國立中山大學 National Sun Yat-Sen University Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Doctoral Dissertation
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國立中山大學 National Sun Yat-sen University Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Doctoral Dissertation
The Evolving Gypsy Image and the Romani People
in the Western Imagination
Christopher James O’Brien ( 歐書華)
Advisor: Professor Rudolphus Teeuwen
June 2007
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I wish to thank my advisor, Dr. Rudolphus Teeuwen, for his constant support and encouragement during this long and—for both of us—unprecedented process of researching and writing such an unusual dissertation. I want to also thank Dr.
Shu-Fang Lai, during whose class on Victorian fiction I first was encouraged to learn about
Gypsy fortune-tellers in fiction. The other members of my Dissertation Committee have all been most kind and helpful, as well, and their insights proved very valuable and appreciated.
Thanks, too, to Rosa and the other kind members of the Foreign Languages Department at
NSYSU.
My family members, on both sides of the ocean, have all been extremely patient and helpful as well. I want to thank my parents in particular for sending me key books that were practically unavailable in Taiwan. My beloved wife Amy and my precious daughters
Coral and Éowyn provided me with the quiet time for privacy my mind needed, as well as the daily love and hugs that my heart required. Without these blessings from above, I could never have even reached a full draft of this project.
All of the writers and artists whose works I have studied have helped me to grow as a writer and to mature intellectually, and I am duly grateful.
I wish to dedicate this dissertation to those of the Romani and gad źé community who
are trying to help the world to respect the dignity and heritage of the honorable and
well-intentioned members of the Romani people, and I hope that what I have learned will
help them in some way to achieve their goals and mine.
I have two in mind in particular. First, I strongly hope that our shared goal—that the
Western world may soon be able to distinguish between the Romanies and the false Gypsy
image, and to cherish them both as they truly are—will be achieved in my own lifetime. And
second, I hope that that the Romanies may be able to find peace and hope in their hoped-for
future roles as equal members of the world community of ethnicities, retaining their sense of self identity but recognizing that all of those members, including themselves, are part of a family of interdependent humans, among whom each member is seen as valued and appreciated.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF FIGURES ...... VIII
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY ...... IX
CHAPTER 1 . THE IMAGINARY “GYPSY” ...... 1
PURPOSES OF THE STUDY ...... 6
THE IMAGINARY GYPSY ...... 12
Essential Attributes of the Stereotypical Gypsy Image...... 17
The Romanies on Paper: The Representers and their Orientations...... 19
Playing With the Image: The Stereotype as a Creative Device...... 21
The Gypsy as the Other: Romanies Punished for Projected Crimes...... 24
THE BIRTH OF A STEREOTYPE ...... 27
Phase One: The Mysterious Early History of the Romanies...... 27
Phase Two: The Grand Entrance, 1417: The Roma’s First Impression on Western Europe ...... 33
Phase Three: From First Impression to Stereotype: Specific Traits of Gypsies Established by 1500...... 39
Notes ...... 43
CHAPTER 2. THE GYPSY FIGURE IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE 1521-1653 ...... 44
THE REBIRTH OF THE GYPSY IMAGE : THE CHARACTER UNDER NEW DIRECTION ...... 44
LITERARY GYPSY FIGURES IN THE 1500 S ...... 45
The Gypsy Wanders on Stage: Three Sixteenth Century Dramas...... 45
Farsa das Ciganas (1521), by Gil Vicente ...... 46
Misogonus (ca. 1560), Anonymous...... 47
Promos and Cassandra (1578), by George Whetstone...... 48
Elements of the Gypsy Image as Manifested on the Sixteenth-Century Stage...... 50
THE GALAPAGOS OF GENIUS : SHAKESPEARE AND CERVANTES , AHEAD OF THEIR TIME ...... 57
Gypsy References in Shakespeare...... 58
Romeo and Juliet (1595)...... 60
Antony and Cleopatra (1607)...... 62
The Disremembered Archetype: Los Gitános in “La Gitanilla” ...... 65
THE REFINEMENT OF THE STANDARD GYPSY IMAGE : THREE JACOBEAN PLAYS ...... 86
Influx and Influences...... 86
The Jacobean Scripts ...... 88
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More Dissemblers Besides Women (1615), by Thomas Middleton...... 88
The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621), by Ben Jonson ...... 89
The Spanish Gipsie (1623), by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley ...... 92 The Image as Established in the Early Seventeenth Century: The First Plateau...... 93
Notes ...... 96
CHAPTER 3. GEORGE BORROW’S REVIVAL OF THE GYPSY IMAGE IN THE 1800S...... 98
MARKING TIME : THE GYPSY IMAGE IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES ...... 101
Routine Persecution; Romany Tenacity ...... 101
The Literary Gypsy in Stasis ...... 106
Continuity and Adaptation in Portrayals of Gypsies ...... 107
THE GYPSY IMAGE : STIRRINGS OF CHANGE ...... 110
An Artistic Split in the Gypsy Image: 1807-1834...... 113
The Gypsy as Metaphor ...... 114
Upholding the Status Quo ...... 117 Continuations of the Enlightenment-Era Gypsy Figures in the Middle and Late 1800s...... 119
GEORGE HENRY BORROW’S ROLE IN THE REVISION OF THE GYPSY IMAGE , 1841-1874 ...... 125
Borrow’s Update of the Traditional Gypsy Image: Examination and Evaluation...... 129
Forging Links Between “La Gitanilla” and Borrow’s Experience of Spain’s Romanies ...... 133 Borrow’s Accounts of the Romanies: Reliability Issues and their Effect on the Image ...... 137
Correcting Stereotypes; Reinforcing Stereotypes: Borrow’s Gypsy Generalities ...... 145
Internal Inconsistencies in Borrow’s Writing ...... 147
Borrow and the Synecdochic Fallacy: Spain ...... 149
Borrow and the Synecdochic Fallacy: England and Elsewhere ...... 151 Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image: Intention and Effects...... 157
AFTER BORROW: EFFECTS , THE UNAFFECTED , AND THE AFFECTATIONS ...... 160
Borrow-aware Fiction...... 162
The Gypsiologists and their Paradoxical Effects on the Gypsy Image ...... 164
Fresh Forging Supplanted by Forgery...... 167
Notes ...... 171
CHAPTER 4 . THE GYPSY IMAGE AFTER BORROW...... 175
BORROW, THE RAIS , AND THE DEATH OF GYPSY MYSTIQUE ...... 175
THE OBLIVIOUS : CARAVAN TO THE PRESENT DAY ...... 181
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THE SOCIAL SITUATION OF THE MODERN ROMA ...... 184
The Roma and their Rights in the Twenty-First Century ...... 184
Romany Othering: a Reciprocally Negative Stereotype...... 188
Playing Into and Playing Against the Gypsy Image: Public Relations and Ambivalence...... 197
Gypsy Crime Task Forces, Crime Reporters, and their Victims ...... 199
The Gypsy and the Tactics of Romani Rights Activism in America: Evaluation...... 215
LEARNING FROM HISTORY : FORETELLING THE FINAL SPLIT OF THE GYPSY /R OMANI IMAGE ...... 217
Persuasive Entertainment that Effaces the Gypsy-Romany Conflation ...... 226
A United Romany Professional and Political Organization: “The Character of a Nationality” ...... 229
Romani Pride, Reloaded ...... 232
CONCLUSION ...... 233
Notes ...... 237
WORKS CITED ...... 239
APPENDIX : VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE GYPSY IMAGE , 1417-PRESENT ...... 248
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Table of Figures
Fig. 1. Still from Fox Corporation’s Rascals (1938)……………………………………….25
Fig. 2. “The Fortune Teller.” Georges de La Tour, c. 1632…………………………………26
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A Note on Terminology
There are many more formal or proper words in use to describe the Romanies, the
cultural concepts they commonly hold, and their fictive counterparts, the Gypsies. I have
decided to standardize my terminology in order to reduce confusion and discrepancy, selecting
specific terms from various authoritative writers. The name of Gypsy has been used so
recklessly by everyone from the members of the Gypsy Lore Society (whose interests
comprehend the Irish Travelers, the Romanies, and, seemingly, anyone who wanders around)
and American criminologists to the Romanies themselves, the English-speaking members of
which seem to prefer the term—as well as other, more metaphorical gypsies who have no
heritage from any culturally-established wandering group who apply the term to themselves.
This is, in my mind, a suitable reason to avoid calling any real person a Gypsy in this
dissertation: the term has so many disparate meanings and referents that an isolated quotation
from my dissertation might well be used by another researcher to appear to mean something
quite different from what I intended. As Hancock frequently urges his readers to do (for example, in the Introduction to The Heroic Present , note 24), I capitalize the G in Gypsy when it is used in relation to the Romanies’ stereotype, and when referring to the non-Romanies’ image of them, to suggest that the non-Romanies mistook the Romani people they met for their fictitious image and failed to discern the real people behind that image. However, recognizing that the word is often carelessly applied to other groups with similar traits or lifestyles, as well as being used as an even looser metaphor for behavior or attitudes related to the Gypsy image, I write the word with a small initial letter when the term does not refer to actual Romany ethnicity or culture: a behavioral or metaphoric definition, rather than a cultural or ethnic one. However, it is worth noting that—at least in some parts of the world—most
Romanies still refer to their own group as the Gypsies when talking to non-Romanies
(Wesolowsky 12), even though many consider the word offensive when used by outsiders
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(Turner 69).1
When referring specifically to the Romanies, though, I avoid using such metonymic
and exonymic terms. The collective and plural name of the people I follow Borrow in calling
Romanies , a term which Hancock also accepts in The Pariah Syndrome , and for variety I
substitute Fraser’s term the Roma, as well as Hancock’s collective the Romani people . I use
Borrow’s Romany as an adjective (also used by Fonseca and in Nord’s Gypsies and the British
Imagination as well indicated as acceptable as in Kanwar’s “Romani Law in America”), and
Rom and Romni , the singular forms for male and female married Romanies respectively
(Kanwar 1269). I have adopted Fonseca’s boria when referring to Romany women in the plural
(24). The spoken language, of whatever dialect or branch, I am calling Romani , after Fraser and
Kanwar; Hancock has also adopted this term in his various books and articles. This is a
simplification, though, as there are essentially as many different varieties of Romani as there
are distinct groups of users: a fact that leads Ian Hancock to work for the acceptance of a
standardized dialect that, though conforming to no single preexisting dialect in all respects,
might be learned by the world’s Romani people, or at least the literate ones, in order to allow
for international communication, and from there to global solidarity, of the world’s Romanies
(Hancock “Talking Back”).
The Roma often use a word of Romani to refer to non-Romany people, and I have
mostly adopted Fraser’s spellings for it and its various forms: gad źé for both the collective and plural forms, and gad źo for the singular masculine or general (8); since Fraser lists no
corresponding female form, I have adopted Fonseca’s gadji (12) for the singular feminine and
gadja for the feminine plural. Hancock’s gadjikane has been a useful adjectival form, as well
(“Talking Back”). The term gad źé, since it has never had a universally-agreed-upon written
form, has had an especially large number of variant spellings: Borrow, the first to make the
term well known, transcribed the word in the Romanization gorgio , which was apparently a
common-sense phonetic spelling; some writers still use it. 2 Readers should note that, as
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Hancock specifies in The Pariah Syndrome , the root word Rom , the Romani word for man , is
neither etymologically connected to the city of Rome, nor to the empire of the same name; it is
likewise not specifically related to the country now called Romania, though a large number of
Romanies have long lived there.
Notes
1 That the Romanies can call each other Gypsies, and that when one Rom declares that another is “not a Gypsy” it is considered a supreme insult (Shetler), but that a non-Romany calling any Romani person a Gypsy is considered offensive, is an idiosyncrasy with parallels among other groups in the United States. 2 Borrow seems to have indicated a lengthened vowel with his written, but unpronounced, R; this point has sometimes been overlooked by American speakers, for example by the voice actors in “The Guileless Gypsy” (see Chapter 4), who pronounce it with an American-style R sound, and a superimposed foreign accent.
xi Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
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Chapter 1 . The Imaginary “Gypsy” The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
This dissertation examines the interaction between the public mind and the creative mind that has influenced the curious lives of the Romani people, and the way that they have been perceived throughout their history among the settled people of the Western world: a period that has continued from the early fifteenth century until today, and will stretch forth into the future. Information about this interaction is primarily gleaned from written accounts: both contemporary documents of nonfiction, and entertaining works of creativity, from this period: mostly plays and novels. The Western Europeans’ basic image of the Romanies was, according to what evidence is available, emphatically established between 1417 and 1437, when the first significant influx of Romanies entered Western Europe. For the most part, the image was forged on purpose, as the Roma strove to make a positive impression on the residents there.
Following the Mediaeval establishment of the image, the two periods of greatest change and development of the stereotypical figure of the Gypsy, as the Romanies are usually called and thought of, are the European Renaissance and the Nineteenth Century.
During the period between 1417 and 1521, beginning with Western Europe’s first introduction to the Romanies and ending with the Romanies’ earliest introduction into Western literature, the travelers had certainly formed a strong impression on the settled Europeans they had encountered. Indeed, it appears as if the Romanies had been trying to make a sensational impression upon the Europeans, though the settled population received, almost certainly, a more ambivalent impression than the Romanies had planned to give; details of the image are discussed below. Official court records and personal journals included details about crimes they had committed and their outlandish costumes and behavior, as well as their pretended
1 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World nobles and royalty, and attest to the steady formation of the “Gypsy” image in the Western imagination—one based on personal encounters, but extrapolated from them to account for details that were mysterious.
By the end of this era, we can see how these extrapolations had created a more complete picture of Gypsy life and their secret occupations, including how their imaginary attributes were starting to gain cogency, by records of accusations that the Romanies had done evil, magical things like causing crops to fail and even eating White children (Fraser 195). The superstitious peasantry had grown to believe in their own slanderous claims to such an extent that unlucky Romanies died for crimes of which they were entirely innocent, and often even incapable. The evidence of these court records demonstrates the dangerous power of the imagination, and also how even eyewitness encounters cannot ensure accurate impressions on minds which have an erroneous, preconceived idea of the nature of the thing they encounter.
Then, beginning in the countries of the Iberian Peninsula and spreading from there, the image that had been established by personal encounters and gossip broke away from strict fact, in a motion I think of as the Gypsy image’s first Split: the first of several (see Appendix). The
Romanies continued much as they had, and were persecuted much as they had been before, but the stereotype started to be subjected to creative finesse. The Gypsies became mere characters, mostly independent of the human Romanies toiling about in the real world; the problem was, and is, that most members of the public did not realize that the characters they read about were not entirely the same as the real people they saw begging or telling fortunes. In this dissertation, I will try to show that, largely because these and other specific activities and attributes are characteristic of both the stereotype and the people, the Western Europeans of that time and even the general Western world of today tends to assume that the other characteristics of the Gypsy image are also true of the perceived “Gypsies.”
The resentment of robbery and mistrust of seemingly dangerous figures gave way to enjoyment as continental writers and other artists, and later also British ones, allowed
2 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World themselves to play creatively with the characters. Both on stage and in books, Gypsy figures played out the roles that consumers of this entertaining creativity—which over the centuries has included dramas, novels, poetry, television programs, movies, opera, and so on—never dared to in their daily lives; therefore, the diverting image was embraced by audience members as they vicariously imagined themselves reveling in unrestrained immorality and recklessness.
After the Renaissance, there followed a period of relative stereotypical equilibrium, and the Gypsy image was subjected to little scrutiny for around a century and a half. The intellectual pressures of the Enlightenment, though, stimulated many creative minds, and the
Gypsy figure was called back into the entertainers’ spotlight, serving whatever purpose the thinkers of the day had in mind for them. Generally speaking, the Gypsy became a straw man, helping writers to prove whatever point they were currently supporting. This enthusiasm for social and cultural thinking went on, and the various guises of the Gypsy—noble savage, sneaky dissembler, superstitious mystic, menacing sorcerer, or misunderstood minority—paraded through the creative works of the early nineteenth century.
All during this time, the general public of Europe and England’s provinces had only fleeting personal contact with actual Romanies; aside from having their fortunes read or being ripped off by the occasional waif, few had any actual long-term involvement with the wanderers, and fewer must have realized that their image of the Gypsy had drifted away from the truth; this condition—a general unawareness that fictional Gypsies are not like real
Romanies—still thrives today.
The middle period of the Victorian era, when the creative and social imaginations were brought perhaps more strongly than ever before into violent contact, saw this situation apparently change. George Henry Borrow was, as Fraser rightly states, the first publicly to challenge the romantic and inaccurate stereotypical depictions of creative artists that had developed since the days of Shakespeare; he personally “loved to associate with Gypsies, had mastered their tongue, and was able to convey something of their real nature in his writings.”
3 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
(197)—though carefully chosen word “something” in the quote is an important one (Hancock
“George Borrow’s Romani” 83), as Chapter 3 will show. The numbers of actual pioneers into
Romany camps were still low, but the time was right—in terms of social climate, cultural curiosity, and printing technology—for those steadfast researchers to make a deep impact upon the European mind, and therefore their publications, which stated the “truth” as they decided to present it, were received with enthusiasm. The “Ryes,” or Rais, those Whites who, inspired by the Gypsy-related writings of Borrow, and particularly by his last such book, The Romany Rye
(1857), became intimately acquainted with Romanies and their hidden lives, were seen as being rather like heroes. 3 They were actually a new strain of writer, half romantic and half scholar, and their works were, some say, of mixed value to later researchers because of the admixture of sensationalism along with the facts.
In my view, the single most influential portrayal of the Romanies and their lives was
the mostly-realistic treatment given by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in his novela “La
Gitanilla.” During the Renaissance, Cervantes’s works were popular with the public and the creative minds of the time, and many of his prose works were dramatized, including the story in question. However, more importantly, the most influential figure of the mid-nineteenth century, in terms of the Gypsy image, was George Henry Borrow, and as I see it, his unwritten subtext was this: “Because I alone of the gadjikane world have lived among the
Romanies, I alone am able to verify that the representation of the Gypsies and their culture in
‘La Gitanilla’ is essentially the truth.”
It is true that Borrow never made this statement explicitly; indeed, he must have known the story very well, as evidenced in many places throughout Borrow’s works regarding the Romanies, despite his scoffing and brief appraisal of the tale in Chapter 5 of
The Zincali . In effect, Borrow did not so much create a new Gypsy image as endorse and elaborate on Cervantes’s 1613 image. Due to his claims of being familiar with the Romanies of many lands, his assertions were persuasive and generally accepted by the segment of the
4 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Western world who read his works or their derivatives.
Most readers, however, had no way of judging the veracity of these publications. Even members of the Gypsy Lore Society, or GLS, which was formed in 1888 with Richard Burton,
Charles Leland, and other notables who are considered in Chapter 3, seem to have been relying, for their own writings, on secondhand information, or else their perceptions were compromised by the vividness of their imaginations. Many of the Gypsiologists’ writings were assumed by the public to be accurate: an assumption which was backed up by the high level of similarity between the various works that were appearing in the second half of the nineteenth century. Such is the power of the unexamined presupposition that most GLS members must hardly have suspected that this consistency of data came not from independent firsthand work, but more often because the writers had all nicked their data from Borrow.
Regardless, as Hancock has indicated, the oblivious public’s conception of the Gypsies seemed to have regained, to some extent, the relatively intimate contact with the Romanies that they had nearly lost during the Renaissance. Thereafter, literature regarding the Romanies could not go back to the genuine naivety that it had blissfully enjoyed before. Different writers responded in various ways to their loss of innocence, and readers could choose between flat denial of Borrow’s claims, abashed penance, scientific pomp, or more complex responses, as we will see in Chapter 3.
In the twentieth century, there have been relatively few works that feature Gypsy characters as important characters; more often, Gypsies are used as they were during the period between the Renaissance and 1800: as stock characters performing stereotypical tasks.
Even works that spotlight Romani people as characters tend to support the stereotype—regardless of whether the work of art has been created by Romanies or non-Romanies. Since the beginning of the 1900s, the trends of the Victorians have continued to extend and reinforce themselves. However, as hunger for social justice and equality mingled with thirst for wilder and wilder entertainment, and as entertainers became obsessed with
5 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World blurring the borders between genres, some parts of the image have become sharper, while others have become confused. For this reason, most of the writings and other material discussed in Chapter 4 is not literary; instead, the work of Romani rights activists and their detractors, as well as documentary and news material regarding the Romanies, are examined.
The current social climate of the twenty-first century, and the movements that have led up to it, are taken as indicators of how the image will continue to develop in the current era. In the final chapter of this dissertation, I present my own attempt at foreseeing the future of the
Romanies and their alternate images, the Gypsies. I predict that the two will at last be blasted fully apart, as tolerance for ethnic cruelty finally evaporates, so that the Romanies will be seen as they really are: one of the most widespread, misunderstood, and most unfortunate ethnic minorities in the world. I expect that the fanciful Gypsy figure will be remembered, but only as a bittersweet memory of our younger, more self-indulgent, and more callow selves. If only
Borrow had been more scientific and less desirous of catering to the public’s interests, and avoided mixing fact with fancy, such a revolution of public understanding would likely have occurred in the mid 1800s, and the murder and mistreatment of many thousands of Romanies could have been averted in the twentieth century.
Purposes of the Study
The content of this dissertation deals with the story of the image of Gypsies in the collective mind of the West. It entails description and interpretation of how the Romanies first tried to forge an image of themselves, and how it was corrupted; it demonstrates how the literature of the Renaissance established and stabilized the image; it tracks this image’s development and dissemination through to the present day; and it considers all the preceding material as evidence for how current Romani rights activists’ techniques will be most likely to continue into the near future. This is a fascinating instance—though hardly unique—of how the imagination affects one’s perceptions, adding nonexistent details and blinding one to
6 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World existing stimuli.
The mind that interprets the input of our senses is the same mind that dreams and remembers, manipulating and combining past sensory images; we display all these images in the same ‘theater of the mind.’ Therefore, since it is the seat of all our thoughts, perceptions, and memories, the imagination is the home of human experience—where subjective reality is made. Experiences which leave strong impressions on our minds establish there a precedent which can serve as the standard bank of sensory input. Repeated exposure to new examples of stimuli we have perceived before does not necessarily ensure that we will see them accurately, because we assume them to be much the same as the ones that gave us our first impressions. Instead of examining the new item or locale, we take a cursory look, compare the sensory data to our previous experience, find one that shares the new data, and then cease our efforts to analyze our environs or the object we confront.
However, in life, things tend to change constantly, and as more time passes, the things
we see can alter more and more from how they were when the default images were impressed
upon the mind, creating a widening disparity. If nothing alerts us to the change, our senses can
go into autopilot mode, in which most details are seen but not noticed; the things we sense are
assumed to be unchanged. This kind of error is often the result of superficial thinking,
assuming that if the key elements of something’s outward appearance are unchanged, then
there can be nothing significant that need be noted. In our minds, the part we do see triggers
connections and associations that have been established previously, like the hidden connections
that psychologists try to reveal in their games of free association. Because this sort of mental
shorthand is so cursory, important elements are frequently not noticed—elements that could
alert us to a fundamentally significant change that has taken place since our first impressions
were formed. Most of the available stimuli are commonly ignored; the part we notice stands for
the entire body of things we assume to be associated with them. I call this sort of unwarranted
extrapolation a synecdochic fallacy.
7 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
People sometimes have a nagging feeling that something is wrong about what they are sensing, but make only a half-hearted attempt to verify the feeling. Often, we do overcome our inertia enough to pay attention to certain significant elements of our environments, without enough curiosity, though, to take a careful look. The elements we do notice in a cursory way only serve to reassure us that our assumptions were true. Many times, this suffices for daily operations, and, obviously, too thorough an examination of one’s environment would interfere with these operations. Nevertheless, if we stop after such a check, satisfied that we understand the situation, when a more careful look would reveal the falsity of our complacent suppositions, I call the results of such erroneous reassurances of the conceptual status quo misconfirmed assumptions .
This kind of sensory shorthand is not necessarily ill-meant. However, such habits are part of a network of essentialist views, an example of which is racial prejudice—prejudice indicating pre-judging, not active discrimination. One side of these views holds that the members of a group with a certain name all have the same characteristics, and the reverse of this is that, if an encountered object or person’s observable characteristics are elements of some preexisting category, it must be a member of that category. This is the synecdochic assumption, a natural and habitual mental act; when this is done incorrectly, it frequently leads to erroneous or arbitrary classifications. This is often because the basic assumption of essentialism—that true homogeneity exists within any labeled group—is usually fallacious.
Nevertheless, such complacency is frequently applied to many groups; it is frequently the result of the loss of contact with the society that gave us the initial impression; in many cases, the sameness of our sources of personal information produce a collective impression, especially with the mass communication and entertainment industries of modern times, and it must be remembered that such information should be considered of dubious authenticity. The
North American aborigines provide a telling, and to Americans a more familiar, example. 4
In the early days before the United States of America were established as a nation,
8 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
White people met and interacted with Native Americans; from these encounters, stories and legends grew. However, the time of personal interactions between the two groups was brief, and since then most post-colonial Americans have had, at best, only fleeting glimpses or meetings with the Native Americans. Nevertheless, their stories live on in vivid accounts: moderated experiences that appeal to the imagination, providing virtual adventures in audiences’ minds. The mind imagines continuity between the actual encounters and the fabrications, even when the storytellers’ actual familiarity with the ways of real “Indians” is no better than that of their listeners. And, when descendants of the original Native Americans meet the Whites at a national park or other place of educational entertainment, they are apt to be hired to dress in the head-dress and moccasins that have become so famous in the public mind, thereby keeping the fantasy alive and undisturbed—intentionally misconfirmed—even when such clothing is not an organic part of their own daily lives, being instead an intentional affectation.
The Romanies have had a longer history of interaction with White people, and like the
Native Americans, have suffered much at their hands. They are usually known as the Gypsies, though that name is not well liked by the people themselves, in many cases. In fact, the now-unpopular term “Indians” to refer to the Native Americans is a close parallel to this term, wrongly identifying the origin of a group of misunderstood people. There are numerous other similarities between these two peoples’ stories, but one significant difference is that for centuries the Romanies lived in close proximity to the residential Whites, whereas the Native
Americans were forced into geographically different spaces. Despite the frequent chances that Europeans have had to meet them, the Romanies have continually been misunderstood and undiscovered; little contact has actually been made, despite the two groups’ proximity.
Although the Romanies have long been present in Europe and even in America, the great majority of information most Whites have gained about them has been through mass media: mostly books and movies, in recent centuries. When encountering actual Romanies, the
9 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
non-Romanies are treated to a performance by Romanies who are pretending to be Gypsies,
often at a fortune-telling parlor, because this misconfirmation of the Gypsy is what the client
wishes to experience. The actual people, whose ancestors came from India many centuries
ago, are long-time residents of Western countries, but considered outsiders and foreigners,
and undesirable intruders.
It is worth noting, too, that the degree of personal interaction with Romanies that
non-Romanies have is inversely proportional to the strength of the Gypsy image’s cogency in
particular areas. Thus, as Isabel Fonseca’s reportage in Bury Me Standing suggests, Eastern
Europeans who can still see and even interact with Romanies, who live in larger numbers near
residential areas, are much less apt to recall the romantic elements of the Gypsy image when
thinking of that group. Americans, many of whom scarcely believe that Gypsies have any
real-life counterpart (Hancock Pariah 203; Sonneman 119; Hollandsworth 84), are more likely
to let their imaginations run free when they think of them, picturing the Gypsy as a character or
type, not a member of any specific ethnicity. Therefore, the image is used and referred to in a
mostly metaphorical way that sharply contrasts with the Eastern Europeans’ dark and
distrustful regard for the vagabonds. Since I am an American myself, this dissertation tends to
emphasize the viewpoints of the less-informed Americans, who rely more fully on fictional
representations of Gypsies than their European counterparts.
The Romanies, and their erroneous images the Gypsies, are particularly vivid and relatively neglected examples of this interplay between reality and perception, and of the mind’s supremacy over subjective reality. For this analysis, the Gypsy image is broken up into its constituent parts, each element of which is traced from its historical roots through the intervening periods up until today. Along the way, the image has been added to, usually accumulating new details directly from popular works of fiction which have captured the imagination of the masses.
The ways in which the productive minds of authors and other creative artists have
10 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World interacted with the consuming minds of the public are another major concern of this dissertation. Creative artists have sometimes created works that reflect the known facts about the Romanies as well as the popular image of the Gypsy, and at times they have added to this basic material their own invented details, which at times influenced the public to the extent that these fanciful elements became incorporated into an adapted version of the general Gypsy image. Some of these images became so well accepted that the Romanies were sometimes punished for crimes that had never committed, but only described in fiction, including cannibalism and kidnapping (see Fraser). Adding to the complex nature of the image’s persuasiveness is the way that modern Romanies, like the Native Americans of today, have played into the image intentionally, hoping to benefit in various ways by conforming to fallacious elements of the Whites’ expectations; this willing participation in the misinformation of the public has further obscured the truth about the Romanies. Such playacting has made research into the Romany culture more difficult and less reliably revealing than it ought to be.
Nevertheless, recent efforts by Romani rights activists and other concerned parties seek to lay bare the facts of Romanies’ lives and history. These efforts have not met with great general success or recognition yet, either in Europe or in the United States, but I intend to show that indications point towards a coming moment in this century in which the fallacious nature of the Gypsy image may be revealed, and the Romanies will finally gain recognition and respect in the world community. As opposed to the Split during the European Renaissance, when the Romanies’ lives and their images diverged without most people realizing it, I imagine this as more of a second opportunity to make good on the 1417 “publicity campaign,” with the intention of making a publicly visible divorce of fact from fiction: a revelation of truth that could have a profound impact on the Romanies.
This revelation can be made with the combined efforts of, perhaps, a relatively small number of people, employing the persuasive tools of mass communication that exist today.
These people can break cultural bad habits of lazy thinking such as the synecdochic fallacy and
11 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
the misconfirmed assumption, making efforts of will to see and understand clearly, and
creating a product or several which, during this relative lull in Gypsy enthusiasm, can seize the
collective imagination of the rising generations of youths and engage their interest and
emotions. This work of art, perhaps a motion picture, would show viewers the romantic Gypsy
image, but demonstrate that it is not an accurate one of the Romanies. The Romanies would
have to be portrayed in a way that is frank and cogent, and at the same time make the Roma
seem respectable as a people. The romantic and negative aspects of the Gypsy image, after this
new product is embraced by young imaginations, could thereafter do little harm to the
Romanies, and they would be able to gain the respect and goodwill of future generations of the
Western world.
The Imaginary Gypsy
The idea of the Gypsy seems to be inextricable from fantastic and romantic images. In the new world, many assume that the Gypsy is either an entirely fictional entity, or else extinct—like the unicorns or the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, just as historical fiction is based on actual events and people, the Gypsy image is based on impressions and misinformation gathered long ago through dealings with the Romani, who today have hardly vanished.
Recent estimates of their numbers in North America range from 75,000 (Godwin 8) to
2,000,000 (Hollandsworth 85); their numbers in Europe are far greater. 5 They make up, in
fact, an ethnic minority group that was only officially recognized by the American government
in 1972 (Hancock, “Romance vs. Reality”), and by the United Nations in 1979 (Fonseca 109).
In the United States, where the Romanies first arrived in the two decades beginning in 1880
(Mazzone 5), the Roma were constitutionally protected against racial discrimination and
harassment by the American police in Title VI of the 1968 Civil Rights Act (Hancock “Gypsy
Mafia” 2004), though in fact laws specifically naming the Gypsies still linger. This decision
on the part of the U. S. government marks an official end to discriminatory practices in the New
12 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
World that practically started with its discovery—several Gypsies were transported to the
Caribbean with Columbus when he made his 1498 voyage. 6 Yet despite the relentless discrimination that they have faced, many generations of Romanies have made the USA their homeland, stalwartly braving others’ hostility, or else being too poor to leave the “Land of the
Free.” Though the Romanies arrived in England at the beginning of the 1500s, Britain trailed after the Americans by nearly two decades in recognizing that the Roma share a specific ethnicity. As Royce Turner reports, “It was decided in court in 1988, in a judgment following a case brought by the Commission for Racial Equality against a pub landlord who had displayed a ‘No Travellers’ sign, that Gypsies were a distinct ethnic minority group” (71-72).
In both countries, discrimination continues to this day despite such official recognition.
Romanies have not fled from either land, though the popular impression is that they are universally peripatetic. They, indeed, are mostly settled—it is estimated that only 5% of the world’s 12 million Romani people are still travelers (Wesolowsky)—having already given up the old pattern of moving on constantly in search of more hospitable or more profitable regions.
Such tenacity is admirable in the Romani people, but the image inspired by their early ancestors, those Roms who first arrived in Europe, is also alive and well. The stereotypical image is actually much better known to their non-Romany contemporaries than the real cultural group is.
Since this chapter is about Gypsy images, let us examine two of them, the likes of which have been produced for centuries in European and American minds and by Western artists. Perhaps the predominant mental picture of Gypsy life is one of a campfire with lively, brightly dressed Gypsies playing violins and dancing about, surrounded by their caravans, with the firelight flickering mysteriously on their dark, smiling faces. This is a recurring motif throughout most of the literary works, as well as numerous paintings, that depict Gypsy life, and it fuses several of the key attributes of the popular Gypsy of the Western imagination.
13 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Fig. 1. Still from Fox Corporation’s Rascals (1938)
The photograph shown in Figure 1 is a publicity still for the 1938 film Rascals , starring the Harmonicats, an ensemble of harmonica musicians. The Gypsies here are having one of their trademark sylvan revels. The photo could serve as a virtual distillation of the positive aspects of the Gypsy image in the mid-twentieth century. There are numerous traditional attributes in evidence, common to most such examples of this stock scene throughout the history of fictional representations of Romanies. The campfire is there, boiling some liquid in a cauldron, and simultaneously roasting some unlucky bird—probably the booty from a recent raid—on a spit. The Gypsies are making music and probably dancing in a typically carefree manner; harmonicas have been substituted here for the more characteristic violins, but the cimbalom is prominently displayed in the foreground. The revelers are suitably attired for their roles, and a couple of Gypsy caravans are present. Everyone, except possibly the white-suited
14 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
gad źo, seems to be having a splendid time. Though the Gypsies in this image are shadowy, they hardly seem malicious in this setting. If this were all there was to the Gypsy stereotype, the
Roma would, perhaps, have little desire to complain about it, but this image is only part of the picture. The scene of gaiety and carefree celebration above could hardly contrast more sharply with the next painting.
Fig. 2. “The Fortune Teller.” Georges de La Tour, c. 1632.
“The Fortune Teller,” seen in Figure 2, was painted some time between 1632 and 1635 by the French artist Georges de La Tour, who was born in 1593. 7 Only about a decade later
than the Jonson and Middleton/Rowley scripts described in Chapter 2, it is from a time when
the Gypsy image had already been firmly established by these British dramas, and shows that
the image was being reproduced in numerous ways in the Renaissance. This particular
painting is representative of a popular subject of contemporary portraits that all showed Gypsy
fortunetellers plying their trade: on the one hand, reading patrons’ hands and predicting their
15 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World futures; on the other, liberating the clients’ worldly goods from the prisons of rich pockets.
Frequently, as in this work, the fortuneteller is aided by accomplices who take advantage of the clients’ distraction to steal their valuables. The implication of this painting is that the Gypsies are petty criminals: organized ones. Though the non-Gypsy youth whose palm is being read seems to suspect some kind of chicanery from the old fortuneteller, the cooperation of the
Gypsies surrounding him eludes his defenses. So tricky is the troupe that, even while the affronted chiromantist protests her innocence or expresses incredulity at the small value of the silver she is offered, her accomplices are actively liberating his valuables. This suggests that, though the young man is somewhat clever and savvy about Gypsy ways, the Gypsies’ skill easily bests their victim’s.
If we were objective viewers, unfamiliar with the Gypsy image, it would be hard for us to believe that these two paintings depict the same cultural group: the entire cultural character that is depicted is so distinct here from its appearance in the sylvan revelry above. But, oddly enough, such is the nature of the Gypsy image in the Western imagination. Janus-faced and paradoxical, the Gypsy is essentially a carefree, passionate wanderer, and a congenitally villainous, deceitful scoundrel. Westerners somehow manage to accept this ambivalent picture unquestioningly. Michael Pickering, in his revealing and insightful Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation , asserts that this sort of incongruity is a typical feature of stereotypes.
“Stereotypes generally exhibit contrary features. Ideologically, it is their purpose to bind such features together” (14).
Very likely, it is this second image which has done more to hinder the success of the
Romani people over the years, though Hancock asserts that even the positive side of the image is also a form of repression of the Romanies ( Pariah 215); deserved or not, the early
Romanies made a deep impression on the Western psyche. They have never been well understood by Westerners, for their appearance before them is so often disguised, misrepresented, and brief. Although this confused impression is, in large measure, due to the
16 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Romanies’ secretive and deceptive ways, Europeans and Americans have compensated for the holes in their understanding by filling the gaps with details from their own imaginations, as well as by extrapolating from the lies that they have been told by the Romanies themselves.
Essential Attributes of the Stereotypical Gypsy Image
Before embarking upon a more detailed description of the ambivalent Gypsy image’s evolution, let us consider the main elements of that image, for purposes of orientation. There is a curious combination of traits attributed to the Gypsy figure; the Western imagination, we might say, has been engaged in a long love-hate relationship with these exotics. The Gypsy image, truly, is a mosaic of great complexity, made up of heterogeneous fragments that, when assembled, form a picture that is impressive, but not too accurate. One may classify the traits into socially negative and positive characteristics.
