Article source: Yunnan Nationalities Network

First, the confusing origin of the same topic

introduction

For centuries, the international ethnological community has been interested in the study of wandering Gypsies, especially the origins of this unusual people, and the migration route has been studied as a specialized study. However, due to the paucity of historical data on the origin, migration time, and wandering routes of the Gypsies, scholars from all over the world have often indulged in various controversial assumptions or oral traditions for a long time, rather than facing the historical reality. In their research, they present their views on the basis of insufficient information at their disposal, which inevitably leads to shortcomings or one-sidedness. He still expressed his own views and discussed a lot, but he could not use sufficient historical evidence to draw a unified and correct conclusion, and some people even came to many erroneous conclusions. One of the most common misconceptions is that they were Egyptians, a myth that has been passed down for centuries, and even some of the Gypsies themselves have used this false theory to talk about their ancestors, such as the Gypsies who arrived in Paris in the winter of 1427 A.D. and claimed that they were of Egyptian origin.

Is it a Gypsy or a Roma

The name Gypsy itself is wrong, as Gypsy or Gypsies are derived from the English word Egyptian, which is the traditional name given to them by the British and most of the world. This is due to the fact that in the 15th century, Europeans did not know much about the strangers who wandered to them, and mistakenly thought that they were from Egypt, so they called them "Egyptians", and gradually became "Gypsies". The Gypsies call themselves Rom, a name that originally meant "man" in the Gypsy language. The International Committee of the Roma, an international organization of the Roma, was established in 1965 and uses the term Roma and is now gaining international recognition and respect. However, due to customary and traditional titles, most still call them Gypsies.

The Roma are called Gypsies because of a long-standing ignorance of the origins and history of this people, as well as a lack of sufficient written information in the study of Gypsies. As a result, discussions of its origins, migrations, and other histories are often based on assumptions or preconceived notions that are inseparable from the erroneous conclusions reached by previous generations.

In addition to the British, who believed that they were of Egyptian origin, the French thought that they were probably from Bohemia, so they called them Bohemians, and also called them Gypsies, Gitans, Zingari, and other names today; The Spaniards called them Gypsies, Bohemians, and Atsigans or Greeks, believing that they came from Greece, and the former Soviet Union also called them Tsiganos. In short, the Gypsies have many names, but they have been imposed on them by other peoples, and their origins have been determined and their history has been compiled based on subjective assumptions. This continued for hundreds of years, and it was not until the end of the 18th century that there was a breakthrough in the study of the Gypsy.

Where the hell did it come from

After centuries of research, speculation and discussion of the origins of the Gypsies, scholars from all over the world have finally achieved gratifying results that the birthplace of the Gypsies is neither Egypt, nor Bohemia, Greece or Persia, but India. This outstanding contribution was made by two German scholars in the late 18th century, Rudiger and Ghermann, and the English scholar Jacob Brian. All three of them were linguists, and in the eighties of the eighteenth century, through the study of the Gypsy dialects, they each and almost simultaneously verified that the language of the European Gypsies came from India, and that many of the words were very similar to Indian Sanskrit, and also to Hindi, the Hindi language of the Hindi language family:

House: Kher (Hindi ghar)

Tree: kukh (Hindi rukh)

Salt: Ion (Hindi lon)

Land: PHUV (Hindi BHU)

Person: manus (Hindi manus)

Spoon: roj (Hindi doi)

Black: kalo (Punjabi kala)

White: parno (Dardi panar)

Young: Terno (Hindi tarun)

Go: GA (Hindi ja)

Outside: AVRI (Hindi HAIR)

Since then, the British scholar Sampson has conducted extensive and in-depth research on the language of the Gypsies, and has made further discoveries on the basis of the achievements of his predecessors. He systematically sorted out the Venetian Gypsy dialect, and in the course of his research, Sampson found that this language contained a variety of foreign words, and obtained a lot of data; Thus sufficient evidence was found for the doctrine of the Gypsies of Indian origin. Sampson calculated the foreign words contained in the dialect of the Venetian gypsies, including 36 Italian words, 150 borrowed words from English, 430 words from various languages from Persia to Venice, and 518 words of Hindi origin, thus showing the significant influence of Indian languages on the language of the Gypsies at that time. Later, many scholars engaged in the study of the Gypsy language, and they also found that the Asian Gypsy language, like the European Gypsy language, also contains a large number of Indian vocabulary and grammatical similarities with the Indian language in the written text.

Through the study of the Gypsy language, scholars from various countries have come to the conclusion that the language of the Gypsy originated from the language of India; The birthplace of the Gypsies is in India. Instead of indulging in fantasies, conjectures, and legends, scholars face reality and excavate historical sources to conduct research, thus reaping fruitful results. However, it seems that the study of the origin of the Gypsies from a linguistic point of view alone is still insufficient, and the history of this nation should be studied, tracing its origins and proving that the origin of this nation is in India.

In order to further argue that the Gypsies originated in India, it is necessary to study the social system, culture, and customs of this ancient people. In ancient India, there was a widely distributed and well-known ethnic group - the Domes. By the 4th century A.D., this people, their ancient culture and unusual customs had come to the fore. The Domes are mostly music lovers and soothsayers. They are mentioned in a 6th-century treatise on astronomy written in Sanskrit and called them Gand-harva (musicians). The Domes are good at singing and dancing, and some of them use it as a profession to make a living, as the Hindu paleohistorian Garhana mentions several times in his Great Chronicles of Kashmir. According to the British archaeologist and explorer Oleerstein, some of the Domes made a living by selling their arts, and the best of them even received the favor of the king and allowed them to enter and leave the palace. But this is rare. For the most part, the Domes are despised by the rest of India's ethnic groups. They did not have a fixed occupation, and in addition to going to the rivers and lakes as excellent servants, they were mostly hired to engage in lowly occupations, such as husbands, scavengers, execution-ground officials, craftsmen, etc. Although the Domes were versatile and adept at making ends meet, the local peasants of various nationalities looked down on them and forbade intermarriage with them.

In the Gilgit region north of Kashmion, there used to be an Islamic group of about 300 Domes. These people came to the attention of the English Oriental linguist Loliyi, who studied their language, culture, customs, and history, proving that these Domes migrated from Belchstein in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. Lolima found that the Domes living in the Gilgit area, in order to make a living and adapt to the needs of the living conditions and environment in various places, generally speak two or three Chinese. Although the Indian language they use also contains many foreign words, these words are very different from their mother tongue.

Historically, the Domes have often been associated with the smelting and manufacture of metal vessels, a skill that has been passed on to their descendants, the Gypsies. It is true that both the Domes and the Gypsies have benefited considerably from this industry. Although ancient India cannot be said to be the birthplace of iron making, it has a good reputation for smelting and making iron, and it was quite developed in the first century AD. According to the ancient Roman statesman Puniri, the iron quality in India is the best, and according to legend, the 17-foot-high Dhariron Tower in central India, built in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, was built with the finest quality iron and skilled wood. Like the Gypsies of today, the Gilgit Domes also had a considerable number of small furnace makers, carrying rudimentary tools with them, repairing farm implements and mending pots. Of interest, the bellows they used to repair ironwork were not made of wood, but with two pockets made of leather. The method of blowing the wind is also very peculiar, not pulled by hand, but pedaled by foot; This bellows were also used in the Deccan Plateau of India, where the Ars were ruled by the Dome before the Hindu dynasty in India. This tool was also used among European Gypsies. Through the study of Dom customs, culture, and history, we can conclude that the ancient Domes were the ancestors of the Gypsies.

War, hunger, exile

When and what motivated the Gypsies, or the Domes, the ancestors of the Gypsies (or at least part of the Domes), to wander far from their homeland? So far, scholars from all over the world have not had a unified understanding; And there is not enough historical evidence to be found, and most people are just hypothetizing or speculating. Some believe that some kind of disaster, such as war, famine and natural disasters, forced them to leave their homes and drift around. Some have likened this misfortune to "as severe as the crucifixion of Jesus." Faculty of Education, University of Salerno, Italy. In Professor Apolli's book Selected Folk Songs of Chilain Tane, which was collected and published in the late 70s, many gypsy folk songs say so. This shows that many scholars of the Gypsies, and even the Gypsies themselves, have not found the real reason for their exile, and for thousands of years it has been known only on the basis of oral tradition that the cause of the migration was some kind of misfortune.

It is also believed that the Gypsies are not religious and tend to change their faith easily. Indeed, the Gypsies were punished by the Pope because of the very particular circumstances in which they lived, or rather their misfortunes and the hardships of life, which led them to adopt a pragmatic attitude towards religious beliefs, sometimes accepting and sometimes rejecting Christianity. French historical sources record the legend of the Gypsies about this. A group of gypsies who arrived in Paris in 1427 claimed that they were pagans who had repented to God, that they were 'originally from Egypt, had been conquered by the Christians, and that if they had been baptized in Christianity, they could continue to live in their own land, or they would have been killed or exiled.' Under this pressure, they converted to Christianity. Later, the Arabs invaded and abandoned Christianity in favor of Islam. This renunciation of the Christian faith aroused the strong resentment of the German Emperor, the Polish Emperor, and other powerful Christians in Europe, who again sent troops to conquer. At first, it was only for religious reasons, I wanted them to rebelieve in God, and I didn't want them to leave their homeland. Later, after consultation between the pope, the emperor and the lords, it was decided that the Gypsies would not have land in their country without the approval of the pope, and they were ordered to go to Rome to make a pilgrimage to the pope to atone for their previous sins. So the Gypsies helped the old and the young to go on the road one after another. When they arrived in Rome, they confessed to God the sin of renunciating the Christian faith. The Pope ordered them to travel the world for seven consecutive years, during which they were not allowed to stay in bed as a sign of repentance. From then on, the Gypsies began a wandering life far from their homeland and wandering the world. ”

Although this is a documented historical source in France, legends must be legends and cannot be used as the real cause of the Gypsies' migration. In particular, the fact that "I was originally from Egypt" loses its historical authenticity. It is also believed that the great migration of the Gypsies was caused by foreign invasions. One theory is that the migration of the Gypsies was caused by an Arab invasion, but is it possible that the Arabs fled India during the invasion of North India in the 10th century CE, as mentioned above? According to medieval Arab and Indian history, the Arabs expanded into the Indus Valley in the late 7th century AD and conquered North India (present-day Pakistan). However, after the conquest of North India, they implemented a more tolerant policy than the other conquered regions, only establishing viceroyalties and levying poll taxes, which did not bring much breakthrough to the North Indians. From the 9th century onwards, the Arab Empire began to fall apart and gradually declined. In the 10th century, the divided Arab Empire, under the influence of internal strife and Turkic attacks, was unable to expand into the distant Indus Valley, except for barely maintaining its capital Baghdad and the territory around the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates). Therefore, it is not historically accurate to suggest that the cause of the Gypsies' exile was the Arab invasion of India in the 10th century.

Another theory is that the migration of the Gypsies was the result of the Mongol invasion. In 1398, Tibbon led 120,000 cavalry to invade India from Central Asia, burning, killing and plundering the inhabitants of northwest India, causing a situation of misery and misery among the people. Under these circumstances, the Gypsies had to leave their homeland and live in a foreign land in search of livelihood. However, linguists, based on the study of the Gypsy language, determined that the Gypsies migrated at the end of the 10th century, that is, around 1000 AD. Therefore, the Mongol invasion cannot be the cause of the earliest migration of the Gypsies, but it can only be said that the Mongol invasion brought great misfortune to the people of northwestern India, including the ancestors of the Gypsies, and forced many Gypsies to join the ranks of exile.

One of the more credible theories is that the migration of the Gypsies was caused by Turkic invasions. According to the records of Turkic history and Indian history; In the middle of the 10th century AD, the Turks of Afghanistan broke free from Arab control and established the Ghaznavid dynasty of the Turks. The Ghaznavid dynasty continued to expand outward, and its southeastern territory reached the northwestern border of India. During the 26 years from 1001 to 1027, the Ghaznavid monarch Mahmud led his army to invade North India 17 times, looting and brutally massacring the local population, bringing great disasters to the people of North India. The city of Sumnath alone was slaughtered by more than 50,000 inhabitants and plundered as much as 30,000 packloads of wealth. The people of North India fled and wandered everywhere. This was the first outward migration of the people of India in the Middle Ages.

In the 12th century, the Gaul dynasty replaced the Ghaznavid dynasty and invaded North India again, and brutally exploited and oppressed the North Indian people during the next three centuries of rule, causing the North Indian peasants to go bankrupt and flee on a large scale, resulting in the second great migration in Indian history.

The North Indians mentioned here, i.e., the Domes. The Domes lived in the central highlands of India in the 2nd and 3th centuries AD, and were known in the 4th century AD, and then gradually moved northwest to the Punjab area. They lived there for hundreds of years and began to live in exile due to the invasion of the Turks. By what route did they go into exile all over the world?

Lost all over the world

The migration and exile of the Gypsies began in Persia, as mentioned above in the 10th century CE when the Afghan Turks invaded India, forcing the Gypsies to cross the Polish-Indian border (present-day Iran-Pakistan border) into Persia. English Chinese linguist John Brown. Sampson's study of the Gypsy dialect of Venice found that the Gypsy dialect contained 430 words of Persian and various other languages from Persia to Venice, as well as many Persian words in the Gypsy dialect of Armenia. This proves that the Gypsies first lived in Persia for a period of time before entering Europe, during their intermingling with the Persians; Influenced by the Persian language. For example, in all Gypsy dialects, you can find such words from Persian: baxt (lucky), ambroI (pear), khangeri (church), angustri (ring), rbv (wolf), vurdon (carriage), etc. They crossed Turkey to Europe, and first came to Greece around 11OO AD. The Austrian linguist Mikrovsky, who has studied the Gypsy language for a long time, has studied this migration route of the Gypsies. He found a pattern in the various dialects of the European Gypsies, that is, almost all European Gypsy dialects would have a lot of medieval Greek words. Such as drom (road), karfin (nail), dIidi (key), kokaio (bone), PaPin (goose), petaIos (horseshoe), tsox (skirt), zumi (soup), (v) amoni (anvil), isviri (hammer), etc. This cannot be explained by the fact that they did not wander and live in Greece for a long time and had very close ties with the local population.

In the constitution of Catalonia in 1512, the Gypsies were referred to as Egyptians, Bohemians, and Greeks. It can be seen that Greece and the Greek language had a certain influence on the Gypsies. The first Gypsies to come to Spain migrated from France. We can imagine that if the earliest Gypsies had crossed the sea from Egypt, Morocco, or other North African countries to European countries such as Italy and Spain, not through Persia or Greece, then the European Gypsies would have contained a large number of Arabic languages. To date, no such discoveries have been made, and the migration of the late Gypsies through this route is a different matter. Therefore, although no conclusive and sufficient textual basis has been found in the existing literary and historical sources of various countries so far, through a great deal of linguistic research, we can also believe that the inference that the Gypsies first wandered and lived in Greece when they arrived in Europe is logical.

