Here the term gypsy and the feature of a scarved prosperity telle

1. Here the term Gypsy and the feature of a scarved
prosperity-teller probably comes into your mind. Or you can
think of a cord of travelling musicians and dancers in brilliant
decorated wagons. The reality concerning gypsies is actually
more complicated than a few old-fashioned stereotypes. Since
Gypsies, which is also termed as Roma, have been oppressed in
the entire world as much as they exist, they do not usually trust
outsiders and also they have not shared much of their history.
But nowadays, more Gypsies are talking so the entire world can
understand and accept their culture. TV shows such as “My Big
Gypsy Wedding” as well aim at making us aware of their
contemporary lives.
Many persons trust gypsies initially came from Romania,
of may be from Hungary. Not so. Research indicates that ethnic
gypsies originate from a group of various military people who
assembled centuries ago in the region of Punjab of Northern
India to fight those invaded Muslim. With time, the aimed
northwest to Persia and Armenia, then they also drifted to
Balkan Peninsula, where they adopted Serbian and Romanian
terminologies and phrases into their language.
At last, they branched into smaller groups and dispersed
throughout Europe and Northern Africa, where many sub-groups
developed. This subsets included the Romnichals in England,
the Ludar in Romania, and the Rom in Eastern Europe and the
black Dutch in German. Other groups also existed in former
Soviet Union as well as Hungary. In present time, there are
Gypsies exists throughout the world.
When the Gypsies started to migrate, other people from
other continents did not welcome them because they had
different speech and looks compared to other people and they
were always mistreated or even physically harassed. The
contributed to them moving from one place to another.
Over many years, Gypsies had a tendency to at jobs which
they could perform without support, the occupations which

2. needed little overhead, that which addressed to people
everywhere and the ones which were not negatively impaired by
repeated travel. Some of this occupations included
woodworking, metalworking, horse trading and carpentry.
Frequently, occupations were linked to a sect. Many of the
Ludar people were animal trainers as well as show people, while
majority of Rom participated in fortune telling, Gypsies
worldwide are recognized for their singing, dancing, and
musical skills, they were certified with making flamenco in
Spain while several Gypsies from Hungarian are musicians.
The gypsies traditional occupations changed as time
changed. Horse traders changed to car dealers as well as
repairmen. Metal workers started dealing with watches and
jewelry. The Kalderash clan members who served as
coppersmiths now deal with scrap metal business.
Ethnic qypsies have a very powerful taboo systems. They
basically considered the upper part of the body as pure and the
lower part consisting of feet and genitalia as contaminated. If
one polluted himself or herself was to be banished for a year of
even be excommunicated from the community.
Practically, it meant that, if a gypsy touches the lower half
of his body, he had to clean his hands. And everything which
touched by the feet was considered perpetually unclean or
contaminated. Therefore, there was nothing like three second
rule if one drops food on the floor. And so one could not even
bother about washing his underclothes.
When it comes to taboo situations, young children and
elderly people where allowed some leniency but they were
strictly applied on adults especially the married ones. Just like
in other traditional customs, gypsy women after giving birth
were seen as totally unclean and also the child born and
therefore both are temporally isolated from the entire family.
Gypsies have a powerful family as well as community
focus. The never allow their children to learn foreign ways of
life, that is non-gypsy ways or become contaminated from
associating with non-gypsies. In history, the Gypsies were only

3. watched by friends or relatives either through babysitting of da y
care. The kids were only allowed to attend public schools up to
the age of 10 or 11 years. Most of their educations then mostly
came from home or the community.
Gypsy women are not different from other women in
traditional cultures, they serve their men obey the in general but
they have some authority and social trading. They were
accredited for their ability to make money for one thing. The
main source of income was fortune tellers and is made of
women, therefore the husbands performs as support staff. And
women can contaminate a man through many actions which can
result to him from being expelled from the community.
Family is very superior to Gypsies. Those who still have a
nomadic life tend to travel as an extended family alongside
other similar groups. Although their family many times have
their own homes, they are still in frequent contact with other
people, generally because then extended family serves together
as economic unit.
Marriages usually arranged by the parents. Many couples
marry in the teen age and then join the family business. New
couples only live with the family of the husband for the first
one to two years or to when the first child is born. Most of the
families have three to four kids. The kids are part of family
conversations and pans as they are expected to learn and
emulate their elders.
During major events such as weddings or funeral all family
members gather in large numbers, sometimes hundreds or
thousands.
Will we ever actually understand the Gypsies? They have
evidenced their flexibility through years of persecution and
several are proud because they never lost their strong cultural
identity by absorbing into any of the countries they reside in
now. Maybe, the response lies within a crystal ball believed by
Gypsy of course.