A significant part of this Gypsy image is made up of attributes that are usually considered socially unacceptable. Chief among these is dishonesty: horse thievery, fraudulent fortune telling, other forms of confidence trickery, and general lying have all have been part of the image for centuries. A more specific and extreme example of criminal activity attributed to
Gypsies, and to the Roma (at least originally) is kidnapping: a crime which the Roma have repeatedly been charged with. 8 Typically, we hear of how the child of a rich noble is taken from him and subsequently is raised as a Gypsy. Indeed, as Fonseca reminds us, one of the most common myths about Gypsies is that “all fair children among them are in fact abducted
‘Christian’ children” (23). Perhaps a darker blot on the mythical Gypsy’s record is a penchant for using dark magic: the ability to curse someone who has wronged him or her has often been a token of being in league with the Devil. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Gypsy is supposed to be able to curse someone, and also to give the “evil eye.” In some parts of the world, Romanies are still sought for potions such as the elixir of love (Shetler). One of the most horrible charges is that the Gypsies are cannibals (Grellman, cited in Fonseca 88; see Chapter 3). In personal
17 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World habits, Gypsies are thought of as being unsanitary in their hygiene, while being rather tastelessly flashy in their attire, but those who are more aware of the culture realize that there are cultural reasons for the Romanies’ appearance, and that they are not as naïve about style or health as they might appear to outsiders (see Fonseca in general).
Many of the positive characteristics of the Gypsy, as imagined by Westerners, are really part and parcel of the negative ones, or closely related to them, usually because the
Gypsies’ activities, though deemed antisocial and taboo, exemplify the wild and carefree life that is denied any civilized person. The essence of the Gypsy image is, for most people, the idea that they are carefree spirits, wandering at will, without social obligations to tie them down. Today, the term “gypsy” is most frequently used as a metaphor for people with wanderlust, or who are seen as admirably unstable. In gad źé who only emulate the fictional
Gypsy’s model, a tendency to travel is seen as an acceptable trait. This peripatetic tendency is seen as an indication of independence and even noble strength—not of unreliability or shiftiness.
During the Victorian period of scientific theories and developments, colonialism and
Darwinism started people thinking about the differences between civilized and uncivilized peoples (from a colonizer’s point of view), and “scientific racism,” based upon prejudiced ideas and pseudo-scientific research, was at its most popular stage, though the term is now applied to studies from as early as the 1700s (Gould Ch. 1). Some Victorians, who felt somewhat overwhelmed by the Industrial Revolution and the growth of cities, were often nostalgic for the comparative innocence and especially the closeness to nature and the land that the Roma seemed to retain (Nord Gypsies 8-9). In many artistic renderings, the Gypsy is depicted as a localized version of the Noble Savage paradigm—perhaps a mirror reflection of how many would like to be: honorable and admirable, and free from the trammels of artificial and arbitrary mores of “civilized” deportment. The ironic disparity between the Gypsy’s rustic innocence and his innate immorality did not seem to interfere with the pervasiveness of either
18 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
of these facets of the Gypsy image.
Going along with the ideas of Gypsy earthiness and freedom are other related attributes of the image, also seen as positive traits—or, if not, at least attractive ones. They all relate to the perceived simplicity of the Gypsies’ emotional lives. Since they seemed to be continually convening with Nature, people assumed that Gypsies were similar to Nature itself: emotionally unrestrained, genuine, and powerful. 9 Gypsies are frequently portrayed as being flirtatious, seductive, and fickle: their hearts, too, are rovers, we presume. More specifically, they are seen as being unrestrainedly lustful and darkly passionate, and often were supposed to have tempestuous affairs with non-Gypsies—at once brutal and natural, like animals during mating season. A romance with a Gypsy is supposed to be rather dangerous, but nevertheless more real, unrestrained, and sensual than one with any other partner could provide.
In fact, it does not really appear possible to reconcile all these traits in a logical way.
How can one be essentially dishonest, and yet be one with nature? How can one have an innate cunning and ability to deceive others, and at the same time be naturally sincere and unfettered?
When manipulating the popular image, artists of all kinds had to decide how to represent these figures in a suitably believable way, seldom drawing attention to the incongruity of these characteristics.
Others, perhaps slightly more aware of the Roma’s closely knit cultural norms, show
Gypsies exercising their deceptive natures when “on the job,” cheating non-Gypsies, but “at home” among others of their kind, they are depicted as relaxing and reveling in the rustic pleasures of the Gypsy camp—to which favored outsiders may sometimes be admitted.
The Romanies on Paper: The Representers and their Orientations
The remarkably diverse sets of qualities that define the Gypsy image has, not surprisingly, inspired generations of onlookers to take an interest in them, and to become their admirers—or, alternately, their detractors. Writers’ biases often show through in their works,
19 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World and their attitudes are either intentionally stated or inadvertently betrayed. The negative or positive traits of the Gypsies are taken as fundamental truths by many.
I often rely on the evidence of writings in which the suppositions about Gypsies seem to be stated as if they were merely “common sense” characteristics of these people, when no documents can be found which are explicitly innovative in their characterizations. Such texts can give evidence of a date by which an aspect of the stereotype was firmly in place for the writer. Much of this evidence comes from legal documents and nonfiction, which repeatedly essentialize the Gypsy—often fallaciously. At other times, I will attempt to pinpoint the moment in which certain elements of the image fell into place, courtesy of artists who possessed no personal knowledge of the life of these travelers, but wanted to create convincing scenes for their creative works.
The sources I refer to are of five general kinds. First are reports of elements of the
Gypsy image—whether accurate or not—that were introduced by the Roma themselves. These include aspects of their personal appearance as well as their behavior, and also what they told others, often propagating lies or falsehoods of their own, or of others’ accusations or errors that somehow served the Romanies’ purposes.
Second, there are artists or others who embellished upon the received knowledge of the
Gypsies, either because of a lack of data or in order to pursue their own purposes; I pay special attention to those details which were believed to be authentic—or at least deemed to be attractive—and were retained in the popular image, rolling along, accumulating more and more details, snowball-fashion, on the way to its present state. A vexing difficulty here is that it is often impossible to be fully sure whether a specific element is the invention of the writer or artist, making its first public appearance in the work I am examining, whether the detail is instead actually adopted or adapted from another work, or from the current set of ideas about
Gypsies, not documented earlier in any works identified by myself. A similar challenge is faced by the many people who work, and have worked, on the Oxford English Dictionary , who have
20 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
as one of their characteristic goals the identification of the first written use of English words, or
of certain meanings of the words they are researching. John Simpson, the current editor of this
massive project, commented in 1999 that early editions of the OED , as it is commonly called,
state that a particular use of a word is the first on record, but that further research by countless
volunteers often reveals significantly older examples, which are then added to subsequent
editions—though it still cannot usually be absolutely certain that these newfound examples are
the very earliest usages (Winchester).
Third, there are many artists and writers who employed the received Gypsy image as it existed in their times, without substantially altering it. Such instances may be useful as a way to confirm that certain elements of the stereotype were firmly in place at the time of writing, as suggested above. During certain periods of literary history, such artists were in the majority, since they tended to use the Gypsy in a very stereotypical and limited way for a certain number of fixed purposes, such as to add color, to explain a mistaken identity, or to account for a crime.
Two more groups of sources are written by activists: those who are either for or against the Romanies. The fourth category is propaganda written by people who wish to discredit
Gypsies, and write defamatory propaganda in order to discredit them, often repeating or even inventing sensational, shocking stories to accomplish their goals. These writers tend to assume that the characteristics of literary Gypsies are applicable to the Romanies whom they have encountered. A fifth category includes revisionists who, usually intending to help the Roma gain credence in the public eye, tend to speak out against parts of the myth that are unfounded in fact.
Playing With the Image: The Stereotype as a Creative Device
In general, we may say that there are two primary tendencies among writers who deal with groups of people who are the subject of much stereotypical thinking: playing into the stereotype and playing against it. Those who wish to employ the established image of the
21 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Gypsies as a device that will allow their own stories to be told and their objectives to be met usually follow the first of these tendencies.
For example, because Gypsies are often assumed to have a habit or tradition of kidnapping and sometimes switching white babies, this is frequently used as a plot device that can help a writer out of a narrative corner, such as when, near the climax of Joseph’s eponymous novel, Fielding’s character Joseph Andrews and his betrothed, Fanny, are shockingly, and inaccurately, thought to be brother and sister. In that instance, the dénouement is achieved by the surprising revelation that both Joseph and his beloved had been involved in a double Gypsy kidnapping. Joseph Wilson was stolen first, but as he was a sickly child, he was later substituted for Fanny Andrews, who was healthier, so that Joseph grew up supposing himself to be an Andrews, and Fanny did the same imaging that she was a poor girl of humble birth. They are actually both well off, unrelated, and free to marry, providing an astonishing, but happy, conclusion to the novel.
The stereotype is also played into in order to add local color, or to achieve characterization of a minor role in quick, broad strokes: a sort of applied synecdochic approach in which, when the author supplies a few stereotypical elements, the whole raft of associated traits is implied to follow. The same sort of approach is used to vilify the Romanies by bigoted writers, endorsing the negative aspects of the image in order to turn readers against them. One further approach is used: sometimes a writer incorporates many traditionally expected traits into his or her narrative in order to assure readers that his Gypsies are quite normal examples of their type; then a new, but not jarring, element is added to the mix. The careful preparation of the characterization allows the reader to accept the innovative elements more readily.
Ainsworth’s Rookwood follows this approach when introducing the novelty of a crystal ball—no authentic part of Romany culture—into the sorceress Barbara Lovell’s repertoire of magical devices, for instance (see chapter 3).
In the pre-Victorian era, and up through the following century, many writers continued
22 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World to accept the established model for Gypsy figures, but increasingly often, some began to present figures who conformed to the model in some ways but who were at variance with other aspects of the image, effectively problematizing the unchanging, stereotypical nature of the figure: a reflection of the increasingly skeptical age that was coming into being. Charlotte
Brontë’s fortunetelling scene in Jane Eyre is an apt example. At first, Rochester’s disguise as an old Gypsy woman is convincing enough, corresponding to the general expectations for such figures in most ways. However, perceptive Jane is able to penetrate the disguise and recognize her male employer. This shatters the illusion within the story and calls the stability of the more generalized stereotype into question, and it also disrupts our established understanding about
Rochester’s personality. The trickiness and dishonesty of the old Gypsy figure is transferred to the hero of the story, making him harder to trust than he had been. Other writers also played against the image for various effects, surprising and amusing readers or destabilizing their complacency about the reliability of stereotypes.
Especially tricky in this aspect were those who claimed to be revealing the falsity of the
Gypsy stereotype, while actually only modifying small aspects of it in order to reinforce the others. There were enough cogent details in such works as Lavengro by George Borrow to convince readers that he had really been in contact with Gypsies—which he had—and that he was revealing the whole truth about them—which he was not. Such misinformation reinforced many aspects of the image with seeming facts, making them that much harder to dislodge.
Readers thought of Borrow as a reliable eyewitness who revealed the secrets of those mysterious vagabonds, so his works were superbly persuasive and seized the public imagination as no other works had done before.
In the mid-twentieth century, world wars and intellectual movements like
Poststructuralism served to reveal many of our assumptions as empty constructs. Stereotypes of all kinds were considered to be analogous to “found objects,” those bits of junk assembled by some modernist sculptors into three-dimensional art, which could be freely manipulated and
23 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World exploited. As magic was generally discredited as silly superstition and nonsense, society lost its fear of many figures that had long been regarded with dread and fearful respect, and so anybody could, for example, play at being a Gypsy fortuneteller and pretend to curse friends as a throwaway joke. The trappings of a Gypsy could be worn as a lark, as fashion, or as a
Halloween costume, without drawing special comment or criticism. The crystal ball, which has since Rookwood become inextricably associated with Gypsy fortunetellers, has become a standard symbol evoked whenever one wonders what is to come.
Nevertheless, the established fundamentals of the Gypsy figure have not been forgotten, and still exist as a standard characterization in the Western mind; they are still used in the old ways by many. By now, most attributes of the image—both positive and negative—are cherished by Westerners. In this complex of traits live the villain we love to hate, the independent maverick we admire, the wily and playful trickster we long to emulate, and the penniless unfortunate we are pleased to pity and scorn. Above all, in this world of stress and worries, the Gypsy has come to stand as the epitome of untrammeled freedom, the embodiment of our fondest secret wishes.
The Gypsy as the Other: Romanies Punished for Projected Crimes
“Gypsies”—the stereotypical figures—are well understood, since they are now little more than a mythic race, and thus relatively simpler than real people, despite their enigmatic traits; they are understood and can be analyzed quite apart from the descendants of Indian wanderers, and they are clearly not identical with today’s Roma. Nevertheless, the Romani of these later years have suffered by being taken for Gypsy tricksters—instead of being objectively evaluated for what they really are: a people with a rich and fascinating heritage, whose members are not necessarily lawbreakers. One result of this cultural synecdoche is that the Roma, much like Hollywood’s urban Black characters, are automatically believed to be dangerous and dishonest, without the need for a specific crime to point to or grievance to air;
24 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World their appearance is taken as threatening enough to those who conflate them with their presuppositions about Gypsies.
What is important to recognize about this image is that it encompasses many of the qualities that the “civilized” Westerner must never allow himself to be. As a romantic or adventurous character in stories, a reader may vicariously enjoy imagining a life of swashbuckling and festive villainy, tricking those in authority and being the victorious underdog. However, when the book is laid down and the same reader finds Romanies trespassing on his property and the Gypsy is present in the flesh, the same figure is imagined as committing crimes against the reader: a serious and actionable situation instead of an occasion for amusement.
Since the qualities of legendary Gypsies of yore are assumed to be other than
Westerners’ own attributes, the Gypsy figure is considered one form of the psychological Other.
In consequence, the Roma, mentally conflated with stereotypical Gypsies, are treated as a scapegoat race. They are blamed, for example, whenever a personal item is missed in Romania, without any sort of evidence to support the charge—though, often enough, such a claim is proven true (Shetler). Because settled people are prohibited by social mores from embracing, publicly, any of the Gypsies’ traits, people may be said to project these qualities onto the
Gypsies, and, unfortunately, a step further: onto the Romanies. As fantastic figures, Gypsies can be imagined to satiate any sort of unacceptable desire, providing the fantasist with vicarious thrills and satisfaction without damage to his own self-image. But because this is not always done consciously, such imaginings may be believed by the public, and when there is any excuse for it, the settled people may use the chance to punish the Romanies for whatever fantasized misdeeds the law-abiding citizens had denied themselves.
This is obviously a serious problem for the Romanies, and especially grievous for those who are law-abiding, honest people. There is not enough awareness that there is any distinction between the real people and their stereotypical image. Because this stereotype is so old, and
25 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
because it is inherited, its powers of influencing attitudes are solidly established and hard to
dislodge. Also, since the Roma are all assumed to have the negative qualities of Gypsies, all the
Romanies are treated with suspicion, and are in danger of being blamed and punished unfairly;
even people who have never been harmed by the Roma are able to harbor feelings of hatred and
distrust for them (Turner-Walker).
Ironically, on the other hand, the supposed positive qualities of the Roma do them little
good, either. Since the freedom of the Gypsies is so idealized, the people who imagine it tend to
be intensely jealous of the Romanies. When poverty-stricken Romanies are seen in the subway
station, for instance, one might first assume that the poverty is feigned, and from there assume
that the women are in fact well off, and when not on duty begging, they live lives of
extravagant pleasure and indulgence; they, therefore, neither deserve nor need donations from
passersby, and are hated even more than before. In summary, the Gypsy image, whether
positive or negative, does actual Romanies harm whenever settled people who cherish it
assume that it applies to them.
This harm is part of a seriously vicious cycle. Westerners assume that the Gypsy image, in all its complexity, may fairly apply to the Romanies, so they punish them and keep them from earning a living honestly. Then, driven by desperation, some Romanies are forced to break the law, since there is no chance to provide for their families otherwise. Some of these people are caught in the act, and this is reported in newspapers and on television, and this instigates waves of misconfirmed assumptions as media consumers tell themselves that the image was correct all along. This series of events is repeated constantly, making it very hard for the Romanies, as a group, to change their situation for the better without disassociation from their Romany image.
Indeed, many Romanies in the United States and elsewhere claim to be descendants of any other nationality, rather than admit to being a “Gypsy” (Godwin 85). These individuals and their families, more and more often, are becoming prosperous and accepted members of
26 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
American society. However, there is considerable pride in the hearts of many Romanies, which
prohibits such dissembling. It is true, too, that feelings of nationalism or of ethnic pride depend
on a body of assumptions comparable to the Gypsy image itself. The Romanies’ collective
self-image cherishes elements of the positive side of the common Gypsy stereotype: a likely
reason why, according to many modern reports, even settled Romany families take it as a point
of honor and a tradition to take to the road for part of every year (Shetler).
The Birth of a Stereotype
This dissertation primarily examines the evolution of the Gypsy image as it has lived in
the minds of Westerners—both as creators and consumers of artistic works such as paintings
and novels. But in order to understand this image, it is important to be aware of at least the
basic story of the Romanies before they made their initial impression upon the denizens of
Western Europe in the early fifteenth century. As this section of this chapter will reveal, the
image today is in large part anticipated by that of the people who encountered the Romanies as
they passed from their original homeland to Europe; how much of today’s image is based on
those original stereotypes, and how much on consistent patterns of behavior, is an intriguing
mystery.
Phase One: The Mysterious Early History of the Romanies
Indeed, much is unclear about the origins of the Romanies. The lack of clear
information about their early times is due to two primary factors, which leave us with a mass of
records which are generally of dubious relevance and ignorant of the Romanies’ own views and
experiences. The first has to do with the Romanies’ inability to write—either in major
European languages or in their own.
When education became standardized and mandatory in Europe, Romani children’s parents, communities, and the local school masters regularly denied them the opportunity to
27 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
study, with the result that most Roma have stayed essentially illiterate throughout Western
history. Their traditional language, or rather the various dialects of it, collectively known as
Romani, has never had a proper written form until quite recently. Isabel Fonseca indicates that
the Roma of Eastern Europe are still “a largely illiterate people” (Acknowledgments page).
What does survive of their own experience is, like that of other cultures with no written
language, transmitted largely through oral tradition, in which accounts are not fixed but
undergo transformations as generations pass and often fall out of the collective memory. This,
she suggests, is why the Eastern European Roma with whom she spent time “[…] have no
myths about the beginning of the world, or about their own origins; they have no sense of a
historical past [... T]heir memories do not extend beyond [… the memories of] the oldest living person among them” (243).
If such things as diaries of Roms had existed then, I surmise, some of them might have
included statements that the “royal procession pilgrimage” image-making scheme was
intended as a way to establish their people as respectable and to explain their traveling ways as
they were searching for a place to live, so that when one was found, the nearby settled people
would welcome them and allow them to live in peace. Evidently, no welcome was found,
possibly because of the rogue element within certain Romany tribes, as will be discussed
below.
Connected to the Romanies’ historical illiteracy is a second factor: what evidence has been identified from the early days is all written in the third person by members of the dominant societies through which the Romanies passed. These records are usually only incidentally about Romanies; they are mostly court records of official business, in which the
Roma are mentioned but sporadically. Fraser states that they “are strongly biased towards incidents in which some charge is made to the public purse […]” (128). Therefore, they lack information on times when “Gypsies did not attract official attention because they obtained their requirements in exchange for goods and services, or perhaps because they were simply
28 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
moved on or turned away empty-handed” (128). Instead, accounts of court officials that deal
with Romanies are usually of court cases in which they are charged with crimes and sentenced
to punishments for them. What is more, it is usually unverifiable that these records really
describe the group now known collectively as the Roma, often for reasons of terminology, as
explained below. Even more damning than the terse official records are the writings of
historians, typically composed long after the early court records which provided some of the
historians’ data. When writers of histories are biased, their accounts, based on the official
records, are colored with that prejudice. They are more elaborate and eloquent than their
sources, often inserting hateful, scornful descriptions and accusations. Furthermore, such
books had a much wider audience than the court records could enjoy. As Fraser reminds us,
such testimony gives “a one-sided picture: we shall never know what view the Gypsies took of
[those lands] or what kind of treatment they received” (48).
There are at least four more reasons for the difficulty in ascertaining the Romanies’
early history. One is simply that, prior to the fifteenth century, few people could read, and fewer
people could write, so there is little in the way of personal records such as diaries that we can
turn to for corroboration (Watkins). Another is that, as we can deduce from surviving records,
the Romanies frequently had to tell lies in order to avoid persecution or to gain some sort of
favor that would have been denied them otherwise, so what has survived is of dubious
reliability.
Thirdly, time erases so much of what might have been learned: both the Romanies
themselves and the settled people they met tended to forget what truths they knew, and paper
records have mostly disintegrated. What endures from century to century is the stereotypical
quality of the image, the elements of which are largely inaccurate.
The fourth reason is that so many names were applied to the Romanies, in such a random way, that it is hard to be sure which records actually deal with them. During the pre-Western European phase of the Romanies’ story (c. 438 AD-1417), the residents of the
29 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World lands through which the Romanies were traveling had not, collectively, realized that the travelers they encountered were affiliated with any larger cultural or racial group. The earliest bands wending their way in the direction of Europe were therefore evaluated one by one.
Having no concept of who they could be, and lacking a name to call them, the settled people assigned a jumbled variety of metonymic and vaguely general terms to them. The most notable groups of these are those related to the European’s appraisal of the Romanies’ pretended sorcery, to their statements of their own origin, and to outsiders’ low opinions of non-Christians.
In many European regions, popular terms for the Romanies share a common root:
Athínganoi, borrowed from the name of a sect of heretics that had possibly been eradicated in the ninth century. Fraser explains: “The German Zigeuner , French Tsiganes , Italian Zingari ,
Hungarian Cziganyok , and similar forms in several other languages [including the Spanish term Zincali ] all derived from this Byzantine name.” (46) This term was selected, Fraser suggests, because of certain similarities of reputation: the behavior of the Romanies was supposed to include fortune-telling and the practice of magic, both of which were considered heretical, and which both recalled the actions for which the original Athínganoi were punished; this term is also unclear because it is likely that the same term was also being applied to other groups who were perceived in similar ways. It was an inauspicious beginning.
Other terms for the Romanies were assigned because of their own testimony. Many of the Romanies’ early forays into Eastern Europe were smoothed by stories that they were religious penitents from Egypt, so they began to be called Egyptians, which after a time was abbreviated to ‘ Gypcians , and finally stubbed down to gipsies . This term lacked clarity from the first because there is often no way to tell a reference to the Romanies thus labeled from a reference to actual Egyptians. The two groups were confused or conflated in people’s initial impressions: something that could not have happened to the Athínganoi, since they were already extinct.
30 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Also, when they moved into new regions of Europe such as France, they were
sometimes identified with the area they claimed to have just left. For instance, the term
Bohémien was added to their list of labels; the Romanies are first recorded as being present in
Bohemia in 1399, according to the “Chronology of Significant Dates in Romani History”
compiled by people at the Romany Archive and Documentation Center, or RADOC. Fraser
notes that by 1457 this word was “gaining ground” in France, perhaps replacing others as the
region’s most popular label for Gypsies (94). Obviously, though, there were, and still are,
genuine Bohemians who were not Romanies: the same sort of complication that faced African
Egyptians.
Other terms, such as Heiden (“heathens”) in north Germany and Tartars in both
Germany and Holland, were more general, and therefore more subject to misinterpretation,
since the Romanies were certainly not the only people thus labeled, though in time Heiden
came to be used more specifically to mean the Roma (Fraser 62). Such a variety of names,
applied haphazardly to the Romanies, causes confusion in earnest Gypsiologists, who cannot
help but feel most of the surviving records to be unreliable.
After arduously attempting to cut through such confusion, researchers into Romany
history have identified certain documents and stories, which, they hypothesize, describe the
precursors of the Gypsy groups of more modern Western awareness. The Indians who are by
now considered to be the ancestors of modern Roms are described as being, by trade, craftsmen,
musicians, and other entertainers, as well as soldiers fighting against Turko-Persian invaders;
these reports date from before A. D. 400 up until approximately 1200 (“Chronology;”
“Timeline”).
For the most part, the trades attributed to the Romanies’ ancestors are also central ones to the Romanies who became familiar to Europeans of later times. One of the earliest reported events that researchers now claim to be about the Romanies was recorded in 950 AD by the historian Hazma of Arabia; 1,200 Zott (alternately transliterated as Jat ) musicians are said to
31 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World have been “ordered” by the Persian Shah Bahram Gur to be sent to the King of India in about
430 AD (Fraser 33). It is possible that stories like this were singled out from so many other early records because of the professions attributed to the Zott. They are descirbed as entertainers, nomadic craftsmen, and such.
If the story about Bahram Gur is true, or at least based on fact, it may have led to the start of the proto-Romanies’ nomadic life. The 1010 tome Shah-nameh , by the Persian poet
Firdawsi, gives another version of the legend, in which the entertainers are called the Luri ; it tells how the Persian king gave them food and animals and ordered them to become farmers as well as musicians. One year later, Firdawsi records, the Luri had squandered their supplies, infuriating the Shah. As punishment, the legend continues, the Luri were ordered to “travel around the country” on asses, making a living by their musical performances for both the rich and the poor (Fraser 35). Firdawsi next describes the same group as it existed in his own time, nearly 600 years later: “The Luri, agreeably to this mandate, now wander the world, seeking employment, associating with dogs and wolves, and thieving on the road by day and by night”
(qtd. in Fraser 35).
Firdawsi wrote this description centuries before the Romanies were generally known by the Europeans, and yet his remarks on these wanderers anticipate comments from the fifteenth century and later very closely. His commentary strongly suggests that the ways of the
Luri had become so well known that their characteristics were considered common knowledge to Firdawsi and his contemporaries. This raises some intriguing questions that, if they could be answered, would shed much revealing light on the story of the Gypsy images’ transmission. If these were really the same cultural groups as the later Gypsies, had their lifestyle already become so fixed by the turn of the first millennium? Does this striking similarity of two continents’ stereotypes indicate a direct communication of their reputation from the Persians to the Europeans? How could such a communication have been accomplished?
32 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Although the early chronicles and court records of interactions between local rulers and traveling bands of Roma suggest an initial mystification and surprise at their behavior and appearance, the evidence does not necessarily suggest that their infamy had preceded them.
Nonetheless, the consistency of some elements that appear in records between 1000 and 1417
AD do suggest a cultural continuity among the generations of Romanies that might deepen the social history of the group, allowing their cultural behavior to seem still more like a preservation of their heritage, rather than sporadic decisions or random roguery.
At this point, from the evidence available from pre-Western European times, it is impossible to determine for sure if the reputations applied to the Romanies in the various lands they passed through were the result of communication between residents of the old and new lands, fresh evaluations of the Romanies’ traits, or whether there was some combination of the two factors. This is a pity, for my interest is in how stereotypes affect human perception and creativity, and I am unable to verify whether the Romanies were adversely affected by their stereotypes when relating to residents of lands they were only starting to enter. Around the turn of the fifteenth century, more documentation and, soon, even literature began to be produced than ever before (Watkins), and Gypsies figured in these new works with increasing frequency.
Some of this does describe the public opinion of the Romanies as they sought to make a new impression on the denizens of Western Europe.
Phase Two: The Grand Entrance, 1417: The Roma’s First Impression on Western Europe
Angus Fraser describes a notable change in the Romanies’ behavior that began in 1417 and lasted for approximately two decades as they penetrated deeper into their own personal frontier. In his book The Gypsies , in the fourth chapter, which he names “The Great Trick,”
Fraser communicates a researcher’s surprise:
Suddenly [in 1417], we find Gypsies behaving in an unprecedented manner.
They are no longer unobtrusive, but almost court attention. They are no
33 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
uncoordinated rabble, but move in an apparently purposeful way under leaders
with impressive titles. And at first they are not hounded or harried, but treated
with a measure of consideration. (62)
Fraser rightly explains how the Romanies’ most popular cover story (there is no evidence of their simply telling the truth about who they were and what they were doing), that they were religious penitents and pilgrims, was effective because of contemporary attitudes about such humility on the official governmental and religious levels as well as in the minds of the residents of Western Europe.
I would rather express the change in a different way. Having seldom been accepted when they had been relatively straightforward, the Romanies wanted to break into new territory and make a fresh start. With this purpose in mind, they made a calculated decision to present a specific and misleading face to the public of Western Europe. In many ways, this deliberate dissembling was like the grand entrance in a theatrical presentation. The various
Romanies involved in those processions through the main parts of town were playing roles, wearing costumes, carrying props, and were even accompanied by fanfares and music. They had developed a back-story to explain their behavior, their roles, and even their accents.
Angus Fraser’s selected quotations from contemporary documents were not primarily chosen for their inclusion of stereotypical descriptions of the Romanies as “Gypsies.” Nevertheless, the catalogue of traits ascribed to the tribes could be used as a virtual catalogue of Gypsy characteristics, most of which are still quite familiar to today’s readers. The most complete eyewitness account is given nearly in full: it is from Chronica Novella (ca. 1435) by
Hermann Cornerus, from Lübeck (now in Germany), describing a group of travelers passing through “the German territories of Holstein, Mecklenburg and Pomerania” in the last quarter of 1417:
A certain strange, wandering horde of people, not seen hitherto, came out of
eastern lands to Alemannia [Swabia], traveling through that entire region into
34 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
the provinces by the sea. […] They traveled in bands and camped at night in
the fields outside the towns, for they were excessively given to thievery and
feared that in the towns they would be taken prisoner. They numbered about
300 men and women, not including the children and infants, and they were
very ugly in appearance and black as Tartars; they called themselves Secani .
They also had chieftains among them, that is a Duke [ Ducem ] and a Count
[Comitem ], who administered justice over them and whose orders they obeyed.
They were however great thieves, especially their women, and several of them
in various places were seized and put to death. They also carried letters of
recommendation from princes and especially from Sigismund, King of the
Romans, according to which they were to be admitted and kindly treated by
states, princes, fortified places, towns, bishops and prelates to whom they
turned. Certain among them were on horseback, while others went on foot.
The reason for their wandering and traveling in foreign lands was said to have
been their abandoning of the faith and their apostasy after conversion to
paganism. They were committed to continue these wanderings in foreign lands
for seven years as a penance laid upon them by their bishops. (Qtd. in Fraser
67)
This account describes the first year of the Romanies’ so-called “reconnaissance phase”
(Fraser 79), and though it was written 18 years afterwards, that is still within the twenty years of that phase; compared with other historians’ writings, the outlook is comparatively fresh, so that it is relatively uninformed by a tradition of stereotyping. In contrast, some events described in similar books were first published more than a century after their occurrence, and their descriptions’ fidelity to the truth, therefore, is more suspect. Nevertheless, one must wonder whether the account only describes the first meetings between those Germans and the Roma.
Numerous contemporary sources mention Egypt, or a variant such as “Little/Lesser/Lower”
35 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Egypt. In fact, in Modon, a colony of Venice, a large Romany settlement (described in accounts of 1444) seems to have become known as “Little Egypt” (52)—much as modern city-dwellers might call a neighborhood of Italian families grouped in their metropolis “Little Italy”.
The descriptions of the Romanies as thieves who feared capture and persecution, especially, very likely date from a bit later, for otherwise, they would be unlikely to have such a reputation in place before their first contact with the settled Germans. In subsequent years, according to both historians and municipal secretaries, many of the Cornerus-described attributes were reinforced by frequent repetition. These include the horsed and pedestrian travelers, their being led by counts, dukes, princes, and such, the Romanies’ obedience to their leaders, their safe-conducts, their penance (though the latter two qualities went through many variants), their political immunity (Fraser 76), and their growing reputation as thieves. Other details were added, which were similarly reinforced later. For example, it seems that numerous townspeople, initially trusting that the wanderers were penitents, granted them food, drink, money, and lodgings: for example, in the first month of 1420, city records from Brussels record that “the band led by ‘the Duke of Little Egypt, named Andries’ relieved the burghers of a quantity of beer and wine, bread, a cow, four sheep and 25 gold coins” (Fraser 70). Frequently, the Romanies were evidently not good guests, and there are many references to the citizens’ picking up the tab for cleaning the barn or marketplace where the travelers had slept.
Western European references to the women’s fortune telling begin in 1418 (68); the technique was, initially, usually palmistry, or chiromancy, as it is also known. Added to the now-admitted scam of fortune telling are charges of more blatant crimes happening simultaneously: “[…] amongst those who wished to have their fortunes told, few went to consult without having their purse stolen, and women had pieces of their dress cut off” (68). A crime pattern which makes similar use of misdirection is still in use today. Gary Mazzone, writing for the American FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin in 1994, describes the “store diversion,” which, though Mazzone describes some refinements in technique (6), is in essence
36 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World the same now as it was in 1422: “[…] they visited the shops under the pretext of buying something, but one of them would steal” (72). More details were also added to their physical description and habiliment. Records from this time include references to the “Gypsies’” dark skin, long hair, beards on the men, silver rings in the ears of the women and children, women’s heads being wrapped with turbans, and costumes of shifts and sheets fastened at the shoulder
(Fraser 68-71).
People today still tend, complacently, to accept modern claims that certain Roms are
Gypsy kings or nobles. When discussing the large immigration of Romanies from 1417 and the following two decades, Fraser rhetorically wonders, “Who were these ‘dukes’ and ‘counts’, finely dressed and well mounted, and what prompted their incursions? Were they simply acting a part?” (80). According to many recent articles, there is no truth to the titles of duke and king in Romani society. Nevertheless, as in the Cornerus quote above, troupes of Romanies typically claimed to be led by a count, prince, or other such dignitary, and someone using that name was dressed in finery and treated with respect by the other travelers; at first, apparently, this led the onlookers to feel respect for them as well.
Appearing as part of a noble and even royal entourage must have helped them to gain face, but few would expect that the rich people they seemed to be would need handouts.
Fraser’s next comment points squarely at one crucial trait that, though part of the general
Gypsy stereotype, seems from historical evidence to be quite true: the Gypsies’ wily craftiness and duplicity.
It was as if some unsung genius, stimulated perhaps by all the pressures of the
Balkans, had realized the potential advantages to be drawn from the religious
environment of the time and had devised a strategy for exploiting it and
enhancing the prospects of survival. (62, emphasis added)
Accepting this notion, I further suggest that the “religious environment” Fraser describes can also account for the subsequent undermining of the positive first impression gained in the
37 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Romanies’ first appearance. As Fraser notes, “the people of the Middle Ages [… had an] acute consciousness of sin and the certainty of its punishment. Outside the Church—the community of all believers—there lurked […] the devil and hell […]” (62-3). Since the
Romanies, who had a different cultural background, were indeed “outside the Church,” they were seen as being doomed to Hell, unless they could be saved by the kindness of alms-givers. However, when certain Roms were caught in the act of committing crimes, there must have been a similar certainty that they were proven to be malicious sinners, and therefore they deserved to be damned.
With such an attitude held by members of the public and also of the officials who recorded history, it is not surprising that the residents of Europe found it hard to forgive the seeming charlatans and confidence tricksters who had cheated them so soon, historically speaking, after making such a favorable impression: even as early as 1417, municipal records record both sorts of impressions (Fraser ch. 4). Thinkers who accepted the simplistic, black-and-white idea of sin—that sinners were automatically damned to Hell forever—and who subsequently had been “had” by the Romanies—would naturally be very likely to hold a lasting grudge against them. Whatever “face” the Romanies might have gained when they seemed to be nobles or penitents must have been largely effaced when their admiring onlookers suddenly found their purses missing, and deduced who the culprits were.
Even today, the feeling that many people retain is that, though the Roma have perhaps been unlucky for a long time, they have also kept up a tradition of stealing, lying, and trickery, and so they got just what they deserved for being sneaky villains. Since such stories continue to appear, reminding us of this grudge, we assume that the recent culprits are representative of contemporary “Gypsies” in general, and therefore, that they still deserve the stigma that their ancestors of 1417 earned for themselves.
In my view, these two decades of constant regional débuts was a deliberate campaign to seize the public imagination and implant a positive (though largely falsified) impression into
38 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
the Europeans’ collective consciousness. It is clear, furthermore, that it was to a large degree
successful, in that many of the positive traits they wished to display before the Europeans have
been retained as parts of the general image. As we will see in chapter 2, versions of Western
Europe’s first impression of the Romanies are reenacted in many of the earliest paintings and
drama extant that represent the wanderers. If the impression had been entirely positive, the
modern image of the Romanies might be mostly favorable today.
Phase Three: From First Impression to Stereotype: Specific Traits of Gypsies Established by
1500
The impression that lasted after the Romanies’ marred attempt at a grand entrance was,
almost from its inception, made up of both positive and negative qualities. The historical
records for the period between 1437 and the Renaissance show how the impression had been
communicated around Europe, and influenced the way that people received wandering bands
of Romanies: it is clear that their reputation had frequently preceded them.
As far as the Western imagination is concerned, the Romanies, depicted as “Gypsies,” have played a lively part since the early fifteenth century. Though he has usually been peripheral to mainstream society, the Gypsy has seldom been entirely forgotten by Westerners.
I interpret the Gypsy’s story as having gone through several major transformations: the transformation from mysterious intruder to stereotyped, “understood” character, which happened between 1417-1437, was the first. Though the mental simplification of the
Romanies—their image—had been established during those two decades, it is very true that over centuries any stereotype may accumulate new details. Furthermore, since each of the image’s metamorphoses altered the status quo to some extent, it is necessary now to enumerate the details of the stereotype as they appear to have been envisioned before the Gypsy made his appearance as a literary and artistic character.