Gypsies who entered Greece and lived there for a time, came to Romania, Hungary, Bohemia, Germany, Austria, Sweden, France; Some Gypsies from France arrived in Italy, some in Catalonia in Spain, and some crossed the English Channel to England, and from England to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, and some to the Nordic countries, some from Germany. There has been no written record of the exact time and place of the arrival of the Gypsies in the countries of Europe, and this problem has been solved through linguistic research. The European Gypsy dialects retain a considerable number of Greek words, not modern but medieval, which, like other foreign languages, enrich the dialects of the European Gypsies. On the contrary, the dialects of the Asian Gypsies do not have these words. According to linguists, there are nearly 100 words belonging to medieval Greek in the dialects of European Gypsies, which proves that Gypsies lived in Greece and the regions where Greek was spoken for a long time. The Gypsies first arrived in Greece around 1100 AD. In 1322, two Francisco friars found burrowing gypsies on the Aegean island of Crete during a pilgrimage, and in 1350 the gypsies reached Corfu and the Balkans. In 1378, the Venetian governor of Noplia in the eastern Peloponnese of southern Greece declared to the local gypsies, known as the Tsgans, that they could continue to enjoy the rights granted to them by their previous governors. At the end of the 15th century, German travelers found ragged, dark-skinned Gypsies and their humble huts near Moreton on the same peninsula.

The French scholar of Gypsies, P. Badalal, has identified historical sources that the Gypsies arrived in Wallachia, Romania, in 1348, and in Zolasov, in Transylvania, central Romania, in 1416. The Gypsies, numbering about 1OO, were led by the so-called King of Aymagos of Egypt, and the local population was sympathetic to their plight and gave them silver, food, and poultry, and prayed for them.

In 1415 more than 300 Gypsies wandered to Hungary, Bohemia, and in 1417 to Germany, and since then they have traveled to the towns of Central Europe. According to the incomplete historical records of these countries, the Gypsies who entered these countries belonged to a large tribal group, and in the process of migrating to various places, they were divided into dozens of small groups to carry out their own activities, but they were closely related to each other. In 1423, the Hungarian king Gikishund granted a pass to these unfortunate and repentant strangers. He ordered the Hungarian lands under his rule, including Bohemia, to take proper care of the Gypsies. They were asked not to harass and persecute the Gypsies, and not to punish them innocently. In the event of a dispute between a Roma and a local population or a Roma violating the laws of the locality, the authorities also need to go through the Roma chief when arbitration or judgment is required.

Legend has it that the Gypsies first appeared in Mâcon, France, in 1410, in August 1419 in eastern France, north of Lyon, and in October 1420 they were seen in Staland, near the Alps in southeastern France. According to French texts, on August 17, 1428, 12 gypsies with dark faces and large silver earrings arrived in Paris, men with curly hair and women with long hair shawls, but both men and women were dressed in rags. The two leaders at the head rode horses and called themselves Duke and Earl. According to their own accounts, there were nearly 20 or 90 percent of their original group of people, 80 to 90 percent of whom died in exile, and in the end only more than 100 remained. In addition to these 12 people, more than 100 people in this group, without permission from the Paris government to allow them to enter the city, had to sleep in the suburbs, and later they began to wander around.

After the 16th century, with the discovery of the New World in the Americas and the colonization of the Americas by European colonizers, the Gypsies also wanted to change their environment, and they wanted to improve their material conditions and gain opportunities for redevelopment. So they crossed the Atlantic and came to Central America. History shows that from the second half of the 15th century onwards, European countries began to ostracize, restrict and persecute the wandering Gypsies. They have adopted legal and administrative measures that restrict and oppress the Roma, with the result that the Roma remain displaced and unable to survive. To this end, they hope to find a place to live on this newly discovered continent. The Gypsies who arrived in the Americas still wandered around with their own way of life, and later traveled all over the world. The Gypsies in Brazil were initially forced to leave Europe as a result of the organized persecution of the Medieval Inquisition, who regarded them as undesirable pagans. Exile was imposed on the Ropsies as a severe punishment, as was captivity and hard labor. The first Gypsy Antonio to be exiled to Brazil. de Torres arrived in 1574 and since then this type of thing has occurred one after another. Throughout the colonial period, the movement of the Gypsies in Brazil was restricted, but they still maintained their language, culture and customs in this harsh environment.

Some Gypsies came to Armenia, stayed there for a while, and then came to Europe via Russia. Many Western scholars have studied the various dialects of the Gypsies to identify this migration route. At the end of the 19th century, hundreds of Gypsies were wandering in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and elsewhere, coming and going at will on the border with Turkey or Iran. Their customs have always been in keeping with the traditions left behind by their ancestors. The language, on the other hand, has been greatly influenced by Armenian life, and although it still retains a large number of words of Hindi origin, it has been grammatically influenced by Armenian considerably, and is even quite close to Armenian. In the Gypsy dialect of Venice, there are also many remnants of Armenian vocabulary. Such as bov (stove) and grast (horse).

From the above analysis, there are roughly two migration routes of the Gypsies: one is from India and enters Europe through Persia and Turkey. They first arrived in Greece and then diverted to Romania, Hungary, Bohemia, Germany. After arriving in Germany, some people went to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway; Some went to Austria, Switzerland to France. Some of the Gypsies who went to France went to England, Spain, and Italy. The other route was from India to Persia, then to Armenia, and then to Europe via Russia. They wandered first in Eastern Europe and then throughout Europe.

In addition, there were Gypsy groups, from Persia to Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and remained everywhere to become Asian Gypsies. There are also some people who go to Africa.

2. Wandering to the ends of the earth

Population distribution

Scholars vary from 2 million to 10 million, and so far there is no authoritative statistic that can accurately tell how many Gypsies live in which countries, what kind of work they do, and what kind of way of life they live.

The Gypsies are a wandering people who have left their footprints almost everywhere in the world. The majority of Roma in Asia, Europe, South America, North America, Africa and Oceania have been surveyed by their host governments, but this is only a superficial phenomenon, and many Roma are not counted for various reasons. The Roma are characterized by being homeless and wandering, and the demographic statistics of various countries are not carried out at the same time, so this group of people is often not included in the statistics.

For example, in the former Soviet Union, there were about 478,000 Gypsies (Tsgangs), compared to 134,000 in 1959, 175,000 in 1970 and 20 in 1979. 90,000 people. In order to avoid attracting the attention of the former Soviet authorities and other ethnic groups, many Roma changed their ethnic composition and registered themselves or their children as Russians and in the Republic of Armenia as Armenians, so that the statistics were inaccurate and the number of Ropsies was greatly reduced.

In addition, some Gypsies have been assimilated by the dominant ethnic group of their country, and some have ceased to speak their own national language and have lost their national identity as Gypsies. There are also non-Gypsies who have been forced by life to join the ranks of the Gypsies, and it is even difficult to distinguish these poor and unemployed vagrants from the Gypsies. Due to long-term contact with other ethnic groups, intermarriage between different ethnic groups has occurred frequently, and it is sometimes difficult for second- and third-generation mixed-race children to identify their ethnic affiliation. In this case, it is difficult to accurately count the number of Gypsies.

However, it is not that it is impossible to ascertain the number of Gypsies at all. According to the British Association for Minority Rights in 1975, the total number of Gypsies was about 9 million, which is a fairly credible figure. Of these 9 million Gypsies, more than half live in European countries. There are more than 5 million Gypsies in Europe, two-thirds of whom are concentrated in eastern Europe, including the Balkan countries. There were 750,000 Gypsies in the former Yugoslavia, 600,000 in Romania, as many in Spain as there were in Romania, 580,000 in Hungary, 480,000 in the former Soviet Union, 440,000 in Bulgaria, 370,000 in Czechoslovakia, 230,000 in France, and the number of Gypsies in other European countries is shown in the table below:

Wandering life

The Roma is a national group in many countries, both in terms of numbers, national characteristics, and in terms of their influence on other peoples. To this day, however, they do not receive the respect they deserve in much of the West.

In the United States and other Western countries, when people think of Gypsies, they are a wandering and "dishonest" people. The English poet Wordsworth once described the gypsies in his work: "A foreign people, black-haired, mysterious, fortune-tellers, fond of wearing fancy clothes, playing the violin, if you throw a copper plate, they will immediately dance and sing." Wordsworth's grossly distorted image of the gypsy is at least firmly imprinted in the minds of some people in the upper classes of the West. In addition, there are prejudices and nonsense that the so-called Gypsies are "liars" and "thieves". During my visit to Switzerland in 1988, I discussed this issue with academics and the general public, and many people still hold similar biases. Even if some Gypsies commit crimes because they are forced by life, they cannot treat the whole nation as thieves, and what nation does not have scum?

In fact, many legends about the Gypsies in the past are one-sided, inaccurate and wrong, and the Gypsies are often misunderstood by the world, not only because they are often indistinguishable from the legends and facts about the Gypsies, but also because the traditional customs and values of the Gypsies are completely different from those of local societies. They do not conform to the customs of the countryside, which to a certain extent has caused the phenomenon of isolation from the local society. Until now, many Gypsies living in different countries have tenaciously maintained their nomadic customs and traditional way of life. They are also the most prominent people in the world who maintain the traditional nomadic customs, but this is difficult to understand, although they are kind-hearted, enthusiastic, able to sing and dance, and versatile, but it does not change people's misconceptions and impressions of the past.

In ancient times, gypsies drove large wagons with canopies, carried copper bowls and cooking utensils, and played guitars along the streets to perform arts, divination, palmistry, do odd jobs or do small business. Traces of this way of life can still be found today. The wandering Gypsies in Romania, Poland, and Hungary still use horse-drawn caravans as a means of transportation; In Turkey and Afghanistan, they live in tents; In Central Asia, they roamed on camels; In Spain and Greece, they relied on donkey riding; In Brazil they wander on horseback; In Mexico and other Central and South American countries, they are also inseparable from street performers; Of course, in the United States and some Western countries, some Gypsies have gone wandering in beautiful cars.

In fact, the Gypsies are not a wandering people, as one might simply think. Gypsies are not wandering by nature, and most of them do not recognize themselves as "roaming Gypsies". If it weren't for environmental compulsion, many Gypsies would rarely move throughout the year. The exchange of addresses is mainly due to economic considerations, and the movement is often caused by the government. Unfortunately, the fact that the Roma way of life is different from the entire social way of life in many countries has given rise to accusations of prejudice against the Roma in society. There have been cases of multiple discrimination. In the United States and other countries, because of the entrenched prejudices of the people, many people still do not want the Gypsies to have a place or a house in their neighborhood.

Sometimes the forces of traditional habit also give people the illusion that the Gypsies are wandering everywhere anyway, which is inappropriate and unrealistic. In Spokane, Washington, and Toledo, Ohio, there are many Gypsies who have lived in the area for more than 40 years and have made it their home. However, the Gypsies have a strong sense of family, unless they have to do it themselves; Family members are never willing to be separated. When a person finds a job in a foreign country, the whole family moves there. At the same time, weddings and funerals are quite solemn in the customs of the Gypsies, and whenever they encounter relatives and friends, they have to raise their families to participate. These phenomena also create the illusion of wandering. In addition, the Gypsies have a habit of fleeing the clan to avoid risks if an accident occurs to someone in their clan or if one of their non-Gypsy neighbors has an accident. A few years ago, a gypsy was robbed and injured in the bungalow area of Sharan City, Oregon in the United States, so the gypsies in the entire residential area immediately disappeared and moved to other places for refuge for six months before returning to their hometowns one after another. However, it is true that the Gypsies were a wandering people in history, and the "romantic wandering life" remains in the memory of the elderly Gypsies. But in many countries, especially Eastern Europe and North America, wanderlust is almost a thing of the past.

Settled Gypsies

For hundreds of years, the wandering of the Gypsies around the world has left an indelible impression that the Gypsies are all wanderers. Actually, not all Gypsies are wanderers. At present, only one-quarter of the world's Roma are wandering around, and the remaining three-quarters of the Roma have settled in their respective countries, and governments have arranged addresses for them.

Gypsies have settled in various countries not just today, there were settled Gypsies at a very early age, and in 1322 they were found in Crete, Greece, living in caves similar to northern Shaanxi. In Romania, the Gypsies were mostly slaves of the lords, living in the lord's large estates, but also affiliated with monasteries, living near monasteries until the 19th century, when they were emancipated. Settlements in the former Yugoslavia and Hungary were established a long time ago, and ruins can still be found today. In Turkey, there are not only settled Gypsies, but also almost exclusively Gypsy villages, as well as towns and nearby areas. In Guadish, Spain, there were many Gypsies living there, taking advantage of the undulating natural terrain by digging many "caves" with no windows, only doors and a chimney opening, and the walls and roofs were made of stone in a semicircle. In the suburbs of Paris, France, there have also been people who have seen Gypsy houses in the past, very simple in appearance, temporary shacks made of wooden planks. The interior of the house is relatively good, with carpets or tarpaulins on the floor, floral cloth on the walls, and some simple furniture such as tables and cupboards.

Between the wandering Gypsies and the settled Gypsies, there is not very much harmony. Historically, the Gypsy group has had different outcomes due to the different circumstances and experiences in which it operates. Some, like their ancestors, are still forced to wander by life; Others have more stable jobs and are integrated into the local community. The wandering Gypsies despised the settled Gypsies, believing that they had been eliminated by their original collective for various reasons. At the same time, the transformation from wandering to settlement will result in the loss of the traditions of the Gypsies, and the customs inherited from the ancestors will be changed to a greater or lesser extent, which means betrayal, and the result will only be gradually assimilated by other local peoples. The Gypsies, who are included in the normal life track, also look down on those families who continue to wander, believing that they cling to backward traditions, cannot progress with the development of society, and will eventually be eliminated by history.

Since 1950, the lives of the Gypsies have changed dramatically, and most have abandoned the traditions of wandering left to them by their ancestors. The governments of some European countries, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom and other countries, have formulated various plans and adopted a series of administrative measures to enable the wandering Gypsies to abandon the traditional way of life of the past and unify into the local society. They are entering the modern world, and the custom of wandering is gradually disappearing. Currently, 75% of the world's Roma are settled, and 90% of Roma in Eastern Europe have given up their wandering career.

In Hungary, the wanderlust was largely wiped out. In the early 50s, Gypsies, who had long lived in poor rural areas, began to move into the cities, which created a burden on the Hungarian government and raised new problems. The Hungarian government had to solve the problem of the work and life of the Gypsies who had entered the city, and the officials believed that after solving their employment problems, the Gypsies would inevitably increase their incomes and improve their lives, and thus become increasingly attracted to modern Hungarian society. In fact, this did not happen, or the changes that took place did not satisfy the Gypsies, because they were engaged in occupations in the cities that Hungarians did not want to do, and which were at the lowest level of society. Nearly half of the Roma in Hungary still live in old houses or traditional wooden houses, while the other part has moved into more comfortable apartments provided by the Government.