4. To define the individual of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller
communities can be can be a very difficult task. The reasons
behind this are, Roma, Gypsy and Travellers are exogenous
groups, the identity of these three communities is always an
imposed aspect informed by the fantasy and stereotypes of by
the settled population. The title Gypsy, Roma and Travellers is
a general title used to illustrate a large diversity of cultural and
ethnic groups. Many ways can be used to fix ethnicity. This
ways include, Language they use, self-identification, itinerate
way of life and crucially. To define an individual as a Roma,
Gypsy and Traveler is a concern of self-recognition and it also
include the ones living in the homes. If the community members
are settled in houses, the ethnic identity is not lost but it
persists and conforms to the ways of life.
Through this article, the schools can acquire a brief
background to the culture and history of all these three groups.
On the other hand, whereas it is good to know the background,
history as well as culture of Roma, Gypsy and Travelers people
in order acknowledge who the really the pupil are, it is more
simple to define them by only this information. The identity of
all pupil is established on experiences and expansive range of
influence which may change from the settled population as well
as from other people in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller
communities.
These three communities, Roma, Gypsy and Traveller
generic term, covers a number of different groups of people.
These groups include, English and Welsh Gypsies, Scottish and
Irish Travellers, Fairground people that (showmen) and circus
people, bargees, the occupational boat dwellers and New
Travellers. Majority of these communities have a tendency of
travelling style of living, despite the fact that, their history and
customs change from one community to another. The title,
Gypsy, Roma and Travellers is accepted by most members of
these groups though most English Gypsies opt to be called
Gypsies. On the other hand, the term Gypsy can be anticipated

5. as a negative undertone and is not accepted by some people.
This is similar case with Eastern and Central Europe
communities and Roma is the general term which is preferred to
define the people in both areas. Fairground people who pr efer
the term showmen have a different customary history that can
be drawn back middle ages during the time royal chatters were
given for fairs and before then, the Roman trade gathering
times.
Circus people have their independent established
movements of travel and they are very proud of the history of
their family connected with the traditional skills of the ‘Big-
top’. Circuses is likely to be owned by a particular family who
may employ a number of acts, and they may poses a different
international backgrounds.
The term Bargee is used more accordingly in Europe
specifically in Netherlands, where doing a job in canals is
considered as an industry. In the UK, a few number of people
settled on the waterways exist. These people call themselves
bargees although they prefer to be called boat dwellers. This is
good evidence that, there exist a small number of families
dwelling on sea-going coastal boats which travel during summer
times between the small harbors and ports.
A great percentage of the whole population of the Gypsy,
Roma and Traveller people live in houses. By living in the
houses, they do not default their ethnicity when they start living
in houses. Other people live on local authority or in caravan
sites which are owned by private individuals and others live in
their own plots of land. Roughly a fifth of Gypsy, Roma and
Traveller population who do not live in houses lack secure place
to live and they move between illegal encampments.
History of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
It is not easy to fully understand the current situation of Gypsy,
Roma and Traveller communities without the knowledge of the
history of these three groups. The Roma, Gypsy and Traveller
communities have suffered social exclusion, marginalization as
well as genocides in some cases for five centuries. A recent

6. analysis has shown that Roma, Gypsies and travelers are victims
of the great number of discriminations and are the largest
minority ethnicity group without a state in Europe. The
background of this social and racial divide can be viewed back
to the sixteenth century where communal attitudes in relation to
the behavior of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers altered from
compassion to mistrust and animosity. This is to great extend
attributed to the reality that their healing practices and their
telling of fortune was seen as an contrast to the church
teachings which was becoming more dictatorial in responding to
the threats of well-known uprising. In this situation of political,
social and religious state of constant change, the Roma, Gypsy
and Traveller communities become the very most target for
racism as well as entire prejudice of the communities and their
way of life was at same position by the end of the sixteenth
century.
The repercussions of this historic and communal divide are
still present today. While these three groups, Gypsy, Roma and
Traveller communities are comprehended within educational
policy, practice on the ground can as well cause discriminatory
results.
An Animated History of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers
Ten to twelve million Roma and Travellers people live in
Europe. Despite Europe being a home to Roma and Travellers ,
many Europeans are not able to answer a simple question like
who are the Roma. Not only that the Europeans cannot answer
who the Roma are, many cannot answer a question related to
their history. It is a difficult and highly competed narrative,
may be because the Roma are homogenous or single group of
people. They include a large variety which include,
Romanichals in England, Kale’ in Wales and Finland, Travellers
who are not Romans in Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Norway;
Manouche from France; Gitano from Spain; Sinti from German,

