It is estimated that over thirty thousand Gypsies (or Romani, or Roma, as some prefer to be known) live in diaspora throughout the world, loosely linked by language and customs, by music, dance and story. Despite the deep suspicion with which the Gypsies have too often been regarded by non-Gypsy society, their contributions to the arts of music, dance and storytelling have long been widely acknowledged. The lore of the Gypsies, entwined with the folk tales and songs of each country in which they have settled, forms one of the most vibrant and magical oral traditions extant today. According to a Cale Gypsy story (related by Serafina of Gaudix), at the beginning of the world "God made the 'Busno' [a non-Gypsy] out of slime, then he made a woman out of the Busno's spare rib. Later on he found that the world was so dull with these two Busnos and their children that he said to himself, 'I must liven things up.' So one night, when the man was sleeping in his cave, God goes and takes a bit of his jawbone and in a twinkling of an eye he makes out of it a stiff and sturdy 'Calorro' [Gypsy], alive and kicking."
In England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, folk tale collectors found a treasure trove of old stories and folk ballads in the oral tradition of the Traveling People. Folksinger and scholar Ewan MacColl, for example, took a great interest in Gypsy lore in the middle of the 20th century, traveling around the British Isles with a tape recorder and a notebook, preserving stories and songs that were in danger of being lost forever as the Gypsy way of life was threatened by the forces of modernization.
Duncan Williamson, born in 1928, was the seventh child in a family of sixteen Scottish Traveler children. For many years, he has been one of the foremost tellers of barrie mooskins ("good stories" in the Anglo-Romani dialect). His wonderful Gypsy tales, with their distinctly Celtic flavor, have been collected in A Thorn in the King's Foot; The Broonie, Silkies and Fairies; and Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children. "On cold winter nights," he writes of his own childhood, "when early darkness enclosed the old travelers' camps, a father would turn round and take his children beside him. 'Listen children, sit down and be quiet -- I'll tell you a story.' My father knew he was going to tell us something that was going to stand us through our entire life. Probably he had no tobacco for a smoke; probably we didn't have a bite of meat to eat, we had no supper. But we sat there listening to our father telling us a story and we were full. He was teaching us to be able to understand what was in store for us in the future, telling us how to live in the world as natural human beings -- not to be greedy, not to be foolish, daft, or selfish -- by his stories."
But what about Gypsy literature today? Colum McCann addresses this subject in his article for Salon.com, "Destination: Gypsy Europe." (If you're not a Salon subscriber, you can get a day pass to the site by watching a short ad.) "Given a rich language, and narrative abilities so easily apparent in song," McCann writes, "it would seem that a literature by the Gypsies, or even one of the Gypsies, should be more prominent and varied than it is. But the Romani culture is not exactly an easy one to penetrate. Scholarly works are still thin on the ground. Great novels are few and far between. Poems are sporadic and untranslated. And there is another kind of silence too -- the Gypsy as cliché, clicking her fingers, throwing back her hair, jangling her bracelets, fingering your wallet, breaking the hearts of fearless men." Despite these caveats, McCann goes on to recommend a number of good books by international Gypsy writers such as Ilona Lakova, Bronislawa Wajs, Louise Doughty, and Margriet de Moor -- and the excellent PEN anthology The Roads of the Roma, edited by Ian Hancock, Siobhan Dowd, and Rajko Djuric. (The book is part of PEN's "Threatened Literature" series.)
For more on Gypsy folklore and history, try "The Road That Has No End: Tales of the Traveling People," an article in the Endicott archives. Further information can be found on the Gypsy Lore Society, Rroma.org, Romany and Traveler Family History Society, The Scottish Gypsies, and Flamenco Gypsy websites. Three not-to-miss books are Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey by Isabel Fonseca,
And if you've a hankering for a little music, consider the Irish and Celtic Music Podcasts, a free bi-monthly downloadable radio program of Independent Irish and Celtic music. The program consists of "Irish drinking songs, Scottish folk songs, bagpipes, music from
Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, Wales, Nova Scotia, Galacia, Australia and
the United States. Hosted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards." Get out your i-pod and fill it up -- there's tons of great stuff here.