In Romania, as in many countries in Eastern Europe, the crux of the Roma problem remains employment and the provision of housing for them. Since the situation of Roma provided by the relevant departments of the Romanian Government is relatively small compared with that of other countries, it has caused misunderstanding among Western scholars, and even believes that the Romanian Government's policy towards the Roma is "secret" and that the special assistance provided to them is "minimal". In fact, Romania differs from other Eastern European countries in its treatment of Gypsies in that it allows vagrancy, but still tries to provide them with shelter, which is of course much more comfortable than their traditional shacks. The majority of Romania's Gypsies have been settled, and only a few still wander according to their ancestors' way of life.

The towns and villages of southern Europe, which have been inhabited by Gypsies for centuries, who used to settle only in winter, have now become permanent settlers under the new conditions. Half of the Gypsies in Greece are concentrated in Fidoci and Ferem Paul in Negrita, and in Ancient Meneza in Macedonia, where there are some Gypsy villages. There are gypsy settlements in Larissa, Lamia, Chalidos, Viria, Specchiados and Pir. There are 1,500 gypsy inhabitants in the residential area of Athens.

In the United States and some countries of Western Europe, Gypsies can more easily choose their way of life, wandering or settling according to their needs. Most of the Roma have also settled, and the host government has arranged comfortable apartments for some of them. However, the gypsies in Los Angeles and Chicago still prefer to live a semi-settled life, despite having comfortable villas and beautiful cars.

In addition to the sedentary and wandering Gypsies, there is also a type of Gypsy migrant workers, who constitute a new factor. Most of these people came from the former Yugoslavia, Serbia and Spain and went to Western or Northern Europe in search of work. These groups range in size to about 70,000 to 80,000 people, with the largest groups commonly found in France, Germany and Italy.

3. A nation that survives humiliation and deserves sympathy

introduction

Where is the truth of the gypsies?

As far as I can remember,

I've traveled all over the world with my tent,

Looking for true love,

Finding the justice of happiness.

I grow old with the years,

But I haven't seen true love,

Neither was the voice of justice heard.

I don't know where the gypsy truth is.

The poem was written by the gypsy writer Rasim. The truth, justice and happiness to which Sadiq had written, to which he and his people aspired, have been shattered by centuries of harsh reality. Historically, Gypsies have been a rejected minority in almost all parts of the world, and they have been discriminated against and stigmatized. Ill-treatment caused by deep-seated prejudices and persecution on trumped-up charges have been prevalent throughout the world since ancient times. They lack access to education, and almost most of them are illiterate. It is difficult for them to find a proper job, and in order to support their families, they are forced to take up "menial" jobs and are discriminated against by others. In order to gain the right to live and be human beings, the Gypsies have migrated again and again, from one region to another, from one country to another, and even over mountains and mountains, traveling across oceans and continents of the world. Since the 10th century, the Gypsies have been wandering around for generations, but they have not found their ideal home. For them, there is no such thing as a "royal paradise", on the contrary, they are not free from persecution, and in order to survive they have to do jobs that others do not want to do, such as craftsmen, scavengers, waste collectors, breeders, and some have to work on the streets or fortune tellers for a living. These activities continue to this day within the scope of the authorities of the host country, and some tribes have even given rise to the names of some tribes as a result of these "lowly" occupations.

Persecution in history

With the advent of the European nation-state, the grand nationalists of various countries emphasized the purity of the state and excluded minorities, while the already unfortunate and discriminatory Gypsies were further persecuted. From the second half of the 15th century onwards, countries began to take comprehensive measures against the Gypsies. Laws, decrees, and regulations against vagrancy were enacted one after another. The first measures against the Gypsies were enacted in 1471 by the Lucerne City Council in central Switzerland, which passed legislation prohibiting the Gypsies from staying in their federal territory. In 1499, Emperor Ferdinand of Spain promulgated the Practical Rules for the Land of Medina, which stipulated that Gypsies must have a permanent residence and settle in a town or village within two months. Otherwise, the penalty is 100 strokes for men and 50 strokes for women. If there is still no shelter after the flogging, both ears are cut off. Then deportation. Since then, persecution of the Gypsies has become commonplace and everyday. In the 16th century, almost all European countries issued the same decree, such as Portugal in 1526, the Netherlands in 1537, Navarra in 1538, Venice in 1538 and Milan in 1568. Under these cruel decrees, the Gypsies lived like slaves, often being sent to drudgery or executed for no reason.

In 1504, the French began to issue an edict of expulsion, and in 1539 François I issued a national decree expelling the Gypsies. In 1561 Charol IX further expelled the Gypsies throughout the country, and the Council of Orleans decided to exterminate the Gypsies with "fire and sword". Later, the kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, ordered the expulsion of the Gypsies, and stipulated that those who did not comply with the decree would be punished by death regardless of gender, age or child.

Britain was in no way "inferior" to other countries, and measures for the persecution of Gypsies emerged one after another, with mass arrests and massacres. Its methods are characteristic of England, not only persecuting Gypsies who have wandered to England from abroad, but also dealing inhumane blows to other tribes of British-born Gypsies or non-Gypsies who have been forced by life to join the Gypsies. According to British historical records in 1596, there were 178 members of a group of Gypsies wandering in England at that time, some of whom had entered England from other countries, and some of whom had joined the Gypsies by English vagrants in order to survive. This group wandered in the Dukedom of York at the time, and some of them made a living by reading palms and divination. The British government arrested all members of the syndicate and imprisoned them on trumped-up charges. Of those, 106 adult Roma were brought to trial and sentenced to death. Among those sentenced to death, nine people, including those with few children and those born abroad, were escorted to the execution site for immediate execution. The family members of those sentenced to death and the 97 "criminals" who have not yet been executed are in agony and demand that the authorities put them to death together. Later, with special approval from the government, these Gypsies survived, but they had to "change their minds" and "change their ways" within eight months, return to their places of birth, and no longer be allowed to wander around. On the way back, except for irresistible reasons, they are not allowed to stay in any place for one day and one night.

The incident itself was an unwarranted persecution of the wandering Gypsies, with the aim of restricting their traditional way of life and forcing them to settle down. The trial ended in forcing them to accept the arrangements of the British authorities, but this outcome was relatively good for the Gypsies, and there are numerous cases of unprovoked deaths.

In Hungary and Transylvania (in Romania), the Gypsies were first protected by the king and sympathized with by the inhabitants of the land, even giving them a lot of grain and livestock. In 1423, the kings of Hungary and Bohemia also issued an edict to the nobles to respect their traditional freedoms. This was followed by an uncharacteristically brutal persecution of the Gypsies, reaching its peak in the 18th century.

In order to bring the Gypsies into the "normal" life of Hungarian society, the Hungarian and Bohemian Empress decreed in 1761 that the Gypsies in the territory change their wandering life, forced them to settle down, and adopted a series of measures, such as prohibiting them from camping in the city; forcing them to settle in order to make them "new Hungarian residents" or "new Hungarian peasants"; forced Gypsy children to be placed in Christian homes for education; Gypsies are not allowed to marry if they do not have the skills to earn a living and to obtain a job, and so on.

In addition, the Hungarian government has taken other sensational measures to carry out horrific persecution of Roma, often arresting them without cause and subjecting them to torture them, forcing them to confess to "theft", "homicide", etc. In 1782 there was a massacre of Gypsies. In order to cover up their criminal activities, the Hungarian authorities, who killed 45 Gypsies at one time on trumped-up charges of "cannibalism," ordered the establishment of a special "committee," and at his behest, the "committee" sent people to give "testimony" saying that "no one has lost his life except for the guilty." After repeated investigations, it was proved that all the Gypsies died innocently.

The persecution of Roma by the German and Bohemian authorities was also extremely cruel, for example, the local governments were free to enact decrees prohibiting Roma from entering the districts at will, and if they violated the ban, they were punished by cutting off their ears or beheading. In some areas, the faces of Roma are even posted everywhere, and the decree prohibiting Roma from entering the country is well known, and any trace of them must be reported immediately to the relevant authorities. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, General Wallenstein, a famous soldier in Bohemia, often indulged his men in plundering and massacring Gypsies. This persecution reached its peak during the era of Nazi Germany. The Nazis treated the Gypsies with the most barbaric and cruel means in a vain attempt to physically annihilate the nation. Despite the lack of the most accurate statistics, at least 500,000 Gypsy bodies have been found after the war.

The extermination of the Gypsies was an important part of the program of the German Nazi Party. In modern Germany, however, official racial discrimination against Gypsies began in 1899. The Bavarian authorities have set up a special Roma Office to keep up a special file on the Roma for alleged deviance, in addition to their day-to-day work. In 1929 the Gypsy Office was upgraded from the state level to a national organization with its headquarters in Munich. Since then, Gypsies are not allowed to move at will without police approval. Gypsies who have reached the age of 16 and have no proof of occupation must serve two years of hard labour in the Introspection. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the persecution of the Gypsies was at its peak and outrageous.

Historian Joseph. In his book Germany and the Genocide, Biliche argues that the Nazis used three methods of genocide against the Gypsies: the prevention of births, deportation, and outright killing.

In a memorandum to Führer Hitler, a physician named Porsi suggested: "Forced labor and mass sterilization of the Gypsies endangered the blood purity of the German peasantry. "Many Gypsy women fell victim to the experiments of SS doctors in Ravensbrück. In addition, 120 Gypsy girls were forced to undergo birth control operations. Gypsy women married to non-Gypsies are required to be in the designated Dusseldo. Birth control was performed in the hospital in Leelandfeld to prevent "Gypsy blood from endangering the purity of the German race". Due to the state of medicine at the time or other reasons, many women lost their lives during birth control procedures. During Nazi Germany, all Gypsies who could not prove their German nationality were deported. More than 5,000 Roma have been deported to the Roma settlement in Lodz, Poland, where living conditions are so deplorable that it is almost impossible to survive.

The situation of the Roma was exacerbated by a decree issued in Germany on 14 December 1937 declaring them "unrelenting criminals". In the winter of 1937 and 1938, the Nazi authorities arrested Gypsies on a large scale, and in the past used to use the excuse that the Gypsies had no permanent residence, and at this time more than 300 people who had settled in the village of Manvelt and owned land and vineyards. In the camps of Mauthausen, Gussen, Dout Melgen, Natzweiler, Vouschensburg, and Buchenwald, many Gypsies were secretly executed.

After the decree of 8 December 1938 on the SS chief Himmler, all the addresses of the Gypsies were in the hands of the police. The decree of 17 November of the following year forbade the Roma from leaving their homes. In 1941, the police station established firing squads to exterminate the Gypsies, and the Nazis often resorted to horrific mass killings.

The Gypsies, expelled from Germany, did not escape persecution and massacre by the Nazis. The 30,000 Gypsies deported to Poland eventually died in the concentration camps of the Beuzec, Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdane parties. Some survivors of the Oschwitz concentration camp, such as Kurka and Klaus, gave a detailed exposé of the July 31, 1944 massacre in their book The Death Factory. In addition, on the night of December 24, 1941 in the Soviet Union, 800 Gypsies were shot dead by the Nazis. In Yugoslavia, the murder of a group of Gypsies and Jews in the Yajnicse Forest in October 1941 is still fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of the famous place.

Moreover, when direct repression does not bring the Roma "discipline" into order and assimilation into the dominant ethnic group of the host country, governments begin to resort to other policies of brutal exploitation. The British forced Gypsies to be sent to the Finglan Coal Mines to mine coal. Romania's 500,000 Roma were enslaved and forced to work or do other work on the slave-owners' estates until the mid-19th century, when they were emancipated. In 1845, a Romanian nobleman placed an advertisement in a newspaper in Bucharest to sell his 200 Gypsy families. In 1851 the official Moldavian newspaper published a list of 94 men, 85 women, 86 boys, and 84 girls of the Gypsies. These were the late ministers of the late Aleku. Sinerza's property, which was advertised with the intention of selling them along with the furniture; The British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese exiled them, and eventually found it most advantageous to send the Gypsies to the colonies of North and South America. The Gypsies in Brazil were first exiled from Portugal.

Discriminatory persecution continues

The situation of the Roma in the post-war period has not changed much, and they are still living in dire straits, with discrimination and persecution befalling them at any time and at any time, causing great damage to their lives and health. The misfortune of an individual person can be compensated for by the care of others or a change in the environment, but the special national problem of the Gypsies, who do not have a nation-state of their own and wander the whole world, has been forgotten. Around the world, the question of the Roma nation has been generally ignored and neglected, leaving their children and grandchildren, like their ancestors, still languishing in the abyss, not knowing when it will end.

In recent decades, Gypsies have become increasingly awake and fighting for their own destiny. Some of their larger groups are emerging within certain countries in Eastern and Southern Europe. Their fate has also taken a turn for the better, for example, in countries such as Yugoslavia, where they have achieved equal rights with other peoples; In some countries in Western Europe and elsewhere, these insecure groups continue to face exclusion and discrimination. The righteous people of most countries in the world have deep sympathy for them, and some people of insight are also worried about this. Swedish parliamentarian Daniel. Speaking to the Strasbourg Committee on Social and Health Issues, Virukde said: "The fact that the Roma are often discriminated against exacerbates their situation in many cases; This is totally inconsistent with the basic ideas of the European Conference on Human Rights and the spirit of the Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations. This rather glaring and reprehensible discrimination hinders the development of the Roma. Therefore, it is imperative to take the necessary measures to end such discrimination. (1) Another example is that when I visited Switzerland at the end of 1988, Leto Brown. The head of the Manyu Foundation, Jane. "We are very sorry for the Gypsies, and we are ashamed to say that in the twenties of this century, Switzerland launched a movement of children on land, forcing them to separate from their parents and go to boarding schools in order to settle them," said Mr. Jarquez, "We are sorry for the Gypsies, and we are still ashamed to do so, because in the twenties of this century, Switzerland was a semi-official movement of a pro-fascist ideology. It was not until 1974 that the movement ended. Having torn up many Roma families, the Psipsies have demanded a public apology from the Swiss government and an organized investigation to find those who were separated. ”

In France, Roma are still legally discriminated against. A decree issued on 3 January 1969 stipulates that Roma must carry a "pass" when they go out so that they can be checked by the police authorities at all times. France is considered to be an open society in today's West, with free access to even the borders, and there are no specific restrictions on the migration of the products of any ethnic group at home, but there are discriminatory restrictions on the Gypsies. Article 7 of the Act stipulates that it is for the magistrate to decide which district the wandering Roma belong to. According to the report of the Council of Europe, the rest of France's citizens are free to choose where they want to live, while the legal administrative area to which the Roma belong does not arrange for the 90,000 vagrant Roma to live. They are simply strictly managed by the police. The French decree of 1912, which curtailed and harassed the wandering traditions of the Gypsies, has now been obsolete from history. The 1912 decree, which may not seem too harsh, did not actually diminish discrimination against Gypsies.

The decree also stipulates that the identity card of a Roma must record in detail the physical characteristics of the bearer. Wherever a Roma family goes, whether in a town or village, they have to present their documents, which are verified by the local provincial bureau and stamped. Whenever they stay somewhere, they also have to go to the school to register the children. The local education bureau counts the enrolment of Roma children on this basis, and the result of this statistics is of course very high in the enrolment rate of Roma children. In fact, most of the Roma children do not go to school, and even 90% of the Roma are illiterate, and their cultural development is barely visible. In addition, in some areas, a policy of repression is imposed on wandering Roma, which prevents them from staying overnight. Article 10 of the new Act also provides for the deprivation of civil rights of persons who are unable to settle in a place for three years.