The more acceptable and attractive aspects of the imaginary Gypsy are generally
39 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World derived from the intentional part of the impression the Romanies wished to make upon the denizens of Europe. As the oft-represented, parade-like entrance depicted, the Gypsies’ grand entrance revealed most of these. It bears repeating that the greater part of these intentional impressions were indeed characteristics of a deliberate character, the Gypsy—not necessarily shared by the Romanies when they were “off stage.”
The most basic element of Romany culture, though, was seen accurately at that time: that they traveled from place to place in bands of moderate to small size. The tendency towards mobility and having no fixed address has long been considered by many Romanies an essential part of their culture: a point of pride (Gmelch and Gmelch 60). However, it is very likely that this is a feeling acquired over the centuries during which their ancestors were denied a viable place to settle. The same period, over which the Romanies were constantly faced with the rejection and dislike of settled people, must also have started and intensified their scorn and dislike of the gad źé —those who were not Romanies. During their introduction to Western
Europe, this wandering trait was explained as a temporary situation, due to end after a prescribed period of time or after a pilgrimage had been accomplished, but in fact, it appears there was no plan to settle in a specific area yet.
Other elements of the Gypsy image, already mentioned, are quickly enumerated. Some of these elements, like the Romanies’ nomadism, were accurate impressions, but explained in a dissembling way, so that they were misinterpreted by outsiders. For instance, the members of the procession wore fine garments, which were meant to be taken as the normal standard for
Romanies; instead, elements of the costumes were likely stolen, and otherwise their clothing was probably the best they had, saved specifically for such parades. It is not unlikely that the leaders of these processions were indeed in charge of the bands in many cases, but it is not true that Romany culture features terms like king and count ; these terms were adopted in order to impress passersby and to inspire respect and perhaps awe. It is possible that the Romanies had already their own system of justice, as they claimed then, including early versions of the
40 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
modern tradition of the kris (a Greek word that has long been used for proprietary trials of the
Vlach Rom, picked up in Greece before the Roma entered Western Europe [Fraser 56; Kanwar
1265]), but as stated above, it is probable that the Romanies mostly wished to acquire a status similar to modern diplomatic immunity, in order to protect their members from harsh gad źé
punishments. It was surely true that certain bands were on their way to see the Pope or other
notables, but they not had become pilgrims out of any Christian sense of duty; they were more
likely planning to petition for letters of protection, those precursors of modern passports. Their
“pilgrimage” cover story also ensured that local leaders would be obliged to feed and house
them, because they were simply poor and homeless. It seems that many elements of Romany
traditional dress may have come either from their original land, India, or from customs of
people whose regions they passed through; they were explained, however, as being the
distinctive clothing of other unknown lands, including Egypt and Greece; the locals were none
the wiser.
More elements which were intentionally promoted as characteristics of “Gypsies” were
purely fictional. For instance, seldom-visited Egypt, as described in the Old Testament, was
considered a land of magic (as Fraser agrees, 48), and this must have reinforced the gadjikane
belief in the Romanies’ claims that that particular land was their former homeland. The
reputation for magical ability associated with Egypt helped the Romi to sell their
fortune-telling act to gullible residents of Western Europe. As a money-earning practice for
Romanies, fortune telling first started while the Roma were in Byzantium, which, according to
Fraser, was a superstitious culture during an especially superstitious time in history. He states
that their willingness to believe in people who claimed to be sorcerers was “widespread at all
levels:” a fact which the wanderers were quick to exploit (48).
The Gypsy image, having been formed during those crucial two decades, stabilized,
more or less, for about a century; it was kept alive by the now-normal presence of the
Romanies, and by rumors and gossip about them. However, though they were visible part of
41 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
European culture by then, the Roma were still a reclusive and secretive society, and both the
gad źé and the Romanies themselves preferred to avoid blending together. The true nature of
Romany society was largely closed to outsiders, and curiosity about their private ways began
to grow, since their very obscurity lent them an air of mystery. Beyond that, they had already
adequate grounds for their own grudge against the non-Gypsies: the “ gad źé”. This interim period saw hostilities and hostile actions on the rise, with the Romanies becoming bolder and more purposeful in their minor crimes, and the residents creating stronger and more vicious punishments for them. The public imagination, though there is little to prove it from the period itself (c. 1437-1525), was evidently brewing numerous ideas, opinions, and tales, which became publicly visible soon enough.
42 Chapter 1. The Romanies’ Reality, Perception, and Reception in the Western World
Notes
3 Borrow was the first to use this term in print, and he spelled it “Rye.” However, since then, most writers who use the term spell it more phonetically, and also possibly to avoid confusion with the grain, as “Rai.” 4 Similarities between the Native Americans have been fruitfully explored in an article by Edo Banach, “The Roma and the Native Americans.” 5 Fonseca estimates approximately 8,000,000 Gypsies living in Europe in about 1980, with a majority of these in Eastern Europe (14); the back cover of her work refers to “a diaspora of twelve million” worldwide. Alexander Macleod agrees with her on the number of European Roma (8). Tony Wesolowsky further specifies that five million of these live in Central and Eastern Europe (13). 6 Secondary sources disagree about the details of this transportation. “A Chronology of significant dates in Romani history,” published online by RADOC, states that the 1498 trip was Columbus’s third, and that there were three transportees; the “Timeline of Romani History” provided by the Patrin homepage mentions four Romanies on the same trip; Hancock suggests in “Gypsy Mafia . . .” that Columbus brought three Roms, but that it was his second voyage. 7 Source of image:
43 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
۩Ж۩
Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1521-1653 The Forging of the Standard Gypsy Character
The Rebirth of the Gypsy Image: The Character under New Direction
The Renaissance is crucial in the story of the Gypsy image, because it was in this period, more specifically between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, that the Western initial impressions of the Romanies made the transition from a composite mental image derived from perceptions by eyewitnesses to a standard figure used by creative artists. During this era, the group of attributes that had been gathered in various places throughout Western Europe was standardized, and then, especially in the early seventeenth century, this list began to be augmented with new traits that were extrapolated from the known facts, and sometimes whimsically dreamt up for purposes of entertaining the artists’ audience. There were numerous new characteristics proposed; some were used once but never reiterated, while others were incorporated into the body of common knowledge about Gypsies—some temporarily, and some more lastingly. In many cases, the new facts that were first introduced in creative art—painting and drama, for instance—quickly became indistinguishable from actual data about the Romanies. There is something almost mystical about the way that some of these attributes went from fanciful fiction to accepted fact in the minds of the Western Europeans, though that is not to say that the process is the only such of its type.
The Romanies’ image was particularly vulnerable to such alterations for several reasons; the primary one, surely, was the simple obscurity of the group. From historical records and from contemporary research, the consensus is that the Romanies prefer to remain relatively mysterious; they do not wish to be understood by the gad źé (Fonseca 13). There is a strong
mistrust among the Romani of outsiders, which from the evidence available seems to have
44 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
amounted to a sort of anti-racism that is at least as strong as many Westerners’ prejudice against
the “Gypsies.” Aside from this factor, the Romanies of this period and for a long term
afterwards tended to camp away from the centers of town, both because of gad źé intolerance
and because of fear of reprisals and attacks in response to real or imagined criminal deeds by
the wanderers.
White clients who sought out fortune tellers were treated to something Fonseca terms
“pure theater—for sale exclusively to the gullible gadje. ” (137, Fonseca’s spelling) In other
words, when the settled population encountered the Romanies, the Romanies were usually “in
character,” as a method actor might be when preparing for a new role. Thus it is that the real
initiators of the Gypsy image as character parts were the Romanies themselves, and as we saw
in Chapter One, this was actually a continuation of the initial confrontation with Western
Europeans, not a new thing. One wonders if the White population could already have suspected
that the public face of the Romany tribes was in fact a kind of impromptu role-playing exercise.
If not, then the early dramas featuring Gypsy characters were only unwitting echoes of the “real
life” drama of Romanies when meeting non-Romanies—an unintentional sort of meta-drama.
This obscurity, which amounts in some aspects to a deliberate hiding or even disguising
of the true Romany character, seems very mysterious to many outsiders, in a tantalizing way.
The Gypsy character, as invented by Romanies and presented by them to the gad źé they met, was a simple and limited one, with one of its purposes being to block the real nature of Romany life from outsiders. There was, therefore, much speculation about the unanswered Romany questions. This kind of mass surmising and hypothesizing eventually found expression in fictionalized representations of the maddeningly unknown group.
Literary Gypsy Figures in the 1500s
The Gypsy Wanders on Stage: Three Sixteenth Century Dramas
The earliest literature featuring the Romanies, or reflections of their public “Gypsy”
45 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
image or character, is made up of scripts used for theatrical performances. These are
represented here by the earliest known example—Farsa das Ciganas (1521), by the
Portuguese dramatist Gil Vicente—and two later ones from England: Misogonus , an anonymous work of 1577, and George Whetstone’s tragedy from the following year, Promos and Cassandra . Each playwright presents the wanderers from a different angle, and has a different point and purpose in mind for doing so.
Farsa das Ciganas (1521), by Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente’s Farsa is a brief script, essentially a sketch. In his Collected Works , published in 1562, it fits onto just three pages (Casa de Sarmento, “ Farsa ”). Nevertheless, he manages to cram in nearly a century of post-1417 real-life impressions, presented in a way that, though recognizable, is probably exaggerated slightly; there is a strong correlation between portions of the dialogue and the testimony we have already read regarding genuine early encounters between the Romanies and the settled Europeans. The scripted characters, comprised of four females and four males, are all Romanies, and we are treated to what amounts to a reduced echo of the pattern of Roma/ gad źé encounters that began in 1417, and was first recorded in the Iberian peninsula precisely a hundred years before the Farsa , in 1425, when a group of Romany “pilgrims” under “Don Johan de Egipte Menor” were granted a safe-conduct by Alfonso V of Aragon, later a part of Spain (Fraser 76). The farce came, too, 47 years after the Romanies were first “imprisoned and tortured” in the Spanish Inquisition
(RADOC) and a mere 26 years after Spanish law ordered the Roma to disband and find honest work or face punishments such as mutilation and banishment (Patrin).
The action of Farsa das Ciganas , comprised of four passages, is quickly described.
First, the four Gypsy women appear, recapitulating the now-familiar litanies of being pious
pilgrims from Egypt, and then introducing the men. The Roms, like the female characters,
speak in strongly accented Spanish mixed at times with some Portuguese. The words are
46 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
spelled phonetically so as to control the specific mispronunciations the actors were to use;
different characters, in fact, have different-sounding accents. The men hawk the various
dilapidated equines they have available, which are possibly stolen. This, like the cover story
spoken by the boria , has precedent in history, attested often in court records; for example, in
Tournai in 1422, as Fraser relates in The Gypsies , the resident chronicler mentions “details of
stealing, fortune-telling by the women (accompanied by purse-cutting by children), and artful
horse-dealing by the men” 10 (71). Next, all eight enjoy a dance, and, simultaneously, a song which only slightly veils several digs at the asinine gad źé, as I understand the lyrics: they seem to characterize the customer, a gad źo, as a noble jackass ( Don Asno ), dancing in the kitchen. In
the final section, by far the longest, the lady Gypsies appear to move out among the ladies of
João III’s court (where the performance was held, this being a royal entertainment) to tell their
several fortunes, which are nearly all propitious. Despite these pleasing blandishments, not one
of the eleven recipients of these fortunes offers the boria any money. The affronted Romany
characters take their leave, pointing out this lack of compensation for their efforts, and the farce
is over.
Misogonus (ca. 1560), Anonymous
The second drama, Misogonus , comes from about 1560: approximately half a century after Vicente’s play, which is to say 55 years after the first record of the Romanies in Britain, in
1505, when ten French crowns were paid to “the Egiptianis” by the Lord High Treasurer of
Scotland, at the order of the King, James IV. Fraser speculates that this may have been a fee for a performance, or a payment of charity to the professed pilgrims (113).
This play, which survives only in a mutilated and incomplete manuscript, is of
unknown authorship, and does not feature any Gypsy characters at all. Instead, the comical
character Cacurgus is a fool both professionally and mentally, in an ill-prepared attempt to aid
his master, the title character, represents himself as a Gypsy, and, simultaneously, as a “very
47 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
good physician” in Act III Scene 3. In his attempt to confuse and impress Isbell and Madge,
two clowns (the term has seldom served its dual function so well), hoping to keep his master’s
family secret under wraps, he throws as much artistic verisimilitude into his exhortations as he
can think of, without regard for his fanciful tale’s internal consistency. Cacurgus initially
claims to be an Egyptian (“My father was also a natural Ethiopian”) in order to gain credence
that he can, by palmistry, speak sooth; then, he claims to be a healer so as to help Isbell himself,
steering her away from town and Misogonus’s family.11
Promos and Cassandra (1578), by George Whetstone
The third drama of this period, Promos and Cassandra , by George Whetstone
(1544?-1587?), has only one Gypsy character: a condemned criminal. His is a silent part, but
the Hangman and other minor characters talk to and about him. In Act II, Scene 6, 12 the
Hangman, who is waiting for the prisoners to come for their hanging, gloats, “At fast or loose,
with my Giptian I meane to have a cast: / Tenne to one I read his fortune by the Marymas fast”.
(456, italics Whetstone’s) “Fast or Loose,” a gambling game “played with cord,” as Bullough
comments in a footnote, is one of the Gypsies’ lasting favorites for cheating the public, in
which they can control the outcome of the game at will. The Hangman’s suggestion thus
implies that his own game is the better, for no one can cheat death of his winnings—and the
executioner uses the same playing materials as the Gypsy does: a length of rope. Notably, the
Gypsy is the only of his victims that the Hangman anticipates and mocks.
Shortly afterwards, the next scene starts, and the prisoners enter “bounde with cordes,
Two Hacksters , one Woman , one lyke a Giptian , the rest poore Rog[u]es , a Preacher , with
other Offycers ” (456, emphasis is Whetstone’s, and the u in brackets is Bullough’s). The
condemned immediately sing their song, which amounts to a prayer for mercy from God.
Shortly afterwards, their purpose in the story becomes clear, as the two hacksters and the
female prisoner exhort the implied crowd to avoid sin and thereby to escape the sentence of
48 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
death that they share. The other prisoners do not speak, but a “scoffing catchpole” among the
mob taunts the Gypsy character: “How now Giptian ? All a mort knave, for want of company? /
Be crustie man, the Hangman straight will read Fortunes with thee.” (456, italics in the
original) 13 It may be that, with this specific situation, the reference is to fortunetelling by
reading Tarot cards, instead of palmistry, for there is one card which is particularly relevant:
“The Hanged Man.” The preacher reprimands this heckler at once: “With this thy scoffing
speech, good friend offend him not, / His faults are sco[u]rged, thine scape (perhaps) that do
deserve his lot?” (457, editorial brackets are Bullough’s). I gloss that last line as: “His sins are
now to be purged from him, but perhaps you are guilty of equally bad faults, and are likewise
deserving of being executed for them, so do not mock him, lest you yourself get caught.” 14
Once again, the only character who seems to fail to earn the pity or at least the respect of the onlookers is the Giptian, who has no opportunity to speak on his own behalf. Though the priest uses the Rom as an example, he shows the man no specific sympathy. This is odd, because the only crimes connected with him in the text is cheating at games and at telling fortunes, which are relatively minor offenses compared to those of the other speaking prisoners, such as thievery, gambling, indulging in “wanton Dames,” murder and spilling blood, quarreling, and “pride & sloth.” (457) Soon, the prisoners depart “leysurablie,” singing a variation on the paean for mercy with which they entered (458).
Why is the Giptian’s crime treated mockingly, while the others’ all are treated with more gravity? Perhaps gambling, murder, argument, and such are seen by Whetstone as likely crimes engaged in by ordinary citizens, but the sort of people who paid to visit the respectable theatre would hardly be expected to be rascals of such a mean and petty sort as the onstage
Egyptian figure—the Gypsies being beyond the pale, perhaps too low class to even consider forgiving. Even the priest, in silencing the heckler from the crowd, does not defend the Giptian or his crimes; the reprimand reverses back onto the “catchpole” instead. In summary, we can count the Romany activity of fortune telling and also the début of the rigged game “fast or
49 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
loose” to the roster of recurring elements associated with the Gypsy figure. We also observe
that by this time in the late 16 th century the Gypsies and their habiliments are so well known
that no elaboration is needed after the stage direction “one [enters dressed] lyke a Giptian ”
(456).
The Romanies are, by implication, all condemned by their cultural behavior, since by reputation they all commit this kind of offense “by kind” (to use Cacurgus’s term). In contrast, others’ crimes have external sources. In other words, while the Gypsies are always low and worthy of punishment by their basic inborn nature, the legitimate Whites, like a chemical precipitate, sink down from the top to their level if they partake in bad behavior. The Gypsies are not “fallen,” but instead have never been upstanding, so in a way, there is nothing they have done to merit pity or sympathy—they have only acted as nature designed them. It is as if the
Romanies are lesser creatures, apart from humanity. Nevertheless, after the crimes are committed, they are all bound together by cords of sin and are jogged off to be killed. In the end, whether by choice or by nature, all the prisoners are lowlifes, and they all deserve death, regardless.
Elements of the Gypsy Image as Manifested on the Sixteenth-Century Stage
As already indicated, key elements of the Romanies’ intentionally presented Gypsy character or image, first introduced into Western Europe in 1417, have survived their transition from alter-ego of the Roma to the ranks of the Dramatis Personae of Western creative artists, with little or no modification. Some elements, it emerges, are more pervasive than others; certain traits of the Gypsies are echoed in only one or two of the plays of this period. Others seem at this point to be more essential to the image, inevitably recurring every time a Gypsy character is to be portrayed. Among these three dramas, the one in Misogonus is different from
the others. In this play, the Gypsy image is mediated, hazily reflected through the imperfect
understanding of a foolish and rather desperate jester’s impromptu performance, when his
50 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 mind is on more important matters. Therefore, ironically, it is Cacurgus who describes himself and his made-up background the most specifically, while the other playwrights seem so familiar with Gypsy attributes that the costumes and behavior is only sketchily articulated, suggesting that such details, so well established already in the public mind, simply go without saying. 15
The most abiding practice of the Romni, both in real life and in fictionalized Gypsy tales, is surely the telling of fortunes; this is referred to in all three dramas. So far, the only technique that is specifically demonstrated (the Farsa ) or named ( Misogonus ) is palmistry, also later known as chiromancy. Even though Cacurgus seems to know about “Egyptian” people only by reputation, and that quite hazily, he knows enough to employ this technique.
The traditional cover story of being pilgrims from Egypt or Africa resurfaces in both the Farsa and Misogonus, supported in the latter by drawing attention to the fool’s outlandish, supposedly foreign, outfit of motley. The horses on which early Romany bands first encountered Iberians appear in the Vicente, though by now the equines seem shabby and likely stolen; any glamour that their equines may once have lent the Gypsies has already fled, and the beasts are only there as merchandise, not a mark of nobility.
Perhaps using reverse logic, the fool also claims that his motley outfit—the standard fool’s garb—is the “pied” raiment of a Gypsy, since he has heard, evidently, that the Gypsies’ exotic clothing causes much surprise, being at odds with the European standard; therefore, since his clothing is also outlandish, he tries to pass it off as Gypsy attire. Evidently, he has heard something vague about the female Gypsies’ headgear, and banks on the country women’s equal vagueness of imagination when he claims that his jester’s cap is consistent with the rest of his outfit.
By this period, the Gypsies had been noted for their clairvoyance for centuries. Angus
Fraser suggests that the Romanies very likely started “soothsaying and telling fortunes” soon after arriving in Byzantium, for at that time “credulity and superstition were widespread at all
51 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
levels, including the emperors themselves” (48), so it was relatively easy to persuade or gull
the public then; the reputation for supernatural knowledge having been established, it stayed
with the Roma and they continued to play into it, as it was a constant moneymaker for them.
The earliest surviving text mentioning this in connection with the Romanies (as Fraser suggests)
is from around 1068, describing the already-notorious Romanies in 1050, when they were in
Constantinople (46). Another from the twelfth century, by Theodore Balsamon, attests to how
“they would also prophesy about forthcoming good and ill fortunes” (47). Such citations recur
frequently, in a majority of references to the Romanies.
Let us pause briefly for a more detailed look at several contemporary examples of
Gypsy fortunetelling and its imitations, to see how much of the fictional fortunes is strictly imitative, and how much might be taken as the writer’s own fancy. As an example of “real life”
Gypsy fortunetelling, consider this account of a visit to Bologna of about 100 Romanies under the Gypsy “Duke Andrea” in 1422:
Many people went to see them, on account of the duke’s wife who could tell
fortunes and predict what would transpire in a person’s life, as well as what
was happening in the present and how many children they had and whether a
wife was good or bad, and other things. In many cases she told truly. (Qtd. in
Fraser 72)
In the Vicente, we (along with King João III) witness the readings of eleven ladies’ fortunes.
In this closing section of the farce, we can catch an early glimpse of a blending of reproduced observation with creative fancy. From contemporary reports, the bulk of the Romnis’ fortunes in the play appear to be true to the historical form: they are all encouraging and reassuring, telling of upcoming romance, wealth, and charming children. 16 They mostly emphasize the
future, but with reference to what the client seems to want at the time of the telling. The
Vicente’s Ciganas mostly tell vague and happy fortunes, as Giralda says at the beginning of
the fortune-telling scene:
52 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
Another thing I can give you all,
Which you ladies can know:
Who’s the husband you’ll have
And the day and the hour when you’ll get married.
Cassandra continues with the first of the Ciganas ’ clients:
Show me your hand, madam.
Don’t have any fear/suspicion
Bless the God of Heaven
You have a good future!
A very good future, you have.
Many good things, many good things:
A man [husband] who loves you very much,
Others talk to you of love.
You, Madam, do not try to cure yourself
Of giving us many escudos.
Give us something precious!
…………………………….
Some little trinket.
One of the fortunes, in contrast, does have a hint of warning, again consistently with
the real fortunes that had already been part of the Gypsy image for some time. Compare this
with the feigning palmist “Gypsy,” Cacurgus, in Misogonus, whose fortune deals with the present and the past, in order to deliver a seeming warning—really acting as a subterfuge, meant to forestall the women from revealing Misogonus’s family secret:
To bear witness you are now both toward your landlord trotting,
That his wife of two children at once was brought to bed.
But take heed what you do, lest you damn yourselves quite;
53 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
For the one was not a christian child, as you thought it to be,
But a certain fairy there did dazzle your sight
And laid her changeling in the infant's cradle, […]
But take you heed both, I give you good warni[ng]
Lest you be stricken hereby either lame or d...... 17
From this example, we can gather a further hint that Romany fortunetellers sometimes gave out similar warnings, though not perhaps from a prior knowledge of clients’ situations.
However, no such warnings are recorded in historical texts yet. The theme of magical warnings of this sort grows in popularity after this period.
The ladies in the Farsa whose palms are read have no scripted lines to read; we might
imagine that they felt pleased, if forewarned, or if not, possibly embarrassed. There is not
enough surviving information to tell if these specific fortunes were written expressly for female
members of the court, but it seems likely that they matched the known desires or situations of
these ladies, or else played off them in some way. The clients are treated with fawning
admiration for their wisdom and their personal beauty, noting especially their white
skin—which suggests that the actors, who were hardly likely to be genuine Romanies, were
made up to have relatively dark complexions for their Romany roles. This tendency to darken
the skin when pretending to be a Gypsy will emerge in British theatre, manifesting the
erroneous (or at least initially-erroneous) popular impression that the people known as Gypsies
did so in real life, to give the false impression of foreignness.
It is very possible that Vicente’s play manifests his involvement with court pressure on
Portugal’s King João III to outlaw the Romanies. It is not certain to what degree the playwright
was an instigator, lobbying for the ciganas ’ prohibition, or a follower, catering to the
anti-Romany sentiment popular in court. Nevertheless, it is clear that, in the Farsa at least,
Vicente was far from protesting the royal decree in 1525 or 1526 that barred any further
Romanies from entering the country: the first law of its kind in the nation’s history (Patrin;
54 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
RADOC). João III, states Fraser, issued more such repressive laws in 1538 and 1557 (101).
Further, Vicente’s king, for whom the work was written, began transporting Romanies to
Portugal’s African colonies thirteen years after the Farsa ’s performance, in 1538 (Fraser 169), following the passage of the former set of laws. One is forced to conclude that Vicente, though interested in the Romanies, probably felt little respect or sympathy for the wanderers—or at least, he was obliged to show support for the king’s policies.
But if so much of this brief sketch is essentially true to the public experience, one may wonder why it is termed a farce at all; though the performances of the actors may have been exaggerations of real Romanies that Vicente and members of the court had seen, there are few blatantly comic touches, and though in this case the “fortunes” of the ladies seem to be accurate, everyone would have known why they were so in this case, and would have no reason to assign the same tactics to real Romanies’ predictions.
To these rather documentary elements, Vicente adds newly created ones, offering a fictive “behind the scenes” look at Gypsy behavior: their private discussions, and especially their mocking song. In it, a client, who is a gad źo, is represented as “Sir Ass,” dancing and contemplating marriage in his kitchen. This song, presumably not meant by the Romany characters to be heard by the outsiders, puts the rest of their in-character performance into a new, pseudo-metadramatical context. In fact, in this first fictional work to feature the
Gypsies, 18 Vicente, aware that there is more to the mysterious and musical Gypsy than the
Whites have ever seen, and that what has been seen has never betrayed their true nature,
supplies a faux revelation of the truth. All the main body of the lines spoken by the Gypsies “in
public,” then, are made to appear false and wheedling, in contrast with their real anti-gad źé
prejudicial attitude: the beginning is seen so in hindsight by the audience, and beginning with
the fortunes, the remainder of the play is seen as an act, no longer as something to be trusted,
though the audience might not gain any insight from Vicente as to how the fortunes are really
worked by the Ciganas. In effect, Vicente’s drama serves to intensify public curiosity about the
55 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
true Romany life and its secrets, while seeming to reflect some of the typical traits of the
Romanies of Vicente’s time, though of course some of these may have been exaggerated in the
script.
Possibly because they are stereotypically foreign, and possibly because of their
traditionally low levels of education, Gypsy figures are very often represented as speaking
differently than others. There are speech impediments, such as the lisps of the Farsa ’s ciganos ,
as well as accents, spelled out phonetically in the text, such as the same characters’ vowel
substitutions. For instance, “tiengo” for the Spanish “ tengo ,” “I have,” and “ceñuraz” or
alternately “ciñurez” substituted either for the Spanish “s eñoras ” and “señores,” which mean
“madam” or “sir,” respectively. 19 As with many accents, individual sounds are poorly pronounced by these Gypsies, especially “o,” which is spoken as “u,” and the terminal “s,” which comes out as “z.” Both of these tendencies are found in the word “ceñuraz,” assuming that they are trying to use the Spanish pronunciation.
The substitution of “z” for “s” in the Gypsies’ speech is a phonetic representation of a lisp, as Fraser suggests (100). Vicente is probably merely imitating, or exaggerating, the poor
Portuguese, or else the poor Spanish, of traveling Romanies whom he, and therefore, in all likelihood, most of his audience members, knew of, either personally or by report. The Farsa contains several glaring errors of grammar in addition to the pronunciation difficulties.
Significantly, Romany expert Angus Fraser, well familiar with the historical records related to this group, admits surprise that “nothing is said, until well into the sixteenth century, about the
Gypsies having their own language; nor do we hear of any difficulty in their communicating with the inhabitants of countries they were visiting for the first time” (79). 20 No lisps or accents were specifically mentioned, either, up to this point, in the histories or municipal records.
However, in later works of history and also creative writing, Gypsies are said to have recourse to a secret language, which we know today must probably have been their own
Romani. As Fraser documents, many passed off this incomprehensible talk as thieves’ jargon,
56 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
since it was already known that thieves’ occupations made secret communication useful, and
thievery had already been established as a Gypsy habit. The first probable mention of a distinct
Romany language that Fraser cites is in Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia Universalis of
1550; Münster assumed that it was Rotwelsch, the German canting tongue of German thieves
(65). Many more such isolated reports follow, until at last a general “Western European” group
understanding emerges that the Gypsies have their own language. This will be explained
variously in later fictions, as we will see.
In any case, this tendency to speak unusually serves to heighten the wanderer
characters’ sense of otherness: of a difference from the normally accepted ways. This would
make the public feeling of distrust and possibly scorn more powerful than before. The ciganas ’ expressions of Christian piety—well suited to Catholic Iberia—are also further undercut by their bad pronunciation, which has the effect of intensifying the idea that they are in fact secretly irreligious—a bit of misinformation that had been bandied about since the Romanies’ early days in Europe. This may have been included at the beginning of the sketch in order to deepen the court’s distrust of the ciganos , throwing all they might say later into suspicion.
Another long-standing tradition of depicting Gypsies in writing begins with Vicente, and this one is more theatrical than any that people truly believed true of actual Romanies. This is the convention of having the Gypsy give her fortunes in rhymed verses. It is true that this entire play is already chiefly in verse, as indeed most Renaissance dramas are, but from this time until the realistic novel begins to predominate, most writings featuring such fortunes are done in this musical fashion. Indeed, musicality and dancing are standard features of the Gypsy stereotype, and this has had echoes in both real life and in the Western imaginative life ever since, as we shall see in no small number of examples hereafter.
The Galapagos of Genius: Shakespeare and Cervantes, Ahead of Their Time
Close contemporaries, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra had
57 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
careers that straddled the turn of the seventeenth century; they both died on the same dates of
their respective calendars: April 23 rd . Today, both of these writers are nearly universally
considered giants of literature, and both make reference to the Gypsy image in their writings.
However, though both writers had their admirers among their peers, their writings regarding
the image had little immediate impact on other living writers’ works, perhaps because the
Cervantine and Shakespearian works were more subtle and profound than their peers could
easily appreciate, emulate, or appropriate. Their use of the image is at a higher level of artistry:
if the later plays by Rowley, Fletcher, and the others are comparable to snapshots of how the
Gypsies were thought of at the time, the works by Shakespeare and Cervantes are closer to oil
portraits. Indeed, it appears that the image manipulations that the two masters achieved were
beyond the scope of the other living writers, and so their innovations—the Gypy as a metaphor
and the Gypsy as a sympathetic protagonist, respectively—were not imitated by their
contemporaries. Ironically, then, this portion of the chapter must treat the greater works of art
more superficially, since they are not representative of the public mind of the Renaissance in
the way that lesser writers were.
Gypsy References in Shakespeare
There are only four direct uses of the word “gipsie” (or derivative forms of it) in all of
Shakespeare—the first in Romeo and Juliet , one more is in As You Like It , and the final two in
Antony and Cleopatra . Stephen Greenblatt indicates that As You Like It was written between
1598 and 1600 (1598). The fleeting Romany reference there is to musicians playing “all in tune, like two gipsies on a horse” (5.3.12-13). 21 All the rest of Shakespeare’s references to Gypsies
connect the Gypsy image with the figure of Egypt’s legendary queen, Cleopatra—either as a
character, or as a historical figure.
William Shakespeare’s references to the Romanies are telling examples of how they
were pictured in Britons’ minds—assuming that, to be comprehensible, the fundamental
58 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
elements of the image must have been as common to the audience as they were to the
“Immortal Bard” of the English language himself. But Shakespeare is well known as a
manipulator of information, and a shaper of images. His creative handling of the Gypsy
concept goes beyond traditional representations of wandering rogues, while still never letting
the components of the dominant mental picture of the Rom fade out of the audience’s
awareness.
One remarkable feature of Shakespeare’s creative treatment of stolid facts is perhaps
more readily noticeable in his dramatic histories, which deal with the royalty of England over a
vast span of time and encompassing multiple dynasties. Shakespeare based most of his history
plays on narratives from books of history by Holinshed and Hall, as it has been elaborately and
most cogently documented and demonstrated by Bullough in Narrative and Dramatic Sources
of Shakespeare (1958).
Conflation is not only found in literature. As we know, the Romanies were not only not
really Egyptian people, but also they had, in all probability, never passed through Egypt, or any
other part of Africa, at all. Calling themselves Egyptians was, to judge from the documentation
of Fraser and others, used as a cover story to deceive the public, and may very likely have only
been adopted after the notion had first been suggested by others who were guessing about their
identities. 22 Whether the commoners of England actually believed these peoples to be of the same blood and race, or whether they used such as linguistic ligature mindful of the factual distinction, or whether, as is likely, there was a mixture of the two ways of thinking, or indeed a general perplexity on the subject, is uncertain. But it appears that many believed the story, or at least had no better way to represent the Romanies in their minds than by thinking of them as
“Gypsies,” because the Europeans had, mentally, already conflated the people of the land of the
Sphinx and the Nile with those of the caravan and the thieving reputation.
In both of the plays of Shakespeare that call the Gypsy image into question, namely
Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra , the Gypsies are metaphorically equated with their
59 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 namesakes, the residents of Egypt: specifically, with the most famous of that country’s queens,
Cleopatra VII. This is something that, evidently, people often did, albeit tacitly. Shakespeare showcases the metaphor, causing the audience members to take a less passive role in this conflation: the very act of asserting identity of the two groups is also a demand to admit that they are distinct from one another. At the same time, though, the similarities between the groups are reinforced, leading viewers to reassess the two groups and their relationship in the public mind. The two groups were, and still are, tethered together in human minds.
Shakespeare exploited the popular conflation in intriguing ways, playing with the two images as he did so often and so expertly with individual words.
Romeo and Juliet (1595)
The conflation was referred to by Shakespeare in 1595 in the tragedy known today as
Romeo and Juliet . As Stephen Greenblatt acknowledges in his introduction to this play in The
Norton Shakespeare , “ Romeo and Juliet is saturated with language games: paradoxes, oxymorons, double entendres, rhyming tricks, verbal echoings, multiple puns.” (866) Among other functions of Shakespeare’s linguistic games, he reminds readers that “wordplay can also suggest surprising linkages and secret realities.” (867)
In what is, in the same book, figured as Act II, Scene 3, we find Mercutio teasing the lovesick Romeo (in the language of the First Folio): “Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his Lady, was a kitchen wench […] Dido a dowdie, Cleopatra a Gipsie,
Hellen and Hero, hildings and Harlots […]” (2.3.21). On one level, we take Mercutio at his word, accepting that all the literary lovers seem merely drab and commonplace females in comparison to Romeo’s beloved. But on another, we notice a disparity within the list. Mercutio is presenting his series of comparisons as if from Romeo’s point of view, and so when he asserts, “Hellen and Hero [were] hildings and Harlots,” we understand that, despite Romeo’s blindness, they were certainly nothing of the kind in real life. Mercutio, far from revealing
60 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
Helen and Hero’s secret attributes, is instead ridiculing Romeo for his blind infatuation. The
comparisons are clearly intended to be gross misinterpretations of the truth, and purported
furthermore to be Romeo’s own mistakes. But the metaphor concerning the Egyptian Queen
Cleopatra is deeply ambiguous.
On the surface, the claim that she was “a Gipsie” is ridiculous, as are all the other
statements; as the editors of The Norton Shakespeare explain, the term “Gipsie” was primarily
a term of abuse (898), because the “Gipsies” were well known to be notorious, immoral vamps,
tricksters, and thieves, and desperately poor and dirty ones at that. The editors elsewhere gloss
“gipsie’s” as meaning “hussy’s” (2629). Samuel Johnson, in Notes on Shakespeare , remarks of the word’s use here that “Gypsy is here used both in the original meaning for an Egyptian , and in its accidental sense for a bad woman ”. Furthermore, to add irony to the insult, the royal
Cleopatra, monarch and lover of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (Greenblatt 898), was the titular owner of a whole nation, while the Romanies were famous for having no land to their names (or pseudonyms) whatever. Their frequent claims of having among them “kings,”
“counts,” and other nobles were already viewed with deep suspicion. By implication, then,
Juliet is better than both the Romanies and the so-called “Egyptian” queen, in Romeo’s lovesick gaze.
But then we must perform a quick mental double-take. Was Cleopatra not a “Gipsie”?
Today, many assume that the queen was undeniably a prominent native of Egypt, the land that was said to have spawned the Gypsies, and, like most Africans, Black. However, the Cleopatra of this play, the seventh queen of her name in that land, was ethnically no African; she was instead of Greek extraction, and was probably the first to speak Egyptian among her famous relatives (Hamer 5). 23 Nevertheless, according to ways of referring to nobles and royalty of
Shakespeare’s time, Cleopatra was, to Elizabethans, eponymous with Egypt itself. Like most
Egyptians, most of the Romanies had dark skin, though they were racially distinct, but the
coincidence of the two groups’ dark skin coloration further reinforced their popular
61 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 amalgamation.
Because of the multiple associations of the word, then, Cleopatra at once was, and was not, an Egyptian. In the second sense, then, Mercutio’s suggestion that Cleopatra was a Gypsy in Romeo’s eyes is to suggest that Romeo is seeing clearly, and rightly. This disrupts the logic and simple interpretation of the sequence. Yes, she was a Gypsy, but not that kind of Gypsy.
Trying to resolve the seeming oxymoron here—how can a Gypsy be a true, rich, and beautiful queen?—leads one to a tail-chasing spiral of logic. Warming to Shakespeare’s, and to his character Mercutio’s, love of wordplay, one is likely to start seeing everything in this text as a word game, a web of verbal associations that branches out in many directions. Though such musings and exercises of free association are initiated by the reference to Cleopatra, they do not relate to the Gypsy image directly. However, in Antony and Cleopatra we find a different and fascinating sort of conflation at work. One can argue that the whole play revolves around the Gypsy image and the oft-referred-to queen of the Egyptians.
