally, and their music is predominantly improvisational, and is mostly short songs with a sad nature and a dancing rhythm. The researcher in Roma history, Elena Petrovich, says: Music is the creative spirit of the Roma in which they overcome their sorrows.
- Gypsy religion:
The Roma were divided in their religion, as part of them became Muslims, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while another part followed the Orthodox doctrine in Serbia and Montenegro. Most of the Roma in Western Europe also became Roman Catholic, but they preserved many of their previous beliefs before they embraced Christianity..
- Social life among the Roma:
Roma do not prefer to teach their children a foreign language, a non-Roma lifestyle, or even contact with non-Roma. They only allow Roma to take care of children, and their children go to school until they are 10 or 11 years old, and the rest of their education is obtained from home and the community. Women in Gypsy society have great respect due to their ability to earn money related to fortune-telling, as they are the primary source of income, while men’s work is a supporting source of income.
The Roma believe in the extended family as an economic unit, and parents arrange marriages for their children, who are often married in their mid- or late teens. The couple lives in the husband's father's house until the birth of their first or second child. On any occasions, such as weddings or funerals, groups of up to hundreds or thousands gather.
Roma in the Middle East:
The Gypsies in the Middle East are called Doumers, and their number is about 2,563,000 people. They are divided into different groups that live in regions distributed between the Arab countries and Central Asia, that is, between Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Among these groups are: Aleppo, Al-Nour, Gharbati, Al-Lula, Al-Zat, Al-Muhtar, Karachi, Al-York, Chouri Wali, Al-Baraki. , Al-Maznouk.
Persecution:
The Gypsies have been subjected to aggressive practices by people throughout history. The attacks against them included forced deportation and not being recognized as citizens in the countries in which they reside. They were deported from many regions in Europe. The peak of hatred for the Gypsies was reached in the order issued by the King of Prussia in the year 1725 AD, decreing By killing every gypsy over the age of eighteen . With the development of industrial society during the era of the Renaissance of industries in Europe and the emergence of urban societies, the Roma were exposed to the surveillance of the authorities in European countries, as Bavaria established a ministry specialized in Roma affairs, and it was the center of hostility to everything that was Roma in Germany until the rise of Nazism. In February 1929, laws were issued. Roma who do not have a fixed profession in Germany are obligated to forced labor (forced labor). This system has been applied in a number of European countries.
- Gypsies and Nazism:
The Roma occupies a low rank in the racial order of the Nazi theory. They were defined, according to the Nuremberg Law of 1935, as non-Aryan peoples, and therefore they were prohibited from marrying German women. They were also described as closed groups in the 1937 law, which is a criminal charge that they are punished even if they did not commit any crime. At a time, 200 Roma were imprisoned in concentration camps By 1938, Hitler established a central office to combat the Roma threat. The primary function of this office was to separate the pure Roma from the mixed Roma. Many racist practices were introduced against them in that era, to the point where they were placed in concentration camps.
The 1943 law prohibited mentioning the Roma because they were not expected to continue living. Then Hitler ordered the deportation of the Roma to Auschwitz, but he did not allow them to be killed until 1944, when many of them were killed in the other camps because of hunger, disease, and torture, and because of their use as material for experiments. At the end of World War II, five died. Ten thousand Gypsies out of twenty thousand who lived in Germany, and this incident was the cruelest ethnic genocide in that period.
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