Britain is one of the most developed industrial countries, and the authorities attach great importance to environmental protection, but the Gypsies outside of this "civilized and welfare society" have a difficult life. According to statistics, local authorities in the Midwest of England spent as much as £10,000,000 on the land vacated by harassing and deporting Gypsies and fencing them out on the grounds of environmental protection, while only 45 Gypsy families were provided with legal permanent residence during the same period. On December 16, 1974, the Walsall City Council made a resolution to evict the city's homeless people from the city. The city did not want to solve the problem at that time, and could not solve the resettlement of the Gypsies, so the Gypsies became increasingly insecure and had to continue to wander. Previously, they could also buy land to build shelter for the winter, but the 1960 Caravan Camps and Development Regulations empowered local councils to seal off the camps and demolish their homes. Because these houses are "substandard". As a result, the Gypsy families returned to a life of being driven from place to place by police and local officials. As a result of the change in the nature of work, the Roma moved from the countryside to the cities, increasing the pressure on the cities. The demolition of slums and the displacement of Roma in various parts of the country are marked by violence and tragedy.

When the Gypsies are cornered and have to break the laws that are unjust and have already brought them to a desperate predicament, they are sanctioned. In response to the custom of Gypsies wandering along the routes, some countries have deliberately enacted laws prohibiting overnight stays on the roads. The Highways Act 1959 of the United Kingdom states: "It is an offence for any person to camp on a highway without the permission or clemency of the law." ”

Reasons for discrimination and persecution

It is grossly unjust that the Gypsies have been discriminated against and persecuted almost everywhere in the world since ancient times. Such a sympathetic people should not be treated in this way. From the study of the origin of the Gypsies, it is clear to us that it was the invasion of foreign races that caused them to leave their homeland and roam the world in search of a way out. However, in the course of their wanderings, it can be said that from the beginning of the 10th century to the present day in the 20th century, their fate has not been completely changed for a thousand years. Why are Gypsies discriminated against and persecuted everywhere? This is a matter of common concern.

One of the reasons for the endless persecution of Gypsies is the prejudice passed down from generation to generation among non-Gypsies. According to the medieval concept, gypsies from distant lands who spoke a language that others did not understand were suspicious and inferior. Gypsies are often regarded as the same as vagabonds and thieves, and even think that their return to witchcraft will bring great misfortune to people. Therefore, they should be shunned to avoid mishaps.

In the 15th century, a group of gypsies came to a village on the banks of the Marne River in northeastern France and asked the villagers to allow them to spend the night in the village. And these French peasants were like great enemies, some with spears, some with bows and arrows, and they flocked to the entrance of the village, young and old, and did not allow them to enter the village. The reason was that some Gypsies had come before this and had stolen the peasants' things while staying in the village. As a result, the villagers (and indeed many people around the world, including scholars of Gypsies) believe that "Gypsy women and children are good at stealing, and often steal from the villagers without knowing it, gold, silver, jewelry, food, poultry; Furniture and everything that can be stolen, so it's not welcome."

In a debate in the French Parliament in October 1907, one member interrupted another member and asked: "On what basis can you judge a quasi-Gypsy?" The reply was: "These people have no occupation or nationality, and therefore no home, and I don't know where they came from, but I have heard that they seem to come from places like Bohemia, Romania, Bulgaria, and possibly from Central or South-Eastern Europe." For these right and wrong characters, we hope not to get into trouble and protect ourselves. These people are foundries, bamboo weavers, and horse dealers who we don't know anything about. This is a very obvious thing! Because of their banditry, thieves and begging behavior, our villagers are often harassed, which is why they do not receive sympathy from anyone. It is therefore necessary to keep them under protection, whether in response to the current riots or in the future in retaliation, for the terror they have created. ”

It is a degrading and absurd definition, but it represents the views of the rulers of various countries and of certain people who do not know the special nation of the Gypsy. This fallacy has been imposed on the Gypsies for thousands of years. In the Netherlands, Gypsies were also referred to as pagans at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century. Gypsies are not allowed to participate in church activities. Because of the church's opposition to divination, palmistry and witchcraft, the Gypsies have long been the "blacks" who are discriminated against in Europe, opposed by the church, the government, and the guilds, which were the cornerstones of medieval society. The ruling class sees no use for the tax-evasive, peculiar lifestyle-like gypsies. Because it is difficult to exploit these people. The Gypsies have always been outside the feudal and capitalist system, and most of them make a living by engaging in the scorned activities of horse dealers, blacksmiths and singers, and in recent years they have been recruited by some countries as scavengers, scrap collectors and other professions, and most outrageously because in the laws of some Western countries, both in the past and in the present, the Gypsies have been and are trying to be included in the ranks of exploiters, along with some exploited people, whether they were beggars in England in the 16th century or displaced and unemployed today.

This prejudice persisted for many centuries, and even the brutal Holocaust of the Hitler era did not purge anti-Gypsy sentiment. Post-war Europe, like the rest of the world, continued to hold prejudices against the Gypsies. Many States arbitrarily deprive Roma of their liberty under the pretext of "impediments to security" and "elements of anti-social crime". Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries have tried to reduce the size of the problem by reclosing their borders to foreign Gypsies. At the same time, they have concentrated their efforts on various measures to torment the Roma citizens in their own country, believing that when a free and uninhibited life is restricted or constrained, the Roma will be forced to settle down and disappear in the new urban slums. However, the Netherlands was forced to halt this policy in 1957 because the restrictions imposed by the authorities on the movement of Roma families from one country to another did not have the desired effect, as in France, Britain and other countries.

Another reason is that the Gypsies stubbornly maintain their own culture, service traditions and customs, and are not easily assimilated by the dominant ethnic groups of the host country, which invites opposition from others. The cultural pattern of the Gypsies has remained unchanged since the 15th century, inheriting the traditions of their ancestors and being as unaffected as possible by the cultures of other countries. Shakespeare, Cervantes, and other world-famous writers of different periods wrote about gypsies with similar characteristics. Therefore, the gypsies are very excited after seeing these works, and even think that the characters in these works are true portrayals of their own national image. It also shows that the Gypsies have not abandoned the traditions of their ancestors for many centuries, so that the characters in the works of writers from different periods feel quite similar to the Gypsies in real life.

From the time the Gypsies were forced to embark on the journey, to the present day they have traveled all over the world, both wandering and sedentary, they have been disconnected from the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of their countries, and have historically been excluded by the local society. In many countries, local governments seek to integrate them into local societies and make them part of a social continuum. In fact, it is to let them give up their wandering life and settle in various countries; Let them change the traditions and culture of the past and accept the assimilation of the main ethnic group of the host country. But the Gypsies have always tried their best to break away from these arrangements of the authorities and continue to maintain their way of life and cultural consistency according to their own will. Despite the fact that the Roma are of great mixed blood with the inhabitants of the country in which they first arrived, their descendants have maintained the traditions inherent in the Roma and have not had a great influence on the development of this national group, which has greatly annoyed the authorities of the host countries and the great nationalists, who regard the Roma as a stubborn and backward people, born wanderers who cannot accept the civilization of modern society. As a result, the situation of these Roma, who have long been discriminated against, has deteriorated day by day, leading to more discrimination and persecution.

In addition, since the migration and exile of the Gypsies from northwestern India via Persia to Europe in the 10th century AD, the Gypsies did not form a nation-state to support the Gypsies. This is one of the reasons why Gypsies are always discriminated against and persecuted. Moreover, for thousands of years, scholars from all over the world, even the Gypsies themselves, have not understood the origin of the Gypsies, do not know where they came from, and do not know where their homeland is, but according to various assumptions and legends, perhaps from Egypt, or Song from Bohemia. Add to this the prejudices of the world and the fact that the Gypsies are not easily assimilated and stubbornly maintain their traditions, and the discrimination and persecution they suffer are commonplace and never-ending.

Overseas Chinese or Chinese are all over the world, and have their footprints in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, North America, and Oceania. Most of them are concentrated in Southeast Asian countries, among which in Singapore, the Chinese account for 80% of the country's population, and in Malaysia, together with the Malays and Indians, constitute the vast majority of the population. However, before the liberation of our country, the situation of the Chinese nationality in various countries was also very difficult, except for a few high-class figures, most of the people were also discriminated against and humiliated, because old China was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country and did not have the international status of a great power. The Chinese have their own homeland, but this motherland is not strong and has been discriminated against and humiliated, so the Gypsies will inevitably suffer greater misfortune if they do not have a motherland. Since the origin of the Gypsies was not clarified, India did not regard them as members of the extended family, not to mention that India was also oppressed and enslaved by imperialism like the old China.

In recent years, the Government of India has expressed concern for the fate of the Roma, and in June 1974 the Speaker of the Indian Parliament, Mr. G. Murphy, said in June 1974. S. Dillon said: "The European Gypsies originated from the Punjab in India. "Former Prime Minister of India Indira. Mrs. Gandhi also expressed her concern for the Gypsies. Some Western scholars hope that India will use its special relationship with Eastern European countries to influence government policies towards the Roma in order to improve their status. But the good intentions of the scholars will not solve the long-standing problems, and the concern shown by the Indian government will have no effect on the policies adopted by the governments, and the Gypsies must make their own efforts and struggles to change the oppressed status quo.

Fourth, the internal social structure

introduction

For many centuries, Gypsies have lived hard and tenaciously in all corners of the world. However, no matter what country they live in, they are the lowest strata of local society. Discrimination against Roma in some countries, although legally abolished, still exists in practice. They are excluded from developed societies and lack employment opportunities and are confined to "lowly" occupations that are despised. They work as blacksmiths, horse dealers, bar musicians and singers, and in recent years some countries have recruited Gypsies as scavengers and waste recyclers, such as Madrid in Spain, where 30% of the scrap collectors are Gypsies. There are also Gypsy women who beg in the squares of large cities.

Gypsies are prone to finding employment opportunities in developing countries, where occupations in which they excel exist and are in demand, and where they are better placed to play their role in the local socio-economy. In the capitalist countries with highly developed industries, the handicraft industry has long been dying, and the opportunity to absorb handicraft labor has been decreasing day by day, and the socialized modern industry has changed the free and uninhibited life that the Gypsies yearn for and the social and historical conditions for maintaining national characteristics, making it impossible for the Gypsies to survive by engaging in manual labor. The encroachment of capitalist "civilization" has made it increasingly difficult for their traditional way of life to continue, and their tribal organizations are no longer able to solve the problems faced by the Gypsies.

In recent years, the situation of the Roma in Western and Northern Europe has become increasingly difficult, especially in the smaller wandering Roma communities. The attitudes and policies of Western countries towards Gypsies are divided into two aspects: on the one hand, they are being kind enough to ask Gypsies to abandon their identity and traditional way of life and enter the so-called modern "normal" society; On the other hand, they were harassed and assimilated, forcing the Gypsies to abandon their traditional nomadic life in order to adapt to the rapidly changing environment.

Some countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe have made it their responsibility to help the underdeveloped peoples in their governance, but the lack of understanding of the needs and aspirations of the Roma in the formulation of their plans has in fact adopted the same high-pressure policy towards the Roma as in other countries. Wandering Gypsies were forced to stop their travels and settled Gypsies were encouraged to accept assimilation by local ethnic groups in order to improve their social status. For example, in 1969, Czechoslovakia allowed its domestic Roma to hold a national congress, but in 1973 it changed its attitude and prevented the Roma from gathering on the eve of May Day. Local authorities in Slovakia have also disrupted the peaceful life of the local Roma by forcibly relocating most Roma families to Bohemia and Moravia. Former Czechoslovak sociologist Eva. Dr. Davydova once said in a veiled way: "...... In any case, the relocation policy has not been successful in eradicating these Roma villages because they are not always implemented with the consent of the Roma or because the characteristics of the Roma are not fully understood. ”

France

Part III has already spoken of the fact that French Roma are legally discriminated against. The decree of 3 January 1969 explicitly stipulates that Roma must carry a "pass" when they go out so that they can be checked by the police authorities at all times. In addition, the French Government, like the Governments of Italy and Spain, has issued a circular recommending that the local authorities establish parking for caravans of Roma caravans, but the Government has neither complied the local authorities to do so nor checked the release of the above recommendations. In fact, the response to these notices was minimal in a few areas, and the conditions of the parking lots designated by the local authorities were poor, with only camping sites set up on wasteland where there was not even running water. In various administrative regions of the country, there are many places where signs are hung that say "Ishigang people are not allowed to enter". This blatant discrimination against the Roma does not seem to have attracted the attention of the French central government and the strong condemnation of public opinion. There was even an incident: in March 1974, a Roma family of 10 children was found at the seat of the Herder City Council, which annoyed the mayor of the city and personally signed an order to evict the Roma family. The government sent people to bulldoze the humble wooden house, then set it on fire, and ordered the family to kill all the livestock and poultry. The reason why the mayor did this was to "take responsibility for public order". In other regions, this type of harassment is commonplace. In November 1969, the gendarmerie evicted a convoy of 70 caravans in a wooded area near Losse in Tamini. Prior to that, nine Roma families had been evicted in Nice and a baby had been killed while being expelled. In 1973, many families were violently evicted by the Lille police authorities. This is a blatant violation of the law. It also reflects the contradictions between the local authorities and the government, which have defied the government's rules and violently evicted the Gypsies. But then again, the reason why they dare to do this is actually with the tacit approval and connivance of the government.

In Nantes, a large industrial city in Huval, 200-300 Roma households could not find a place to live, and a small number of wandering Roche Gypsies were allowed to stay in designated places near Roche Maurice, however, Roma was forbidden to travel from here to the camps of non-Roma travelers. The situation was later improved by the opening of two private camps by the Leres Charitable Association and an open camping site by the municipality.

On 12 October 1972, the city of Bajuna issued a decree prohibiting the people of Tsgan from staying in the city for any kind of vehicles, and they could only stay in a small area designated by the government as having no running water, no sewerage, no sanitary facilities, and only two caravans. After the law was announced, the Gypsies of Bajuna submitted a letter of protest to the mayor.

In addition to these bullied, wandering Gypsies, there are 10,000,000 semi-wandering Gypsies who live in small shacks in the slums. The land for these shacks is owned by the French national railway company, private companies and the military. In 1967, in the vicinity of Lose-Souss-Boyce, members of the Roma International Committee watched helplessly as armed police and soldiers bulldozed a Roma shack. As a result, 4,000 families of Gypsies, many of them workers from Yugoslavia, were displaced, and most of their private belongings, some even personal documents and cash, were pushed into the ground. Many people had taken refuge in the slums near Le Bourget airport, inhabited by Roma migrated from Spain and Romania, so that the practical problem was not solved and was merely a move of Roma from one slum to another.

On 22 December 1972, the Government issued another decree that posed a serious threat to the lives of many Gypsies. The decree prohibits street hawking, and the majority of the Gypsies and half of the Syntes make a living by selling handicrafts ranging from handkerchiefs to carpets. This decree was a severe blow to the Gypsies, cutting off their source of livelihood.