Antony and Cleopatra (1607)
The very first speech of the play has Philo stating that the heart of his general, Antony,
[…] Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust. (1.1.9-12)
A crowd of associations is pulled together in these last two lines. The use of the word “gipsy” again calls the audience to bring about a mental conflation: the “gipsy” here might seem to be
Antony, or else Cleopatra, or else an ordinary European Gypsy, and the three seem to blend, joined in a miasma of vapors drifting off the smithy’s fire. The oxymoronic joining of these ideas—their confusion, or conflation—is joined by another: the fan, generally, is used for purposes of cooling, but the tinker, whose job is closely associated in the public mind with
62 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
Gypsies, uses his fan or bellows to make his fire hotter, not cooler. The expansion and contraction of the muscles of Antony’s heart, then, are pumping like a bellows, not cooling his lust, but instead, paradoxically, making its flames leap still higher. We are already aware that Cleopatra is, in at least one important sense, a true and literal Egyptian, similarly enflamed by Gypsy lust: lust and untamed sensuality, let us recall, being trademarks of the stereotypical Gypsy lover. And truly Cleopatra is figured as an idealized and supremely alluring female in the popular mind.
However, Antony, the Roman, is in another way linked to the Gypsy figure, for he is a faithless lover, wedding but seldom bedding Caesar’s sister Octavia, preferring his other wife, the Queen of Egypt—by which union, perhaps, he himself might be addressed or referred to by statesmen as Egypt —in Act V, Cleopatra does have that honor. Though etymologically, the empire and city “Roma” and the ethnic “Roma” are of different origins, the coincidental homonym creates a verbal link even in their nomenclature, as the Romans and the Romanies vie for the ownership of the land of the pyramids.
A soothsayer is consulted in Act I Scene 2, only minutes later. The denizens of
Shakespeare’s Egypt wish to consult this fortuneteller as a sort of parlor entertainment; the scene is in fact very close to numerous others in following centuries, and the method is the same as in so many of them: chiromancy.
CHARMIAN. Is this the man? Is’t you, sir, that know things?
SOOTHSAYER. In nature’s infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
ALEXAS. Show him your hand. […]
CHARMIAN. Good sir, give me good fortune.
SOOTHSAYER. I make not, but foresee.
CHARMIAN. Pray, then, foresee me one. (1.2.7-10; 13-14)
In other words, the scene smacks strongly not of an authentic Egypt, but of the tent or
63 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
drawing room of a British or European Romany fortuneteller. Indeed, this exchange of
Shakespeare’s is echoed very closely in Bram Stoker’s short story “The Gipsy Prophecy:”
“…here you are, my pretty girl; but you must give me a real good fortune for it,”
and he handed her a half sovereign, which she took, saying:
“It is not for me to give good fortune or bad, but only to read what the
Stars have said.” 24
The function of the first fortune telling scene, then, and its placement very early in the drama, was to reinforce the conflation of Egyptians and Gypsies, emphasizing their similarities and blurring the distinctions between them. Having already uttered the word
“gipsy” in the first line of the play, he next shows us a Gypsy stock scene, already prefigured in the Vicente sketch, making sure that this leading conceit of the drama is well established.
Shakespeare’s fourth and final use of the word gipsy is in IV.13.28 of the same tragedy.
Antony is in a towering rage, ready to destroy his lover for her tricks.
Betrayed I am.
O this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm,
Whose eye becked forth my wars and called them home,
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,
Like a right gipsy hath at fast and loose
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. (4.13.24-29)
Again, the queen of Egypt is identified with the Romanies, in an anachronistic reference to
“fast and loose,” analogous to “the old shell game” of later days, a well-known, and often-mentioned, game by which they cheated people of their money. This is the same game the executioner in Promos and Cassandra has already mentioned. Just as the mention of fast and loose is anachronistic, so is the image of the cozening “right gipsy.” After all, 68-30 BC,
Cleopatra’s lifetime, was centuries before Bahram Gur supposedly sent for the Luri to be sent to Persia from India (see Chapter 1). Since they were not yet on the move, and indeed were
64 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
not yet distinct from other Indians, except possibly by caste (see Fraser 33-36), they were not
yet calling themselves Egyptians or anything else, and had no particular bad reputation in the
Western world.
Instead, Antony’s rant reminds us again of the way in which Shakespeare’s characterization of Cleopatra links her with the Gypsy image. In this tragedy, she is wily, mendacious, seductive, capricious, and passionate. Antony is quite right: she conforms to the image very closely, and is a “right gipsy” in truth. Of course, it would be stretching the metaphor too much to show Cleopatra actually telling fortunes around a crystal ball, so that function is delegated. Shakespeare inverts the normal power hierarchy: the dark Gypsy figures are dominant, and it is the few, isolated Roman Whites who wander through the land. In this way, though Cleopatra retains many Gypsy characteristics, Antony is himself reduced in certain ways into a homeless wanderer who forges a relationship with the powerful leaders of state. 25
The Disremembered Archetype: Los Gitános in “La Gitanilla”
It is true that after a period of time the works of Cervantes became quite popular as
sources for other writers’ plots, and in fact this is one of the fads of the theatrical world of the
early 1600s, but there is more artistic skill and wisdom in “La Gitanilla” and his other
Gypsy-related works than any of his plunderers realized. The commentary he provides on the
Gypsy image involves much more than the mere plot, a fact that Lesley Lipson insists has been
ignored or missed by most readers and literary critics since 1613, when the book it appeared in,
Novelas Ejempleares , was first published. Traditionally, most writers have assumed that the
story is a romance, a love story resulting in an “ideal Christian union” (37), which generally
follows the traditions of the stories that so enchanted the title character of Don Quijote .
However, to paraphrase Lipson, the key to the story is to realize that, using various techniques
of parody and irony, the writer is subtly playing with the idea that appearances are often at odds
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with reality, and specifically hinting that cognitive habits of expectations, caused by genre or
by stereotype, are unreliable (Lipson 35-37). One might characterize the whole composition as
a study on the theme of mistaken identities: both dealing with individuals’ identities, and with
those of groups or classes of people.
I have stated that Cervantes was a writer ahead of his time, and certainly it was a long time before other writers began writing the sort of in-depth explorations of Romany culture that appear in “La Gitanilla ,” not to mention the kind of metalinguistic study mentioned just above.
Part of this may be because this is the only fictional tale of its kind from this period, and furthermore to Cervantes’ innovative approach to fiction. This is one of his novelas , and indeed he is often called the father of the modern novel, and the tone of this collection of stories is in keeping with the ways of the early novel. Clearly, this new mode of fiction was being established by Cervantes in this process, and the characteristics of the novela were much different from those of the drama. Pedro de Urdemalas , a drama by Cervantes published in
1615, two years following the publication of the Novelas Ejemplares , has more in common
with other contemporary plays—both Iberian and British ones—than it does with “La
Gitanilla,” at least in terms of characterization, tone, and style. William J. Entwhistle specifies,
“For the drama he [Cervantes] lacked flair, and he worked under conventions already
established to his hurt.” (103)
Cervantes seems to be unique in this period in his realistic treatment of Romany society
and characters, reaching beyond the superficial characteristics of the admittedly developing
stereotype to show believable human figures in a recognizable context. Cervantes was
naturally familiar with life in his own Spain; from historical evidence, it appears that this
included not only ordinary settled society, but also, possibly, life in Gypsy camps; Walter
Starkie asserts in his 1954 article “Cervantes y los Gitános” (referred to in Dougherty, 8), that
Cervantes had had contact with at least half-blooded Romanies during his youth. From the
familiar depictions of Spanish life featuring interactions between Romanies who are “in
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character” and settled Spaniards, filled with recognizable verisimilitude, Cervantes leads us
into the heart of a Gypsy camp. The level of details and realism remain consistent, and these
scenes are fully as convincing as the ones in town. The reader can therefore easily accept the
story’s representation of the camp, and of the life by the Gypsy characters when they are alone
together, as accurate, or at least satisfyingly realistic.
Cervantes is the first to lead his readers into the Gitános’ private lives, and he is also, it
seems, the last of his era to do so convincingly. Other representations of candid Gypsy figures
show us camp life, as well, it is true, and indeed many of them may well be informed, either
directly or indirectly, by this story, but the Gypsies we meet there are arguably always flat,
two-dimensional characters, walking stereotypes, even when they are stereotypes in the
making. This is certainly true, in my view, of the characters featured in the remainder of the
Renaissance writings discussed in this chapter, who are never fully developed, believable,
human characters.
Although the style and depth of Cervantes’ novela was well ahead of the mainstream of fiction writers, who caught up with him but slowly, there is a clear and indisputable connection between this story’s plot and those of British plays of the next few decades: “La Gitanilla” was adapted for the stage, and combined with another of the Exemplary Tales , “ La Fuerza de la
Sangre ” ten years after their original publication in Spain, by Middleton and Rowley for their collaboration, The Spanish Gipsie , about which there is more to say later in this chapter. It appears that other writers also derived at least some of their details of rogue camp life from the
“Gitanilla ” scenes as well, though they clearly embroidered on the limited details that
Cervantes supplied.
In my consideration of this fundamental work of fictional representation of Gypsy figures, I want to interpret its characterization for the effect it had on its readers, as well as the
effect that the story had as a precedent on which later writers relied when creating their own
literature. Frank Timothy Dougherty, in his doctoral thesis The Gypsies in Literature , asserts
67 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
that “for all practical purposes, Cervantes is the source for two hallowed literary traditions
related to gypsies: baby-stealing, and the aristocratic adult gadjo who seeks admission to the
Romany confraternity” (9). 26
The qualifier “for all practical purposes” seems to insure Dougherty against disagreements, and indeed, due to the incompleteness of the surviving literature, such qualifiers could well preface most of the statements in any study of the present kind, including this one. However, it would be well to point out that another great Golden Age playwright,
Lope de Rueda, built his leading plot in the play Medora upon a Gypsy kidnapping. This play was performed some time before 1567, when the play was first published. In the comedy, a
Gypsy woman who is never named steals an infant boy named Medoro, substituting in his place a Gyspy boy who dies in a few days. The Gypsy woman dresses the boy in feminine clothing and calls him Armelio—the first example, perhaps, of assigning a Gypsy name and concealing the birth name of a White traveling among the Romanies, and a close pattern for
Preciosa/Constanza, barring the cross-dressing. The qualifying phrase mentioned above hides the truth of whether Dougherty knew of this play. At any rate, his phrase suggests that there were, or might have been, other stories using these themes, but that they did not significantly affect later literature. However, I suggest that Medora may well have played a part in inspiring
Cervantes. Nevertheless, let us assume, like Dougherty, that “La Gitanilla” was really the greater influence on later writers.
It is also, significantly, possibly more than the merely literary source of the
“kidnapping” theme; there are no surviving records of such claims in court or related records, save one from the year 1500 in Augsburg, Germany, when, “at the request of Maximilian I, the
Augsburg Reichstag declare[d] Roma traitors to the Christian countries, and accuse[d] them of witchcraft, kidnapping of children, and banditry” (“Timeline”). It may well be that Cervantes actually was for a majority of readers the original source of this misinformation, which, supported by repeated iterations in literature, became a steady element of the believed public
68 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
image of the Gypsy. Of course, it is also possible that the hypothesis of kidnapping may have
been invented to account for the presence of certain light-haired and light-skinned Gypsies
among the others, but it may have first been introduced in this story, whereafter the suggestion
resonated in the public imagination and became a working theory. In this story, there is plenty
of foreshadowing to warn readers that the title character, whose Gypsy name is Preciosa and
whose birth name is Constanza, is not a Gypsy by birth, and one of these is by evidence of the
girl’s physical attributes: “‘This, indeed, is what you may call golden hair,’ cried Doña Clara;
‘these are truly emerald eyes.’” This quote, in fact, serves researchers in two ways at once. It
suggests that Preciosa’s golden hair and green eyes are remarkable for a Gypsy girl to have, and
simultaneously, it conspicuously does not show Doña Clara taking these characteristics as any
proof that Preciosa is not a Gitána . When the truth behind Constanza’s birth is revealed in the story, I suggest, the seed of doubt was planted in the minds of readers who had previously thought as Doña had: that fairness was atypical, but not suspicious, in a Gypsy. As Dougherty suggests, this revelation spawned a literary tradition of such scenes, and these could only have reinforced the thought in the public mind that fair members of Gypsy bands were actually kidnapped Whites.
Dougherty also seems to be correct in asserting that the “joining the Gypsies” stock scene originates in this story. It does seem as if at least some of the Spanish public was ready to believe that any common Spaniard had a chance of joining the Gypsies. An important document from 1619, a plea to the Spanish King Philip III to evict Gypsies from Spain, rejecting the popular idea that the Gitános are of foreign origin, advances the following theory as to their identities:
The second and sure opinion is, that those who prowl about Spain are not
Egyptians, but swarms of wasps and atheistical wretches, without any kind of
law or religion, Spaniards, who have introduced this Gypsy life or sect, and
who admit into it every day all the idle and broken people of Spain. (Trans.
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and qtd. by Borrow, Zincali 46)
This extract comes from a petition to King Felipe III written by doctor Sancho de Moncada, who wrote this in 1619, six years after the Novelas Ejemplares were published, and since Don
Quijote was by then already a popular book (Volume 1 was published in 1605 and Volume 2
in 1615), it may well be that de Moncada had read “La Gitanilla,” and had invented the above
“theory” due to the story’s inspiration. 27 On the other hand, if the idea of joining the Gypsies
was already considered an option by the Spanish people of the time, then we can say with
some confidence that it was this story of Cervantes’s which took the idea and presented it as a
convincing and memorable scene—one that took root in the popular imagination and led to
more such representations, and from there into the realm of the imaginary actual—by which I
mean the area of ideas that people suppose to be literally true, whether or not the supposition
is correct.
The story also pretends to document the typical public activities of the Gitános, such as telling fortunes and dancing and singing to music, which likely corresponds well with the observations of readers of Cervantes’s time who had witnessed similar performances: this invites readers to accept the truth of what the narrator is saying. But then the story also takes us behind the scenes, to see how the Gypsies behave when no white face is there to spy them out, and that clearly was sensational new material to readers. Cervantes is the first of the writers I have found to make such a revelation, discounting that brief “ Don Asno ” moment from the
Vicente sketch, which is too brief, stylized, and unnatural to be taken so seriously. Though
Dougherty emphasizes the primacy of the “kidnapped child” and “becoming a Gypsy” scenes of this novela, it is the fact of allowing readers to be privy to their private life which may have had the greater impact on readers and writers alike.
Since Cervantes draws such a clear distinction in the story between the Gitános ’ behavior when they are “in character,” as the stereotypical Gypsies, and when they are in relative privacy among their own people, and therefore acting more naturally, it is convenient
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here and in many later cases to divide the stock scenes and Gypsy characteristics in the same
way. In this story, as noted above, the “off-stage” Gitános scenes were a revelation here, but
gradually, many of these seemingly secret details of their life “behind the scenes” were caught
up into the stereotype as well, with the effect that readers began to feel that the Gypsies were to
them thoroughly understood and familiar: a misleading feeling, it is true, since the details are
gathered from works of fiction whose adherence to fact is practically impossible to verify. As it
is, modern researchers have to triangulate, based on understanding of current Romani culture,
historical records, and what is known about Cervantes’ life, to come up with a picture of early
seventeenth century Gitáno life which is, really, merely an educated guess.
It will become clear as this dissertation continues that later writers who seem to have drawn on Cervantine accounts of Gypsy life were quite selective as to which details they carried over into fresh works, and that many subsequent writers, perhaps due to inertia, selected their own details of Gypsy life not from Cervantes, but from his imitators, so that as time continued, Cervantes’ own details were gradually filtered out, replaced by new writers’ inventions and data from disparate sources of no greater authenticity. This is the typical pattern of transformations that mental images usually go through, to some degree or other, both on a personal and a cultural level. Of course, there are differences: on the personal level, one’s mental images are influenced not only by the elements which are said to be “in the air,” but also by the representations one encounters. In this case, this might include plays and stories one personally takes in, anecdotes from friends or from supposedly factual accounts such as the newspaper, and any personal meetings with actual or pretended Romanies. I suspect that the particular combination of factual and imaginary attributes is assembled by the subconscious into one’s personal understanding of the truth, in most cases, for seldom do people actively ponder their own assumptions, though of course that does happen, too.
This story includes several key scenes—the plot being the most influential part of the
story to other Renaissance writers who read “La Gitanilla”—which were to become standard
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whenever Gypsies were called for; some had already appeared in fictional accounts. The
behavior described in the story of Gypsy characters in public will be discussed first; even
among this subgroup, Cervantes draws a narrative distinction between those meant for the
public eye, and those intended to be secret. The initial scenes are all of the former kind, with the
Gitános (and mainly the Gitánas ) in the roles of entertainers.
The seemingly deathless “fortune telling scene,” the most enduring and characteristic
of all Gypsy scenes, must lead the list, though it is not the first to appear in this novela . We witness one of these scenes, though we are to assume that such scenes were common in the characters’ lives. The old Gypsy woman and the troupe of young Gitánillas are requested to visit the home of a lieutenant in Madrid, the purpose being that the officer wanted his wife to hear the singing of the girls (26). However, as it turns out, they do no singing; instead, an old servant of Doña Clara asks if Preciosa is able to tell fortunes. Preciosa replies that she can—“in three or four different manners.” (31) This is the first mention of alternative methods of divination being used by Gypsies, though it does seem likely that there were more than one in use at the time. Later in the story, Preciosa pretends to read Don Juan’s fortune “according to the lines on his forehead,” (Jones 45), a technique which, according to word expert Paul
Dickson, is technically known as metoposcopy (221). At the suggestion of Preciosa’s
“grandmother,” the method used in this story’s predecessors, palmistry, is used to tell the fortune of the lieutenant’s wife (32). Another new element is added here, adopted too, no doubt, from real life. This is the first time in literature, at least among the works I have found, in which the subject of payment for a fortune comes up. The manner of payment is articulated clearly, and the nature of the money as well.
“Give the girl [the palm of] your hand and something to cross it with,” said the
old woman, “and you’ll see what things she’ll tell you, for she knows more
than a doctor of medicine.” […]
“All crosses are good,” [said Preciosa,] “simply because they are crosses, but
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silver or gold crosses are the best, and crossing the hand with a copper coin,
you must know, reduces good fortune, at least, the good fortune I foretell; and
so I prefer to make the cross first with a gold crown or a silver real […].”
(Jones 32)
Hereafter, numerous fortune telling scenes repeat the phrase “cross one’s hand with silver” as
part of the preliminaries before the fortune begins, though seldom again is the phrase glossed
so clearly: as editors of some early editions have helpfully prompted, the shape of a cross was
supposed to be traced upon the client’s palm with a coin, or in this story, alternately a silver
thimble. 28 In later usage, it often appears that writers in English forgot the origin of the
phrase, perhaps assuming that it meant only that some money must “cross hands” before the
prognostication could begin.
There are several features of the actual fortune here worthy of mention. It is, first, in verse: generally in trochaic tetrameter, but except in two instances, not rhymed. 29 The contents
of the fortune are a combination of intuition, observation, flattery, pleasing fantasy, and general
warnings: this is generally consistent with the description of the fortunes from Bologna in 1422,
quoted above, and is also similar to the fortunes in Farsa das Ciganas , except that there is more regarding the future. There is no strong feeling that this latter material, which in other situations might be treated as a group of predictions, are products of magical clairvoyance; indeed, Doña Clara and her party are never seen again in the story, so we have no way of knowing how accurate these are. Indeed, when Preciosa (with pretended hesitancy) announces that the lady will be remarried, implying that the lieutenant will die, Doña Clara is shocked, and
Preciosa then confides that “gipsies do not always tell / the gospel truth,” (Jones 33) and that all will be well. There is occasional mention of the devil as a teacher or helper, such as in the Jones translation, pages 31, but this claim is probably only for show, a way for the Romanies to maintain the intentional Gypsy image by suggesting that the Romi had magical, and possibly black-magical, powers. Other references, saying that someone clever has “the very devil” in
73 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 him or her (Jones 36, 40), are repeated almost as if the phrase were a bit of slang, likely not used literally.
There is another, less formal, fortune told a bit later in the story: it is that of Preciosa’s suitor, Don Juan de Cárcamo, otherwise called Andrés by the Gypsies. This is a fine scene demonstrating Cervantes’s facility with language, as this is all done in doubletalk. The two are already planning to spend two years together, but in this scene they pretend to be strangers, so when Preciosa describes Juan’s plans—both the false ones he told his parents as a ruse, and the real ones regarding Juan’s becoming a Rom—it sounds like a remarkably acute prediction instead. This is similar to the technique Cacurgus used in Misogonus , but here the dialogue is much wittier and more cleverly handled. It even gives the affable Juan a chance to participate in the charade, demonstrating his quick-witted good sense, something that is not so evident in the later dramatization by Middleton and Rowley.
The other scenes of performing Gypsies involve music. Preciosa is described as a charming and talented singer and dancer, with an extensive repertoire in both capacities. In this story, the guitar, castanets, and tambourine are already associated with the Gypsies’ music. A variety of different types of verses, songs, and dance music is mentioned in connection with
Preciosa: “ Salió Preciosa rica de villancicos, de coplas, seguidillas y zarabandas, y de otros versos, especialmente de romances, que los cantaba con especial donaire .”
It is interesting that the Gypsies participate in public ceremonies. For instance, due to the splendor of the male romantic lead, “Andrés,” the Gypsy tribe’s fame “spread very quickly
[…] there was not a single town, village or hamlet where they were not in demand to take part in the local festivities or in celebrations of a private nature” (Jones 59). Even before that,
Preciosa and eight other Gypsy dancers perform for the festival of St. Anne, and as Jones translates, “by common consent of the directors of the festival she was singled out there and then as the star of the dancers…” (20). Afterwards, she performs a dance in the church of Santa
Maria, in front of a statue of Santa Ana. It does seem rather surprising that the assumedly
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Christian public should honor the assumedly pagan Gypsies in a public religious festival in this
way, especially since as historical records show there was already established a mistrust of
Gypsy religion by this time. This story is not the first time that the Romanies are used in
literature as dancers and singers: they served this function as early as Vicente’s Farsa , as well.
In time, Gypsy musicians and performers gained general European fame, particularly so in
Spain, where their appropriation of the Moorish flamenco was so influential, and in both
Hungary and Russia. This is a good reminder that the initial statement of the thieving
stereotype that starts this novela is only one element, though an important one, of the complex
Gypsy image.
The Page-Poet character, who is renamed Clemente by the Gypsies, offers batches of
poems, including ballads, to Preciosa by the dozen at his first appearance, and though he does
not mention music, it appears that the poetry is to be sung, so possibly the verses are notated. It
should be noticed that, aside from the dancing of those who perform with Preciosa at the
beginning, all of the music and singing, as well as versifying, is performed by gad źé characters,
especially by Constanza, Don Juan, and Sancho/Clemente. The three have a musical sequence
at the Gypsy camp featuring the men extemporaneously trading verses and accompanying
themselves on their own guitars, followed by an a cappella ballad by Preciosa. Many of the
songs of the Gypsies, before the latter two men met them, were supposedly sold them by “poets
who condescend to deal with gipsies” (Jones 20). Even at the end, to celebrate the wedding of
Constanza and Don Juan, the poets of Murcia, which include “the licenciate Pozo,” not the
Gypsies themselves, are the ones to memorialize the event (84). Possibly, since the Gypsies are
assumed to be illiterate and ignorant, they are considered unable to create such verses; also,
since the married people have both just been wrested from the grip of the Gypsy culture, the
White poets are the proper ones do celebrate their restoration and formal re-induction to the
upper classes.
We also see the Gypsies in this story simply begging for money, another stable part of
75 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 the Gypsy image, though it is done with an arch sense of style and wit. In the “thimble” scene
(Jones 27-31), Preciosa encounters gamblers and asks for some of their winnings. When they visit Don Juan’s home, on a reconnaissance mission to gather information that will allow them to verify the lovesick boy’s story, his father invites them, “Come up, girls, for they’ll give you alms here.” (Jones 44).
As a transition to the “Romanies at Rest” scenes, we might consider what is said of the
Gypsies as thieves in this story. There are no actual scenes in which the reader may witness a
Gypsy picking pockets, but the topic of conning and stealing from the gad źé does come up. The title character’s putative grandmother describes a confidence trick she played which, based on its close correspondence with several historical accounts, is clearly a variant of the “Great
Trick,” a traditional Romany scam. Compare this passage, recorded by Borrow in the 1800s,
The treasure is shown her; and when the Gitána has carefully inspected and
counted it, she produces a white handkerchief, saying, Lady, I give you this
handkerchief, which is blessed. Place in it your gold and silver, and tie it with
three knots. I am going for three days, during which period you must keep the
bundle beneath your pillow, permitting no one to go near it, and observing the
greatest secrecy, otherwise the money will take wings and fly away. […] The
Gitána departs, and, during the three days, prepares a bundle as similar as
possible to the one which contains the money of her dupe, save that instead of
gold ounces, dollars, and plate, its contents consist of copper money and
pewter articles of little or no value […] The bundle of real treasure is produced
and inspected, and again tied up by the Gitána, who then requests the other to
open the chest, which done, she formally places A BUNDLE in it; but, in the
meanwhile, she has contrived to substitute the fictitious for the real one. […]
She then walks off with great deliberation, bearing away the spoil. It is
needless to say that she never returns. ( Zincali 109)
76 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 with this from “La Gitanilla:”
[Preciosa’s] grandmother said, that she could not go to Seville […] on account
of a hoax she had once played off upon a capmaker named Truxillo, well
known in Seville. She had persuaded him to put himself up to his neck in a
butt of water, stark naked, with a crown of cypress on his head, there to remain
till midnight, when he was to step out, and look for a great treasure, which she
had made him believe was concealed in a certain part of his house. When the
good cap-maker heard matins ring, he made such haste to get out of the butt,
lest he should lose his chance, that it fell with him, bruising his flesh, and
deluging the floor with water, in which he fell to swimming with might and
main, roaring out that he was drowning. His wife and his neighbours ran to
him with lights, and found him striking out lustily with his legs and arms. […]
When he had recovered a little, he told them the trick the gipsy woman had
played him […] The story spread all over the city; so that the little boys in the
streets used to point their fingers at him, and shout in his ears the story of the
gipsy's trick, and his own credulity. (Kelly)
It is not known for sure whether the variations described here are creative inventions of
Cervantes, or based on a contemporary trick that he knew about, but the similarity is striking when seen in the context of a larger body of accounts of similar tricks, which vary in details but have several core properties. Other examples of the “great trick” reinforce its key attributes: promising the magical discovery of great wealth, asking the victim to wait (often in a fixed place) before seeking the treasure, and most often the substitution of the victim’s valuables for a similar-looking package, though this element is missing from the passage in
“La Gitanilla.” A modern-day variant of the hokkano baro —the Romani term for the “great trick,” is given in Chapter 4.
In addition to this trick, robbery is also discussed, particularly during the initiation
77 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
scene which will be described next. When the Gypsy band arrives in the area of Toledo, they
first offer gifts to the district’s mayor, as token of their promise to do nothing blameworthy in
the area during their stay; this is a ruse which Cervantes might well have imitated from many
actual occurrences, as the records in chapter one reflect. Having done this, the men spread out
over the whole area and commence thieving. We do not hear details of the thefts, but we know
that they affected “poor people who had been dispoiled” (Kelly). Andrés tries to make it up to
his victims, but the other Gypsies, who are assigned to teach him the ropes of the robber’s trade,
they are dismayed at “this behavior: it was in contravention, they said, of their statutes and
ordinances, which prohibited the admission of compassion into their hearts; because if they had
any they must cease to be thieves”—an unthinkable measure (Kelly). Note that this statement,
which comes directly from the Gypsy characters, is quite in agreement with the stereotypical
statements from the first paragraph of the novela . An aspect of the Gypsies’ propensity for
stealing, prominent from this story on in the Gypsy image, is the kidnapping of White babies,
which has already been touched on.
Another way that a White person, according to popular belief, could become the member of a Gypsy band was by choice. Support for this idea, and a reflection of it, is offered by de Moncada in his petition to expel the Romanies from Spain. In his petition to the king to have the Gitános evicted from his territories, he heatedly denies that these people are foreigners.
“Those who prowl about Spain are not Egyptians, but swarms of wasps and atheistical wretches, without any kind of law or religion, Spaniards, who have introduced this Gypsy life or sect, and who admit into it every day all the idle and broken people of Spain” (qtd. in Zincali
46). This statement has implications that will be important to our discussion of the racist tone detected by some in this story.
While Dougherty indicates that the stereotype focuses on members of the nobility running away to join the wanderers, this is by no means always the case, as we shall see.
Sancho de Moncada’s statement above indicates that the members of the Gypsy tribes were
78 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 actually from the opposite end of the social spectrum. In fact, even in this story, the page-poet, whose name we only learn was Sancho after he has already received a Gypsy name, Clemente, is not necessarily an aristocrat, though he does seem to have money. As Juan/Andrés and
Clemente—not to mention Constanza/Preciosa—Cervantes’s contention seems to be that it was standard practice for Whites joining a Gypsy party to receive a new pseudonym. This idea is somewhat reflected in statements from later times that the Romanies use one name among the tribe, and another when circulating among the settled population of the area. However, in fact, historical records have not indicated, with any cogency, at least, that outsiders were really admitted into the Romanies’ communities, save those temporary lodgers like George Borrow, who got in by pretending that he was a Rom himself.
Commentators have suggested that this literary tradition has its roots in fantasies of
Whites who feel estranged from their native culture, and want to find a community that can give them more social freedom. This does seem to have started with the “joining the Gypsies” pattern, but subsequently expanded to include similar scenes. For a time, for example in the early twentieth century, a rebellious child was just as likely to fantasize about running away to join a circus, or some similar group. Disillusioned and “stressed-out” business people of modern times often talk about “leaving it all behind” and moving away to some new and distant land such as an island paradise.
As an initial introduction to the fictional life of the Gypsies at rest, “La Gitanilla” is something of an anomaly. Its picture, full of choice details and realistic elements, is quite convincing, especially in the way Cervantes builds up from isolated glimpses of the Gypsies from real experience, blending them into a cogent progression of constant characters, and moving from that world into the hidden world with smooth transitions and a high level of consistency, continuing to add whatever genuine elements of Romany sightings into the narrative. Upon this combination of solid and well-known facts and stereotypical assumptions
Cervantes imaginatively conjures up the missing elements, so that all these details appear to
79 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
form a cohesive panorama of a Gypsy camp at rest.
The first scene within the camp that has become a lasting “stock Gypsy scene” is that of the Gypsy initiation, now firmly a part of the “joining the Gypsies” scene. These “ceremonies”
(Kelly) have the feeling similar to the secret initiation rites described in more modern works, such as the scenes of joining a secret society (such as that described in Conan Doyle’s The
Valley of Fear ), becoming a Mason, or undergoing the hazing and related trials and activities that are rumored to be required to enter a modern college fraternity. They have the air of being ancient, time-honored traditions, with about as much current-day relevancy as most such traditions have.
They cleared out one of the best huts in the encampment, dressed it with
boughs and rushes, and seating Andrew in it on the stump of a cork tree, they
put a hammer and tongs in his hands, and made him cut two capers to the
sound of two guitars. They then bared one of his arms, tied round it a new silk
ribbon through which they passed a short stick, and gave it two turns gently,
after the manner of the garotte with which criminals are strangled. (Kelly)
These all seem to be familiar rites to the Gypsies, for there is no mention of any scrambling to invent a ceremony, and all the materials are ready to hand, though they could be a combination of daily items and booty from thieving runs. This would seem to suggest that
Cervantes’s Gypsies are already used to such initiations, thus making it seem likely that de
Moncado’s conception is accurate.
Though, as we will soon see, the plot and certain key scenes of this story were soon
imitated by British playwrights of the same period, the attitudes about Gypsies reflected by the
narrator of “La Gitanilla” and also by the story itself took a longer time to influence creative
artists. Even in its adaptation by Middleton and Rowley, The Spanish Gipsie, the attitudes
reflected in the Spanish novella are altered to those of contemporary Britain. This is the first
surviving work in which the Romanies are really examined in any detail and are recognizably
80 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
human beings, instead of mere caricatures. Stereotype is of course incorporated into the
depiction, but due to the novelistic approach Cervantes is developing, we are able to study the
same figures for extended periods of time, so that the figures are detailed and “round.” The
grandmother character even has a chance to refer to the Gypsy reputation that the Romanies
have built up for being grasping and “on-the-make,” (Kelly) and she scolds Preciosa for
endangering the cogency of that image; in this way, Cervantes draws readers’ attention to the
stereotype qua stereotype.
One notable tendency is worth the consideration of modern postcolonial critics. There are various deceptions and concealments of identity that happen in the story, but in the end most of the leading characters are revealed to all the others as White Spaniards. Preciosa, the titular character, has always been acclaimed and admired by her own tribe of Gypsies and by all onlookers for her beauty, intelligence, and propriety; at the end, as Doña Constanza, she is finally acknowledged as the young noblewoman she has been since birth. This secret is only revealed in the dénouement, when it surprises both the story’s characters and the reader as well, despite numerous hints, noticeable and unsubtle, that she is no Gitána : among these, her golden hair and emerald-green eyes, and the narrator’s repeated circumlocutions regarding the relationship between Preciosa and her pretended grandmother. “Andrés Caballero,” her lover, though mainly honest to her, tricks her into thinking he is learning to be a thief, and her reaction is in the manner of the Gypsies: “Preciosa rejoiced not a little to see her tender lover become such a smart and handy thief…” (Kelly). The narrator does not clarify if this pleasure is because she respects skilled thievery, or because she is glad to see her fiancé gaining the respect of her community, but she is not shocked at any rate, nor does she object to such criminality in the same way she refuses to tolerate lewd songs or other rudeness. In fact, Preciosa is herself the main spokesperson in defense of the intelligence of the Gitános :
The wit of a gipsy girl steers by a different compass from that which guides
other people. They are always forward for their years. There is no such thing
81 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
as a stupid gitano, or a silly gitana. Since it is only by being sharp and ready
that they can earn a livelihood, they polish their wits at every step, and by no
means let the moss grow under their feet […]. There is not a gipsy girl of
twelve who does not know as much as one of another race at five-and-twenty,
for they have the devil and much practice for instructors, so that they learn in
one hour what would otherwise take them a year. (Kelly)
In this and in other scenes, Preciosa gives the impression that such are her sincere beliefs about the differences between “her race” and the “others”—before she learns of her true identity, that is; she says little after she realizes her birth name is Constanza.
In contrast, all members of the Gypsy tribe know that Sancho and Juan are new members who come from the population of settled Whites, but the Whites nevertheless receive
Clemente and Andrés without question as prodigious Gypsy men. Even the tribe members themselves regard them as natural leaders and great talents:
They were always together, both spent largely, their crowns came down like
rain; they ran, leaped, danced, and pitched the bar better than any of their
companions, and were more than commonly liked by the women of the tribe,
and held in the highest respect by the men. […] In all the villages and towns
they passed through, they had matches at ball-playing, fencing, running,
leaping, and pitching the bar; and in all these trials of strength, skill, and
agility Andrew and Clement were victorious […] (Kelly)
The impression that these facts give the reader is that, in Cervantes’s world of La Gitanilla at least, the civilized White race naturally rises to the top, and receives the adulation of the more primitive tribespeople.
The only prominent figure who is a true Gypsy is Preciosa/Constanza’s pretended grandmother, seen at last as what she is: Constanza’s kidnapper and, in practical terms, also her foster mother. Though she is respected by the young girls of the Gypsy tribe, the Grandmother
82 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 character is not shown to be one of its leaders. When she confesses her crime to Constanza’s mother, she is surprisingly forgiven; indeed, Doña Guiomar, thrilled to hear that her daughter has been returned to her, addresses the old Gypsy criminal as a “Good woman, angel rather than gitana ” (Kelly). Likewise, Constanza’s father, Don Fernando de Acevedo, who is a judge, seems to have no inclination to punish the old woman in any way. Despite this forgiveness, the
Gypsies in general are seen as having a distinct culture with its own mores, as indicated above in the “credo.” When Andrés wants to pay crime victims back in contrition, the other Gypsies are ashamed of him, and on no account would they show mercy or abandon their trade of stealing. In an apostrophe that may be to some extent be tongue-in-cheek, the narrator marvels at the power of love to change a noble youth who grew up “in court” into a thief and a lackey to a beautiful girl “who was, after all, a gitana .” (Kelly)
This is no place to examine Cervantes’s writings and attitudes regarding the Spanish court and its morality, but we note that, despite his aversion to stealing from individuals in person, don Juan has little problem with tricking his family, posing as a Gypsy, bribing the
Gitános repeatedly into accepting him, lying to Preciosa about his abstinence from thievery, stealing an innocent, healthy mule and then allowing it to be killed in cold blood, and telling everybody that all his money is gone, and then concealing his underground life of crimelessness by spending money to purchase booty enough to represent to the Gypsy men
“more gain to the gang than four of the most accomplished thieves in it” (Kelly). Though it would be premature to judge Juan’s personal integrity based on just these facts, it is true that he comes up with very devious ways of justifying to himself his methods of retaining an honorable self-image: his honesty is in part the product of his own self-rationalization. By extension, we might suspect that many in Cervantes’s Spain were like that as well, and
Cervantes does seem to address the rampant bribery of the time with forthright candor. In fact,
Preciosa even teases the Lieutenant in this respect, encouraging his party to accept bribes, like most others do, in order to progress in the world, though the Lieutenant is expressly aware of
83 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
the practice’s immorality. By contrast, Preciosa seems to indicate that the supposedly
honorable, and honor-obsessed, Spanish society is, while not as guilty as general Gypsy
practice indicates, at least morally culpable in this respect, and thus allied with the
dishonorable Gypsies. Though he performs fewer illegal acts, Juan is a more devious character
than any other in the story; that is, faced by unusual circumstances, he is forced to resort to
trickery to survive and gain his ends, closely paralleling the actual Romanies’ early ways in
Western Europe.
