GYPSY LIVES MATTER
Rex Burress
In a time when many races of people are seeking recognition, Gypsies in America, also the Sikh communities, and the Amish, have quietly endured, although long subjected to repression.
I am especially referring to Gypsies, also called Travelers, or Roma and Romani. The swarthy ethic group from India provinces, including Austria, Hungary, and Romania sites, have been wandering longer than Moses in the desert. Gypsies left India 1000 years ago, and were rather disdained in other European countries because they were considered Egyptians from where came the common name “Gypsy.” They rowed for early European Settlers in America in the 1400's; Escaped slavery in 19th Century Romania; Fled Nazi gas chambers, and today there are about one million in the United States.
Most wildlife, like Gypsies, tend to move about to different locations. Some make long migrations, as we know in the case of waterfowl, flycatchers, and especially the Arctic Tern that travels an unimaginable distance each year and is considered the king of migratory species.
The tiny terns, once called “sea swallows” due to their graceful dashing flight style, are known to fly up to 44, 000 miles round trip per year in a journey from Arctic to Antarctic, experiencing two summers in a weaving route and stopping to nest every three years. In their 30 year life span, they might cover 1.5 million miles—a distance equivalent from Earth to the Moon over three times!
I merely touch on the vast story of migration, even though now in November the vast migratory snow goose and waterfowl migration is at full swing in the Sacramento Valley as they seek warm marshes for the winter. My intention is to talk about nomadic human races as being among the restless life on Earth. It seems everyone is going someplace, whether via short auto trips or long plane rides or by bicycle, or foot, or covered wagon—or wings if you have them! It has been so since the Cave Man moved around in search of game, and the wild animal was forced to move during the fluctuations of glaciers during the ice age.
Gypsies are peaceful, mild people with a strong sense of family, community, and preserving their Romani language, traits, and unique customs. The women are known for being highly decorative with long flamboyant dresses [ Said to be because they consider the lower body impure, and sometimes lift their dresses in front of a man to shame him!]. The women are also known as fortune tellers.
Gypsies are now established near several big cities as that is where they can sell their carpentry/building skills, and no longer travel around the country in wagons. In MO, there are groups at Rolla, Springfield, and St. Louis, leftover from a time when their wagons were common on roadways.
All of this theme came about because of a discussion about a roaming bandit killing a neighbor of ours in1935 that made the Grundy County Missouri community leery about hobos, tramps, and gypsies. It was the Depression Era and a lot of people were on the road, but Gypsies were rather adapted to the nomadic life, often moving in a caravan of covered wagons, rather self-sustained.
When living on the Dunlap Corner farm east of town on highway 6, we would see them driving down the roadway, and they would stop at our place. Kids would romp along the roadsides, and the women would carry buckets, crossing the fields, to reach our well for water. We were “marked!” I was about six, and utterly taken by the colorful people. The folks allowed them access for water, and they never asked for anything else, but Mother gave them apples. The magnificent women with dark eyes and long dark hair, decorated with fancy jewelry, kindly took to me, making over “the cute little boy,” and gave me trinkets. I was shocked to see them lift those heavy cream cans of water to the top of their heads and go marching back to the wagons! It was a sight to behold—half a dozen flamboyant women walking across the cow pasture, with shiny, three-gallon cream cans balanced on their heads!
Thus was a page of the past. We rather looked forward to their coming as they were joyous and uplifting to us in our anchored farm life. As so often shown, you can't tell what a person is by their outward appearance. That's unfortunate in some cases, like a criminal, but most people of any race are good, and how good the world would be if there was even more trust and friendship.
“It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.--Franz Liszt