Spain

Most of the Gypsies in Spain live in Granada, Barcelona, Alicante and other places, living in great poverty, especially since 1970, with the development of tourism in Spain, the government has launched a campaign to demolish houses that obstruct the city. As a result, the small gypsy shacks in the Barcelona area were burned down by the authorities with petrol points. Some of the women who protested were arrested by the police and shaved off. The Gypsies who lived in Granada's famous Sacro Cave were driven to the Hispanic neighborhood of Ratchana. In February 1971, the Spanish police also burned down the Gypsy home of Sant'Amaro, and six wooden houses were immediately reduced to ashes, leaving 20 Roma children and their parents homeless.

In Barcelona, a number of charitable groups have financed the establishment of a secretariat by Roma, and its activities have expanded to cities in the south, such as Selivia and Malaga. The Government has taken a cold eye on the organization and has not given any financial support, so they are working under extremely difficult conditions. The charity launched a self-help campaign to relocate more than 100 Roma families in the south of Madrid and Altamira, as well as more than 50 families in the Roma villages of Victoria. In Mariolka, housing conditions have been diar, and now more than 900 Roma families are living in prefabricated buildings. Some progress has also been made in the area of education, but the scale of educational development is still insufficient in terms of the Roma population. In Barcelona's residential area of La Borona, only 30 out of 700 Gypsy schoolchildren attend the only charity school in the area. In La Paz and Zaragoza, half of the 200 children attend schools that are maintained by free donations. Many of the Spanish laws were not designed specifically for the Gypsies, but they were actually used to persecute and punish the Gypsies. For example, article 50 of the local ordinance stipulates that everyone should have a fixed place of residence, and vagrancy is considered illegal. Nearly one-fifth of the Gypsies live a nomadic life, and they are the poorest, living by picking fruit during the high fruit season, and being employed as day laborers, cleaners, white iron workers, scrap collectors and petty traders during the busy agricultural season, effectively depriving them of their livelihood.

As one of the leaders of the Gypsy Secretariat, Francisco Brown. "Many of our compatriots live in miserable conditions, living in houses made of scraps, which are flooded and washed away when it rains, so that these places are used to build apartments and our compatriots are driven away," Hernandez said. We are to live a dignified life – not paternalistic rule, but mutual forgiveness and understanding. ”

In the face of discrimination and no way out, the Gypsies had to continue to wander, and many joined the ranks of immigrants, some to the big cities of Marseille and Paris in France, and some to the industrial areas of Germany and other countries. When they arrived, they first settled in the slums to make a living, and the vicious cycle began.

United Kingdom

The environment for the British Gypsies is also very difficult, and there are frequent incidents of evictions of Gypsies under the pretext of environmental protection. Britain had learned from the Netherlands by adopting a regulation for the establishment of caravan camps. Although no one has expressed opposing opinions, the creation of caravan camps has been slow due to less encouragement and pressure from the Government on local authorities. The more than 100 camps are far from meeting the real needs of the Roma.

The situation in some areas was further exacerbated by a change in government policy, and the power to administer the Roma was gradually transferred to the local councils under special provisions in the 1968 Act, giving the local authorities the power to evict Roma families. Under the pretext of obstructing the city's appearance, the local authorities continued to evict the Roma and burn down their shacks, displacing more Roma and rejoining the vagrants. At the same time, the number of officially designated caravan stops and privately funded sites is shrinking.

In the area of education, the National Roma Education Committee, after years of efforts, has made it possible to improve the educational situation before the establishment of Roma housing settlements. A number of seasonal temporary schools are opened each year, and there are now 60 State-appointed teachers who specialize in the education of homeless Roma children, but 4,000 children still do not have access to education.

Greece

The situation was not too bad at the earliest foothold of this Gypsy when he arrived in Europe. There are more than 52,000 Gypsies in Greece, half of whom settle in Fidoci and Flembauro in Negrita, and Zomeneza in Macedonia, where there are a number of Gypsy villages. There are Gypsy settlements in all major cities, including 1,500 Gypsies in the Santa Barbara neighborhood of Athens and 3,000 Gypsies on the outskirts of Thessaloniki. Most of the homeless Gypsy families make a living by picking tobacco leaves, weaving baskets, repairing tables and chairs, selling baskets, and other itinerant jobs for farmers.

The Gypsies of Greece formed the Greek Roma League, an organization under the leadership of the Roma International Committee, which fought for national rights and dignity. The Greek government did not take special measures to restrain the Gypsies, but it did not give them any special help or care. The authorities were deeply troubled by the large number of unpassported Roma, most of whom were nominally Muslims, who had been forcibly expelled by the Turkish and Bulgarian governments shortly after the Second World War, as they moved freely to and from the border between northern Greece and Turkey.

Turkey

There are quite a lot of Gypsies in Turkey, estimated at 500,000 people, and a large proportion of them are homeless. Istanbul has several Gypsy settlements that are home to the descendants of 15,000 homeless people. Ankara's Gypsy ghetto is in Sincinkaya district. Izmir is also home to many Gypsy families. The Roma in Schoerto live in poverty and cultural backwardness, and only a few children have access to education. Although the Turkish Government does not have laws and regulations specifically against and discriminatory against Roma, the Roma living in the country, as in other countries, are always wary of local authorities, especially the police. They live in fear, having to hide their identity and language in public places, ostensibly accepting assimilation from the locals. A few of them may find work in local factories, men may be employed in cigarette factories and women may sell their labour in textile factories. There were many settled Gypsies who made a living by picking up scraps, collecting everything from scrap paper, rags, scrap copper and iron, and even unburned coke to be washed, dried and sold for factory or household use. In the cities, Gypsies worked as shoe shiners, road sweepers, porters, handymen or servants for very low incomes. Outside the Turkish city of Izmir, a place called Papas is inhabited by a group of gypsy fishermen who make a living by fishing for sardines. These gypsy fishermen lived in the poorest of the world, building small dwellings out of wood and mud on the marshlands with poor sanitation, eating nothing but fish and bread, and preparing for the winter. Like the Gypsies in other countries, the situation of those who make music is different. In Istanbul and some other places, there are some gypsy musicians who earn quite a bit. Many of their songs and songs have been recorded and distributed all over the world.

Cis

Former Soviet Gypsy writer Rako. Cherenkov once said: "It is very difficult for the Soviet Union to encounter Gypsy illiteracy now, but before the war it was not, and some groups, such as the Gypsies gathered in Bessarabia, were illiterate. Today's young generation of Gypsies, after 8 or 10 years of education, can hardly distinguish between Gypsies and other nationalities in the towns. But they did not lose their language and national consciousness...... Now they have voluntarily abandoned their traditional way of life, which has lost its meaning to them in itself, but ethnologists are interested in it. ”

In fact, the above argument is nothing more than a copy of the official article, which obscures the essence of the problem. The Gypsies were a nominal people in the former Soviet Union, and their identity cards or passports were filled in by the Tsgangs. At the time of registration in 1979, there were 209,000 Gypsies in the former Soviet Union, and according to reliable estimates, it should be closer to 500,000. In order to avoid attracting attention and incurring trouble, many Gypsies conceal their ethnic affiliation and instead fill in their identity as other ethnic groups.

In the former Soviet Union, most of the Gypsies live in Russia, followed by Ukraine. The reliability of this official count is doubtful due to the underestimation of the figures for the Asian part of the former Soviet Union. In recent years, the number of Gypsies in Bessarabia has declined due to constant immigration, although there are still many Gypsy villages in the Republic of Moldavia. The number of wandering Roma was dwindling, and the 1956 Act outlawed vagrancy and required the relevant authorities of the republics to arrange work and housing for them. However, it is not that there are no wandering Gypsies, and some Gypsies still travel from one farm to another to do part-time work or petty business during the busy farming season.

Since the dissolution of the All-Russian Union of Roma by the Soviet Union in the thirties of the 20th century, the only remaining gypsy institution is the Romani Theatre in Moscow. With more than 100 gypsy actors and musicians, this theater is nationally renowned and regularly tours. It is worth mentioning the regiment of Joe. Conti was a member of the Writers' Guild and published a collection of poems in 1970, the first Romani book published in the former Soviet Union after the war.

In the face of social and ethnic contradictions and forced Russification in the former Soviet Union, the national consciousness of the Gypsies is still very strong. cut it; Renkov also had to admit: "I have never met a gypsy who has forgotten his language and customs, regardless of his age or level of education. ”

Hungary

In Hungary, like many countries, the Roma are not recognized as a people. The authorities claim that the Roma lack a common language, culture and belief and therefore cannot be regarded as an independent people, but only an ethnic group. The Gypsies were very unhappy with this and openly spoke out for recognition of them as a people. Following the invitation of the International Roma Committee Pi Hungarian Patriotic People's Front to send a delegation to Hungary, in August 1974 Hungary set up an advisory committee to express its interest in the Hungarian Gypsies.

Today, 40 per cent of the Roma still live in shabby, dilapidated wooden huts, a situation very similar to that of the Czech Republic and other countries. Gypsy villages made up of such shacks, despite their proximity to Hungarian towns and villages, have poor living conditions, 50 per cent of them have no running water and two-thirds have no electric light, far from being comparable to non-Gypsy villages. In 1975, the birth rate was as high as 13 per cent. This exacerbates the severity of the problem.

In the Hungarian capital, Budapest itself has a "gypsy problem". There are 65,000 Gypsies in Budapest, many of whom live in dilapidated residential areas on the outskirts of Paris, not far from the slums of Paris. The Government has arranged decent living conditions for more than half of the Ropsies, but more than 2,000 Roma families still have no running water and more than 1,000 without electric lights. An emergency measure has been taken to prohibit the continued flow of Roma into the capital and it is hoped that the cabins there will be demolished as soon as possible. The suburban district council where the Roma are located has been instructed by their superiors to provide housing for the Roma there. These measures provoked envy and resentment among other ethnic groups in Hungary.

In many villages in the canton of Nograd, Gypsies make up 12% of the local population. A lot of work has also been done there to help the Gypsies. More than 500 new homes have been allocated to Roma families since 1965, and the number under construction is even more enviable. About 70 per cent of Gypsy men and 30 per cent of women have decent jobs.

In Nograd America 1/3 of the inhabitants are Gypsies. They started a cooperative foundry with 240 workers, and three of its directors were members of the state committee. The situation is even better in the mining area of southern Paranja, where there are 15,000 Gypsies, most of whom have permanent jobs, and more than 40 of them are involved in the work of the district committee.

Gypsy music was once banned as a symbol of decadence, but now nearly 10,000 musicians from more than 90 orchestras play in restaurants and hotels in Budapest alone. They have their own professional bodies and associations to organize and manage. People who work in music are in a better situation than the average person and earn more.

In 1964, the illiteracy rate of Hungarian Gypsies was 30 per cent, according to official statistics. It is now officially announced that all Roma children are enrolled in school, but in fact many children do not attend school and educational development is slow. In 1969, the head of a village school refused to admit Roma children on the grounds that they were too dirty and would bring diseases to other children. The majority of Roma children only finish the lower grades, and the lower the number of children who reach the upper grades. As for the Romani language, only one or two schools have experimentally used it in the classroom, and there is a group at the University of Budapest dedicated to the study of this language.

Romanian

Romania has a more liberal policy towards its ethnic minorities, such as Hungarians and Germans, recognizing their national rights, allowing them to use their own language, establishing their own schools and participating in state-sponsored cultural associations. The government also takes care of the Roma, there are no special decrees and regulations against vagrancy in Romania, and according to official statistics, 30% of Roma are still on the move. Mobility has been reduced by the ban on the sale of horses and the admission of Roma to compulsory schools. In particular, the Romanian government provided the Roma with more comfortable houses that were very different from the wooden shacks they had lived in, and the Roma gradually settled down.

Due to the problems left over from history and the lack of concrete measures in the policy of the central authorities, there are some shortcomings on the Gypsy issue. During the interwar period, a Union of Gypsies was formed in Romania for the purpose of Gypsies to help themselves, which included finding suitable jobs for each Gypsie. In recent years, however, such organizations have been denied the existence of such organizations, as the Government considers that since Roma are treated and have equal rights with other citizens, there is no need for such organizations. In fact, in many Romanian towns and villages, Roma still live in poor conditions, with higher unemployment than other ethnic groups, and some work as shoe shiners and cleaners on the streets. In Mera, near Cluj in Transanciva County, there are 150 families of Gypsies living on the slopes of the Tu Mountains, and although many of them are talented musicians, they still have to rely on temporary labor, strong labor, lace making, herb picking, and mushroom picking to make ends meet. The wandering Gypsies relied on their traditional occupations, such as locksmithing and keymaking, basket weaving, working as a furnace maker, or street trade.

The former Yugoslavia

The former Yugoslavia is the country with the largest number of Roma, and due to political, historical, geographical and other reasons, it is determined that the relative environment of Roma in this country is the best. In several large cities with a high concentration of Gypsies, such as Belgrade and nearby Niš, and Suto-Orisaari near Skopje, Gypsy agglomerations have developed rapidly. In the town of Suto Orisaari, where 35,000 Gypsies live, they have their own committees. Families whose homes were destroyed in the 1963 earthquake have rebuilt 4,500 houses with loans from the city of Skopje. The standard of living of the Gypsies in this town is even higher than that of some villages in Macedonia. The Roma population, both men and women, work in public and local enterprises, while some are self-employed and work as petty traders, porters or chores. Progress has also been made in municipal construction, with all 120 streets converted to asphalt roads and new tree-lined residential areas popping up on both sides of the roads. The Gypsies organized their own literary groups, photography groups, football and boxing clubs, and song and dance troupes. Letter dated the letter of the President of India to Yugoslavia in October 1974 by Mr. P. A. Murphy. M. Menon and his wife visited the town, congratulated them on their achievements and said with emotion: "A visit to Suto-Orisari is like seeing a part of India, and you are truly our brothers from afar. ”

In 1971 in Macedonia, a member of the National Assembly and chairman of the Social Committee of the Roma Congress, Abdi. At Feck's proposal, the Macedonian constitution was amended to expand the rights of the Gypsies.

In the former Yugoslavia, although the Roma were classified only as an ethnic group, their national flag was recognized and they were allowed to develop culturally and linguistically. Long ago, Gypsies took to the streets to protest against the name "Tszgang". Now that the word Isaka has been replaced by Roma in the press and on the radio, this adaptation has a profound significance. Radio stations in Niš and Tetowo broadcast regularly in Romani, and Romani magazines were published in Belgrade, which expanded their influence on the Roma in neighbouring countries and accelerated the struggle for national rights throughout Europe.

The division of the Roma in the former Yugoslavia into several factions illustrates the complexity of the Roma problem, but since 1969 there has been mutual understanding between them. Differences between Roma Muslims in Macedonia and Bosnia and Roma Christians in Serbia and Croatia have existed in the past, and the contradictions between them have been gradually resolved with the development of society. Under the influence of modern education, the Gypsy village gradually overcame the old customs that hindered social progress and quickly united.