At odds with the theme of racial distinction is the above-mentioned theory cited by
Sancho de Moncada, quoted above: that the Gitános were, instead of foreigners, Spain’s very own brand of low-life scum. Don Juan and Don Sancho are readily, not to say eagerly, welcomed to the tribe, and this happens with shouts of acclaim at the moments, both times, when the newcomer offers to share their gold with the others. Money buys a load of tolerance among Gypsies as among Army officers, it seems. Cervantes does not directly suggest that any other members of the tribe—save Preciosa, of course—gained entrance in this way, and their code of beliefs seem to be well established within the community, so in the last analysis it is impossible to determine whether Cervantes subscribes to either the “ Gitános are base
Spaniards” or “ Gitános are racially/culturally distinct” ideas. It seems that these two are not mutually exclusive here. This tribe is described as having lived only within Spanish borders, though he does not explicitly deny the possibility of travels abroad: it may be that Cervantes’s
Gitános are Spaniards that have developed their own culture over a period of time: the sort of culture possibly paralleled by certain groups today, such as the Amish in Pennsylvania, or the gangs of urban criminal life.
In other works, Cervantes adds details to his depictions of the Gitános , though never to such an extent. Another story published in the same collection, the “Dogs’ Colloquy,” discusses one of the titular dogs’ experiences with a tribe led by one Maldonado. Since this is the name of the Gypsy captain in Cervantes’s stage play, Pedro de Urdemalas (published two years after the
84 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
Exemplary Novels , 1615, but likely performed before then), it is tempting to assume that the two Maldonados are one and the same character, or at least one of the same line of “counts”.
The figure in the “Colloquy” is named after a man whose story parallels Juan de Cáracamo’s, and ends as his might have ended:
[A] page belonging to a cavalier of that name fell in love with a beautiful
gipsy, who would not yield to his wishes unless he became a gipsy and made
her his wife. The page did so, and was so much liked by the other gipsies, that
they chose him for their lord, yielded him obedience, and in token of vassalage
rendered to him a portion of everything they stole, whatever it might be.
(Kelly)
This tale repeats several elements of the contemporary image, including the ability to disguise equines in order to cheat purchasers, their marriages within tribes (attributed here to a wish to keep Gypsy secrets confined to their own people’s ears), their skill and proclivity towards thievery, their comfort in all weather, and their lack of religion. Cervantes adds a few wrinkles: their midwifery, the practice of bathing newborns in cold water, their ironworking, and the tribes’ interconnectivity, an interesting but unexplored notion.
As we will see, though Cervantes’s story about Preciosa adds much to the body of
Gypsy literature, it was raided by British playwrights of this time mainly for its set pieces: primarily, the fortune telling and the Gypsy initiations. As Dougherty indicates, the theme of
Gypsies kidnapping babies was also developed, but more in prose fiction, and increasingly used as a plot device, revealed at the tail end of the story to provide a surprising conclusion.
Indeed, the works of Golden Age Spanish writers enjoyed a vogue in Renaissance England, and all three plays discussed in the next section play a part in that fashion.
85 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
The Refinement of the Standard Gypsy Image: Three Jacobean Plays
Influx and Influences
As the works of Shakespeare and Cervantes demonstrate, many of the key elements of the Gypsy image had been well established by the early seventeenth century, and had begun to appear in stage dramas and even in prose fiction. As the Elizabethan period ended and the
Jacobean era found its own character, several trends of the time found themselves intermingled on London stages, somewhat blending and confusing each.
One of these was a new interest in vagabonds and thieves, examined in Kim’s impressive dissertation, Men on the Road . During this period, the government was paying new attention to these groups, and attempting to reform or otherwise discourage them from their ways. At the same time, popular “nonfiction” literature began to reach an audience by sensationalizing the criminal lifestyle and revealing its secrets. Modern research suggests that most of the details of these secrets were invented by the writers, and that few of the homeless wanderers of that time were in fact organized or indeed were of a criminal nature. However, the public developed great enthusiasm for such secret organizations and readers soon became familiar with the supposed “thieves’ cant,” the secret language or terms that such adventurers were described as using to avoid detection. Harman’s Caveat or Warening for Commen
Cursetors, Vulgarly Called Vagabones (1567) was one of the first of these.
It quickly becomes clear that in the London dramas of this time the playwrights conflate the Romanies and their traits with the semi-fictional rogue vagabond troupes described in
Harman and Decker’s works. The distinction between the groups is usually never drawn. The implications suggested in “La Gitanilla” about the possibilities of Whites joining the Gitános and later expanded upon by de Moncada seem to have been extended still further, so that the
British Gipsies and the wandering vagabond troupes of criminal specialist seem approximately identical in their traits, and both seem to be composed of random low-lifes with no common heritage. Some of the elements of the rogue Britons’ image which seem to have transferred to
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the Gypsies’ image in this period have stuck until the present day, as I will demonstrate below.
Another, more passing, trend was the vogue for portraying Spain in Jacobean dramas.
T. L. Darby’s superb article “Cervantes in England” convincingly provides analysis of the
Spain-related British dramas from 1602 to 1625, and their social and political contexts, to
explain why there was a “sub-genre” of Spanish plays during that period. In a nutshell, Darby
provides three core reasons: “First, we can identify a coherent grouping of playwrights who
seem to have had a genuine interest in Spanish material: Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher,
Thomas Middleton, William Rowley and Philip Massinger.” All of these playwrights died
during this period, with Rowley surviving the longest, until 1626. Second, Darby explains,
there was political interest in Spain then: of primary interest, Prince Charles was courting the
Infanta in Spain, traveling there in 1623 with the Duke of Buckingham, who in 1621 had not
only hosted Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Metamorphosed Gypsies (to use an alternative title
provided by the dramatist), but also had been its star as the Jackman, or Captain (line 229), of
the Gypsies. Disappointed, though, they returned to England with Prince Charles unmarried. 30
“Finally, Cervantes offered the playwrights all they could want from source material: strong
narratives, well-ordered plots, the combination of an enthusiasm for storytelling with an
understanding of dramatic construction.” It is true that Cervantes was the most commonly used
source of Iberian plots, but Darby conscientiously shows which “Spanish” plays’ plots come
from other sources, as far as had been determined at the publication of the article.
The three works under primary consideration in this final section of the chapter, More
Dissemblers Besides Women (ca. 1615), The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621), and The Spanish
Gipsie (1623), all come from this period, and I maintain that each has Iberian influence, particularly the latter two, which are essentially adaptations of Vicente and Cervantes, respectively. Each, too, participates in the popular conflation of ordinary vagabonds and wandering Romanies, mixing their attributes together haphazardly. Part of the reason for this randomized admixture seems to be that the writers themselves, though keen to participate in
87 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 what I call the “Rogue Vogue,” were sometimes unsure of the meanings of some of the jargon involved. This might be due to discrepancies among sources, or probably because of carelessness or a lack of accord and standardization among such writers. Other plays from this era, such as Fletcher’s Beggars Bush (1622), Jonson’s The New Inn (1629), and the later A
Jovial Crew by Brome (1641), portray groups of traveling rogues with virtually the same mix of attributes, but without specifically labeling these itinerants as Gypsies—the primary reason for their exclusion from this survey. By the same token, however, the beggars and robbers of the present three scripts are often not very strongly identified culturally with Romanies. Instead, their writers focus more on more generic attributes such as trickery and making merry—a far cry from the specificities of “La Gitanilla.” However, despite their vagueness and inaccuracies, these works do seem to reveal the state of the Gypsy image in literature of the time, the way that the Romanies’ alter egos were perceived by contemporary audiences. The ham-handed way of blending two stereotypes into one had a lasting effect, altering some aspects of the Gypsy image for centuries. This is the first such conflation, or genre-bashing, that the Gypsy image contributed to, but it is not the last, as Chapters 3 and 4 will show: stories about thieves such as
Dickens’s Oliver Twist , as well as, arguably, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather stem partly from rogues-in-private literary scenes of the Renaissance.
The Jacobean Scripts
More Dissemblers Besides Women (1615), by Thomas Middleton.
This romantic comedy, though it neither centers on Gypsy figures nor features more than a single scene with presumably genuine Romanies, manages to bring in most of the main set pieces or themes as well as many of the popular, superficial elements of the developing
Gypsy image. Nearly all the speaking characters are two-timing or three-timing their would-be lovers, bringing much confusion and frustration to all involved, very likely including the
88 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653
audience. For this study’s purposes, the story’s key scene is Act IV scene 1, in which two White
characters flee their proper places for their own reasons and sue for membership into the Gypsy
band. The tricky young woman Aurelia is toying with several lovers and joins their
“profession” in an attempt to hide from several of them. The presumptuous servant Dondolo,
whose name strongly suggests that Middleton had read of Cervantes’s character Maldonado,
the Gypsy count featured in both Exemplary Stories and Pedro de Urdemalas , merely seeks the
famed life of leisure and revelry that is already universally known of in England. Both of these
characters are immediately accepted, and what is more, Aurelia is given to Dondolo as his
“doxy,” a term which Middleton wrongly uses as a synonym for “dell,” according to most
contemporary definitions: functionally, his mate. 31 After their initiation into the tribe, the
Gypsies and Dondolo never return onstage, but Aurelia finally doffs her disguise and, despite her treacheries, is forgiven and matched suitably to one of her previous lovers. The play is capped unexpectedly by Aurelia’s male playboy counterpart, Lactantio, who reveals that a
Gypsy had told him seven years previously that “I should be the spoil of many a maid, and at seven years’ end marry a quean for my labour, which falls out wicked and true” (Middleton
644).
The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621), by Ben Jonson
I am convinced that this work, a Royal Masque performed more frequently than any of
his others (three times, as opposed to the usual single performance), is a reworking and
expansion of Farsa das Ciganas . It may not necessarily be true that Jonson had himself a copy
of the Portuguese writer’s play, but the similarities between the two works are too striking to be
coincidental. Both writers were working for their monarchs and the works were performed for
their employers and for their courts, instead of for the general public; knowing this, both
writers based much of their humor on “in jokes” that described the audience personally. Both
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obviously served to display the current state of the Gypsy image—which by Jonson’s time had
been much expanded upon. Both called for the actors to leave the stage and come into physical
contact with the king and his court, pretending to read their fortunes by palmistry. The earlier
Farsa was a mere skit, minutes long; the masque was much longer, and clearly it was even
longer than the script might lead one to believe, due to the masques’ attributes at the time:
Jonson’s collaborator, the celebrated set designer Iñigo Jones, had elaborate contributions, and
there were surely many elements that the script does not mention, for as Stephen Orgel explains
in his introduction to his edition of all Jonson’s masques, they were much more than simply
plays, and their scripts can hardly capture the experience (1). Even relying only on the script, as
we are obliged to do today, we can easily see that the masque is both enriched and extended
beyond its “farcical” dimensions from 1521.
Aside from the formal prologue and conclusion sections, the action of the scripted part
of the masque, at least, falls into three movements. The first of these corresponds, by and large,
to the Farsa ’s plot: the Gypsies arrive on stage and introduce themselves, and proceed to tell the fortunes of the assembled personages, who incidentally have no lines to speak, according to the normal rules of the antimasque. The second of these is perhaps the most “drama-like,” involving the Gypsies meeting a group of comical bumpkins. In this portion of the masque, the two groups meet and the clowns’ fortunes are told, while simultaneously are robbed of their personal possessions. However, nearly as soon as the losses are noticed, the jovial crew of
Gypsies returns the stolen articles, and, impressed, the yokels soon sue for membership in the
Gypsies’ band, and for instruction on picking pockets—just after hearing a ballad about the
Satanic origin of a Gypsy meeting-place called the “Devil’s Arse.” The final third of the story involves the titular metamorphosis, in which the noble members of the cast doff their disguises and reveal their real identities—which have been an open secret all along. Although the production is a “masque,” I find no evidence to suggest that any Gypsies, including those in this show, wore literal facial masks to hide their identities, though the fact may have been
90 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 assumed to be a given by Jonson, unnecessary to specify in his script. Furthermore, the text, primarily in the fortunes of the noble and royal audience, is full of sly puns and references to the relationships between the tellers and the “clients.” Though, according to the story, the
Gypsies magically “metamorphose” into respectable, indeed powerful people, all those involved knew perfectly well that there was only an end to the make-believe: real Gypsies could never be transformed into noblemen outside a masque. The story is capped with recitations that bless the King’s senses, and with closing obsequities, the masque is finished.
John H. Astington, in his article “Buckingham’s Patronage and The Gypsies
Metamorphosed ,” describes the action of the play as a series of movements based on the plot’s correspondence to a series of four prints by the French etcher Jacques Callot collectively called
Les Bohémiens. The first two prints (reprinted in the Astington article, 140-141) show a Gypsy caravan in transit; the third (142) shows various types of Gypsy “business,” including both the stealing of poultry and fortune telling; the last (143), a feast which shows the celebrants eating the food that had been stolen in the third print. Guided in part by Callot’s visual “plot,”
Astington describes the actions as the caravan’s entrance (139), and then the fortune telling (in two phases: of nobles, and then of country clowns played by professional actors) (144-5). The rest of the masque’s action is not discussed in Astington’s article, possibly because it is not related to the Callot prints, though he claims that the feast described in the “Devil’s Arse” ballad is inspired by the etchings.
Though the critic describes the fortune telling as “the central dramatic business of
Jonson’s masque” (139), it cannot be considered predominant, at least according to the amount of script involved, for the action following the fortunes, 22 pages in the Orgel edition, is equal to the two stages of the fortunes themselves: also 22 pages. The caravan’s entrance and introductory material comprise another 12. I admit that evidence does suggest that Jonson, conceivably with the cooperation of Nicholas Lanier, the composer of the masque’s music, most likely saw and was inspired by the prints, making it a secondary source for Jonson, but the
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correspondence of specific details is perhaps too scanty to assume much more influence than
the appearances of the caravan and the fortune telling—and these details, I am proposing, also
were shared by the Gil Vicente play Farsa das Ciganas , as well as being pretty much
standardized in Gypsy literature by this time.
The named Gypsy figures in the story, mostly played by actors instead of members of
the nobility, are embodiments of the types described in Harman’s Caveat (as described by Kim
in her Chapter 1): a Jackman, a Patrico, and so on; these types are, then, not actually Romany
figures, but only representative of Rogue types in a general way, though in some writings of the
time, the Patrico is said to be a specifically Gypsy hedge-priest, and of course in this play all the
wanderers are presumably Gypsies. 32 The first of the other five Gypsies, alternately labeled the
Gypsy captain, was, however, played by the Duke of Buckingham, the host of the entertainment. 33 Particularly in the early scenes of the masque, there is a heavy peppering of
“Rogue Vogue” jargon added into the dialogue; the Jackman actually makes an oblique reference to Jonson’s presumable sources for the canting terms (page 320, line 100-102), which no doubt had already informed much of the audience of their meanings before the show had even been announced.
The Spanish Gipsie (1623), by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
As already noted, this play is a loose adaptation and combination of two of the
Exemplary Novels of Cervantes, originally published in Castilian in 1613. The portions of the
play that are adapted from “La Gitanilla” are of more relevance to the current study, as “ La
Fuerza de Sangre ,” or “The Force of Blood,” does not treat the Gypsy image; but in order to
dovetail the two plots for a satisfying conclusion, the playwrights conflate certain characters,
while adding or deleting others.
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The Image as Established in the Early Seventeenth Century: The First Plateau
In these three plays, we see how the popular Gypsy image is both reflected in its momentarily current state, and simultaneously manipulated and embroidered, and sometimes exaggerated by their writers. It is not possible, perhaps, to be entirely certain in any specific instance which of these is happening, especially when there are no other corroborating examples of a trait or action in other contemporary records and literature, but there is enough similarity among the surviving material to provide a reasonably reliable tabulation of the core elements of the Gypsy stereotype during this period.
Many of the e lements of the image, which were brought into literature by the two
earlier groups of writers described already, are retained in the early years of the seventeenth
century. Most obvious among them is the stock fortune telling scene, which has been
expanded upon greatly, reflecting, most likely, a change in the manner of real fortune tellers.
One seeming advance in the ability of these tricksters is the ability to surprise clients by
describing the client’s own personality or characteristics, as in the Jonson masque; these seem
less general than the fortunes uttered by the Ciganas in Vicente’s Farsa . However, there may
possibly be more private jokes in the Portuguese farce than modern readers are equipped to
recognize, of a similar nature to those in The Gypsies Metamorphosed . Neither play can fully
represent a typical fortune telling session, though, because of the metadramatic impetus that
moved the writers to display these mystics on stage. The “three or four different ways” which
Preciosa could use in the Cervantes story are not carried over into the British plays following
its printing; palmistry seems, in England at least, to remain the only method that made it onto
the London stage.
However, it is clear that cheating at games is perceived as a tradition in England that
survived into this era, and, as we will see, later centuries as well. The specific game mentioned
in various plays is “fast and loose,” as mentioned above. Another form of cheating which
appears onstage during this period is that of having one rogue (it appears with stage Gypsies
93 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 and also with other sorts of rogues) distract a client by telling his or her fortune while another, or sometimes even the teller him- or herself, steals the client’s property. This appears in the
Jonson masque in the scenes with the country bumpkins. It is worth noting that this strategy is also depicted in a number of contemporary paintings, such as the c. 1632-1634 painting by
Georges de La Tour that is shown in chapter one; others, quite similar, appear in works by
Regnier, Valentin de Boulogne (b. 1591) and Simon Vouet (b. 1590; painting ca. 1618-1620)
(Astington).
Another attribute from the Iberian works which extends somewhat into the British plays is the strange accent, which was in the Vicente presented without comment, but which
Cervantes specified as an affectation. A lisp or other specific speech defect does not appear, but other means are taken to make the rogues’ communications incomprehensible to outsiders. In
More Dissemblers Besides Women , the pretending Gypsy Aurelia speaks normally among the
Gypsies, but when addressing the Duchess, as Dyce asserts, she speaks with either “a rustic or gipsy dialect:” “Yes, showrly [ surely ], mistress; he done love me / ‘Bove all the girls that shine above me” (636). This is not a general habit of the Gypsies in that play, however, but instead a specifically-timed attempt to disguise her identity, since she is there incognito.
Added to the stage attributes during this time is the possession of an additional, seemingly exotic language to use among Gypsy comrades. Jonson uses thieves’ slang cribbed from “Rogue Vogue” references, and so does Middleton, though he also adds a new element, nonsense words, for the purpose, as well as slightly-altered English words: “stealee bacono” for “to steal bacon,” for example (610). The latter type of faux cant is so transparent in its meaning, and the manner of its creation, that Aurelia’s father is not only able to comprehend whole sentences of the Gypsies’ supposedly disguised utterances, but is able to emulate such sentences himself when he is furious to discover his daughter disguised among the other rogues.
All in all, the first quarter of the seventeenth century, more or less, was a heyday for
94 Chapter 2. The Gypsy Figure in Renaissance Literature 1525-1653 the Gypsy figure’s appearances in works of art. For the next hundred years and more, Gypsies were referred to more sparsely, and the image was not significantly developed by Western artists. The essential stock scenes and attributes which had been established during the
Renaissance were not forgotten, however. Simplified versions were still employed from time to time, reduced to their essential functions, usually. The two most commonly used are the fortune telling scene for the movements of fate or for deception, and the trope of joining the
Gypsies by kidnapping or by choice, for purposes of confusing characters about personal identities. Several attributes of the Gypsy image, well known to us today, had yet to be included; among these are the passionate side of Gypsies and the frightening “black magic” elements of the Gypsy curse and the evil eye. But, ironically, such sensationalist material would have to wait for the Age of Reason to push people into different camps, as will be explored at the beginning of Chapter 3.
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Notes
10 Fraser’s use of “artful” in his reportage of the Tournai chronicle brings several related ideas to mind. Examination of historical records uncovers numerous charges of horse-thievery that have been made against the Romanies. Certain of these seem to corroborate reports noted in Borrow’s book The Zincali (1841). These suggest that there have been long-standing traditions of stealing horses among the Gypsies of both Spain and England, and that certain Romanies are experts in this work, specializing in its practice. Further, Borrow amusingly tells how one such Rom boasted to him of how he was able to steal a horse, and then alter its color and coat so effectively that he was able to sell the same horse back to its original owner without the owner’s suspicion that he was buying his own beast. And in Cervantes’ story “ La Gitanilla ,” one of the Gitanos tells the romantic hero that no matter what special marks a mule might bear, they are able to “change it so that the mother who gave birth to it or the owner who reared it wouldn’t recognize it.” (Jones 51). In light of such stories, it does seem likely that such a scam might be referred to in the Farsa ; in any case, as suggested in the following song about “ Don Asno ,” the men seem to be trying to sell equines of very low quality, which also takes some artistic skill. 11 For the curious, I should supply a little more of the story. Though the women promise not to endanger their souls by revealing the existence of Eugonus, Misogonus’s elder twin brother and rightful heir to their father’s estate, the secret is soon revealed and the twin is welcomed back home, much to the discomfort of both Cacurgus (who also sometimes calls himself Will Summer in an assumed guise and personality) and the title character. Since the only surviving text only reaches partway into act IV scene 4 of a presumably five-act play, the final outcome of this “merry and [plesaunt Comedie… ]” ( Misogonus 1) is not presently known, though there is most likely a surprising and satisfying conclusion. 12 Since the 1578 edition labels two consecutive scenes as “Actus. 2 Scena.4,” I am following Bullough’s revised scene designations for this act. 13 The use of “mort” in this speech is curious. In the time of Shakespeare, when literature about rogues and thieves was popular, this word was said to indicate a married Gypsy woman, though it cannot mean that here. However, it might have already been associated with criminals, or possibly even with Gypsies themselves. 14 This exchange of Promos and Cassandra calls to mind Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew 7:1-3, which I quote from The Norton Shakespeare : “‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’” (Katharine Eisaman Maus, in Greenblatt 2021) This is exactly the passage from which Shakespeare adapted the title of the play he based on Promos : Measure for Measure. 15 Of course, at this time, stage directions were minimal anyhow, so verbose specifications by the playwright are not to be expected, regrettably. A detailed description of how the writers imagined the Gypsy characters’ costumes and actions would have enriched this study greatly. 16 The story-driving device of the Gypsy warning, so popular later on, was evidently not in use historically during this century; presumably such fortunes would have not been good for business, and since the prognostications were all invented anyway, there was no moral duty to pass on the bad news. 17 Ellipses and parenthetical editing are by the editor of the damaged text, except for the ellipsis after “cradle,” which indicates my own removal of eight lines and two syllables. 18 Ricardo de la Fuente Ballesteros indicates that there at least two earlier works using Gypsies: “Celestine (1499) and the one of the Geral Songbook (1516) of García de Resende.” However, I will assume here that Fraser and the others are right in their indication of Vicente as the pioneer. 19 The former mispronunciation is used by the female Gypsies, and the latter by the males. 20 The German writer Adventinus also seems to have indicated a special Gypsy language in 1522, though he was writing about an event that had happened long years earlier in 1439 (85). Therefore, it is relatively uncertain where the German got his information, and how reliable it may have been, and so the account in Cosmographia Universalis is considered more reliable. 21 Intriguingly, in the same play Celia, reading from a piece of paper, refers to two of the same famous women as Mercutio mentions in Romeo and Juliet : “Nature presently distilled / Helen’s cheek, but not her heart, / Cleopatra’s majesty, / Atalanta’s better part, / Sad Lucretia’s modesty” (3.2.132-134). 22 The contention of several contemporary Romany activists today is, indeed, that the term Gypsy was a term applied by others: the point being, as I understand it, that the word should be discontinued. Though the above conjecture is a plausible enough way to explain the label’s origin, it is nevertheless abundantly clear that the term and the cover story were both willingly and promptly adopted by the Romanies themselves, and so “Gypsy” is unlikely to have been exclusively a term of abuse. Indeed, I suspect that the term only became abusive after Romany rascals had earned the public’s enmity so strongly that their criminals became the epitome of ne’er do wells. Thereafter, the term was metonymically applied to others who emulated their naughtiness. 23 She was descended from the Macedonian general, Ptolemy Soter, who served under Alexander the Great,
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who had conquered Egypt in 332 BC. Cleopatra VII actually inherited her throne in 51 BC, sharing the top position with her brother, Ptolemy XIII (Hamer 5). The misconception that Cleopatra had been an ethnic Egyptian was perhaps encouraged by famous tomb images of Cleopatra that resemble those of other famous Pharaohs, but this appears to have been the style of Egyptian art at the time. In fact, however, since General Ptolemy’s reign, the administration of the country had been Greek, though the native religion in the region remained in Egyptian hands (6). 24 This story was published by Stoker’s wife in 1914, after her husband’s death, in a collection that was given the title Dracula’s Guest after one of its stories. 25 One wishes for a sharp theatrical director who can explore the text for ways to express the conflation and confusion between Egypt and the Gypsies, and between Romans and Romanies, and between the dominant Whites and the homeless wanderers. 26 I interpret Dougherty’s phrase “for all practical purposes” to indicate that there had been earlier examples of “kidnapped baby” and “Gypsy initiation” scenes by other writers, but that they had no significant impact on other writers: the scenes were not imitated or “resonated” in later literary history. 27 It is a pity that this hypothesis of mine cannot be verified, for it would be an evocative and convincing example of life imitating art as a result of their cohabitation in the human imagination. 28 Actually, the three versions of this story disagree about who makes the crosses and whose palms are to be crossed: Kelly seems to indicate that the clients will cross their own palms with silver reales , while Jones has them promising to prepare the coins to cross Preciosa’s palm (34); Cervantes, writing in Castilian Spanish, does not include personal pronouns, only saying that there would be reales ready to “make crosses” (“ para hacer las cruces ”). 29 Nevertheless, my two English translations both use strict meter and rhyming patterns: Kelly and Jones both use trochaic tetrameter with regular verses of four lines, with only lines two and four rhyming in each stanza. 30 Prince Charles, according to notes found in the records of Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, was the only member of the royal family in attendance at a performance of The Gipsye , presumably The Spanish Gipsy , as it was performed by the Cockpit Company, whose play the Middleton/Rowley collaboration was. It is possible that this performance, on November 5 of 1623 (Dyce Vol. IV 101; Darby), exactly a month after Charles’s embarrassing return to England, was a command performance, intended to cheer the prince up, since it to some extent ridicules Spain and its ways. The trip, according to Darby, was made in secret, without the King’s knowledge, and both the Prince and Buckingham in disguise. Characters in disguise are featured through most of the play; though most disguises were suggested by the Cervantes stories, they may have been included as a sly reference to Charles’s recent escapades. Fascinatingly, the prince, later to become King Charles II, may, as Stephen Orgel indicates, have been intended to play the Captain of the Gypsies, otherwise known as the first Gypsy or Jackman, and in line 95 of Orgel’s edition, the name “Charles” is retained in print, though the Duke of Buckingham’s name was George (497). 31 A “dell,” according to the literature on rogues from that time period, was virginal, while a “doxy” was only formerly so. In The Spanish Gipsy , the former term is spelled alternately as “dill” (167). 32 It is possible that Jonson intends the secondary, behavior-based definition of “gipsy,” but then the repeated references to Egypt, Ptolemy, and the like reinforce the related Egyptian theme, making this meaning seem less likely to have been the one meant. 33 The other four, referred to as the second, third, fourth, and fifth Gypsies, were also played by members of Buckingham’s household. Stephen Orgel, editor of the Complete Masques , and indicates that Baron Fielding, Buckingham’s brother-in-law, was the second Gypsy, and that Endymion Porter, a poet, was the third, while the other two Gypsies’ actors’ identities remain unclear.
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Chapter 3. George Borrow’s Revival of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s The Incomplete Revolution of the Gypsy Lore Enthusiasts
George Henry Borrow was the most important nineteenth-century catalyst to influence the first real modification of the Gypsy figure in the Western imagination since its establishment in the Renaissance. After a long period of developmental stagnancy, the Gypsy image was given an unprecedented prominence in the public eye: Borrow’s works posited the Gypsy as a believable and fascinating human figure whose attributes were ascertainable and whose lives could be understood and even emulated, and his early books that spotlighted them were widely and enthusiastically read.
However, it is necessary to realize that the literary trends of the 1700s and the Romantic period were already setting the stage for a more ready acceptance of the Gypsy as the sympathetic subject of readers’ interest before Borrow began his books. What is more, specific literary representations of Romanies themselves were already changing before Borrow’s writings brought his remade image to the attention of the general public. The reading public, especially from the early 1800s until the 1850s, gradually became aware of new trends in the ways in which Gypsy characters now sometimes appeared, but these comprised only one part of the more general developments in Western literature and philosophy that had been underway during the past centuries, leading to the Age of Reason. It was in part these trends that prepared
Borrow for his own interest in the Romanies. In short, though his writings were unique at the time of their composition, Borrow can be said to be a participant in larger literary trends that were representative of his age.
Borrow portrayed himself as an experienced interlocutor between the Whites and the
Romanies, and explicitly set out to correct the general misconceptions. However, although
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Borrow’s writing was briefly of general fame in England, and slightly longer as a hero or model for a group of committed enthusiasts, the Borrovian revision of the image did not influence the wider public much, and even those who might have been enlightened by Borrow’s personal findings were only partially enlightened. This is mostly because Borrow mixed fantasy and biography together in his works, and also because his books showed the unfortunate Romanies in a romantic and carefree light that minimized feelings of pity or sympathy that a more balanced account might well have inspired. In other words, Borrow, as a White pioneer who went to live among the Romanies, had a significant opportunity to provoke readers’ compassion and informed understanding regarding his pals ’ plight, and therefore could have inspired a major change in public opinion, and which could have led to a change in the way the Romanies were treated.
This potential was never properly put into motion. Still, after more than a century, the change for the better has not happened. The revelation of the true Romani culture that might have wrought such good to the adoptive family he admired so strongly was, perhaps, squandered for the sake of his longing for literary popularity and glory. The chance that was wasted is, to me, the most regrettable aspect of Borrow’s remarkable story.
He had tasted such glory with the major success of his first book, The Bible in Spain , and savored more of it with The Zincali . However, as numerous reviewers and writers have commented, it was exactly the confusing mixture of fact and fiction in his novels Lavengro and
The Romany Rye that confused and vexed most readers, blighting Borrow’s chances for popular claim even as he strove for it. It seems likely that if Borrow had concentrated on the literal truth of the Gypsies’ lives in his books, this air of unreality would have been lost, and serious reform could have resulted. The atmosphere of Borrow’s time and the period shortly afterwards had been prepared by social and artistic changes since the beginning of the century, and a decisive campaign to alter the negative aspects of the Gypsy image, and to articulate the difference between the traditional, literary Gypsy and the factual Romany, might well have been effective.
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The iron was hot, but those with an interest in the Romanies never made such a strike: indeed, such an action seems to have been both alien to many of these people, and even antithetical to their goals. A more truthful and reliable reputation for the Romanies was not forged, and the altered qualities of the literary Gypsy, as adjusted by Borrow, did little to assist them.
As this introductory portion of the chapter will demonstrate, Enlightenment and
Romantic writers’ adjustments to the Gypsy image were hardly uniform. In effect, this period may be said to be witness to a new split in the Romany image, beginning in the 1700s, and culminating in Borrow’s seemingly revealing eyewitness accounts of Romany life: a widening gap between representations of the established Renaissance-era Gypsy character, usually assumed by the public to be a true image of the ‘actual Gypsies,’ and more experimental writers’ portrayals which treated the Gypsy image as a symbol or a mental concept that could be manipulated for artistic effect.
There was no attempt to create a unified, new image for the Romanies. Because the
Gypsy concept is so complex, writers seized on whatever diverse aspects that they wished to examine, sometimes doing so more than once, with discrepant interpretations each time, as
Wordsworth did. The authors who treated the Gypsy as a concept, rather than as a real person, had different ways of relating to and manipulating their version of that image, and mostly operated by focusing on selected specific aspects of the more general and traditional Gypsy.
These image-manipulating writers, too, each had a different approach, and even when there were multiple attempts to play with the image, each was a separate experiment. But it is important to note, also, that despite these few isolated experimenters, there was a strong tendency among most writers to simply mimic the by-then traditional representations without varying from them in any significant way. In order to establish a context for these image-manipulators, then, it is first necessary to sketch out the rut in which the Romanies’ fictional counterparts had become entrenched since the days of Middleton and Rowley.
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Marking Time: The Gypsy Image in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
To understand the impact that Borrow’s works and example made such an impact on the public imagination, I feel it is necessary to first comprehend the changes that were underway when Borrow began sharing his unusual stories with the reading public. Borrow was a product of his times and was strongly influenced by the works he read and the people he met, and his atypical background and peripatetic early years gave him sympathy for the
Romanies and significant opportunities to get to know them intimately. The state of the
Gypsy image, the state of the Romanies and of literature at the middle of the nineteenth century all provided a rich and ripe context for Borrow and his eccentric works to reach a wide audience and to move many to believe and imitate him. In a phrase, Borrow was a man at the right time and writing the right sort of story to profoundly alter, though ultimately emphemerally, the Western understanding of the Romany/Gypsy image.
Following the Renaissance, when the Romanies’ lives and characteristics were pried
away from their reputations, which became nurtured by writers into the establishment of the
fictive Gypsy image, there was an interim period lasting more than two hundred years which
might well be described as a lull in Romani/Gypsy development. These years were not
historically uneventful for the Romanies, however. They were still being outlawed, arrested,
accused, and such quite frequently, but in a uniformly lackluster and ultimately static manner that
suggests it was becoming more of a routine than an actual event to reform or halt the Romanies’
ways.
Routine Persecution; Romany Tenacity
Numerous times in his survey of Romany history, Angus Fraser remarks that despite the
creation of many severe laws during this interim period, they were seldom effectively enforced,
mostly due to a lack of manpower, throughout Europe and Britain. For example, although
England’s Queen Elizabeth I had created the harsh Act of 1562, “directed specifically against
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Gypsies in England and Wales [, i]t remained on the statute book, though latterly not enforced, until repealed in 1783” (134). Later in his recounting of Romany history, Fraser indicates that
“whenever the representatives of royal authority […] sought to revive the draconian measures which had been decreed previously, these remained by and large a dead letter” (143).
Typical punishments for arrested Romanies were to include deportation (introduced on the continent by Portugal, 170), branding, mutilation, beating (172), and capital punishment (179; see Fraser, chapter 6 for numerous accounts of all these corporal punishments). In some areas, including Romania, the Romanies were forced into slavery—a condition that in that region lasted for centuries. 34 There were also many attempts to curb the Romany culture by outlawing their
typical ways: Romany names and the Romani language were banned, and their usual occupations
were denied them, and in some cases, such as the empire of Maria Theresa during 1740-80, they
were forced to settle in villages, requiring permission to leave the area (see Fraser 157-159);
Fraser describes the empress’s fourth decree of 1773 as an attempt to “bring their racial identity
to an end. Marriage between Gypsies was forbidden…” (159). However, in this, Fraser notes,
“only a few counties and towns appear to have taken the imperial instructions in full seriousness”
(159).
Between the middle of the 1500s until nearly 1800, Western trends of discriminating
against the Roma became canalized into cultural habits for the rulers and legislators of many
European countries (Fraser concurs, 130). The banishments, routs, and edicts forbidding people
to engage in stereotypically Gypsy activities became regular and routine. Even so, the language
of the law was not usually acted upon. Fraser notes that in Scotland of the early 1600s, “it proved
possible in practice for Gypsies to achieve a tolerable footing with local interests” and that “they
often established good relations with the local people, and it was not unknown for their children
to attend school” despite the “uniformly hostile tone of the legislative texts” there and elsewhere
(184). Though one cannot claim that these lawmakers were basing their actions solely on the
established Gypsy of stage and story, the sameness of their laws reveal a supposition that
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Romanies and their patterns of lawbreaking were somehow timeless and unchanging: a key part of the definition of a stereotype. The public may have based its collective image mostly on popular representations in the arts, but the people who wrote legal documents drew their inspiration, and often their sentences and phrases, from previous legal documents. These comprised an unusual sort of genre that was generally only read by legal professionals. 35 As the laws quoted by Fraser show, some of these notions, such as the idea reflected in More
Dissemblers Besides Women and The Gypsies Metamorphosed that Gypsies smeared their faces with a stain to darken their skin, remained written into generations of legal documents (162); however, these books were unread by the masses and thus, gradually, such ideas were generally forgotten.