7. Poland, Austia, Croatia, Domari from Palestine and Egypt;
Romanlar from Turkey, Lom from Armenia and several others.
It is also partly because many of these groups do not share their
history or ethnogenesis. Their origins have different
naratives.Each group has a different history from the other.
The Roma follow different faiths, which include
Catholic Manouche, Pentecostal, Muslim Ashkali and Romanlar,
Mercheros and sinti, Kalderash and Lovari the protestant
travelers, Andlcan Gypsies and Baptist Roma. There are
differences in exercises pertaining birth marriage and death but
they are also connected cultures that show subtle but different
patterns or, as a Roma gospel preacher once explained it as
“Many stars scattered in the sight of God.” Otherwise different
groups of Roma share much as far as their behavior is
concerned. Roma have a similar terminology in different accent
of Rromanes, The language of Romani. There are common
conception concerning the cleanliness customs and behavior
about what is Rromano and what can be viewed as part of
Rromanipe or the ‘Romani world view’.
These Roma groups as well have common occupations,
their traditions of nomadic and migrant economics that make
use of niche markets, which include trading several livestock
such as dogs, horse and small birds as well as peddling. Roma
craftsmen have also made their upkeep from repairing i tems
considered noneconomic to med such as tea-pots, pocket
watches and porcelain dishes. They are the starters of what is
now called circular economy. Many Gypsies, Roma and
Travellers are involved in recycling have done this for many
years, long before major environmental interests. They are also
herbalist and healers for the people in the country.
The ability to move of Romans has been an essential part
of identity. They have not only been engaged in wagons and
horses but also Romans have been dealing in agriculture, craft
skills, automobiles trading, roofing as well as road repair.
Their economy also consisted of metal work of all kinds. It also
consisted of craft production which included making basket and

8. bamboo furniture, carving and decorating wagons, making
knives’ handles and fair ground signs. Many names given to
groups arise from accusations, basket-makers are referred to as
Spetciler which is Turkish word for woven basket and it depicts
commercial skills that was used as a cornerstone for
establishing taxable communities in the past. Divergence, in and
amongst Roma groups originated in occupational identity as
much as other cultural differences.
The Roma and Open Society
What makes the communities in this rich diversity bonded
or united? The perception of common heritage exclusion exactly
leads to the feeling of shared pasts, the idea of always being the
outsider or the other. They also have other links in languages,
the relevant words such as luck, greetings, blessings, road,
water and farewell may be common in the Rromanes accent.
Terms for horses, tools numbers and more others are sometimes
more similar in many cases that a Roman cad “exchange “ them
with another a fair game in several communities, as language is
very important to our past in its center and “loan terms”
collected overtime and migration ways. Language experts have
recognized these commonalty and drawn from this heritage to
brighten this common past and culture.
The idea of the historical journey, the story of “the long
road of the Roma” more than 1000 years after leaving the land
of India, is also very powerful in several Roma groups as an
element of identity with good testimonial to aback this. Just as
not all Italians are originated from Romans and Etruscans, the
same way all Roman groups are not direct descendants of
Hindus from Punjab or Ganges basin. Nevertheless, the issue of
the “imagined community” is not that it is actually made up
story, instead it is symbolically meaningful and has a reason in
connecting individuals around similar ideas of origin and
belonging to what can broadly be subscribed. The Roma people,
in this aspect are people like any other, scattered across several
lands and domain over a certain period and circumstance.
The notable idea is that, unlike other groups of people in

9. this article, we have one priesthood, there is no single holy
book, there is no promised land to back to and thus, we only
under go and survive, and survive, we really reside in the world.
The urge is to go far from this and to embellish to acquire the
kind of capability that the creative genius of our existence until
now clearly proposes that we can attain.