The former Yugoslavia did a relatively good job of resolving the Roma problem, but that is not to say that there are no areas for improvement, and some areas are unsatisfactory. In the six autonomous republics of the former Yugoslavia and in the two autonomous provinces, due consideration was given to minorities such as Hungary and Albania to enjoy equal access to their own languages and scripts, while the Romani language of the Roma did not receive the attention it deserved. In schools, Romani is not included in the compulsory subject, and although the Republic of Macedonia publishes a book of Romani grammar, Gypsy students cannot learn it in the classroom. Absenteeism and drop-out of school among Roma children is a serious problem, and most of them do not even complete primary school. At most, only one out of 60 Roma children in Serbia is enrolled in secondary school, and there are currently only 50 to 60 Roma university students. There are only about 200 Gypsies working as doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., which is of course double the number 20 years ago. More than half of the nation's employed population is Roma working in the industrial sector and other parts of the city, and Roma farmers account for about 20 per cent, most of whom own their own land. The third were the craftsmen and traders, who were made up of sedentary and wandering Gypsies. From the above, it can be seen that the proportion of Gypsies in the former Yugoslavia who live a traditional nomadic life has gradually decreased with the stabilization and improvement of their lives.

Although there is no Roma represented in the Federal Association of the former Yugoslavia, their participation in local political activities is increasing. As early as 1948 they had their own members of the Skopje City Council. All the larger communes now have their own socio-cultural organisations, and the Gypsies in Drousewa are represented in the regular National Assembly.

National consciousness strengthened

In the 80s, there were only a few countries where the situation of the Roma was better in some respects: in the former Yugoslavia, a minority of 750,000 people, received various government funding; Romania has no laws restricting vagrancy, and Gypsies are free to choose their way of life; Hungary began to implement a special assistance programme to meet the housing, education and other social needs of the Roma; Sweden provides housing and education opportunities for Gypsies crammed into slums near Stockholm; The Netherlands provides a place to park caravans for around 200,000 Gypsies; Britain followed the example of the Netherlands, albeit on a smaller scale. Yet the Gypsies in most countries of the world still live in dire straits, they have no legal national rights, are forcibly assimilated, and are not even recognized as a people. The majority of settled Gypsies live in wooden huts with poor sanitary conditions and are in danger of being evicted at any time; Wandering Gypsies are confronted with laws prohibiting vagrancy and signs prohibiting caravans, and they cannot find work and run from place to place in order to fill their stomachs.

Thus, from the 60s onwards, a number of countries followed suit with the formation of the Roma organization, which has existed for more than 20 years in France, England, Germany, Spain and the Nordic countries. In Eastern Europe, the Roma Social and Cultural Association was established, which preserves national sentiment by preserving musical and linguistic traditions. This movement is not often praised by the host government as a new development, but it has a positive effect on emphasizing the protection of the rights and cultural traditions of minorities, and is a necessary means of promoting the progress of this more conservative people.

In 1965, the International Commission for Roma was formally established, with associations from France, Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Finland, Greece, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as members. The First Roma Congress, held in London in April 1971, emphasized the need to "create a future that is in keeping with our way of life and beliefs", and at the same time made the awakening of national consciousness a central issue and a backdrop for solving common social problems. Since then, Roma organizations in various European countries have been contacted by the Paris-based secretariat, which is known as the International Roma Commission. The congress entrusted the body with measures for the Roma to take charge of their own destiny.

The task of the struggle for legal rights of the Roma remains daunting and difficult. The Roma Congress had set up a special commission to review the war crimes of the Second World War and had tasked the organization with filing a claim for damages with the Federal Republic of Germany, which had been rejected by the Federal Court. The Federal Supreme Court also rejected the lower court's judgment on damages for a Gypsy woman who had been exiled to a concentration camp in Poland by the Nazis during the war. As the Council of Europe report states: "It is sad and humiliating that the Gypsies, who survived as victims of the Nazis, have received only a paltry official compensation for the atrocities they have suffered, contrary to the many other groups that suffered so much in the Second World War." ”

The International Roma Congress argued that the Roma should be given a sum of money as had been paid to the Jews and the governments concerned. The money could be deposited in a suitable institution established by the United Nations or in a national bank, such as India, for the welfare of Roma children.

While fighting for national rights and dignity, the Roma have not forgotten to preserve and develop their own language and culture. After numerous changes, the Gypsy culture has become a regenerate, mixed and assimilated culture, which has survived solely through oral literature such as songs and legends. As for the Gypsy language, because the Gypsies are wandering abroad, they must be influenced by the Chinese language in which they live, so the Gypsy language has now become a non-uniform language, and it can also be said that it is a mixture of countless indigenous languages mixed with the official languages of the host country.

Before the Second World War, 25 Romani primary schools were established in the Soviet Union. Today, such schools are rare in both Western and Eastern European countries. Governments had not made any efforts to develop the Romani language, which was in danger of disappearing. The abolition of Romani language schools prevented Gypsy children from gaining the same knowledge of their national language and history as children of other nationalities at an important stage of their formative years. It also creates learning difficulties for them, which, according to a study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Roma children in schools have to attend classes in another language, which increases their learning difficulties and amounts to a delay of three years. In the former Czechoslovakia, only one out of every six Roma children completed the upper grades, and less than 1 per cent attended secondary school. In the former Yugoslavia, the proportion of students attending secondary school was only 2 per cent. Moreover, in some countries, Roma children are unable or unwilling to go to school. The legacy of history and the long-term impact of the Choi Gypsies is a huge breakthrough. It is difficult to change the cultural inferiority of the Gypsies, so it is even more difficult to change the backwardness of this people.

In recent years, with the awakening of national consciousness, the Roma people have become increasingly aware of the importance of developing their own language and culture. Gypsy storytellers and poets have emerged in various countries, but they have not been able to reverse the disappearance of languages, many of which have become extremely poor, and some of which have disappeared; There is a different tendency among young people, who are increasingly interested in the official language of their home country.

In June 1980, the Finnish organization "Roma Cultural Centre" held a Roma Congress in Kiuwisi. Nearly 200 delegates from Finland and other Nordic countries attended the meeting. On the basis of an extensive discussion of the traditional culture of the Roma people and their development trends, the Conference adopted the Draft Programme of Roma Political Culture. The draft programme calls for concrete measures by Governments inhabited by Roches; In order to preserve the language and culture of the Roma people. To this end, it was decided to establish a Roma Institute in Finland.

President of the "Roma Cultural Center" Urje. According to De Hedley, language is a prerequisite for the development of Roma culture. From the point of view of striving to preserve the rich culture of this minority, the teaching and development of the Roma language is the most important task of the "cultural centre". Roma language teacher Yu. "Just as there is no ship without a captain, there is no Roma without a language," Koivisto said. ”

The draft programme called for the preparation of a dictionary of the Roma language and a study of grammar and pedagogical issues. These demands were conveyed by the General Assembly to the Governments of the Roma host countries, which were eager for more assistance from them. The meeting also called on governments and people from all walks of life to listen to the voices of ethnic minorities and to revive the Roma culture, which now depends on artificial respiration. Other peoples have little understanding of Gypsy culture and are often wrong. Gypsies are very worried that their cultural traditions will disappear by assimilation into other peoples.

The solution to the problem of the Roma should first be to recognize their existence as a people, to respect their traditions and their demands, and finally to eliminate the prejudices that discriminate and humiliate against them. Another international organization of the Roma in Europe, the European Roma Union, convened in Geneva in 1978 with the aim of bringing together Gypsies from all over the world. Recognized by the United Nations in 1981. The President of the Union is none other than Mr. J. Chibra, who wrote the inscription for the book. Mr. J. Chibra, who practises medicine in Geneva, said the following to me at his clinic on 5 December 1988: "We are a people of Indian origin, and we have retained some social institutions similar to those of India, and within us there is a clear social hierarchy, there are still castes such as music, horse breeding, blacksmithing, etc., and we are willing to preserve the language, culture and other traditions brought from India, for which an International Roma Congress was convened in India in 1984, with the support of the local government, Mrs. Gandhi was present. In a few days' time, we will be meeting in Berlin to call for a solution to the issue of war reparations, which was raised at the Bergen Conference in 1979. At present, with the exception of the Roma in the Federal Republic of Germany, which have received reparations, the Roma in other countries have not received reparations. We hope to use this money to establish an international Roma foundation and a Romani university to preserve the Roma language and cultural traditions, to allow the Roma to learn their language, culture and history, and to establish a museum for the Roma. ”

Cultural values

Gypsies have their own unique cultural traditions and are culturally isolated. Although the majority of Gypsies live in developed countries and have frequent contacts with many of the pioneers who have been involved in modern society, almost all Gypsies remain faithful to their traditional cultural patterns to varying degrees, and their cultural values are no weaker than those of non-Gypsies, but on the contrary are more important to Gypsies, and they have a strong sense of pride and self-absorption. This cultural value maintains the unity of the Roma community, which generates a strong cohesion that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Many centuries ago, that is, since the Turkic invasion of North India in the 11th century, the Gypsies who have been displaced all over the world have maintained their traditional culture, and this special Gypsy spirit has made every tribe, clan, family and even Gypsy always remember that they are part of the Gypsy community. Although the Roma wandered the world and the Ropsies of different countries differed to a greater or lesser extent in terms of language, culture, lifestyle, customs, clothing and even the means of transportation, one thing they had in common was that they would continue to be Gypsies in a non-Gypsy society. They are both against assimilation and integration, they want to maintain their cultural traditions and show their identity at all times. In addition to the strong self-expression of the subjective self-expression, the huge cultural divide between the Gypsies and non-Gypsies is also an important reason for their cultural isolation.

Since the Gypsies entered Europe, the locals have not left a good impression on them, often treating them as vagabonds, thieves, beggars, and charlatans, and are unwilling to contact them, let alone neighbors with them, for fear of bringing some kind of misfortune, in the 17th century, the famous Buddhist painter Tiernils painted a "famous face", a beautiful Gypsy girl is showing palmistry to a local gentleman, and a child next to him has quietly put his hand into the gentleman's pocket. This pattern was embroidered on the tapestries of the 17th and 18th centuries. The author is warning people to be wary of gypsies. This misconception has not been corrected in Europe for hundreds of years, and it has not changed the distorted image of the Gypsy today, in 1983 when I first imitated Italy, I was a guest in a church on the outskirts of Florence, and when the host was leaving for a short time, there was a knock on the back of the church, so I opened the door, and the visitor was an old Gypsy, who wanted to see the priest of the church, and they had an interesting conversation in front of me, which I still remember:

"What are you looking for me?"

"I ask for relief."

"You're not bad, you don't do anything all day long, just waiting for someone else to do it

Sacrifice yourself to enjoy it. ”

"Doesn't your church preach the equality of the rich and the poor? You are not the Lord

Does Zhang want to help the poor? Why did you turn me away when I came? ”

So the priest had to give him a bill of 1,000 pulls. When the old gypsy was gone, the priest said to me: "Don't deal with such people, they always eat for nothing. I replied, "It's a windfall, because I'm a study of gypsies." This unexpected answer surprised the priest for some reason. Indeed, it was not the first time I had seen the skeptical eyes of this Catholic priest, and it was considered incredible to study and sympathize with the Gypsies in Italy. In my many contacts with Italian academics, I have often encountered this kind of question, and even in people-to-people exchanges, I have heard the question "Why do you want to study Gypsies?" The statement that I sympathize with the Gypsies, that all peoples should live in harmony, that the Gypsy culture is an integral part of the national culture of the world and has its peculiarities, etc., does not satisfy my listeners, but that friendship and time no longer make us argue.

Europeans, of course, also include American and Asian discrimination against Gypsies, making the gap between Gypsy and non-Gypsy cultures unbridgeable. In January 1499, King Ferdinand II of Spain promulgated the "Practical Rules for the Land of Medina", which forbade the Gypsies to wander in Spanish territory, and those who violated this decree were punished by flogging, cutting off their ears and even deportation. This was the initial discriminatory decree prohibiting the Roma from maintaining their traditional culture, until the "Decree on the Suppression and Punishment of Roma Wandering and Other Wrongful Acts" signed by Charles III of Spain in October 1783, in less than 300 years, more than 100 laws against Roma were enacted in Spain alone, and in other countries, laws, decrees and regulations restricting and prohibiting Roma vagrancy were also emerging, and these legal measures were not only aimed at punishing Roma for criminal offenses, In more cases, it was to limit the tradition of the Gypsies from keeping the wandering. Gypsies have their own unique values, and their most fundamental belief is to distinguish themselves from non-Gypsy societies and cultures, and they believe that wandering and not following local customs is the best way to maintain their traditional culture. It is precisely for this reason that the authorities of the countries where they are located are particularly annoyed by their unruly character, believing that they do not obey orders, do not obey management, and come and go freely in the cities and villages, and are incompatible with their language, clothing, palmistry, merchandising and other traditional customs. The trumped-up charges are also vague and unjustified.

Some Western countries, such as France and Italy, do not recognize ethnic minorities other than the main ethnic group, and only call them "cultural communities" or "minority language groups", and naturally do not recognize the Gypsies as a nation. In Belgium, Roma are regarded as "undetermined nationality" and are virtually deprived of their rights to employment, welfare, housing and education. In Germany, tens of thousands of Gypsies died in the Second World Search, and some survived concentration camps. As a result, in recent years the Government has decided to compensate the Gypsies, but the persecuted received only 5,000 marks each, an amount equivalent to two and a half months' average salary. Some poor Roma in France are entitled to benefits, but the authorities and laws stipulate that the children of Roma and other residents of Liugong must attend regular schools, and the amount of benefits received by the family is linked to whether or not the children are enrolled in school, so that if the Roma continues to wander or if the children are not enrolled in a permanent school, the benefits will be lost.

Modern socialist countries have taken a series of measures to help the Roma settle, and governments want to make it easier for the Roma to improve their lives and improve their cultural quality, especially the enrolment rate of Roma children. For example, 40 per cent of the less than 600,000 Roma in Hungary are still in a very poor and backward situation, they live in small huts in the countryside, lack of running water and lighting, some Roma live in low standards of living in the cities, and some families of five or six people also live in a simple log cabin, the Hungarian Government provides some housing for these poor Roma and arranges them to work, hoping to integrate them into the normal channels of national development, However, such efforts to bridge the gap between Roma and Hungarian cultures are not necessarily universally praised by Roma, and some Roma who have moved into new homes on low rents and into factories feel that they will lose their traditional social structure, because in such a situation the Gypsy social organization Chris, or the family, can no longer manage its members or perform its social functions, thus rendering Chris useless, changing traditional cultures and values, and making them deeply disturbed by the threat of assimilation. As a result, some people would rather live in their own lives than move into a new home.

Gypsies, as a result of their wandering lives for generations, have developed and preserved many distinctive customs and values. In addition to cultural values, there is also a view of "uncleanness" that is of paramount importance to them. All members of the Roma community are required to observe all the rules and precepts of the clan, and if anyone violates this, he is sentenced to "Mer-ime" by the ruling of the elders. This means that he has defiled the precepts of his clan and has become an "unclean" person. Such people are shunned and snubbed by the whole clan, and are punished with fines and expelled from the clan in the worst cases.