1783 was marked by two events that were linked by irony. In Hungary, between 150 and
200 Romanies were accused of various crimes, including cannibalism. This last was hardly a new charge, however: as early as 1631, the Spanish judge Juan de Quiñones had supplied exaggerated stories of the same sort (Fraser 162). 41 of the accused Romanies in Hungary were arrested and subsequently tortured into “confession” for the latter crime, despite the relatively small likelihood that there were any grounds for such a charge; they were then executed in a variety of grisly ways (Patrin; RADOC; Fraser 195-6). This was in sharp contrast to the attitude of cultural relativism that was becoming gradually stronger in Europe during this period. The French writer
Michel de Montaigne, an early and prominent influence on the lines of thought that grew into the
Enlightenment, gave voice to such a view as early as 1575 in his Essais (translated into English by John Florio in 1603). In Chapter 30 of “The First Booke,” he takes reports of Brazilian natives’ cannibalism as a point of departure for his own musings on relative morality and cultural tolerance. The concepts of context- and culture-specific ethics spread gradually, becoming staples of Enlightenment thinking, and were already widespread in the late eighteenth century.
In 1783 Hungary, such ideas, apparently, were still relatively new, or else had not yet
103 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s spread quite so far; even if Hungary’s leaders had read such works, their viewpoints were evidently little influenced by their studies. Furthermore, and more fundamentally, there were significant differences between the Brazilians and the Romanies which may have led to this difference in attitude. For one thing, it was easier to be philosophical and forgiving about primitives who were out of sight and out of mind, as the Brazilians were, than about those who were performing at one’s favorite tavern of an evening, or camped near one’s home. The
Brazilians must have seemed like abstractions to the Hungarians, but the Romanies were visible daily. Maybe some citizens who thought of the Romanies as active menaces or villains, instead of potential ones, hated to see the object of their dislike getting away, fading out, and escaping, and thus came up with the charge of cannibalism in that case; as noted below, Borrow and others doubt that any of the numerous charges of cannibalism were founded on fact. Nevertheless, despite this marked instance of Inquisition-like ferocity, the seed of cultural tolerance had been planted in many other European minds.
In neighboring Germany in the same year, Heinrich Grellman researched and published
Die Zigeuner . The primary significance of the 1783 publication was its assertion, founded on linguistic evidence, that the Romanies must have originally come from India. According to
Fraser, others had had some intuition about this point before, and indeed Grellman cites several previous researchers’ works, including that of Jacob Rüdiger published a year earlier (though his study was actually undertaken in 1777), whose writing compared a Romi’s spoken Romani to
Indian dialects (Fraser 194). Although the idea itself was not new with Grellman, it was he who popularized the notion, and his book helped to spread the word to other European literati: yet another example of primacy versus popularity. This scientifically-based, authoritative statement was made with confidence and was credible to scholars and members of the cognoscenti; in time, this idea of Romany origins came to be generally accepted as true (Fraser 195-6).
It was also, I suggest, aided in its persuasiveness because it was in tune with current philosophical ideas of cultural relativism. Since intellectuals, at least, were starting to see the
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Romanies as members, or past members, of a specific and exotic cultural or racial group, they might be treated and thought of differently than before. Now, they seemed creatures worthy of interest, and even respect, for their inherent quality of foreignness, not for their more external qualities such as language, dress, or (criminal) activities. Again, we can contrast the actions of the torturers in Hungary with the “enlightened” attitudes of the readers and thinkers. Both groups appear to have seen the two kinds of attributes—internal and external—as a dichotomy. But whereas readers of Grellman appear to have prized the Romanies’ inherent qualities of ethnic otherness, the Hungarians seem to have assumed, on the legal side, that elimination of the externals would cure the internal problem, but on the mob-justice side, that a confession of slightly absurd guilt that was imposed upon them with duress was sufficient justification (or perhaps only an excuse) for the killing of humans, whom they regarded with hatred that was perhaps based partly on eye witnessing some kind of rascality, part on hearsay, and the rest on vicious gossip. 36
As a spirit of tolerance—or at least the feeling that people ought to be tolerant—spread during the late 1700s and early 1800s, individuals and later organizations made gestures to help unfortunates. For example, in Transylvania, in 1790, slavery was abolished; thousands of
Romanies were among those freed. And in Russia, Count Orlov, whose performing Romany serfs had gained much acclaim as a formal traveling chorus in the late eighteenth century, decided to free his singers in 1807. This group did not, however, disperse; they instead became the first professional chorus in Russia (discussed in Fraser 205; “Timeline”). In 1811, in Clapham, which is near London, England, a Romanichai (British Romany female) named Trinity Cooper, speaking for herself as well as her two brothers, requested admittance into a school for “ragged children.” She was refused at first, but eventually, after she petitioned for admittance, the siblings were allowed to attend the school (“Timeline”). 37
John Hoyland, a Quaker, encouraged sympathy and charity, as well as moral and religious education, for the Romanies in his 1818 book Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, &
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Present State of the Gypsies: Designed to Develope the Origin of This Singular People, and to
Promote the Amelioration of Their Condition (Nord, Gypsies 7-8). 38 Soon afterwards, a small number of other Christians were encouraging their readers to lend aid, such as James Crabb, whose book The Gipsies’ Advocate (third edition, 1832) is quoted by Fraser: “Those Christians who wish for opportunities of doing good to the Gipsies in and about London will find many of them in the suburbs in the months of April, May, and June, when they generally find work in the market gardens” (221).
It is important to note here that, despite these and other, related token gestures of good will, this kind of liberality was still exercised by a small minority of enlightened people. Though it is an encouraging beginning, the energies of most British people of the time were hardly unified with those of Hoyland and Crabb. Even today, unfortunately, the Romanies’ situation still has not improved as much as it could.
The Literary Gypsy in Stasis
In the realm of creative entertainment, the Gypsy figure similarly moved away from center stage and into the margins of public awareness and thoughts. Still occasionally present, but peripheral, its less-frequent appearances in creative work became simplified and standardized.
Many of the details of the Renaissance Gypsy figure eroded away until they were lost to memory, and soon only the most ingrained and basic of its characteristics were retained in general memory.
The Gypsy, never a well-developed character except, arguably, in Cervantes, was now reduced to a stock figure of barely two dimensions, most often employed only to add color to a narrative or to perform one of its regular functions in order to solve plot problems, and it was seldom called upon to supersede these limiting roles. Gypsies were used mostly used as part of plot devices; most of these are used as resolutions for mistaken-identity plots: as Dougherty rightly points out, the Gypsies’ penchant for baby-switching and kidnapping is among the most popular traditional functions of the Gypsy characters in literature. Identity confusion also results when nobles or
106 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s others run away to join the Gypsies voluntarily, revealing themselves, or being discovered, to bring a surprising finish to the story. Gypsy prophecies are also commonly used, either to give a protagonist something to pursue, expect, or resist, or if revealed after the fact, to reinforce the feeling that the main characters have fulfilled fate’s plans. These fortunes are also used as a sort of reader-writer interactive foreshadowing, as readers consider the predictions and try to figure out if they will actually come true or not.
Continuity and Adaptation in Portrayals of Gypsies
This romantic side of the Gypsy image has remained persistent in Western literature through the Enlightenment and up until the present day, among those writers who stress the positive aspects of the Gypsy character. However, the specific casting of the Romany as a noble savage—pure, natural, honorable, and generally admirable—seems to date from the 1700s. An early instance of this is Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen , written in 1773 or the following year, in which the hero, a historical figure whose unusual prosthesis gave the world the metaphor of
“ruling with an iron fist,” is the chief of a group of Gypsies (Fraser 197). The idea of the noble savage is closely related to the coming of the industrial age and the Age of Reason, both of which happened rather too quickly for some. The Gypsies, along with other less-civilized peoples such as American Indians, were made to represent survivors from “a time before the corruptions of modernity corroded their souls,” or else relics of “an older, preindustrial
England, a golden age before enclosure, urban encroachments, the railway, and other defilements of nature” (Nord, Gypsies 9). Fraser adds that “soon it became a cliché for an author to contrast Gypsy life with the shams of ordinary existence” (197). Thus, the nostalgic and admirable qualities allied in the noble savage paradigm also helped to make some think of the Gypsies’ lot as admirable and enviable: a cast of mind that Borrow indubitably shared.
The rogue literature genre, though its initial heyday had been in the Renaissance in
England, had never really died out, even in the later days of reason. George Borrow pays tribute
107 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s to one of his favorite works in this tradition, Richard Head’s The English Rogue (1665), which in a lengthy subtitle declares itself to be “a compleat history of the most eminent cheats of both sexes,” though its fictional protagonist is named Meriton Latroon. Head also composed The
Canting Academy , a supposedly nonfiction work which includes “a compleat canting-dictionary, both of old words, and such as are now most in use.” Another prime bit of evidence for popular relish for criminals in the eighteenth century is Captain Alexander Smith’s A Complete History of The Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts, and Cheats of Both Sexes (1714). This sensational set of 137 criminals’ biographical sketches, complete with a glossary of thieves’ cant, was popular in its day, and it continued to serve as a standard reference
work, literally for centuries, for students of the genre. 39 The fascination felt by some writers for
such desperadoes is expressed a genre that threads its way through the ages, attracting,
curiously often, the same writers who are drawn to the romantic Gypsy figure. 40
One of the writers who wrote with enthusiasm about both the Gypsies and glamorous highwaymen was Henry Fielding. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) had written popular biographies of two contemporary and recently-executed criminals, Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild, in
1724 and 1725, respectively (Maynadier). Edgar Roberts indicates that these two works sharpened the popular appetite for more of the same (xxiii). 41 Fielding also was inspired by
Wild’s history, and wrote The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great , published among his Miscellanies of 1743, Vol. III, as an ironic parody of the genre. 42
As noted above in Chapter 1, Fielding used Gypsy characters in Joseph Andrews to resolve a plot difficulty: to provide a way for Joseph and his beloved Fanny to be happily married, despite the allegation that they were brother and sister. The Gypsies’ role in this novel is directly in the tradition of “La Gitanilla,” particularly in the surprising revelations of the dénouements of the two stories. Both tales’ central, titular characters’ backgrounds are suddenly revealed, suddenly resolving their crises by revealing that they had been kidnapped as babies. In Joseph Andrews , the kidnapper was not in fact a Romani person by birth, but instead
108 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s she had at that time “travelled in a company of gypsies, who had made a practice of stealing away children” (Book II chapter 12). This idea corresponds with the surviving idea that Whites may join bands of Gypsies at will, as in the Renaissance dramas pretended; either that, or it might suggest that this group of wanderers were simply sturdy beggars and vagabonds.
Fielding’s later work Tom Jones, the History of a Foundling (1748) features a group of specifically Gypsy figures who are celebrating a wedding in a barn—an actual historical practice, as Fraser documents (127). Indeed, this scene, found in Book XII Chapter 12, draws both on verified historical truths and aspects of the established common knowledge of the fictitious Gypsy figure, which many still assumed was true of actual Romanies. Since there is no indication that these Gypsies have a regular income, the natural suspicion may be that they are enjoying stolen food and drinks. Another point, handed down since Vicente’s Farsa , is the
Gypsy king’s inability to speak standard English, mispronouncing specific letters and
conjugating certain verbs incorrectly. Once again, the accent makes the king a comical figure,
but through him, Fielding explores, with some semblance of seriousness, the long-standing
insistence that the Gypsies prefer to handle their own questions of justice. This idea is
traditionally true in Romany culture (Fonseca 282-3) and had frequently been claimed by
Romanies, but the details of these characters’ justice system are evidently purely imaginary.
The subject of justice comes up when Jones’s servant, Partridge, is caught dallying with a
Gypsy woman, enraging her husband, who demands that Partridge be punished. The scene has
the strong flavor of a deliberate setup, with the Gypsy wife tempting Partridge especially so
that the husband can make such a demand; this would be typical of the devious ways of literary
Gypsy tricksters. With these two works, Fielding has provided most of the main elements of the
Gypsy image in a very concise form.
Another genre that resisted the rationalist world view that was coming into being in the
late 1700s was the Gothic novel and chapbook. These frequently gruesome fantasies were full
of supernatural, sensational excitement and exaggerated characterization. Superstition-related
109 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s events and figures were commonplace, and such traditionally Gypsy items as curses, clairvoyance, cannibalism, and robbers were often found, though only occasionally related to the Gypsies in the narrative. Although Gypsies were not exactly a mainstay of the genre, they appeared occasionally, serving as usual as threatening roadside brigands (as in Ann Radcliffe’s
The Mysteries of Udolpho ), as fortune tellers whose dire predictions are reliable (as in Matthew
Lewis’s The Monk ), and the like.
Unsurprisingly, due to the changing times and fast developments of the period, the glory days of the literary Gothic saw a significant split in its representations of seemingly magical events, representing the camps that earnestly wished for a world full of rationalism, and those who clung to the good old days of innocent superstition. The very first Gothic novel,
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (generally agreed upon as the catalyst for the Gothic school of literary production; 1764) did not feature Gypsies or fortune tellers per se . However, it did take place in the Medieval period (c.1100 to c.1500), the time period during which the Gypsies established themselves in Europe; Walpole’s novel also featured other supernatural events which were to become staples of the Gothic novel, such as the family curse and evil omens
(Hantke). It should be emphasized that Walpole’s pioneering work typified the early Gothic novels’ treatment of “supernatural interventions” (Geary 101). In brief, the omens and curses introduced in the novel were taken as articles of faith: when the future is foretold, the novel demonstrates, the foretelling proves accurate. Ann Radcliffe, in contrast, is usually considered the first to introduce, in dénouements a rational explanation for all the seemingly occult happenings in her plots: a compromise between superstitious thrill and reasonable reassurance.
The Gypsy Image: Stirrings of Change
As the eighteenth century drew to a close, many authorial and poetical trends were in the process of developing which are associated today with the Enlightenment and with the coming of the Romantic period in literature. Many of these trends would seem well suited for
110 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s producing a metamorphosis in the ways that Romanies were portrayed by writers, and in fact these were influential in certain instances. However, these factors never quite came together to achieve that specific result.
Of course, the Enlightenment was most prominently marked by an emphasis on reason and methodical thinking (Day 65), and this tendency was helpful at tearing down some popular superstitions, often with the help of scientific investigations and experiments. The Romanies were at a sort of superstitious hub of a body of related beliefs. Some had been generated by the
Romanies themselves for purposes of gaining some advantage, such as fortune telling, and some by the gad źé. Also, many superstitious beliefs were—and, in many cases, still
are—central to the Romany lifestyle, such as the principles of marimé , or seemingly magical
personal pollution or contamination from a variety of socially defined causes (see Fraser 245-7
and Fonseca 12 and elsewhere). This insistence on reason might have gone far to disproving
such erroneous beliefs. However, there seems to be little evidence that rationalists directed
their efforts in such directions, and as works by Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde at the end of the
same century show, fortune-tellers remained popular for entertainment purposes, whether they
were believed in or not. The Romanies also kept up popular belief in curses and such, and some
still nurture a personal belief in them even today, as well as encouraging non-Romanies to
believe in them (Sonneman 127).
Other ideas central to writers in this period helped to pave the way for at least potential
acceptance of Romany figures in literature, as well as the experimentation with the Gypsy
image as a socially constructed concept rather than the accurate description of a race of people.
The Industrial Revolution was a key influence on the Romanies themselves, as many of their
traditional handcrafts fell out of demand with the availability of cheap, factory-made
equivalents (Fraser 222), but they resourcefully adapted to changing times and generally made
do. Nevertheless, the swift social changes of the era prompted many to feel nostalgia for
simpler and somehow purer times, and the Romanies were well suited as a collective symbol of
111 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s the less-civilized golden age of Old England: an opportunity, it would seem, for improving their lot in the world. But though this affected literature, ironically, the British seemingly failed to esteem the Roma any more than they had before. Perhaps this was an inertia-based, miniature split in the image in which readers enjoyed the pastoral literature without feeling an impulse to aid the subjects of many such works. On the other hand, it may instead signify that the readers felt envious of the perceived easy life the Romanies led: another cruel irony of misperception. It took mid-1800s writers like George Borrow and Matthew Arnold to fictively demonstrate how one could combine the bucolic joys of fancy-free pastoralism with
“breadwinning” and scholarship, as Deborah Epstein Nord suggests ( Gypsies 62), but since
these suggest enhanced self-sufficiency for the Romany and any hangers-on, such a
demonstration was hardly conducive to acts of generosity, not to mention rescue.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads , published in
1798 and reprinted with its famous “Preface” two years later, is regularly cited as the instigator of the Romantic period of British literature. In his Romanticism , Aidan Day cites several critics’ statements in order to demonstrate that the approach described in the “Preface” was actually not as strongly innovative or revolutionary as it is often reputed to be, since most of the poetry’s emphases were already present in poems printed in miscellanies and other periodicals of the time. For instance, Robert May suggests that the type of sympathetically miserable subjects of Lyrical Ballads ’ first edition’s humanitarian poems were already “familiar to every reader of magazine poetry” of the 1790s (qtd. in Day 11). “The poems of Lyrical Ballads ,” Day writes, “did not mark ‘the beginning of a new age’. They were essentially compositions of the late Enlightenment” (76). He cites Marilyn Butler’s view that the “Preface,” “so often taken as the manifesto of Romantic aims, can also be seen as a document imbued with Enlightenment values” (77). Perhaps Lyrical Ballads can be compared to the later works of Beethoven: compositions that represented both the culmination of the period that was ending, and the transition to a new phase of creativity.
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However, as M. H. Abrams et al. assert, “Wordsworth’s Preface nevertheless deserves its reputation as a turning point in English literature, for Wordsworth gathered up isolated ideas, organized them into a coherent theory based on explicit critical principles, and made them into the rationale for his own massive achievements as a poet” (6). Clearly, the ideas Wordsworth discourses upon in his “extremely influential” essay (Abrams et al. 6) can be, in general, taken as a group of theoretical concepts and themes which were important trends in poetry from the late Enlightenment and through the entire Romantic era, and retaining some influence even in the Victorian age.
It appears safe to observe that these were notable elements of creative art from 1790
until at least the days of Borrow’s early books in the early 1840s. This would also include
numerous works that the bibliophile, Borrow, absorbed during his early, formative years, and
that colored the imaginations of his contemporaries. Though the Gypsies were rarely
presented sympathetically in poetry of this kind, the literature of this period did feature other
rustic and poor characters who shared many characteristics of the Gypsies and the Romanies.
Scott’s Guy Mannering , for instance, features Gypsy characters who share many of the traits
of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads poor country people. Meg Merrilies speaks with a regional accent and might be read as a sort of “noble savage,” resisting the effects of modernization and holding to old ideals with steadfast honor.
An Artistic Split in the Gypsy Image: 1807-1834
In the early years of the nineteenth century, some writers continued the development of
the Gypsy image. It was not only used for the solution of plot points or for local color, but also
in a new way: as a metaphor. They started to problematize and examine the significance of a
Gypsy identity or spiritual kinship, and began to explore how the fictional Gypsy’s traits have
parallels in the personalities of non-Romany characters. Even when these writers manipulated
113 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s the Gypsy image, their investigations still depended on the traditional elements of the image as the point of departure for their own work, and their work would have been meaningless without it; therefore, in a way, their attempts to alter or adapt the image still managed to reinforce the traditional aspects of the image also. Others continued to bring Gypsy figures into their stories as minor figures, following and propagating the pattern that had been established in the
Renaissance.
The Gypsy as Metaphor
Gypsy figures from the early part of the century reflect some of the social changes that were taking place, including a growing awareness of other cultures, of the scientific theories that were appearing, and the idea of human rights. There can also be traced a tendency, foreshadowed by the Renaissance geniuses Shakespeare and Cervantes, to examine or manipulate mental preconceptions and question their validity, or else to suggest telling parallels between seemingly distinct ideas or things.
For example, William Wordsworth’s “Gipsies” (1807) is arguably more sophisticated in its manipulation of the self-other dichotomy expressed by many in works about the negative side of the Gypsy image. 43 Juxtaposing two of the discrepant but characteristic traits of
Romanies, Wordsworth depicts his Romanies as oxymoronic “peripatetic layabouts,” confronting readers with the incongruity and forcing them to account for it.
Wordsworth seems to apply the more romantic elements of the Gypsy image to himself, and the negative traits to the Romanies. The Romani figures in the poem are seemingly idle and held by inertia in one place for an extended period of time—something that vexes the narrator, who is presumably meant to represent the poet himself. The restless and wandering trait usually attributed to Gypsies in literature is not so attributed here, but is instead conspicuous in its very absence, and in contrast with the industrious narrator’s bustling peregrinations. 44 The traditionally Gypsyish traits of cheerful revelry and the enjoyment of
114 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s constant variety are not assigned to these Gypsies; they are instead claimed as fruits of the poet’s own travels “under the open sky” (line 10).
This is a seemingly hypocritical stance in view of Wordsworth’s other works, though; for example, in his companion pieces “Expostulation and Reply” and “The Tables Turned”
(both written and published in 1798) he strongly endorses a life of “wise passiveness
(“Expostulation”), urging his friend Matthew, the proponent of reading books as the source of true wisdom, to “Close up those barren leaves; / … / bring with you a heart / That watches and receives” (“Tables”). Nevertheless, Wordsworth often calls himself a “traveller” in other poems (Nord, Gypsies 53), perhaps in previous verses even intending to compare himself to a literary Gypsy by the use of that term. Nord, in The Gypsies , further observes that in
“Resolution and Independence” (written, like “Gypsies,” in 1807) Wordsworth “explicitly links wandering and a kind of guilty aimlessness with anxiety about his poetic career” (55). In this light, Wordsworth’s moralistic criticism of the Romanies in “Gypsies” seems even hypocritical—as if this were written in a moment of deceitful self-justification, defending his own actions to himself even as he remained tacitly aware that the Gypsies’ lifestyles and his own were less different than he admits. William Hazlitt, Wordsworth’s collaborator and friend
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and others considered “Gypsies” too strongly moralistic (Nord,
Gypsies 53); perhaps such opinions partly stem from their feeling that even if such complaining were justified, Wordsworth was not the ideal one to launch such an attack.
Though this poem might be one that was written relatively quickly and carelessly—the general consensus, according to Garrett, is that it is a regrettable piece, unworthy of the great sage—I suggest that it offers, in fictive form, a revised definition of what “Gipsies” are and what they are like. The effect is to disorient the reader and to clear the way for a less tradition-bound, more objective view of this cultural group. Granted, the depiction here is far from gracious or approving, but it does represent an attempt to stop readers from being too
“idle” in their classifications by treating the Gypsy figure as an image that can be manipulated
115 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s and examined, rather than a set of people with inevitable, unchangeable traits.
Writers also started again to bring Gypsy characters into their narratives as central or strongly supporting figures; two important writers, Walter Scott and Victor Hugo, gave prominent roles to Romany females. Scott translated Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen in 1799,
and evidently retained interest in the Gypsy image, for in Guy Mannering (1815) he features a
Romni named Meg Merrilies as a crucial figure. Possibly modeled somewhat after the abuela
figure from “La Gitanilla,” Meg is an old woman guilty of kidnapping a laird’s infant child. In
the main body of the story, she has repented of her wrongdoing and experiences feelings of guilt,
and to provide recompense, she exerts herself to restore the boy to his rightful inheritance: an
effort which leads to her death. Despite the occasional appearances of accurate fortunes and other
possibly-magical events, the book generally treats Meg, at least, in a realistic way, providing her
with intelligent and emotionally believable dialogue and thoughts. Like the parents of Doña
Constanza, readers are led by Scott to forgive her early misdeeds because she makes up for them.
Notre Dame of Paris , often called The Hunchback of Notre Dame , was published by
Victor Hugo in 1832. La Esmeralda, a gorgeous girl, is the heroine of the story, which in this
character betrays its own debts to Cervantes, for she is like Preciosa only a seeming Gypsy, 45 of great renown for her dancing and singing, who falls in love with a White knight. The whole novel is, in this writer’s opinion, of a more romantic and melodramatic style than the Scott novel, and
La Esmeralda is a less realistic figure due mostly to that. Perhaps more important, in terms of the
Gypsy image, is the character Claude Frollo, guardian of the deformed Quasimodo.
His heart, full of conflicting feelings for Esmeralda, represents the Western love-hate relationship with the imaginary Gypsy figure in a capsulated form. On one hand, his Christian bias and upbringing, as well as his feelings of social status, lead him to despise the lovely girl, and to destroy her tribe of Gypsies. On the other, he is consumed by lust for her, which leads him to a self-destructive cycle of conflicting urges wherein he comes to both hate and defend his own desires.
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Esmeralda’s chosen sweetheart, Captain Phoebus, is not really that much better for her than Frollo; the hunchbacked bell ringer is the most sympathetic character in the novel, for his brave and unsullied love for the girl. Because Esmeralda is not a Romany girl by birth, but only by upbringing, less emphasis is put on the Romanies as a race than on their cultural traits. Hugo shows that the Gypsies have traditions of criminality, but that at heart they are generally not evil people, and he fairly displays the bigotry of the official policies and police, and their intolerant treatment of the Romany band. Also, the line is again blurred between the hidden life of the
Gypsy and the underworld life of the criminal.
Upholding the Status Quo
Some writers, too, continued to employ the Gypsy stereotype in ways that had become typical since the Renaissance. Jane Austen’s use of Gypsies in Emma typifies this trend. In her
1816 novel, Austen needed an excuse for some of her main characters to leave the confines of their country houses (251), and to have Frank Churchill rescue the frightened Harriet. The Gypsy characters beg for alms, which seems to terrify Harriet; she seems to feel them menacing, but the objective information does not suggest that they threaten actual violence; they only discomfit her.
The point is that Emma can presume that such a heroic rescue would be likely to prompt a romantic coupling between the two White characters. No Gypsy figure is here portrayed with any but the grossest physical description, and their only speaking is reported and merely consists of a demand for more than sixpence. Their involvement, in short, is strictly limited to their catalysis of the seeming rescue.
Another writer who continued to depict two-dimensional Gypsy figures is William
Harrison Ainsworth. In his swashbuckling fantasy, Rookwood (1834), the characters seem to be based on the situations of “La Gitanilla,” while the main plot has elements from Guy
Mannering , and all is dressed up with props and jargon from the Renaissance playwrights, who are often quoted, as well, in chapter epigraphs. The tale is a thoroughly swashbuckling,
117 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s melodramatic, escapist fantasy, written with little respect for consistency or fidelity to the sort of figures portrayed.
Certainly, the Gypsy figures are depicted with blissful disregard for authenticity to
Romani culture. For example, the Gypsy love interest, Sybil, has a Moorish complexion, which—unless she is of seriously mixed blood—is most unlikely. Her grandmother Barbara
Lovell insists that she should marry her accepted sweetheart, a gad źo named Sir Luke
Rookwood: as George Henry Borrow reveals to the world later, this would be unthinkable to a real and traditional romni . What is more, it is implied that Barbara embalmed Luke’s mother in the manner of an Egyptian mummy—probably on the erroneous and already-refuted assumption that the Romanies are really Egyptians.
Ainsworth has no trouble portraying his stereotypical Gypsies’ general attributes and actions, regardless of the above-mentioned inconsistencies. Unsurprisingly, Sybil is dazzlingly beautiful, pure of heart, noble, and so forth. Her lover Luke, the son of a nobleman who married
Luke’s mother in secret, has grown up among the gypsies: I use this term since it would hardly do to call this assorted bunch Romanies. Other members of the tribe include a patrico,
“whip-jack, or sham sailor” and upright man, clearly leftover characters from Jacobean plays like The Jolly Beggars (120). Even the celebrated highwayman Dick Turpin is inaugurated into the tribe with a versified version of the Cervantes ceremony, which is followed by a
Dissemblers -style bousing revel. Like Meg Merrilies, Sibyl’s grandmother Barbara Lovel at first wishes to restore the unknown son of the lord to his rightful position, so that Sybil may be
Lady Rookwood, but most of the main characters die by the gruesome, Gothic-style conclusion,
Sybil and Luke included.
This novel did little to advance the Gypsy image, so addled are its borrowings, but there is one item that it might have contributed, even so. The witchlike Barbara Lovel practices a rather bizarre mishmash of magical techniques, including prophesies, curses, love philters, horoscopes, and others less identifiable. Among these, one of the most significant is a crystal
118 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s ball: the earliest example of its kind that I have found.
From a hook […] was suspended a globe of crystal glass, about the size and
shape of a large gourd, filled with a pure pellucid liquid, in which a small
snake, the Egyptian aspic, described perpetual gyrations. (198)
The “globe” is used in a mystical ceremony several pages later, designed to take traditional revenge on a man who wronged Barbara’s granddaughter: 46
[…] She struck the globe with her staff. The pure lymph became instantly
tinged with crimson, as if blood had been commingled with it. The little
serpent could be seen within, coiled up and knotted, as in the struggles of
death.
“Again I say, beware!” ejaculated Barbara, solemnly. “This is ominous of ill.”
(Vol. 1 203)
Despite the fact that the crystal ball has no traditional part in Romany culture (Hancock,
“The Roma: Myth and Reality” 98), the idea that Gypsy clairvoyants regularly used them has by now been firmly incorporated into the image, so that now a fortuneteller in New York or
Dallas, for example, might not be considered an “authentic Gypsy” without possessing one. 47
This appears to have been introduced to the Western mind in the passage above; the novel,
Ainsworth’s first, was very successful, and we might presume that the idea of the crystal ball
spread rapidly from here.
Continuations of the Enlightenment-Era Gypsy Figures in the Middle and Late 1800s
Although George Henry Borrow’s works were both widely read and highly influential on his readers and therefore on successive generations of writers, it is nevertheless true that Borrow’s example was not followed by all writers who employed Gypsy figures in the years when he was a popular author. Works from the same period, lasting approximately from the 1840s until the end of the nineteenth century, continue the two trends described above:
119 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s some works maintain the seventeenth-century way of evoking specific characteristics and functions of the two-dimensional Gypsy stock character, while others exploit the Gypsy as either a metaphor or as a scapegoat.
This latter group of writings extrapolates from selected attributes of the traditional image experimentally to prove whatever point they wished, or else it brought the Gypsy figure into their stories in order to have it resonate and echo with the author’s own characters and their characteristics or situations. Of course, the Gypsy image was multivalent enough to be useful for many different types of comparisons. It seems ironic that despite the stereotype’s complexity the Gypsy usually remained essentially two-dimensional, since writers were selective about which few traits would appear as attributes of their own Gypsy characters.
In all of this, the actual Romanies were often disregarded as important to the writers’ projects; there seems to have been little sense during this time among these writers of making racial slurs or other untoward generalities. To these writers, the concept of Romani rights clearly had seldom occurred. The Gypsy was like a blank slate on which anything could be written, and few seem to have had any thoughts for how the Romanies might have felt about it.
Nord puts it succinctly: “it is fair to say that without history, mythology is allowed to stand in for the written record” ( Gypsies 173). I would add to this statement, however, that creative
artists may also see such a vacancy in the written record and seek to fill it in a way that meets
their own specific needs.
George Eliot, for instance, probably “felt free to invent [an unlikely] turn of narrative
because she was uninhibited by a known historical record” (Nord, Gypsies 121): to invent
far-fetched claims about the Gypsies, it seems, was held to be innocuous, not reflecting on a
real ethnic group, despite the fact that Eliot’s dramatic narrative poem The Spanish Gypsy
(1868) posited the Gypsies as historical figures in pursuit of a national homeland, and many
other elements of her plot were based more or less on historical situations. Eliot seems to have
felt that “Jews and Moors, because the facts of their history were too conspicuously opposed to
120 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s the working out of my catastrophe,” could not be used (Eliot, qtd. Nord 2006 120), as readers would know that her plot was historically inauthentic, but that she could make up any back-story or historical actions she wished for the Gypsies without anybody gainsaying her or even feeling upset by the falsehood. It is as if, since the history of the Romanies was little known, no facts actually existed regarding them, or else did not really matter, and so anyone’s conception or invention was equally viable for a story. This is true despite the likelihood that
Eliot had apparently read Borrow’s The Zincali , as well as Borrow’s primary inspiration, “La
Gitanilla” by Cervantes (Nord, Gypsies 121), for historical background; nothing in these works would have led Eliot to believe that the Romanies would search for their homeland in Africa, and indeed Borrow is quite clear that any historical homeland could only be found in India. 48
Some works from this period brought Gypsy characters into the texts, but gave them fantastical attributes. George Eliot’s abovementioned The Spanish Gypsy —a title ringing with
echoes of literary precedent—gives her tribe of Zincali a realistic set of attributes and puts them
into a setting that is based on history, but projects onto them a story full of Biblical analogies
and anti-historical situations, in order to furnish her heroine with the kind of trials and moral
dilemmas she wished to subject her to. For similar reasons, she makes the Gypsy leader, Zarca,
an alchemist and, most oddly, a Moses-like patriarch with sworn quests to restore to his people
a nation of their own and a sense of dignity they have, similarly, not had for centuries. Eliot
ironically shows her gitanilla to be a genuine Romany girl, unlike her titular namesake
Constanza/Preciosa, and emphasizes the later character’s unusual lack of freedom, as she is trapped into a leadership position which she did not desire, and which furthermore will not lead towards any likelihood of a successful finish.
Robert Browning’s poem of 1845, “The Flight of the Duchess,” similarly posits a homeland for the Gypsies, though with less specificity, and sends its narrator, a huntsman and vassal at a Medieval manor, off to the “land of the Gipsies” (ln. 888-890) in order to find the titular Duchess, who has been bewitched by the sorcery of the Gypsy queen. However, in
121 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s general, the narrative poem appears to be more closely tied to Gothic tales and specifically to
Coleridge’s unfinished “Christabel,” (1816) and its central Gypsy is much like Geraldine,
Coleridge’s demoness from that poem, repeating (though reversing) the creepy and magical change in eye size as the key to the villainess’s mesmerism, which may be tied thematically to the old superstition of the Gypsy’s “evil eye,” in which the Gypsy’s gaze can curse people—Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” has a variant on this as well. Also, the two poems are set in a similar time and manorial milieu, and Browning borrows something of true history to have his band of rovers return to the Duke’s lands annually for an “annual stipend” in exchange for “annual gifts” presented to him, including a round of fortunes told. Curiously,
Browning adds to the roster of historically-verifiable trades of the Gypsies others, including glass-blowing and pottery. Obviously, though, Browning’s choice of Gypsies for his poem was guided by their false claims and reputation for magical artistry, which he similar expands into exaggerated black-magical powers that, in these details, were never hinted at by historical records or even by contemporary gossip of the actual sixteenth century. 49
The other work to feature Romanies “on stage” in this period is also by George Eliot. A
band of these “travellers” appears briefly in the early part of her novel The Mill on the Floss
(1860), as the desired destination and intended new home of its heroine, Maggie Tulliver. Once
again, Eliot presents readers with verisimilitude that might have been gleaned in part from
Borrow’s four major works (the last one, The Romany Rye , appeared in 1857, four years earlier)
and also from other sources, but she has no interest, it appears, in Borrow’s main points, such as
philology or independence. Instead, Eliot employs the Romanies because of their quality of
being split from the storied Gypsies, in order to expose the extent to which Maggie is living in
a dream world in which she sees the real world through the same imaginative and romantic
haze that distorts most people’s impression of them. She considers herself physically and by
disposition very different from her family members, and runs away from home in order to join
the similarly-dark-skinned Gypsies. The text draws much attention to how Maggie’s
122 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s expectations color her perceptions, and when the discrepancies between the two grow too strong to maintain the original fantasy, she simply switches to a different narrative paradigm, supposing that rather than being made the Gypsies’ queen, she will now be made into their next meal, and she longs for “Jack the Giant-killer” to rescue her. Like Borrow, Eliot points out the misunderstandings and inaccuracies in the public image of the Gypsies, but where Borrow wishes to elucidate Romany culture for his readers, and to emphasize their unique and noble qualities, Eliot mostly wishes to provide a suitable setting for Maggie’s temporary confrontation with reality. She also simultaneously provides Maggie and the book’s readers with a chance to test the book’s prior claims that the protagonist and the Gypsies have much in common, and the narrative strongly hints that, despite a superficial resemblance, Maggie is a
Gypsy neither in terms of genealogy nor society. Nevertheless, Eliot seems to suggest, there are some significant similarities that are allowed to linger, though silently, into Maggie’s adulthood, primarily her sense of being isolated and distinct from mainstream English life, and in the end, arguably, it is exactly this metaphorical stream that is incarnated as the bringer of Maggie’s doom.
In similar manners, works by the sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë compare central characters to Romanies in order to pinpoint the “gypsy” in their natures. Emily Brontë’s
Wuthering Heights from 1847 and her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre from the following year
evoke off-stage Gypsies and hint that they might be somehow present in the story; though the
Romanies never are visible in these texts, their reputations from history and from literature cast
their shadows on Heathcliff, in the former text, and on both Jane and Edward Rochester, in the
latter. The Brontë sisters seem to be asserting that, as a concept if not as a race, the Gypsies are
a collection of socially taboo attributes that regular, non-Romany Britons often share to some
degree. Heathcliff is suspected to be a Romany child when he is discovered, and speaks an
unknown tongue that might be Romani, and what is more he shares with the literary Gypsy
many qualities, including physical properties and those of temperament—most notably,
123 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s perhaps, his penchant for patiently-anticipated revenge. In temperament, too, Edward
Rochester has many antisocial traits that resemble those of a fictional Gypsy, and he even masquerades as a fortune-telling crone at his own party, successfully fooling nearly everyone he so serves. The very similarities between Edward and Jane that give his true identity away in that scene also serve to connect the implicit Gypsy comparisons to his beloved, and underline all the rootless and independent traits in Jane’s own personality. Charlotte Brontë also uses the fabled magical powers of the Gypsy as an example of the superstitious beliefs that her characters reject. She does so in order to articulate a difference between such sham occultism and the legitimate supernatural powers of the Almighty, who is responsible for acceptably magical acts near the end of Jane Eyre .