In order to prevent anyone from becoming unclean, self-purity is taught from an early age, and primitive means such as wearing a chastity cloth are used to protect virginity, and virginity is also tested at the wedding ceremony. Adultery after marriage is also condemned as unclean, and husbands, even husbands, and even husbands' brothers, have the right to punish women who lose their virginity. Historically, there have been extremely cruel punishments such as cutting off noses, ears, and even hands and feet. In some tribes, married women who have lost their virginity are to be tried in public, presided over by the elders, and those who commit adultery are severely punished, and the prisoners are tied to trees in front of all the fallen people, and they are beaten mercilessly with leather whips in turn, and they are bound for a day and a night, and then expelled from the tribe. Since the person who was beaten left with incurable wounds, no tribe would take her in.

In order to maintain the purity of the Gypsy community, their members were not allowed to marry with different races. It is especially strict with women, and it is hoped that they will not have contact with the outside world and avoid intermarriage with men of different races. In practice, Gypsies rarely intermarry with other races, and those who violate this precept are to be called "merim" and expelled from the clan, and those who are not of Gypsy descent may marry a Gypsy with the consent of the elders and the fulfillment of rituals. In this case, the Gypsy often unites the woman with the man of different races, and the man who is in love with the Gypsy girl must swear allegiance to the Gypsy community, love his wife, and live according to the Gypsy customs after marriage. These principles must not be betrayed, or they will be met with retribution by all the Gypsies.

Gypsy avoids everyone once she is pregnant, as if she has done something unseemly, and begins to live in isolation. In the UK, this is about a month, and in Germany it is longer, and the pregnant woman will live alone for six weeks. During the quarantine period, pregnant women must wear gloves before cooking, otherwise the Tao is unclean and violates the precepts. After this time, the pregnant woman must go to the church for a ceremony or invite the elders to a banquet before she can return to the family or community. When a pregnant woman is in labor, a tent is set up for her away from the camp and she is sent there, as Jib women are not allowed to give birth at home or in their caravans. No one other than the husband and the midwife are allowed to come into contact with the mother during childbirth. This practice has another meaning besides the belief that the mother is unclean. The Gypsies are a people who have wandered the world and made their home from thousands of years of wandering life, they have developed an instinct for self-preservation, their medical conditions are very poor, and if mothers and babies are exposed to everyone in the camp, they are inevitably at risk of contracting diseases, so it is very necessary to protect mothers and children with this ancient tradition. Within two weeks after giving birth, the mother is considered unclean, and her used clothes, bedding, household items, utensils, etc., are destroyed or thrown away, and the Gypsies consider these things to be unclean as soon as they are in the hands of the mother.

Gypsies consider not only pregnant women, mothers to be unclean, but also women during menstruation. Therefore, there are many taboos. In Germany, gypsy women are not allowed to cook for men during menstruation, are not allowed to touch utensils, and are especially not allowed to leave their underwear near men. In Poland, especially in Dein, if a gypsy woman's skirt touches a man's hat, the hat becomes unclean and must be thrown away. Women should separate their underwear from men's clothes when washing them, and even find a place where underwear is not easy to find when they are dried. In addition, if a woman inadvertently steps over the utensils, the utensils become unclean and can no longer be used.

However, the Gypsy concept of "uncleanness" in daily life, which has a more important meaning is to keep clean, which is just the opposite of the so-called Gypsy dirty, primitive barbarism, they attach great importance to personal hygiene and pure sexual prowess, and even in some areas, such as Bulgaria and Turkey, the Gypsies attending the wedding must take a bath first, and cannot bring the "unclean" to the newlyweds' home. This custom has a lot to do with their wandering life in the past. During their camping days and in their social life, it was necessary to observe the discipline of daily life and to maintain cleanliness and hygiene, which was related to the health and safety of all members, so that the "unclean" view of the Roma became the basis of their faith and the guide to their actions.

When gypsy children go to public schools, they make jokes or clash because of different customs. At school lunch, several children going to the toilet together, boys and girls holding hands in games and attending physiological hygiene lessons all overwhelm the gypsy children because all of this violates their "merim". This is one of the reasons why the Roma are reluctant to send their children to primary school. The fact that the majority of the Roma are illiterate and that they do not value reading and writing because of their traditional nomadic life, and for these reasons, it is difficult to convince the Roma to send their children to public primary schools.

5. Internal social structure

introduction

There is a story in Europe about a horse-drawn gypsy caravan that got bogged down in the mire while wandering, and they prayed to Our Lady as they pushed: "Our Lady of Merciful Nature, please help us, if our car can be pushed out of the mud, we will offer you a candle as big as our body." "When the wagon starts to move, the candle that made the wish shrinks to the size of a foot, and when the carriage moves one step forward, the candle becomes the size of a toe. The carriage drove out of the mire, and the candle's wish was in vain. They would pay homage to the Virgin Mary and say, "Graciful Mother, you are not demanding of us poor, and it is better for us to respect you than to offer you candles." ”

The story is to show that the Gypsies were not devout religious believers, and that they did not have a fixed religion, or a unified religion. They usually adopt the religious rituals of their host country, and historically they have converted to Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. But this belief is often inseparable from the particular circumstances in which they live, and therefore cannot but include an element of expediency.

When they first left India, there was only one general word in the Gypsy language - God, and they did not have a firm and dedicated religious belief, and it was easier for them to accept the religion of the countries they visited. In Byzantine times, they became Christians. At the beginning of the 14th century, they participated in the Orthodox liturgy on the Greek islands.

During the war between the Byzantine Empire and the Turks, the Gypsies, like the local population, suffered from wars and alternating rule. It is well documented that the "Gypsy Penitents" in Pologne, Italy, in 1442 and in Paris in 1427, confided in them the tragic situation of the war, especially the different religious beliefs of the rulers, which left them at a loss.

In the Turkish-ruled country, many Gypsies still maintained their Christian faith, while others converted to Islam. However, the situation of the former is much more difficult than that of the latter. At that time, every citizen had to pay taxes, however, the amount of tax paid varied depending on religious beliefs. For example, in Southern Albania in the 17th century, the Scottish Emperor ordered Gypsy Muslims to pay 18O Asply, while Christians to pay 250 Aspli.

pilgrimage

The Gypsies began to be better off in countries that had left the lower reaches of the Holy See, and in Greece they had contacts not only with the Greeks, but also with pilgrims from France, Italy, and other Western countries. From the moment they entered Europe, they were talking about God and being pilgrims. In the Middle Ages, pilgrims were revered, and every devout Christian and clergy helped them.

A pilgrimage to Rome in 1422 was more conducive to their wandering life. After they traveled to Italy, the letters signed to them by the Pope came in handy. For the next seven years, the constant pilgrimages paved the way for their wandering career, ensuring that they became popular guests of the churches, faithful, and other inhabitants of the towns. Permits signed in the name of the Pope, the Church, and the King allowed the Gypsies to make pilgrimages everywhere, and did not limit the destination of the pilgrimage. Some holy places, such as St. Peter's Tomb in Rome, the Tomb of St. Paul in Rome, or the Tomb of St. Giacomo in Gonpostella, are also mentioned, but they are not obligatory to visit here. Moreover, any road can lead to this place, therefore, in fact, the Gypsies are allowed to make pilgrimages in their own way to wherever they wish, which provides great convenience for their wandering life.

The worldwide pilgrimage was first proposed by the Pope, and the Gypsies who wandered to Europe immediately responded to the call to find the best refuge for their unique way of life. He traveled unhindered in Paris and Amiens in France in 1427, in Douai in 1429, in Utrecht, Rotterdam and central Belgium in the Netherlands in 1429-1430, in Nevers in France in 1436, in Orly in 1447, in Jain in Andalusia, Spain in 1462, and in Andujar in Andalusia in 1470. In the Netherlands from 1496 — 1518 the Pope signed three marches for them. When a "Lord of Little Egypt" arrived in Scotland in 1505, he was received by the King of Scotland as a guest of honour on the recommendation of the Pope. In some cases, pilgrims also demanded special care from the countries they visited, such as in 1435 when a "count of Egypt" could not afford to pay the Haka customs tax, so he applied for tax exemption on the grounds of pilgrimage to Spain.

More than a century later, at the end of the famous pilgrimage in Italy, a papal delegate accepted a request from a "little Egyptian count" and issued him a pass to safely arrive and worship holy places around the world. In 1537, Robert de Chloe, Crown Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Bishop and Duke of Cambrais, also agreed to the request of a "Count of Little Egypt" to facilitate his pilgrimage.

But later, due to the suspicion of the local authorities, the Pope's letter gradually lost its effectiveness. In 1539, Archduke Francisco of Milan rebuked the Gypsies for "wandering the ends of the earth under the cloak of disguised religious faith and brief prayer and confession". In 1553, five years after his successor came to power, no better way was found to deal with the wandering of the Gypsies in the name of pilgrimage. It was some time before the Reformation and the ensuing wars of religion put an end to the role of the Pope's letters on their pilgrimages.

Pilgrimages are often fictitious, and are the best excuse to move around, and to gain the right to stay and resupply in camps.

In fact, there are also some devout believers among the Gypsies, who do have their own beliefs, and who have a pilgrimage in their wandering life, and do as they please. Others, on the contrary, use the custom of gathering with people on the date of the big festival to find a means of subsistence more easily.

Pilgrimages by the Gypsies are also recorded in the local annals. In 1508 some passing gypsies went to Nantes and they got permission from the Duchess of Brittany to stay in St. Mount Miguel. In 1600 in Maraissa, and Charles deliberately played tricks on them, the pilgrimage should not be so comfortable to let them walk.

In France St. Near the church of Arise, where the relics of Vila are kept, many pilgrims are often seen, especially at the beginning of the 18th century, when they were constantly questioned by police officers on tall horses. A gypsy woman went there in 1734 to pray to God to cure her of her epilepsy.

In the Modena district of Italy, an arrested gypsy claimed that two days earlier his family had gone to Notre-Dame de Giara in the city of Reggio in Emilia to pay homage to Our Lady of Reggio.

In Spain, Gypsies go to Grenada or to León for Dominican celebrations, or to Madrid to worship Santa Ana, the goddess of the city.

One of the more famous pilgrimages in modern times is St. Mary of La Mer (also known as Notre-Dame de la Mer) on the island of Gamale, in the south of France. This was originally a religious ritual for European Christians to worship the Majesty Maidens Marie Jacomo and Marie Salome. This ritual originated in 1448, when the Angke family discovered the relics of the saint and enshrined them. By the 16th century, this ritual was prevalent in Europe. Gypsies wandered to Europe en masse during this period, and they went on pilgrimages as devout Christians. They did this to avoid persecution by the authorities of their home countries and to facilitate their wandering life, while pilgrimages became part of their lives.

Like the Europeans, they first made a pilgrimage to St. Mary Giacomo and St. Mary Salome, but later the Gypsies no longer worshipped the two Christian Virgins, but in a Catholic manner to their own Virgin Sala. The Black Saint Sara was the handmaiden of St. Mary, and the Gypsies especially revered the Black Saint as their own compatriot and master, and worshiped the patron saint of power.

The origin of the sacrifice to the Black Saint Sara is also mysterious among the Gypsies. It is well documented that in the 17th century, a gypsy baby girl received the name of Sara at baptism, in 1632 when the Egyptians (referring to the gypsies) Charles de la Tours and Marie Rened, of the company of Captain Jacques Haubert of Saint-Verain in Neuers, France, received this honor at baptism. Prior to this, Sarah's name did not appear to have appeared, and she had not yet been recognized in this non-region. From the 19th century onwards, the Gypsies began to make pilgrimages to the aforementioned island of Gamale. Every year from May 24 to 25, Gypsies from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Romania and other countries arrive there by horse-drawn carriage or car to participate in the festival. A man named Fredlick. Mistral's man, in his memoirs, recounts his time in St. St. in 1855. Mary's travels: "The church was especially full of worshippers, women from Arles, sick people, gypsies, one next to the other. Especially the Gypsies, who lit many large candles, but only in front of the altar of Sarah, and especially in their faith, Sara belonged to the Gypsy nation. ”

In recent decades, European Gypsies have continued to follow the national tradition of making an annual pilgrimage to St. Mary. The night before the festival, people come to Notre-Dame de la Mer and gather in front of the icon of Sala in the underground sanctuary to pay their respects, and light the hundreds of white candles that are placed in front of the statue of the Black Virgin; The church was as dark as daylight. Decorate the blue and white dress of the Black Saint Sara with flowers and lace, and put a necklace on her.

The crowd of worshippers consciously obeyed the discipline and quietly entered despite the extreme excitement. Among them are white-haired grandfathers, turban-wrapped grandmothers, black-haired young men in modern clothes, young girls in purple dresses, and of course mothers with children, who are looking forward to seeing the Black Saints, which will bring them good luck. The worshippers also held the children aloft and asked them to kiss the face of the Black Saint with passion, causing the painted paint of the Sarah idol to fall off day by day.

Early the next morning, escorted by 18 horseback guards, the Gypsies carried the boat where the icon was resting to the shore and lowered it into the water for a sea blessing ceremony. Previously, each participant had to go into the water, but now they only gather at the seashore to receive the blessings of the sea. After the religious ceremony, there are celebrations such as dancing, bullfighting, singing, etc.

With a history of more than 100 years, St. Mary's is an excellent opportunity to reunite separated families and friends, so the Gypsies attach great importance to this holiday. At the same time, it is also a huge attraction for non-Gypsies, as it is both a religious worship and a carnival, so tourists also rush here on time to watch the various wonderful and wonderful scenes of worship, sacrifice and performance.

In recent decades, in addition to the Pilgrimage to the island of Gamale, a similar event has been held in Ruluer, on the border between France and Spain in the south of France. Since 1959, thousands of Roma from all over the country belonging to the three major blood groups of Roma, Sint (or Manus) and Karle have also visited on 1 September. In Pomerdia, a suburb of Rome, Italy, a Catholic pilgrimage is also held every September. In 1956, Pope Paul VI personally attended the celebration and presided over the retreat in the Gypsy camp, which brought great honor to the Gypsies and greatly encouraged them.

Religious rituals

In addition to pilgrimages to fixed locations, Gypsies often attend Mass and religious ceremonies in churches, and their choices are determined according to the local religious beliefs. In some countries, such as Transylvania (present-day Romania), where there were Catholic, Orthodox and Christian, the Gypsies of different tribes and families also had different faiths. In Jerando he chose the faith of the Grand Duke, the local ruler, and this choice according to the wishes of the nobles should be said to be the wisest, and it avoided many troubles.

Gypsies go to church for religious ceremonies on the most important occasions, mainly for the baptism of children and the funeral of the elderly, and sometimes weddings are also held in churches.