Matthew Arnold’s “The Scholar Gypsy” from 1853 is closest in tone and style to the adventures of Lavengro, who first appeared two years earlier in the eponymous novel by
George Borrow. Like George Eliot, Arnold appears likely to have been aware of Borrow’s writings, but this poem points in other directions to identify its inspiration. The Scholar Gypsy figure in Arnold’s poem is explicitly inspired by Glanvill’s The Vanity of Dogmatizing from
1661, which describes the original Oxford student who had “very lately” dropped out of
college to join the Gypsies (Abrams 1376). Rereading the Glanvill in modern times, the
narrator of the current poem seems to conflate his personal nostalgia for his own college days
with the Scholar’s preindustrial Old England. Both subjects have moved on towards
mechanization and a loss of a sense of spiritual conviction. In addition, as Nord (2006) has
insightfully pointed out, “it [Glanvill’s account] goes against the grain of nineteenth-century
representation by associating Gypsies with both breadwinning and learning, rather than
thieving and ignorance.” (62) This is not to say that the Gypsies in this poem are themselves
posited as breadwinners, however, but that this early Rye figure became one and remained a
scholar. The Gypsies themselves are but the group—credited with magical powers by
Arnold—that the more-important Scholar joins.
124 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Modernism is, as in the pastoral poems of earlier in the century, contrasted with the simpler life of innocence associated with a posited golden age, which the supposedly timeless, unchanging Gypsy figure has somehow retained as a defining quality of its life. The distancing of the Gypsy scholar from sordid details of both the traditional Gypsy image and the tainted, citified reality of Arnold’s day purifies his image and serves to make it more wholly ideal and nostalgic, as if progress is equal to decay. This also serves as a link between Arnold’s concept of the Gypsies and that of their greatest documenter and fabulist, George Henry Borrow.
George Henry Borrow’s Role in the Revision of the Gypsy Image, 1841-1874
Despite the experimental and more artistic work of authors such as those described above, most writers of the 1800s allowed the static, stereotypical portrayals of the Gypsy from the seventeen-hundreds to continue unchanged. Borrow, on the other hand, claimed that such characterizations were full of falsehood, and insisted that his unique position as a modern
“scholar Gypsy” (though never using that specific term) made his own portrayals primary sources of truthful facts on the Romanies. However, close examination of his assertions leads me to suggest that his eyewitness accounts were notably colored by his presuppositions about what he would find: his images of the Romanies, and also about Spain, interfered to some extent with his perceptions. As this part of the chapter explains, Borrow’s narratives reveal that the largest influence on his writings was probably that early realistic work about the Romanies,
“La Gitanilla” (1613) by Cervantes, and in Borrow’s books Cervantes’s semi-invented vision of Romany life was presented as documentary truth. Borrow’s writings seized the imagination of many British and European readers, and asserted that this sort of characterization—that of the Cervantes and also that of the seventeenth century complacent Gypsy image—was in fact, in the main, reliable. They convincingly endorsed most traditional characteristics of the fabled
Gypsy image, and they also made the Romanies themselves appear simultaneously realistically human (rather than fantastic) and charmingly pastoral (rather than fretfully modern). This was
125 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s the key impact that Borrow’s books had upon the image of the Gypsy in the late-1800s.
Without the writings from the early nineteenth century, perhaps, Borrow’s seemingly
independent productions might not have seemed so persuasive: these earlier books prepared
readers’ imaginations for Borrow’s semi-autobiographical volumes by allowing readers to
suspend disbelief in such figures while reading long works of fiction. Guy Mannering , in
particular, with its fame and its realistic portrayal of a convincing, humane Meg Merrilies,
helped readers to picture such a sympathetic Gypsy figure. By the time the public read the
Borrow works, it was not a great challenge to accept his statements as facts. And, at any rate, the
changes to the image are not so radical; as Hancock explains in many of his publications, there
are numerous surviving elements from these early writings in the attributes of Borrow’s Gypsy
figures. Even non-readers who heard about Borrow’s claims by other means might not have
doubted or challenged them very strenuously, because of the seemingly candid and forthright
tone of the books, and because he, unlike any other well known writers before him, had actually
gone to live with the Romanies, and therefore he was seen as an authority, with none, so far, to
dispute his claims.
Borrow wrote about the Romanies in four of his books, which are usually considered the
most important of his publications, and though three of their titles specifically refer to the
Romanies either by name or by the use of the Romani language (the exception being The Bible
in Spain ), the first to be published is the only one of those to focus primarily upon the Roma. The
image of the Gypsy that Borrow introduced in The Zincali (first published in 1841) and
elaborated on in The Bible in Spain (first published in 1843) is primarily that of the Spanish
Gypsies, or Gitános , although in the beginning of the former book he discourses at length on the
peculiarities and, more heavily, on the similarities between those Romanies he has known in
various parts of the world. Ten years after the publication of The Zincali , he had his first novel
published: Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest . This novel and its sequel The Romany
Rye (1857) are composed of about the same ratios of fact and embellishments as the previous two
126 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s books had been. The novels, unlike his earlier books, are set exclusively on “the British Islands”
(Lavengro Vol. I 1), and though he meets with individuals from many lands, the protagonist,
Lavengro, apparently meets Romanies who were natives of the same group of islands.
In the introductory material to The Zincali , Borrow’s comparisons of the British and
Spanish Romanies suggest that the two groups are similar in most essential ways, but Borrow’s depictions of the two groups of Roma, and their habitats, differ in some significant ways. Both the White residents of Britain, and the Romanichaals or British Romanies, come off more favorably than do the Zincali and the Spaniards. The primary difference lies perhaps in the fact that Borrow had strong feelings of patriotism, despite his enthusiasm for polyglotism and foreign cultures, and so the novels have a more agreeable cast than the books about Spain, in a general way.
Borrow came to know certain British Romanies quite intimately, and was treated by many
of them as a “brother” and “ pal ” (the oft-repeated terms of address that Jasper applies to Lavengro,
the second of which means “brother” in Romani, though I note that Lavengro never calls any
Rom by these names) and accepted companion (but not as an authentic Rom, however), but
though Borrow was also accepted at the camps of the Gitános , there appears to have been little
lasting personal friendship achieved. One likely reason is that in Spain, the older and perhaps
more jaded Borrow was an agent of the Bible Society, headquartered at Earl Street in London (as
he was between 1833 and 1840), and was therefore more businesslike, and took a less casual
approach to his wanderings, enjoying perhaps fewer tangential stops and trips than he had as a
younger man in the 1820s, when he came to regard the Petulengro family as his family away from
home. Another factor in the differences in mood between the Spanish and British books is that
Borrow, though not actually a church official, was strongly biased in favor of his own Church of
England and against the “Popery” of the Roman Catholic church, so that the majority of the
population in Spain was less congenial to him than the average Briton would have been. A final
factor to consider is that as a foreign agent in Spain who wished to further Protestantism, or at
127 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s least as someone who was hired to do so, Borrow was unpleasantly obliged to have numerous run-ins with Spanish bureaucracy and its officials; he was even unlawfully arrested in an attempt to discourage him from distributing the Bible. As a result of these factors, the impression Borrow gives us of Spain is one of a dark and rather polluted area full of cowards and ruffians, whereas
Britain generally feels like a sunny and congenial place.
As in the Cervantes, however, readers get the impression that the Gypsy characters of whom Borrow seems to approve seem to be exceptional, and featured because their admirable traits set them apart from ordinary Romany rogues, of whose disreputable habits Borrow certainly never approves, and in which Borrow—like Juan de Cárcamo—scorns to take part. 50
The generalizations of The Zincali ’s introduction are not always borne out in the narratives.
Particularly discrepant are the descriptions of the Romanichaals and their narrated natures. The
British Romanies of the novels are, if not exactly honest people, at least frank and forthright about their lawbreaking when they talk with Lavengro; this makes them seem less villainous to readers, and as the following quote shows, more justified in their actions, as they act out of need; in contrast, the two cheating characters from Lavengro who gamble with the public in the
thimble-and-pea game are both Whites. Moreover, the sensible and easygoing tone of Jasper and
the other likeable Romanichaals is charismatic, even when discussing Romany crimes, such as
“drabbing baulor,” Borrow’s transliteration of the Romani term for the Romanies’ practice of
poisoning farmers’ swine for the purpose of appropriating and then eating the discarded meat:
“[…] I say, Jasper, I hope you have not been drabbing baulor lately.”
“And suppose we have, brother, what then?”
“Why, it is a very dangerous practice, to say nothing of the wickedness of
it. […Y]ou have had a banquet of pork, and after the banquet, Mrs. Chikno sang
a song about drabbing baulor, so I naturally thought you might have lately been
engaged in such a thing.”
“Brother, […] I will now tell you that we have not been doing so. What
128 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
have you to say to that?”
“That I am very glad of it.”
“[…] We have no reason to drab baulor at present, we have money and
credit; but necessity has no law. Our forefathers occasionally drabbed baulor;
some of our people may still do such a thing, but only from compulsion.”
(Romany Rye Vol. I 87-88)
Compare this to the doubletalk and outright malice of the Zincali Gypsies, such as this fortune told to a rich Spanish lady:
O blessed lady, (I defile thy dead corse,) your husband is at Granada, fighting
with king Ferdinand against the wild Corahai! […] (May an evil ball smite
him and split his head!) Within three months he shall return with twenty
captive Moors, round the neck of each a chain of gold. (God grant that when
he enter the house a beam may fall upon him and crush him!) […] Your palm,
blessed lady, your palm, and the palms of all I see here, that I may tell you all
the rich ventura which is hanging over this good house; (May evil lightning
fall upon it and consume it!) ( Zincali 36-37)
Clearly, in this instance, we can see that Borrow’s patriotism extended to embrace his own nation’s Romanies along with the other attributes of Britain. No other figure in Borrow’s works, save Mrs. Herne, speaks so vituperatively of the gad źé, and she was showcased as a hateful exception to the rule.
Borrow’s Update of the Traditional Gypsy Image: Examination and Evaluation
Various writers have stated that George Henry Borrow’s Romany characters are presented in an idealized way. Hancock remarks, for example, that “[i]n retrospect, we might reproach Borrow for presenting the Romani population in too romanticized and idealized a light”—Hancock quotes Helyear’s comment that nowhere does he “‘drop a single hint about the
129 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s hardship of their life,’” instead sustaining the more attractive image of “picturesque outsider”
(“George Borrow’s Romani” 236), though that is not entirely true. Even so, I maintain that
Borrow’s style is essentially realistic, in the sense that, instead of being a patent fantasy with impossible or improbable events happening, the happenings and people he describes are usually convincing. The writer provides his readers with a large amount of verisimilitude, and the
Romany characters are shown to possess very human characteristics: they are poor, they have bad habits, and they respond to their environment in believable ways. The settings and situations are described in “gritty detail:” a common characteristic of realistic fiction.
Borrow does not shy away from showing the truth of certain attributes that are part of the general image. For instance, he admits that lying and thieving are long-standing Romany habits, which he could hardly deny. Such practices were current in Borrow’s day and were known to be true by most people—thus, for many newspaper readers, seeming to confirm the whole image, in another example of the misconfirmed assumption.
Borrow insists that his depiction of the Roma is true to life. “The author […] has depicted the Gypsies as he has found them, neither aggravating their crimes nor gilding them with imaginary virtues” ( Zincali vi). His statement points obliquely to the great body of fictional accounts of “Gypsy” figures, which are almost invariably inclined in one of these directions, and sometimes in both. Borrow indicates that most of the attributes of the popular image, of which he is well aware, are derived largely from such books, as well as plays. In the following quote,
Borrow refers to the anthropological collection of Romany verses he provides in The Zincali , which he compares with those of popular fiction, which he insists are full of affectation: “they are different in every respect from the poetry of those interesting personages who figure, under the names of Gypsies, Gitános, Bohemians, etc., in novels and on the boards of the theatre” (vi).
The difference between the previous books on Gypsies and Borrow’s writing is that
Borrow has lived in the company of Romanies, intermittently, for many years.
It is utterly useless to write about the habits of the Gypsies […] unless you
130 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
have lived long and intimately with them; and unhappily, up to the present
time, all the books which have been published concerning them have been
written by those who have introduced themselves into their society for a few
hours, and from what they have seen or heard consider themselves competent
to give the world an idea of the manners and customs of the mysterious
Rommany. (37) 51
Such are the books that have, in Borrow’s opinion, pretended to discuss the wanderers in non-fictional ways: “compositions pretending to describe Gypsy life, but written by persons who are not of the Gypsy sect” ( Zincali Vol. 1 vi). Borrow explicitly considers himself the first writer ever who is “competent” in this way. Most of the Gypsy figures in literature, on the other hand, present the Gypsy as an entirely fantastic creature. Works of this second variety are written with thoroughgoing disregard for the details of the Romanies by writers who have perhaps never even met any of the Roma in person.
Borrow makes a number of references to books of both sorts, usually in a derogatory way, to chide their authors for their inaccuracies, which have had a profound effect on the common reading public’s idea of Gypsies—whom Borrow seems to equate with the Romanies, not making the distinction that is fundamental to this dissertation. Borrow insists that certain elements of the Gypsy image, which most people assume to be true of those they call Gypsies, are inaccurate and unfair to the Romanies, such as the widespread assumption that Gypsy women are sexually promiscuous. 52 He denies this misconception more than once. In the
introduction to The Zincali Borrow insists that he has never “done them injustice by
attributing to them licentious habits, from which they are, perhaps, more free than any race in
the creation” ( Zincali A). Later on, he mentions that “amongst other vile names, they have
been called harlots, though perhaps no females on earth are, and have ever been, more chaste
in their own persons” (37).53
Borrow further denies that the Romanies have ever practiced any sort of magic; likely
131 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s influenced by the Age of Reason, he automatically rejects the whole idea, although he admits that “not only the English Gypsies, but the whole race, have ever professed it; therefore, whatever misery they may have suffered on that account, they may be considered as having called it down upon their own heads” ( Zincali A 11).
He is aware of the 1783 arrest of Romanies with the charge that they ate human flesh, and suggests that the charge was false.
Cases of cannibalism are said to have occurred in Hungary amongst the Gypsies;
indeed, the whole race, in that country, has been accused of cannibalism, to
which we have alluded whilst speaking of the Chingany: it is very probable,
however, that they were quite innocent of this odious practice, and that the
accusation had its origin in popular prejudice […] (30).
Borrow also asserts the veracity and authenticity of his own version of the new Gypsy image by refuting the misconception that “the Roms have everything in common, and that there is a common stock out of which every one takes what he needs” ( Zincali B). He insists that “a
Gypsy tribe is an epitome of the world; every one keeps his own purse and maintains himself and children to the best of his ability, and every tent is independent of the other” ( Zincali
B).54
In contrast, he gives convincing, detailed accounts of the techniques used in the
performance of traditional confidence tricks used by Romanies he claims to have met: poisoning
pigs and other animals so as to take the unwanted meat from farmers; the “great trick” of
convincing “gorgios” to bury their valuables in the ground in hopes of their magically
multiplying in value; changing the appearance of a stolen horse so as to resell it later; and various
ways of shoplifting, among others.
As he states in a similar revelation: “It is high time to undeceive the Gentiles on these points” ( Zincali B). Clearly, Borrow regards himself as the pioneering revealer of true Romany culture to the gadjikane (or Gorgio) world—and, furthermore, he half believes, like the
132 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Romanies whom he has fooled, that instead of being “one more fitted to keep company with wild beasts and Gorgios than gentle Rommanys,” he is genuinely “of the Mecralliskoe rat ( royal blood ) of Pharaoh,” as at least many of Borrow’s Roma friends believed themselves to be ( Zincali B,
emphasis in the original).
Having enjoyed a warm friendship, as well as the trusting companionship, of real
Romanies, Borrow feels entitled to refute almost all of the flawed writings about Gypsies.
However, I believe that he was able to do so in such a wholehearted manner because he had a
different story of Gypsy life in mind as his epitome of reliability regarding the Romanies, though
he never names the work specifically. Borrow presents an image to his readers that is very largely
based on, or at least similar to, that given to the world more than 200 years earlier by Cervantes.
Forging Links Between “La Gitanilla” and Borrow’s Experience of Spain’s Romanies
Borrow was certainly familiar with Cervantes, whom he mentions more than once. He
declares, “The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and […] its literature contains the grand
book of the world” ( Romany Rye Vol. 2 273); this can hardly be anything but a reference to Don
Quixote. More importantly, Borrow had read the Novelas Ejempleares : he refers to one, “La
Ilustre Fregona,” as “the most amusing of his smaller tales” ( Bible in Spain 202). In some editions
of The Zincali , Chapter V discusses “La Gitanilla” but discounts its veracity and refutes
Cervantes’s portrayal of the Spanish Gypsies, concluding that most of the story’s description of
the Romanies was based on hearsay and invention; afterwards, he professes that he is done
considering “La Gitanilla:” “So much for Cervantes” ( Zincali A 25-6).
Nevertheless, Borrow’s depiction of the Gypsy culture, both in his Spanish and English
settings, has many similarities to that of Cervantes’s in “La Gitanilla,” as well as the “Dog’s
Colloquy” and Pedro de Urdemalas , his drama, published in 1615, which treats much the same
subject as does “Gitanilla,” with Pedro taking the part of don Juan. Having a lifelong interest in
Romanies, it is inconceivable that he would have neglected reading the story of Preciosa and
133 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Andrés Caballero as well, particularly as the title makes it obvious that the novela contains descriptions of at least one Spanish Gitána . Borrow’s second biographer, Herbert Jenkins, indicates that Borrow learned to read Spanish, as well as French and Italian, in approximately
1816, when Borrow was 13 (Chapter 2); what is more, by the time Borrow wrote The Bible in
Spain , published in 1843, he had already been back from Spain for around three years. With this ability, there is no doubt that he would have read Cervantes in the original Castilian, which had by then become the common language of Spain, there being no need to rely on any of the English translations then available.
Borrow’s Spanish Romanies are portrayed as being mysterious, untrustworthy, and dangerous. Although he states in The Zincali ’s fifth chapter ( Zincali A 24-26) that the story reveals that Cervantes was far from familiar with the real Gitános and for that reason seems to hold the story in contempt, there are several near-quotations and references to the story’s language and episodes, which strongly indicate that Borrow not only had read “La Gitanilla,” but was deeply familiar with it. It appears that though Borrow rejects the tale as a document of the
Gitános of Cervantes’s time, he had internalized the details and the text of “La Gitanilla” and subconsciously accepted both as part of his own image of Spain and of its Gypsies. The following quote illustrates his perhaps unwitting acceptance of “La Gitanilla” as true to life.
[At] the time of mirth and festival […] the Gitános, male and female, danced
and sang in the Gypsy fashion beneath the smile of the moon. The Gypsy
women and girls were the principal attractions to these visitors; wild and
singular as these females are in their appearance, there can be no doubt, for the
fact has been frequently proved, that they are capable of exciting passion of
the most ardent description, particularly in the bosoms of those who are not of
their race, which passion of course becomes the more violent when the almost
utter impossibility of gratifying it is known. No females in the world can be
more licentious in word and gesture, in dance and in song, than the Gitánas;
134 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
but there they stop: [the gitanillas ] speedily repulsed those who expected that
the gem most dear amongst the sect of the Roma was within the reach of a
Busno. ( Zincali A 23-24)
The main part of the quote above is virtually a sketch of the opening narrative of the
Cervantes story, with don Juan’s observance of Preciosa’s dancing, though implying that in real life Juan would not have found success with her; the last sentence seems to echo
Preciosa’s statement spoken during Juan’s initiation into the Gypsy camp:
One sole jewel I have, which I prize more than life, and that is my virgin
purity, which I will not sell for promises or gifts, for sold it would be in that
case, and if it could be bought, small indeed would be its value. […] If you are
come then, señor, for this booty, you shall never bear it away except bound in
the ties of wedlock. (Kelly)
Also, Borrow refers here
Arriving in Spain with a predisposition to every species of crime and villainy ,
they were not likely to be improved or reclaimed by the example of the people
with whom they were about to mix […] ( Zincali A 17, emphasis added)
to Cervantes’s opening “ Parece que… ” statement about the Gitános :
Born of parents who are thieves, reared among thieves, and educated as
thieves, they finally go forth perfected in their vocation, accomplished at all
points, and ready for every species of roguery . (Kelly, emphasis added)
The difference here is that with Borrow, the qualifying phrase “It would almost seem” is
missing: to Borrow, this statement, by his allusion, is affirmed to be true. The text of Zincali
is haunted at several times by the assertions of Cervantes in these and other instances: not
only in regards to the Romanies, but also as to the nature of the Spanish people, especially its
judicial and police systems, to which Preciosa and Borrow alike allude, pointing out the open
secret of its traditional and long-lasting corruption. However, while Cervantes criticizes his
135 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s own country from within, somewhat gently, though not approvingly, Borrow despises it in comparison with the lofty standards he perceives in England’s officials.
Thus, if [the Zincali] came thieves, it is not probable that they would become
ashamed of the title of thief in Spain, where the officers of justice were ever
willing to shield an offender on receiving the largest portion of the booty
obtained. [Spain is] a country unsound in every branch of its civil polity,
where right has ever been in less esteem, and wrong in less disrepute, than in
any other part of the world. ( Zincali 17)
Later, even more pointedly, Borrow asserts:
Spanish justice has invariably been a mockery, a thing to be bought and sold,
terrible only to the feeble and innocent, and an instrument of cruelty and
avarice. (49)
This may well be true, but also it is noticeably an amplification of Cervantes’s assertions.
For instance, Preciosa urges the lieutenant to “sell justice, and then you will have money. Do not
introduce new customs, but do as other magistrates do, or you will die of hunger” (Kelly);
Cervantes makes similar allusions elsewhere in his writings, as do other Spanish writers from that
era until Borrow’s. Evidently, the pattern had not been broken in Spain, at least as far as Borrow
could tell. Borrow states, “Spain never changes” ( Bible in Spain 9), which suggests that his
readings about Spain in Cervantes’s and other writers’ books seemed to match his perceptions
of contemporary Spain—not realizing that part of his perceptions were tinted by his earlier
imaginings.
This is the nature of the close correlation between the Spain of Cervantes’s fiction and
that of Borrow’s purportedly true experiences, as recorded in The Zincali and The Bible in Spain .
The former of these came out in 1841, the year after Borrow quitted Spain, and the latter two years
afterwards; both books cover the same span of years. Though the tales of Cervantes, echoed in
Borrow’s texts, may have been freshly reread following his return to England, it is probable that
136 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Borrow’s impressions of the country were founded on what he read in the elder writer before ever visiting Spain, or else the impressions would not have been so close.
According to Borrow’s preface to the first edition, the bulk of The Zincali was
[…] written under very peculiar circumstances, such as are not in general
deemed at all favourable for literary composition: at considerable intervals,
during a period of nearly five years passed in Spain—in moments snatched
from more important pursuits—chiefly in ventas and posadas , whilst
wandering through the country in the arduous and unthankful task of
distributing the Gospel among its children (1)
Borrow indicates that, having written so much, he would rather publish the material instead of letting it go to waste; what work was done on the work in England is implied to have consisted more of tidying up, reorganization and revision than of fresh writing.55
Reverberations of Cervantes are frequent, to the extent that they are most likely native
elements of Borrow’s field notes instead of superimpositions from later times.
Borrow’s Accounts of the Romanies: Reliability Issues and their Effect on the Image
Borrow’s first publication to describe Romanies was The Zincali (1841). When it
appeared in America, reviewers were at times impressed by the work, but the writer for the North
American Review had some reservations:
A dramatic air is given to some chapters by reporting at length certain
conversations, that the author held with individual Gypsies, though it is
obvious that no memory could retain all the words that were used, and that the
dialogue must be in part imaginary. These faults seriously impair the
credibility of the book, especially when there are so few collateral sources of
information, by the aid of which we might examine and verify the author’s
statements. (72)
137 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
In normal circumstances, this would be a reasonably valid objection; however, there is support for the idea that Borrow in fact had wonderful recall of his experiences. Borrow himself shows how he can remember something that he happened to overhear many years ago when he chances on a tinker whom he has never really met in this scene from Lavengro :56
Tinker. […] Only on one condition I’ll sell you the pony and things …. Tell
me what’s my name; if you can’t, may I—
Myself. […] Your name is Slingsby—Jack Slingsby. There, don’t stare …. Ten
years ago, when I was little more than a child, I was about twenty miles from
here in a post-chaise, at the door of an inn, and as I looked from the window of
the chaise, I saw you standing by a gutter, with a big tin ladle in your hand,
and somebody called you Jack Slingsby. I never forget anything I hear or see; I
can’t, I wish I could. So there’s nothing strange in my knowing your name;
indeed, there’s nothing strange in anything, provided you examine it to the
bottom. (Vol. 3 21)
This suggests that Borrow was indeed able to recall any conversation he has had. To this
testimony of Lavengro—which, at first, was supposed to be unequivocally the character of the
author, as Jenkins makes clear—we have the deduction of Ian Hancock. Professor Hancock
asserts that Borrow showed “a remarkable genius” in his work with most of the numerous
languages he had studied, but that he had made a large number of errors in recording, translating,
and writing and speaking Romani. Without reference to any related statements by Borrow,
Hancock notes:
This would suggest strongly that he worked best from written materials, and
perhaps had a photographic memory; Romani was the only language in his
working repertoire for which he had no access to a comprehensive
grammatical description. (“George Borrow’s Romani”)
With such persuasive corroboration, I suggest that Borrow was most likely able to recall his
138 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s experiences and conversations with considerable accuracy, and that the information in his books is, except in two sorts of instances. Specifically, these are when he deliberately falsified or concealed information, and when the information he received in his research and study was inaccurate.
Of the first sort of instance, there are a great many examples. Most of the character and place names, except for the names of larger areas and cities, are hidden or changed. Hancock reports that “changing the names of people and places, or sometimes hiding them behind initials, was part of Borrow’s mystifying style” (“George Borrow’s Romani”). Furthermore, Borrow had the bad habit of simply lying to, or misleading, people whom he met and readers of his books.
For example, in The Zincali when he reports that when he arrived in Portugal he did not know the local language, but that he learned it in the field. Information in Lavengro , verified by
Jenkins, reveals that in fact Borrow had learned Portuguese as a boy of 16. Related examples,
made obvious by careful readings of his would-be autobiographies, were apparently made in his
real life when strangers asked questions. Mrs. Herne’s granddaughter was lied to when she asked
Borrow if he spoke Romani ( Lavengro Vol. 3 44), and when the priest called “the man in black”
asks if Lavengro is a Rom, he dissembles, evasively asking, “What else should I be?” ( Lavengro
Vol. 3 279)
Also, as a young and hungry man in London, Borrow was hired to translate a noted
publisher’s book of philosophy into German, and though he could handle translating in the other
direction, he realized that English into German was far harder, and besides, the publisher’s
writing was too incomprehensible for Borrow to understand in any language. Rather than admit
that the task was beyond his abilities, however, Borrow produced a word-for-word translation of
the beginning of the book, which he evidently hoped would fool the publisher so that he would
be paid for the work, even though it was “utterly unintelligible” to the Germans who read it
(Lavengro Vol. 2 137).
Of the second sort, the result of misinformation, I suggest that at least some of the errors
139 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s in Romani and some of the elements of Romany culture stem from the dissembling, whether malicious, mischievous, or self-protecting, of Borrow’s Romany friends and acquaintances, not least his declared “ pal ,” as discussed below.
The Zincali has much to say on the wanderers, in more than one mode of prose. At first,
Borrow writes in a formal and expert tone, giving information on the Romanies of various regions, and comparing them with each other and with other groups. Presently, he switches to an anecdotal mode that seems to make it clear how Borrow had gone about gathering his data for the first section: by blending in with the tribes of various lands, having previously learned Romani, and investigating. In a significant and perhaps typically telling omission, Borrow neglects to explain how he learned the Romany tongue in this book, perhaps at this early stage to make it more difficult for others to follow his example, giving him a unique vantage point, or perhaps for some other social reason; however, he provides the explanation in Lavengro . It is unlikely, it seems, that
Borrow kept this information out of the book merely because he felt it too tangential, as there are so many tangential passages throughout the work, and in subsequent ones, forming a hallmark of Borrow’s quirky prose style.
However, though he admits that he had never expected to meet with much success in
converting the Romanies, and that he really failed in his less-than-vigorous attempts,
Whilst in Spain I devoted as much time as I could spare from my grand object,
which was to circulate the Gospel through that benighted country, to attempt
to enlighten the minds of the Gitános on the subject of religion. I cannot say
that I experienced much success in my endeavours; indeed, I never expected
much, being fully acquainted with the stony nature of the ground on which I
was employed […]. ( Zincali B Chapter 8)57
Borrow nevertheless asserts that
[…] there can be no doubt that they are human beings and have immortal
souls ; and it is in the humble hope of drawing the attention of the Christian
140 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
philanthropist towards them, especially that degraded and unhappy portion of
them, the Gitános of Spain, that the present little work has been undertaken.
(Zincali A 7-8; italics added)
Borrow here is saying something which to modern readers may seem too obvious to mention, but in colonial Britain there was a strong bias by the British Whites in their own favor, and colonized peoples in Africa and India and the Americas were consistently represented as child races, too undeveloped to be fully human: that is to say, to become as civilized as the Whites.
Blacks were often described in animalistic terms, and it may have been commonly implied that they were, for that reason, not really human, and for that reason many may complacently have assumed that such people lacked what Christians call immortal souls, bound eventually for Heaven or for Hell. It appears that Borrow is spelling his assertion out to lay such an assumption bare and refute it before it was ever explicitly claimed.
Statements like this, and the nature of his book The Bible in Spain , raise questions about how earnest a Christian Borrow was; these questions lead to questions more fundamental to this dissertation: if Borrow was really on a mission in regard to the various groups of Romanies with whom he spent time, what was his Christian outlook towards them, and what did he intend to accomplish in their company? With the low expectations he confesses to from the onset of his project, we can suppose that Borrow either felt that his mission was, though a great challenge, one of vital importance that was worth the risk of failure; either that, or that Borrow was actually more interested in spending time with the Romanies and in learning their ways and language than he was in persuading them to get saved. Herbert Jenkins occasionally expresses such a feeling, such as when he is narrating the time in 1836 when Borrow was ordered back to England by the head of the Bible Society, Mr. Brandram, whose agent Borrow was during that period: “You may now consider yourself under marching orders to return home as soon as you have made all the requisite arrangements” (Chapter 9). However, Borrow responded that “I […] shall leave Madrid as soon as possible; but I must here inform you, that I shall find much difficulty in returning to England,
141 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s as all the provinces are disturbed in consequence of the Constitution of 1812 having been proclaimed, and the roads are swarming with robbers and banditti. […] Do not be surprised, therefore, if I am tardy in making my appearance; it is no easy thing at present to travel in Spain”
(Chapter 11). This missive was by way of an excuse for his subsequent detour through Granada, which took him ten days to reach, not considering the time he spent there before departing for
England. Though Borrow was undoubtedly telling the truth about the bandits, Jenkins repeatedly reminds his readers that “Borrow […] was indifferent to danger” (Chapter 13) and that the British members of the Bible Society thought that Borrow “seemed to be destitute of fear” (Chapter 12): besides not fearing the bandits, he might even have befriended some of them; indeed, he already had met and conversed with many a robber during his trip. On this suspected prevarication
Jenkins candidly comments that, based on the records of Borrow’s behavior in between Borrow’s letter and his return to Britain, “The real object of this visit [to Granada] appears to have been his desire to study more closely the Spanish gypsies” (Chapter 12).
Perhaps Borrow sensed that the Romanies ought to be saved, and that some more spiritual-minded reader could be persuaded to take up that work for him. After all, if he planned to do the work himself, he would not need to write a book persuading people to help. His plea is specifically worded for philanthropists to provide necessary items for the benefit of the
Romanies, not for the attention of other missionaries who could convert them. Furthermore,
Borrow’s non-fictional remarks about himself and about his fictional protagonist, Lavengro, 58 many of which are corroborated or accepted by Jenkins, indicate that while he is a Christian, and a member of the Church of England, he is not well suited to be a full-time preacher, likely due to his idiosyncratic personality, though he does tell of certain periods of his life when he spread the “good news.” In addition, we must consider the descriptions Borrow gives of the Romanies’ ways.
There is plentiful evidence that the Roma whom Borrow knew had sinful habits, and that their transgressions of the Ten Commandments had reached the status of tradition, at least
142 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s assuming that even a small portion of Borrow’s writings on them may be relied upon that far.
Since the British Romanies whom Borrow taught about the Bible and about God seldom accepted his teachings, one assumes that as a good Christian, Borrow must have expected that they would be doomed to Hell for their sins, even though he insists that, contrary to public opinion, they are not in league with Satan and cannot do any magic. Despite this, Borrow does not try very diligently to counteract their thieving and deceitful tendencies, at least according to his published accounts of his actions. Even in The Bible in Spain , which one expects from its title to focus on religious matters, Borrow’s anecdotes that remember to mention his job of distributing printed copies of the Bible mostly do so as if the Bible were little different from ordinary books. Herbert
Jenkins observes that in the early part of 1837, Borrow’s Spanish companion, the Marques de
Santa Coloma, “says Borrow never, as far as he saw or could learn, spoke of religion to his Gypsy friends. He adds that he soon noticed [that Borrow displayed a different] attitude towards them” than he did towards others, despite Borrow’s own anecdotes to the contrary, which may describe other times than the period when Borrow and the Marques traveled together (Jenkins Chapter 12).
All in all, I conclude that while Borrow does seem to have had genuine Christian convictions, at least at some points in his missionary career, his books suggest that his peregrinations had other motivations. Borrow’s desire for fame is discussed below.
Jenkins’s assumption that Borrow was lying about his reasons for delaying his return to
England in 1836 suggests that such may have been Borrow’s habit even when dealing with his contemporaries and superiors in person. We might infer that the trait of finessing the truth was picked up from Borrow’s Romany acquaintances. There is a good deal of evidence, uncovered by Jenkins as well as researchers like Ian Hancock, that, although there is a large amount of accuracy in his books regarding Borrow’s actions and the other information he provides, Borrow was fond of manipulating the truth to achieve the ends and effects he desired. Borrow himself comments,
It is no easy thing to tell a story plainly and distinctly by mouth; but to tell one
143 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
on paper is difficult indeed, so many snares lie in the way. People are afraid to
put down what is common on paper, they seek to embellish their narratives, as
they think, by philosophic speculations and reflections; they are anxious to
shine, and people who are anxious to shine can never tell a plain story.
(Lavengro Vol. 2 76)
Many of Borrow’s own statements indicate that he did wish to “shine,” and to produce books that would be both impressive and lastingly popular with readers. Borrow recalls his early wish for public fame: “I said to myself, whatever name I can acquire, will it endure for eternity? scarcely so. […] I think I may promise myself a reputation of a thousand years, if I do but give myself the necessary trouble” ( Lavengro Vol. 1 316). Jenkins comments too on his subject’s tailoring his mainly-truthful anecdotes to appeal to the popular market: “It must be remembered that Borrow loved to stretch the long arm of coincidence; but he loved more than anything else a dramatic situation. He was always on the look out for effective
‘curtains.’” (Chapter 3)
Much as Shakespeare adapted historical details to present a more engaging story, Borrow silently amended dates, names, ages, and many other details. His early works, such as The Bible in Spain and The Zincali , have the same tendency, but the first-person narrator of these two books is explicitly Borrow himself; perhaps he felt ashamed of fiddling with the details, or perhaps he had been reprimanded or blamed by a reader who felt upset by what Borrow had written. At any rate, in two of his subsequent works he represented the accounts as fiction. I suggest that he did this to obviate the necessity of telling the exact truth. He left the narrator/protagonist of his two
“novels,” Lavengro and The Romany Rye , nameless in the texts. Borrow himself refers to the former book in the appendix to the latter, asserting that because it, and presumably its sequel too, was termed a “dream” and not an autobiography, the charges that Lavengro were not “true,” as some “pseudo-critics” claimed, were really misplaced. 59 Perhaps the protagonist is seldom given a proper name, but only referred to as Lavengro in the aforementioned appendix, in order to avoid
144 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s such charges of falsehood, or to avoid feeling dishonorable. 60 Thus absolved of guilty feelings,
he apparently feels free to adjust the facts of his life and his anecdotes at will, although mostly
it seems that the events he narrates really happened to him personally. The adjustments to his
life’s anecdotes, which Jenkins refers to more than once as “stretching coincidence” and
“colouring facts,” result in books which amount to historical fiction about himself, a tale “based
on a true story.”
Correcting Stereotypes; Reinforcing Stereotypes: Borrow’s Gypsy Generalities
One of Borrow’s stated purposes in his writings, evident from The Zincali on, was to provide readers with an authentic picture of the Romanies, this being deemed, in all likelihood, much more important to him than a reliable account of his own actions. This was partly to counteract all the other pictures before his time, which were written by people who did not actually know their subject matter well, whereas Borrow had extensive familiarity with a large number of Romanies from far and wide.
I believe a great deal has been written on the subject of the English Gypsies,
but the writers have dwelt too much in generalities; they have been afraid to
take the Gypsy by the hand, lead him forth from the crowd, and exhibit him in
the area; 61 he is well worth observing. ( Zincali 12)
The various descriptions Borrow gives of these previous representations make it clear
that he objects to the stereotyping of the Gypsy figure, which he takes to be equivalent to a
representation of his friends, the Romanies. According to Webster’s New World College
Dictionary , a stereotype is “an unvarying form or pattern; specif[ically], a fixed or conventional
notion or conception […] held by a number of people, and allowing for no individuality [or]
critical judgment.” Such stereotypes are often expressed in statements of sweeping generalities.