In France there are countless examples of gypsy baptisms in churches. In 1494 there was a very solemn baptism in the church of Metz. The daughter of a "Duke of Egypt (Gypsy)" was born on October 24, which was the daughter of the Saint. Francisco's auspicious day, so her name was Francisco. The "duke" also invited three men from prominent families and two women from prominent families in the city to be godfathers and godmothers. Religious activities also have social significance, and the choice of the general godparent cannot be divorced from the local reality, and there is no doubt that the best candidate is someone of high status who can protect her godson and her family, and at the same time can give generously. In 1595, a gypsy baby girl in Chartres was honored as a godmother by Cataline Hurante, daughter of the French Minister of Justice.

If a family invites a parish priest to the church to preside over the baptism, it will not only be an honor for the people of Jibuzhai, but will have a practical effect in the wandering life of the Wei Song Dynasty.

The Gypsies also baptized their children in other Catholic countries. For example, in the register of a diocese in Grenada, Spain, the baptism of a gypsy baby girl Juyana is recorded in 1530.

There were also many cases of Gyppsian baptism in Protestant countries, such as the baptism of an Egyptian (Gypsy) child by a Lutheran priest in the Banks Valley of Malthus, whose parents were members of a local gentleman's family. The baptism of their children by the Gypsies has been popular in England since Elizabeth II. In Switzerland from the 16th century onwards, in the north of the Netherlands, especially in Frisia and Viluvius, in the 17th century.

Many semi-nationals in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Thomas and Glerman, affirmed that the Gypsies baptized their children several times in order to increase the possible benefits, that is, the same child could be baptized in several churches in different locations, but there was no conclusive evidence. The Church was very concerned about this situation, as the Saxon Church in Transylvania twice in 1557 and 1661 stipulated that Gypsies should be refused to baptize without a definite proof of birth.

Since the church turned away the Gypsies, did they have their own baptismal rites? German doctor Johann Brown. Dietz affirms that this ritual had been developed in Hungary in 1686: "They had their own ritual in which adults took children into a stream to baptize them and dipped their heads three times. ”

Gypsies are less likely to be married in churches, and they are accustomed to having them according to their own national traditions. But that doesn't mean you don't want to be blessed by the church at important moments in your life. The names of the Gypsies were recorded in the notebooks of many churches, and in 1651 the church of Doules, near Caen, France, was written for the name of La Tholes. Two gypsy soldiers and two girls of the same clan of Captain Ghasnay's company were married and contracted in the presence of witnesses from Quistelhan, who wished them a hundred years of marriage.

In 1662 at St. Peter's Church, near Maastricht, the Netherlands, the gypsy soldier Carolus Pitoromae and his compatriot Miss Marie Lazour swore in front of the clergy that they would respect each other for the rest of their lives.

In England, the wedding of the Gypsy was blessed by a priest. In the 17th century, a wedding ceremony for the Gypsies in a church had a procession of 20 Gypsies bless the newlyweds.

But the church or the clergy were not always willing to perform a sacred duty to the gibse when he was married. The Inquisition in Modena, Italy, accepted matrimonial proceedings, but the clergy were prejudiced against the Gypsies: they believed that the Gypsies were not Christians and that marriage was merely an opportunity; Therefore, they are refused to be blessed at the wedding, and divorce cases are not accepted if the marriage ceremony has not been held in the church. When a married gypsy woman filed for divorce from the Inquisition, the priest of the church from Tole, in the law of the Inquisition*, flatly denied that Raoula and her husband Donino had been married in his church. The client, Raoula, a 20-year-old gypsy woman, filed for divorce because she had been married a year earlier and that her husband had often run away from home after marriage and had beaten her at home. The following testimony was given to the priest's denial: "Tonnino said that he wanted to marry me, so he took me into the church of Tole, and swore never to abandon me in the presence of my uncle, brothers, and other guests. The church priest of Tomo was present, holding a book (Bible) in his hand and reciting the oath that we will never be separated. Many of the women of Tomo (gypsies) are like me. This incident shows that the Church is not very willing to give marriage blessings to the Gypsies, or to officiate the marriage ceremony for the Gypsies, and is not willing to admit it openly in such a solemn setting as the Inquisition Court, but it also proves that many Gypsies are also willing to be blessed by the clergy when they have completed their life's work, so that they can find spiritual comfort and make life more meaningful.

As for religious burials, diocesan records often mention the names of the Gypsies, and the Mass is an essential ritual in the funeral, solemn and solemn, for the rest of the souls of the dead Gypsies. The holding of a funeral in a church can in no way be said to have any other purpose for the Gypsies - baptizing their children in the church may be criticized for their impure purposes, and for some practical gain - the cost of the funeral is very expensive for them.

The patriarch or some members of the Gypsy family even received the honor of having a funeral in a church as a socialite. The tombstones of the 15th and 16th century counts of Little Egypt (Gybzhai people) are found in German churches, with inscriptions and family coats of arms. In Bressac, Anjou, France, in 1629, the Egyptian captain (gypsy) Charles de la Goravi was buried near the Baptisting Fountain, where more than 300 people mourned, and his widow celebrated 40 Catholic Masses and donated the fabric embroidered with beautiful patterns to the church. In the Chalons Church in Mann, France, there is Geréléme. The tombstone of Captain Robert, which was erected in 1626 by order of the head of the diocese, Bishop Anzenesse, with the consent of the diocese. In the same year in Albi, France, a Captain Gypsy was buried in the abbey of Giacobini, where the Catholic Carmelite friars took part in the religious ceremony. In 1655 a captain's family was killed in a fight, and after mediation, the murderer paid for six masses in the church to overtake the dead.

In the 1661 account of the church of St. Menehed, the parish priest wrote about the funeral of a gypsy woman, and he wrote: "In the approach to the sacrament of communion and the anointing of the deathbed, the venerable priest as a confessor assures us that, since she has accepted our faith, he has decided to grant her the right to be blessed, to save her soul, and to give her the necessary care in all things." ”

A punished gypsy can also confess to a priest on his deathbed, allowing God to save his soul and forgive his sins. In 1787, although the Gypsies of the House of Moinhalt had been convicted in the new diocese, many Catholic priests still visited them, accepted their confessions, and accompanied them to the execution ground.

The records of English dioceses contain numerous instances of Gypsies having their funerals in churches. It can be traced back to 1533 when a gypsy was buried in a church and his relatives paid a fee of 9 shillings, which was expensive at the time, requiring only a few pennies to be buried in the cemetery. Some funerals were solemn, and in 1740, the funeral procession was carried out at the funeral of the wife of a Gypsy chief, and the priest prayed for her.

In addition, Gypsies from different countries, regions, and professions also have their own different religious practices. In some parts of the UK, many Gypsies are devout and attend some daily religious activities on time. On Sundays, members of these families come to church dressed neatly for Mass, but their presence does not always seem to be welcomed by other devout believers. They pointed their fingers and said, "Look! Gypsies! They're coming. Church deacons and the public are also rarely willing to arrange proper places for these "outsiders."

In Transylvania, a traveler recorded the practice of fasting among the Gypsies. They fast at least on the last days of Lent and on the eve of Christmas, the Ascension to the Blessed Mother.

The English traveler Sven Bunny said of the Spanish Gybs at the end of the 18th century: "Although they tried to adapt to Catholic rites, they were always regarded as non-believers." "He came into contact with some Gypsies, who assured him that they were devout Catholics, and he also saw for himself the holy plaques sewn into the sleeves of the sleeves of the Gypsy women.

A man named Nikolai. The Ventura authoress, in her book Political Treasures, writes of the Gypsies in Greece and Dalmatia (in present-day Yugoslavia): "In these places they lived as Christians, neither stealing nor cheating, and I noticed that some of them were always particularly polite and obedient to the clergy." ”

The attitude of the Church towards the Gypsies

Although the Church guarantees the right of the Catholic to be blessed, the Catholic laity, seminary, clergy and clergy of other denominations, as well as lay people of all denominations, are not always interested in the religious piety of the Gypsies.

The Greeks called the Gypsies pagans, while the Christians of Western Europe called the Gypsies Saracens since they appeared in Europe. In Germany, Alsace (present-day France), and the Netherlands, they were given the name "Haitun", meaning pagan or new convert.

The legend of the cursed gypsies has always been passed down among the people of various European countries. They are said to be descendants of some evil gods in the Bible, such as Kaino, Kus, Kam, etc. Ventura, after confirming the Catholicism of the Gypsies, wrote: "They were cursed and it is said that the descendants of the Gypsies came to this fate because they refused to flee to Egypt and took home with the Virgin Mary of Jesus." There is no fixed address, wandering the ends of the earth. Others say that their descendants were not at peace because they served the tyrant King Elodes in the biblical story and participated in the massacre of the Holy Child.

Many scholars (both clergy and lay people) say that the Gypsies had no faith at all, or that they all converted to different religions. At the end of the 18th century, according to the German Chinese linguist Glermann, "No gypsy will submit to the smallest doctrines of religion, and it is as easy to change their religion in any village as it is to change one's clothes." ”

Some of the more radical theorists in Spain, represented by Sancho de Moncada, a Bible professor at the University of Toledo, wrote in 1619: "Pious believers that they (the Gypsies) are like the pagans, and that many of them are non-Christians, fanatical worshippers, and atheists, who have no real faith, and who, although ostensibly converted to the local religion, are Turks or elephants, Jews or elephant Jews, and sometimes have their children baptized in churches." In fact, it's just a matter of following the locals. And this happens only occasionally, they do not often attend the sacraments and do not go to Mass. In his view, the Gypsies should be condemned like the Jews.

The Swedish Protestant Church was openly hostile to the Gypsies in the 16th century. Peter repented of his priesthood in this way: "No priest had to serve the Tatars, neither baptizing their children nor praying for their funerals. It is true that many priests follow the teachings of this bishop and refuse to bless the Gypsies. Even when a priest baptized a gypsy baby, he was killed by Laurendius. Peter's reprimand. He said: "Baptize the children of the Gypsies; It's like taking pearls and feeding them to pigs. This shows that the Church's deliberate and discriminatory treatment of the Roma is no less than that of the general population.

On the contrary, there are those who try to change the non-conformist side of the Gypsies. In the middle of the 17th century, a wealthy man named Caspard de Simiane from a prominent family in Provence tried to preach among the Gypsies. There is a prison in Maasai where many Roma are housed, and women with strong family care and who are very loyal to their husbands have taken their children to the neighborhood to form a makeshift camp. Caspard asks Sante. Father Acostino preached three times a week to these Gypsy women. He rented a house for them and let them live together. This move to convert the faith of the Gypsy women cost 2,000 lira per month. But the community could not be maintained, and the customs of freedom and wandering called to them, and after the death of the founder, the common rest also died.

Some church leaders also had attempts to convert and convert the Gypsy faith, and for those foreigners who had not yet converted to Christianity, they did a lot of propaganda and mobilization, but they did not necessarily achieve satisfactory results. In Dresden, Germany, in 1711, a Protestant priest visited seven imprisoned women in prison and explained Christian doctrine to them, but they were deeply saddened by the injustices they had suffered, the hardships and sufferings of life, and the loss of faith in the future, so they refused the priest's request, answering him that God's repentance was too old and that they would rather live in the traditional way. A well-known Spanish missionary, Father Catala Juda, also made extensive propaganda about the Gypsies who stayed in the Triana region in 1756, but the result was the same, these Gypsies did not pay homage to God.

Some countries have also used drastic measures to convert the Roma to Christianity. The German Emperor Jussepy II (r. 1765-1790) ordered compulsory education for Gypsies. The Gypsies had to send their children to school, and they had to attend regular school Mass and religious festivals. A number of countries have followed suit. More than a decade later, perhaps wishing to understand the effects of such coercive measures, a female philanthropist asked some Hungarian Gypsy women about religion, and although they had been forced to convert to Catholicism by violence, they knew nothing about the doctrine. Although they believe in the existence of God, they fear God rather than love Him. They said, "God will kill us." ”

At the same time as forced naturalization, the churches in many countries did not give up on doing the work of the Gypsies. In 1828 the German Protestant organization was working in the Gypsy ghetto in Friedrichshafen, and when it didn't work, it tried to educate Gypsy children and get them to leave their families. The same happened in 1850, when some Hungarian priests tried to Catholicize the Gypsies. Bishop Sotemar created a Catholic madrasa for Gypsy children. This practice of leaving Roma children to be educated apart from their parents is inappropriate for Roma people who have a strong sense of family and care to preserve their national traditions and are loyal to their families, and often cause psychological resentment and sequelae. When I visited Switzerland at the end of 1988, I learned that a similar situation had happened in Switzerland, where a "land children movement" launched by Nazi-leaning people began in the twenties of this century, forcing Gypsy children to be separated from their parents in order to settle this generation. The campaign separated countless Gypsy children and their parents, and it was not until now that 1974 that the movement ended. In recent years, the Swiss "Roma UNICEF" has demanded that the Swiss government make a public apology and that those who have been separated be identified through a thorough investigation, as well as the necessary compensation. This is something that many people in Switzerland know about, and they also feel that it is very undeserved, and they are sorry for the lost Gypsies.

Gypsies were welcomed when they first arrived in Europe because of their simple feelings and naïve beliefs. When they spread throughout Christendom, the situation changed, and different lifestyles and beliefs were difficult for local Christians to accept. When prejudices are formed, their situation becomes even more difficult.

Sometimes religious feelings can also accept them, but only temporarily. During the Christmas solstice (January 6), these mystical Orientals can find their place in the place of celebration, and xenophobia disappears into the festive atmosphere. In the model of the nativity placed in Italian churches, you can always find the devotion of the gypsy girl to the Virgin Mary - a haystack by the manger.

There are various legends about this allusion, and there are many narratives circulating in Italy about the Gypsy girl encountering the Virgin Mary by chance, especially in the form of folk songs. The famous poem "The Gypsy" appeared in the 16th-17th centuries. The following is an excerpt from a conversation about the Virgin Mary who fled to Egypt with Jesus in the company of Jozhai and met a gypsy girl by chance:

Gypsy Girl:

God will save you, beautiful lady

I'm sure you have some misfortune

You're looking for accommodation

I hope you don't miss the opportunity

So the gypsy girl provided them with a place to rest, in the donkey shed

Overnight on a haystack. Then she proposes to tell fortunes for exhausted passers-by. He uses 30 lines of poetry

The structure narrates the past and future of the Virgin Mary and speaks to the future of the child

Shocking words, it is predicted that he will be baptized, caressed, and will be scourged, most

He died on the cross. She said:

This adorable child

You will see him go before you

Die on a solid cross

Beautiful child, gentle child

She told Mary to be the mother of sinners:

You will get unlimited honors

to make us the envy of sinners

Finally, she asked for almsgiving:

I didn't bother you

I know what to do, beautiful lady

Give me some alms

Save me, poor gypsy girl

But instead of material alms, she asks for true repentance and eternity

Heng Life:

I made a sincere confession

Got your blessing

For my soul after death

Enter the Great Mouth of Heaven

It is clear that these early folklore were intended to educate the population. I want more Gypsies to convert to Christianity, use God's ideas to guide their behavior, and bring their values into the orbit of Western society. In another ballad, the Gypsies recognize the Virgin Mary as better knowing the past and the future than they do:

Madame, for the fate of man

We are good at speculation and divination

But I tell you sincerely

You know better than we know