Borrow’s aims, besides revealing the erroneous points of the image, surely included showing his
readers that the Romanies were more variable than people thought, and that they were individuals;
145 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s he also must have wanted people to judge them more critically than theretofore.
In numerous cases, therefore, Borrow introduces us to individual Romanies and shows us their habitats and daily habits. We can hear different members of the group speaking, and their ways of expressing themselves vary. At times, the Romanies themselves even speak out against the erroneous aspects of the popular image of the Gypsy figure. These techniques are helpful at dispelling the fixed ideas that readers may have about the Roma.
However, the salubrious effects of the above methods are counterbalanced by other passages from the same books, in which Borrow makes blanket statements about the Romanies, or subgroups of the Romanies from one region or another. “In England, the male Gypsies are all dealers in horses […]” ( Zincali A 11) is one example; “[…] his teeth were of a brilliancy uncommon even amongst these people, who have all fine teeth” (12) is another. Many of these statements, furthermore, only serve to reinforce certain elements of the image, established over the centuries, and give them the stamp of authenticity. One of the most blatant and, regarding his
“individuation” goal, strangely counterproductive of these statements suggests that not only all
Romanies are alike, but that they are closer to beasts than to humans, despite his emphatic earlier declaration that they are clearly humans in need of God’s salvation:
One of the most remarkable features in the history of Gypsies is the striking
similarity of their pursuits in every region of the globe to which they have
penetrated; they are not merely alike in limb and in feature, in the cast and
expression of the eye, in the colour of the hair, in their walk and gait, but
everywhere they seem to exhibit the same tendencies, and to hunt for their
bread by the same means, as if they were not of the human but rather of the
animal species, and in lieu of reason were endowed with a kind of instinct
which assists them to a very limited extent and no farther. ( Zincali A 18)
At other times, Borrow makes more general statements rejecting false “Gypsy” traits,
At the commencement of the last century, and for a considerable time
146 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
afterwards, there was a loud cry raised against the Gypsy women for stealing
children. This cry, however, was quite as devoid of reason […]. Gypsy women
[…] have plenty of children of their own, and have no wish to encumber
themselves with those of other people. ( Romano Lavo-lil )
People who try to make “critical judgments” about the Romanies are likely to find such statements just as dubious as they find the other oversimplifications.
Internal Inconsistencies in Borrow’s Writing
In fact, Borrow’s texts contain a significant number of internal contradictions, even in passages that are supposed to be documentary rather than fiction. Though Jenkins asserts that most of what Borrow wrote was essentially true, there are enough discrepancies to cast significant doubt on Borrow’s general veracity, and as has been explored in detail by Hancock and others, many details of his accounts of Roma culture are inaccurate. For the purposes of this dissertation, these few following examples will serve to demonstrate the sort of typical aporia present in the Borrow texts: there is clearly some element of lying or invention, but the truth cannot be discovered without external corroboration.
In his introduction to The Zincali Borrow states that the reason the Roma of various countries had accepted him was only because, as he could speak Romani, they mistook him as one of their own.
He has known them for upwards of twenty years, in various countries, and
they never injured a hair of his head, or deprived him of a shred of his raiment;
but he is not deceived as to the motive of their forbearance: they thought him a
Rom , and on this supposition they hurt him not, their love of “the blood” being
their most distinguishing characteristic. ( Zincali vi)
Evidently, though, this statement is a little misleading. Jasper Petulengro, who seems to be
Lavengro’s closest Rom associate and presumably also the “Gypsy” of Lavengro ’s subtitle,
147 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s first met Lavengro when the two were both children, and at that time already knew clearly that the lad was a “gorgio,” not a Rom. It is Jasper, moreover, who teaches Lavengro to speak and understand Romani, and it is as a young man of sixteen ( Lavengro 61) that the
“word-fellow,” which is what Lavengro’s sobriquet means in Romani, first becomes familiar with the language. Presumably, Jasper must have told his own family and “tribe” that
Lavengro is a Gorgio, so they at least would not be fooled. Furthermore, when he dallies with
Jasper’s sister in law, he specifically refers to himself as “I, who am a gorgio” (36). It is conceivable that Borrow was referring only to the non-British Romanies in his comment, then, especially as it seems that whenever Lavengro meets Romanichaals , they are the same ones, so that the friendly Roma are engineered into feeling familiar and welcome, as compared to the Spanish Gitános ’ bewildering and never-repeating stream of rascally figures.
However, if that is so, the figure of “upwards of twenty years” cannot be true in reference to the Romanies’ mistaking him for a Rom, as Borrow first went abroad and met foreign
Romanies in 1833, when he was thirty years old, and he wrote his above statement before 1841, so that his experience of fraternizing with, and therefore deceiving, foreign Romanies seems unlikely to have spanned more than eleven years. The reader must infer that the “them” in the above quote, then, comprehends all of the Romanies Borrow has ever known.
Moreover, by his own admission, Borrow did not physically resemble a Rom, being light skinned and fair haired, with long, white fingers, whereas Borrow says that the Romanies’
“complexion is dark, but not disagreeably so; their faces are oval, their features regular, their foreheads rather low, and their hands and feet small” ( Zincali 12). Despite his statement that he
was safe among foreign Roma because he was taken for one of them, he elsewhere indicates that
his secret was exposed in Russia: “[…] at first they mistook me for one of their wandering
brethren from the distant lands, come over the great panee or ocean to visit them.” (8) Although
he was found out, he still was treated well enough, if we can believe his statement from the
introduction to The Zincali. Since it is clear that the statement’s credibility has been compromised,
148 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s one might wonder if, having been undeceived, the Zigani, or Russian Gypsies, angered by his seeming imposture, might have proceeded to “[injure] a hair of his head, or [deprive] him of a shred of his raiment,” despite Borrow’s protests to the contrary. Perhaps, due to some odd sense of honesty, it is possible that Borrow is being evasive here: his hair and clothing were really safe, as he stated, but other portions of his body or possessions might have been damaged when the deceivers found themselves deceived—something that never happened to don Juan de Cárcamo, that pioneer of lying to the Gitános .
Borrow and the Synecdochic Fallacy: Spain
Borrow makes the process of associating specific expectations with words or ideas explicit in connection with a Danish pirate’s skull he encountered as a child of three ( Lavengro
Vol. 1 24).
I never forgot the Daneman’s skull; […] it dwelt in the mind of the boy,
affording copious food for the exercise of imagination. From that moment
with the name of Dane were associated strange ideas of strength, daring, and
superhuman stature […]. ( Lavengro Vol. 1 26)
Of course, words or a language cannot in themselves be strong or daring. Nevertheless, when Borrow eventually learned Danish, he found it to be just as he had expected, fully worthy of the ferocious brigand who, he imagined, had once possessed the skull. Borrow’s associations formed in childhood lived on in his imagination, and he invested the language too with the same traits through no specific reasonable motivation save possibly stories he had heard about Danes.
In a like way, it is apparent that Borrow’s idea of what he would find in Spain was, at least in part, based on his readings, and his expectations of the Gitános were founded heavily on “La
Gitanilla.” His impressions of what he saw, as his journal-like notes reveal, frequently served to reinforce what he had expected to find, so that instead of being obliged to invent entirely-new descriptions, he was able to paraphrase Cervantes, and, doubtless, other Spanish writers, and
149 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s insert that into his own text. Any other elements that he did not witness in person—perceptual gaps—would, presumably, be filled into Borrow’s imagination with stored information that came from the same body of sources. In other words, Borrow himself, though seen by many as the leading eyewitness and revealer of true Gypsy culture, had imagined Spain (and not only
Spain) in such a way that his encounters with the land and its residents led, not to a radically revised understanding of the nature of Iberia, but instead to a series of misconfirmed assumptions.
That is neither to say that Borrow’s writings are worthless, nor that his impressions are based entirely on centuries-old novellas, and therefore completely wrong. It is not possible to assess how accurate or inaccurate Borrow’s observations of the Spain of his time are, but it does seem clear that Borrow’s perceptions were “colored” by his readings, and that his senses’ input mingled with his remembered images to a significant degree, and demonstrates that Borrow was, sometimes at least, aware of this.
Borrow, as is made very clear both in his own writings and in the biography by Jenkins,
prided himself on being an independent thinker. However, like most people, his thoughts
frequently followed established tracks and patterns. To that extent, Borrow’s firsthand
experiences could not give him an entirely fresh realization of Spain’s qualities. Instead, they
only served to convince him that his prior ideas were correct. Borrow interpreted events that
happened to him according to his expectations, so that he accurately recorded much of what he
saw, but it was his imagination that provided explanations of the data, and motivations for the
actions he saw taking place.
In The Bible in Spain Borrow reveals how important his imagination became as a personal
motivation for visiting Spain.
In the daydreams of my boyhood, Spain always bore a considerable share, and
I took a particular interest in her, without any presentiment that I should at a
future time be called upon to take a part, however humble, in her strange
150 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
dramas; which interest, at a very early period, led me to acquire her noble
language, and to make myself acquainted with her literature (scarcely worthy
of the language), her history and traditions; so that when I entered Spain for
the first time I felt more at home than I should otherwise have done. (9)
His last comment is especially revealing. The reason he was able to feel that Spain was comfortable and familiar to him is because he had already given the country some imaginative mind-space, and when he arrived he saw that his surroundings, instead of conflicting with his expectations, rather confirmed them, so that all he had to do was add the specifics provided by the landscape and the people. In such situations, as I have tried to show in Chapter 1, it is easy for people to miss many details, just as commuters seldom notice many of the details of the landscape or the traffic when en route, unless something happens to jar them out of their reverie. Though Borrow shows some disdain for Spanish literature in the quote above, he surely read some of it attentively and, regardless of his opinion of it, took its images to heart.
I have tried to sketch out my hypotheses about how Borrow’s impressions of Spain and its Gitános were formed. Borrow is a good example, but I maintain that he is hardly alone in his
subliminal blending of expectations with expectations, showing simultaneously in the theater of
the mind. I believe that Borrow’s experiences with English Romanies partook somewhat of the
same process, but that in the Spanish examples the blend was purer, since his experiences
beforehand were limited to literary ones—though his meetings with Russian Romanies must
have had some part in the impression as well.
Borrow and the Synecdochic Fallacy: England and Elsewhere
In the case of England and its Romanies, the mix of influences is surely more complex,
and likely less based on fictional or vicarious experiences. This is because Borrow began to know
both of these before he became well read, so that he had fewer preconceived ideas about what to
151 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s expect from the land and from people termed “gypsies.” Borrow says, “I can remember no period when the mere mention of the name of Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described. I cannot account for this—I merely state a fact” ( Zincali 5). Despite this, Borrow’s alter-ego Lavengro professes not to have realized that the Petulengroes were Gypsies when he first met the family ( Lavengro Vol. 1 78). Up until that time, Borrow had only read books under compulsion, but during the same period when he and his sworn brother-to-be Ambrose
Petulengro 62 first met, Borrow’s spark of curiosity was lit by the pictures in a book he received
as a present: Defoe’s pioneering novel from 1719, Robinson Crusoe ,
a book from which the most luxuriant and fertile of our modern prose writers
have drunk inspiration—a book, moreover, to which, from the hardy deeds
which it narrates, and the spirit of strange and romantic enterprise which it
tends to awaken, England owes many of her astonishing discoveries both by
sea and land, and no inconsiderable part of her naval glory. (Vol. 1 12)
In the above quote, he shows his approval of the idea that a book can inspire people to great
deeds, and, more relevant to Borrow’s life story, how a book can move readers to reenact the
adventures they have vicariously experienced through fiction. Borrow next attests to how
fully the novel captured his imagination, and how he identified with its characters:
[…] The true chord had now been touched; a raging curiosity with respect to
the contents of the volume, whose engravings had fascinated my eye, burned
within me, and I never rested until I had fully satisfied it […] the wondrous
volume was my only study and principal source of amusement. […] I found
myself cantering before a steady breeze over an ocean of enchantment, so well
pleased with my voyage that I cared not how long it might be ere it reached its
termination. (Lavengro Vol. 1 39-40)
Borrow was a native of England, and he became familiar with the Romanies there as a child. 63
Borrow met Ambrose Petulengro, his Romany pal (Romani for “brother”), as a youngster of
152 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s seven (Jenkins Chapter 1); Ambrose is given both a slightly fictionalized history and other characteristics, and also a different given name, Jasper, in Borrow’s two novels. At his father’s request, Ambrose, then aged about thirteen, declared, “we are brothers; two gentle brothers” (as told in Lavengro Vol. 1 78). 64 Borrow is intrigued with the Petulengroes, and muses, “‘a strange set of people … I wonder who they can be?’” (Lavengro Vol. 1 78).
It was not until the second time he encountered them, and then only after a perceptual delay during which realization of the Petulengroes’s Gypsihood dawned upon Borrow gradually
(Lavengro Vol. 1 Chapter 17). This was when Borrow himself was about 16—half the age he would be when he first visited Spain. Immediately upon learning that Ambrose considered himself the Gypsy king, he requested that his “brother” teach Romani to him; he began to learn the language at a rapid pace, and he became very familiar with Romany culture as well, eventually reaching a point where he, in his first book about the Romanies, is able to state authoritatively “what they are at the present day, [and] what he knows them to be from a close scrutiny of their ways and habits, for which, perhaps, no one ever enjoyed better opportunities”
(Zincali B “The Gypsies,” among a good number of similar statements scattered around his
books).
As discussed in the next chapter, one of the Romanies’ long-standing practices is a
survival skill wherein they, well aware of the common people’s stereotypical thinking about their
cultural group, intentionally act either in accordance with what people expect them to do, or else
behave in a radically different and surprising way. That is to say, they play into the Gypsy image,
or else play against it: whichever is calculated to have the better effect or to provide an
advantage—or to avoid unpleasantness—in the current situation. I suggest that such strategies
were also practiced by the Romanies of Borrow’s acquaintance, leading them to dissemble from
time to time.
Virtually all of Borrow’s foundational learning about the Romany culture was at the feet
of Ambrose Petulengro and his people. Borrow states that few of the Roma were able to read, as
153 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s corroborated by historical information from the time—this fact is still true today (Hancock
“Origin”) — so it is quite unlikely that they learned of Gypsy stereotypes from the literature that propagated them directly. Nevertheless, they had good reason to be well aware of the basic ideas that the gad źé had of them. Borrow was quite intimate with the Petulengro group, so it is less
likely that they would have been able to disguise their natures for their whole acquaintance, but
in other cases, Borrow was only passing through. In foreign lands, Borrow would have been less
familiar with the regional variations of the Gypsy image. Particularly when dealing with
non-British Romanies, it is doubtful that Borrow would have been easily accepted as one of their
own, as hinted above, despite Borrow’s claim to have been constantly mistaken by them as
another Rom, or at least not as often as he claims. Borrow could speak Romani in the manner of
the English Romanies, but it is easy to believe his claim that, though sharing a common root and
many words, the various regions each had differing dialects of the core Romani language.
The Roma of these regions had their customary ways of interacting with gad źé and
despite Borrow’s relative savvy, it is doubtful that they would have been as candid with Borrow
as he seems to have believed. Instead, they must have at least tried to show him what he expected
to find, playing into his expectations, as they surely did—at least to some extent—in Spain. The
result, in that case, was The Zincali : in many ways, it constitutes a more detailed corroboration
of the Spain that Cervantes portrayed in “La Gitanilla.”
A further indication that Borrow was not as well respected as he supposed is actually
displayed proudly as the title of his second novel. He explains that the title The Romany (or, as
spelled in the previous novel, “Rommany”) Rye is a phrase in Romani meaning “the Gypsy
gentleman” ( Lavengro 155). This term first appears in Lavengro . Borrow, walking near London,
suddenly comes upon “Jasper” and some other Roms, who are drinking. Despite the fact that
Jasper and Lavengro have not met recently, Jasper exclaims “here he comes” when Lavengro is
spotted. He rises and sings a song composed half of English and half of Romani. After the men
all toast Lavengro, they spontaneously repeat the song in unison:
154 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Here the Gypsy gemman 65 see,
With his Roman jib and his rome and dree—
Rome and dree, rum and dry
Rally round the Rommany Rye. ( Lavengro Vol. 2 236)
He is pleased to take this as an indication of the high esteem in which his “brethren” hold him, but there is reason for doubt. When Lavengro is talking with several of his Romany friends,
Jasper’s wife declares, among other statements of approval, “He is the pal of my rom [the brother of my husband] […] and therefore I likes him, and not the less for his being a rye …” ( Lavengro
Vol. 1 229). This comment suggests that “rye” is a reference to Borrow as a respectable sort of gorgio—explicitly not a “gypsy” gentleman, but an outsider, and one of a different class than they themselves, who has aspirations of becoming a Romany insider. It is true, though, that Jasper, his wife, and most of their intimates do show signs of having genuine liking for Lavengro: for
Borrow, if we can trust these accounts. Perhaps Jasper and the others simply want to have their fun and have a secret way of teasing him. This is certainly true at times, as a conversation between
Jasper and Lavengro shows in The Romany Rye :
“I really know very little about you, Jasper.”
“Very little indeed, brother. We know very little about ourselves; and you know
nothing, save what we have told you; and we have now and then told you things
about us which are not exactly true, simply to make a fool of you, brother.” (Vol.
1 95-6)
Ian Hancock explains that the term Romany Rye/Rai is not now used by Romanies to refer
to Roms at all; it is today used to refer to those gad źé who foolishly think themselves familiars
of the Romanies (“George Borrow’s Romani”). 66 Hancock suggests that this is a change from the
original meaning, which became known to the reading public with the fame of Borrow’s book
that uses this phrase as a title—and the appropriation of the term by Borrow’s followers as a sign
of their approval of a fellow Romanophile, as I describe below. I suggest that the modern meaning
155 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s was also the original implication of Ambrose Petulengro and his friends. Borrow communicates the unfavorable opinion most Romanies had of nobles, and so it is unlikely that the idea of a
Gypsy gentleperson would be considered an accepted and integrated member of a Romany tribe.
Instead, calling Borrow a Rye is probably meant to make Borrow suppose that he was fully accepted by the Roms, and simultaneously to label him as an outsider, in a way that only the true
Romanies would understand.
In Borrow’s 1874 “swan song” (Jenkins Chapter 29), Romano Lavo-lil or Gypsy word-book, Borrow translates jib as “tongue” and rum as Sanscrit for “to sport or to fondle;” one of the other singers from this scene translates the phrase “Rommany rye” as Gypsy gentleman
(Lavengro Vol. 2 237), and the Lavo-lil concurs. The other non-English words ( rome , dree , and dry ) are not explained by Borrow or any other figure in his books, but probably “rome” refers to the Romany culture somehow, and “rum” is a used as a random variation of the same; I suspect that the “dree/dry” pair may be pretend Romani, used to make fun of Borrow. The information yields this interpretation of the lyrics: “Here, take a look at this ‘Gypsy’ gentleman! / He believes he knows the Romany tongue. / Tra-la-la! / Romani nonsense / Rally ‘round the Gypsy poser!”
This would no doubt have given great amusement to the Roms, singing with mock “frankness” and professions of friendship, as they jeered at Borrow in song ( Lavengro Vol. 2 236).
It appears that Ambrose prepared this verse in anticipation of such a salutation. In
Lavengro , this scene follows the fourth installment in a series of odd coincidences of the same sort that Jenkins points out in his Life of Borrow , wherein Lavengro randomly encounters the same petty swindler (not a Rom) at a fairground. The swindler is operating a table at which he and his victims play at “the old shell game,” (Boucher and Green) and presently he asks Borrow to be his “bonnet:” to drum up business for him, and to warn him with a cry of “the gorgio’s welling” if a police officer should approach the table ( Lavengro Vol. 2 225). Lavengro recognizes that the term is based on Romani, and when a constable does hurry near he calls out the proper term, “Avella gorgio,” employing the thieves’ slang for a policeman, purely as a favor,
156 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s for he has already refused the swindler’s offer of employment as a bonnet ( Lavengro Vol. 2 233).
Just after this, Borrow writes, Lavengro turns away from the “shell game” table and
presently finds the group of Romanies, one of whom, as noted above, exclaims “Here he comes:”
it turns out to be Jasper ( Lavengro Vol. 2 236). It is quite hard to believe that, even if that the
swindler Lavengro meets so many times was really the same person in real life, and that the
confidence game he plays required him to call out “the gorgio’s welling,” that instantly
afterwards he would encounter, in “a terra incognita,” ( Lavengro Vol. 2 216) his Romany
brothers. However, if this pair of scenes really were juxtaposed in time as the book says, the link
between the two is peculiarly fitting.
Borrow, generously warning his dishonest acquaintance of the policeman’s presence,
calls out the phrase in Romani, preceded by a term which was presumably made up on the spot:
“thimble-engro,” a mixture of the English “thimble,” with three of which the game is played, and
the Romani suffix “-engro,” meaning fellow: it refers to the swindler himself. 67 In thieves’ cant,
“Gorgio” means a policeman, but to the Romanies who overhear this shout, it means, in Romani,
“the gad źo is coming:” specifically, since hardly any other Whites seem to know Romani, Jasper must know that it is Lavengro he hears, using a combination of correct and broken Romani, announcing his own approach. Indeed, since his first name and that of Borrow’s Romanized spelling of gad źé are so close, the call is tantamount to shouting, “Here comes George!” This would have given the men enough time to recall and prepare themselves to sing the song discussed above; it might even have been extemporaneous on Jasper’s part. At any rate, the song, no matter how mockingly it was meant, clearly was a poignant tribute, as far as Borrow knew, and it made a long-lasting, favorable impression on him; even late in life he seems to have considered this a tribute and a great honor.
Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image: Intention and Effects
Borrow is probably the foremost writer on Gypsies and Romanies in Western literature,
157 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s and one of the first to emphasize these groups so closely. His work and his personality influenced his younger contemporaries and even later scholars and writers. Therefore, in terms of this dissertation, it has been necessary to examine his work, and evaluate his effect on the popular image of the Gypsy. The question must be answered: what exactly was the role that
George Henry Borrow played in the evolution of the Gypsy image?
This image was initially forged in a historical moment: the time when the Romanies and the Western Europeans first met. The first impression was a rather hazy one, based on outward appearances rather than any intimate contact, and due to the conflicting actions and behavior of the Romanies, the image was from the first comprised of discrepant elements. Very soon afterwards, the gap between the Romanies and their image that established a relatively robust and stable core of the image was widened by the application of creative art by uninformed artists. This conception survived for centuries, and though many artists added filigree, it mostly proved ephemeral. Borrow, as Fraser states, was the first to challenge the
“dubious legend” of the Gypsies with “ facts ” (Fraser’s emphasis); he was able to do so because
he was “an author who loved to associate with Gypsies, had mastered their tongue and was able
to convey something of their real nature…” (197).
Aware that he had something special to impart to the reading world, Borrow posited a
dichotomy between the traditional, inauthentic and fanciful Gypsy image, on the one hand, and
his own, privileged, true one, as noted above. In fact, Borrow might have believed in this
dichotomy, but if so, he was to a large degree deceiving himself; he only made cosmetic
adjustment to the main, complacent image, supplementing it with convincing details that
simply makes the main thrust of the traditional conception that much more believable.
This led to more enthusiasm by Gypsiologists. Borrow’s protagonist must have
presented them with a model for them to follow that could legitimize, in the eyes of the world
and in their own middle-class self-opinions, their excursions to revel in escapist fantasies.
Borrow, rather than instigating a genuinely new image in the popular imagination of the West,
158 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s instead invested most of the traditional elements of the established image with corroborative details and convincing depth of specificity: he did not replace the word, but fulfilled it.
Those who believed his accounts must have experienced, perhaps, history’s most profound misconfirmations. Any previous doubt a reader might have had that the Gypsy image was any more than a mere myth must have been delighted to have Borrow’s assurance that their wandering, thieving, love of lying, spontaneous musicality, and the rest were, by and large, proven quite accurate, and what was more, was susceptible to scholarly field research. Borrow went father, though, by having his affably antisocial narrator supply numerous, convincing, new details about the Romanies as a culture with a rich and traditional language that authenticated this storied people as a legitimate ethnicity.
There is a significant paradox in Borrow’s innovations. His works obviously stood as an invitation, for some, to revel in pastoral “gypsying” in the old manner, as if escaping to the golden age for a time; 68 other readers, bemused by the seeming inconsistencies in the texts, wished to verify Borrow’s claims in the field and add to his gathered data, particularly in the field of the Romani language. Simultaneously, though, they asserted the cultural identity of the
“Rommanies” (as Borrow spelled it until 1857’s The Romany Rye ), insisting on their value and dignity as a people, and their language’s worth as a source of philological treasures. In effect,
Borrow posits that in the escapist fantasy lies important and discoverable truth. It must have appeared to those who already have noticed the heavily oxymoronic nature of the established image that its incongruity was paradoxical, but nevertheless, if Borrow had witnessed it, it must be true.
The main effect of all this upon the general public’s image of the Gypsies was that it seemed to be settled, and no longer so mysterious. Therefore, the “split” that Borrow brought about was not really a split between those who knew the truth and those who treasured a fantasy, as Borrow claimed it was. Instead, it was between those who treasured the fantasy as a mystery or as a fantasy, and those who thought the fantasy had been proven true. Borrow had given
159 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s personal testimony to the truths of the Romanies, and alerted the Western world to their actual existence, but the nuggets of truth were still often hard to find or to isolate in the fictive stew; it will, perhaps, still take many more years before the general reader becomes familiar with the whole truth.
After Borrow: Effects, the Unaffected, and the Affectations
Borrow’s early works appeared at a time in literary and social history that was ideal for them to impress contemporary readers, and those who became devotees of Borrow’s works at that time were deeply influenced by them. It cannot be said that Borrow’s novels all became bestsellers, the popular successes that Borrow had striven to create, even though The
Bible in Spain “‘made Borrow’s reputation overnight’ and appeared in four English editions in
the year it was published,” as Michael Collie writes in his article “George Borrow and Claude
Lorrain” (326; cited by Nord, Gypsies 188). Nevertheless, the books were noticed, and in many
instances read with care, by certain people, on whom they often made a deep impression. Despite
the fact that Borrow’s accounts, like those of Jasper Petulengro in The Romany Rye, were “not
exactly true” (Vol. 2 95-6), they captured the imaginations of numerous readers. As stated above,
Borrow’s assertions that he had lived among the Romanies and therefore had discovered many
truths about them led many to think of them in new ways, prompting varied courses of action.
Even though the case seemed to be closed as far as the Gypsy mystery was concerned, certain
readers felt challenged and curious, and wanted, further, to test Borrow’s assertions
themselves.
For the men who wrote the works described in this part of the chapter, Borrow’s works were revelatory. They made many readers desire to emulate Borrow’s feat of knowing the
Romanies by spending time in their midst, and then of recording their gained knowledge and sharing it with other enthusiasts, whom Nord and others term Gypsiologists and also gypsilorists
(Gypsies 127). Many undertook their own studies, such as Franz Liszt, and published their
160 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s insights. A group of men in England discovered that their friends and acquaintances shared their
élan for the Romanies. This led directly to the formation of the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS) in 1888 by the American Rai, Charles Godfrey Leland (Weybright 14). Their first publication of the
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society , or JGLS , came out the following year, with an article about
Borrow in its first issue, by the Reverend Wentworth Webster.
The members of the GLS got involved with the Romanies in differing levels of personal contact. For some, just joining the group and attending meetings were enough. Others did more or less exactly what Borrow had disapproved of: as mentioned above, they tried to meet
Romanies, and if they were not utterly repelled, they spent as much time among them asking questions all the while, for as long as the Romanies would permit, or until they had given up in frustration at their facetious, unhelpful answers. Hancock quotes Papsati’s writing from 1870:
“Some have chased me from their tents with nasty words and gestures. Others haven’t responded to my questions, continuing with their work without acknowledging my presence …” (30, qtd. in “George Borrow’s Romani”). At other times, presumably out of a gleeful enjoyment of making fools of the gad źé, Romanies have given facetious information to nosy investigators.
Then they wrote about their experiences, extrapolating from what they saw what they
imagined the “real” culture to be, as their predecessors had: “because [the Romanies] have been
known to beg the carcass of a hog which they themselves have poisoned, it has been asserted that
they prefer carrion which has perished of sickness to the meat of the shambles…” ( Zincali B
Chapter 5). Therefore, many of the writings of such Gypsiologists were as inaccurate as the
pre-Borrow writers’ had been, save when they copied information of the writings of “the Master”
(as Arthur Conan Doyle’s first-person narrator referred to him in his parodic text “Borrowed
Scenes,” presumably goading the gypsilorists who sought to emulate Borrow), or gleaned
newer lore from more responsible researchers’ forays. In all likelihood, they discussed such visits
during their meetings, as well, and possibly formed joint opinions about what their findings
meant—thus basing their guesses on what they had read, what information the new reports
161 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s offered, and their collective imaginations.
Some of the members of the society conducted more extended, and widespread, investigations, in a more complete imitation of Borrow’s. Sometimes they set out to disprove the accounts provided in Borrow’s books, and sometimes they wanted to undergo some of the same adventures. They even sought out some of the same people. At other times, they simply wanted to study and gather information: to enrich the body of information available to the fellow students of their new “science.”
Borrow-aware Fiction
The earliest of the writings that were specifically inspired by Borrow may have been
Prosper Merimée’s Carmen , from 1846 (Ann M. Ridler, qtd. in Hancock, “George Borrow’s
Romani). The story is most closely related to the scenes of highway robbery that were described in The Zincali and The Bible in Spain : the only two Romani-related books that had appeared by
Borrow at the time of writing, both of which are mentioned in the fourth chapter of the novella.
This story, starting with some of the basic traits Merimée found in Borrow’s Spanish books, extrapolates inauthentic elements needed for the story. Particularly as the entire final chapter, the fourth, is a sort of scholarly response to Borrow’s writings, alternatively concurring and differing with the Englishman, readers are liable to take the story as, if not a true story, at least representative of the true Zincali culture. However, this is a false assumption in certain respects.
Perhaps it is significant that, rather than make his treatise on Romany culture into an appendix,
Merimée leaves the material as a full quarter of the tale, on even footing with the internal narrative
of Juan and Carmen: as Carmen is a fictional figure, so too might be the details of Chapter 4.
Though the Borrow accounts inspired Merimée, the story and characterizations of
Carmen are not very similar to anything found in Borrow, although one of Merimée’s character
names comes from The Zincali —“El Tuerto,” or the one-eyed one, though the nickname has
changed genders to fit the situation—and another comes from “La Gitanilla”—Don Juan. The
162 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s titular character is a complex and bewitching one, with few tendencies similar to those of
Borrow’s Zincali. She is a fortuneteller, but she seems to believe in her own magic, whereas those of the Borrow books do not—though some of Borrow’s Roma are quite superstitious in other ways. Modern researchers attest that at least some members of the Roma are still strongly superstitious, as we will see in Chapter 4.
The strongest way in which Carmen differs from a Borrowesque Gypsy woman is that she takes up with a gad źo, Don Juan, and even calls herself his “romi ,” or wife. Merimée’s narrator
of this part of the novella, Juan himself, is not explicit how much more than this name Juan
received from Carmen, but according to Borrow, the very idea of giving up even that much to a
White is offensive to the Romanies. Merimée seems to defend this trait of Carmen’s by casting
doubts on Borrow’s claims of how strong this distaste runs, and of how virtuous the female
Romanies are: he suggests that Borrow is “simple” to believe as he does (Chapter 4). 69
The main idea of the story is to show how the irresistibly fascinating Carmen is
effortlessly able to captivate Juan and manipulate him. In order to win and secure her love, Juan
crosses the line from law upholder to bandito, though when he tells his story the reader can
recognize how foolish he is to do so. Borrow has made it clear that deception is indeed a necessary
cultural skill among the Romanies, but such an extended and seemingly pointless campaign as
this is unprecedented in the literature, and hard to credit, even as a fictional conceit. Borrow’s
character Ursula emphasizes that possessions, though hard to come by, are often greatly desired
by the Romanies; Carmen, however, has won the fierce loyalty of a man, but seems to care little
for her conquest. Even when Juan offers her a choice—to live with him again, or be killed
instantly—she refuses, and is stabbed to death after she defiantly tells Juan, “Everything is over
between us two. You are my rom , and you have the right to kill your romi , but Carmen will always
be free. A calli she was born, and a calli she’ll die” (Chapter 3).
The novella takes the Romanies’ independent nature, really an extension of their dislike for the gad źé, and distorts it into an extreme insistence on personal freedom, something quite
163 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s unanticipated by Borrow’s writings. The impression, however inauthentic and dissimilar to
Borrow’s works—the closest parallel is when Mrs. Herne hangs herself in despair at failing to murder Lavengro—seems to have had strong resonance with many readers, and it is at this time when the growing insistence that “in the popular mind, Gypsies are the very epitome of freedom”
(Hancock, “Myth and Reality,” emphasis Hancock’s) begins. This emphasis on the Gypsies’
freedom at all costs is reiterated, more strongly, in the libretto of the much better known opera
of the same story by Henry Meilhac and Ludovic Havely.
Another major deviation from the Spanish source material that Merimée found so inspiring was his decision to focus on a group of organized Gypsy criminals. Borrow’s Gypsies were not shown engaging in such activities as these; though he does admit that some Romanies did such things, he does not show them happening. The result of this decision is a work that is in character rather similar to an Iberian version of a “Rogue Vogue” novel of a rather grim, rather than swashbuckling, sort. Indeed, the way in which the notorious Don Juan is regarded resembles that of the other characters’ fear of Dick Turpin in Rookwood to some extent, though less ironically.
Theodore Watts-Dunton was a friend of Borrow’s in the elder man’s later life, and, like him, an avid Gypsiologist (Introduction). His fantasy Aylwin is influenced by Borrow in several ways: the protagonist is an Englishman living in “wild” Wales, and he becomes involved with the Welsh Romanies, yielding “the most trustworthy picture of Romany life in the English language, containing in Sinfi Lovell the truest representative of the Gypsy girl,” according to the famous genuine Romany known as “Gypsy” Smith (qtd. Watts-Dunton, Preface to the
Twenty-Second Edition of 1904 of Aylwin ). That these characters appeared true to
Gypsiologists is hardly surprising, since so many of them rejected any Romanies who did not fit in with their escapist version of the Gypsy culture (Nord, Gypsies Chapter 5).
The Gypsiologists and their Paradoxical Effects on the Gypsy Image
164 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Ironically, though Gypsiologists, including both the members of the GLS and those who considered themselves, like Borrow, “Romany Ryes,” appeared to be avid connoisseurs of
“Gypsy Lore”—which name implies collections of anecdotes and folk stories, instead of scientific data—most of the writings they published on the Romanies were markedly dry and scholarly, betraying little passion for the subject. The books, though full of interesting information for the student or book researcher, are generally impersonal and serve better as reference material than as pleasure reading—or they would if they were better organized. The lore is presented as data, and the books usually resemble works of anthropology or sociology than they do narratives or portraits of a people they admire, respect, or enjoy. Francis Hindes Groome and Charles G. Leland, both of whom knew Borrow personally, as well as Sir Richard Burton, a founding member of the GLS, wrote books of this kind. In general, these works and others like them, including Chapter Four of the prose Carmen , bore a close resemblance to the long expository essays of Borrow’s that appeared in The Zincali , Romano Lavo-lil , and elsewhere; they are serious and dry, and, arguably, poor matter for pleasure reading. Nord attributes this serious and over-responsible tone to a wish on the writers’ parts to be taken as scholars, as indeed the larger group of folklorists wished to be: she quotes George Lawrence Gomme, president of the Folk-Lore Society early in the last decade of the nineteenth century, as insisting that “I should like it to be settled once and for all that folk-lore is a science” ( Gypsies 127).
Leland’s Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling (1891), one of the first such post-Borrovian treatises, provides copious notes, probably taken out of the notebooks that he kept during his travels and studies, on the single most infamous and intriguing of the Gypsy practices, and makes it into rather dull reading. This book, not the first about the Romanies by Leland, was written before the formation of the Gypsy Lore Society, of which he became president after
Watts-Dunton. Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling is composed largely of a mass of diverse anecdotes from far and wide, arranged by theme into categories, but within each category, the items are seldom in any clearly logical order. Leland’s own peculiar theories about waking
165 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s dreams as a hypothetical explanation for how Gypsy fortune-tellers work seem akin to modern
“New Age” ideas, which seem not to be very closely based on his observations or friendships with actual Romanies. However, after positing this curious idea, he gives more concrete examples of the ways in which fortune-tellers are known to operate, effectively de-mystifying their methods. He also compares the stories of witches, fortune-tellers, and lesser-known religious beliefs and practices with those of the Romanies, from very diverse sources and cultures, many of which, he claims, were encountered during his own travels: indeed, like Burton, Leland seems to have been afflicted with wanderlust and curiosity about word origins and obscure peoples.
Sir Richard Burton was most famous for his important and influential translation of The
Thousand and One Nights , but he was also a founding member of the GLS. At the time of his death in 1891, he was nearly done working on a book named The Gypsy , derived from notes and study that had started thirty years previously. It was finally published posthumously in 1898 with the permission of Lady Burton’s sister (vi; xi). Like Leland, Burton learned to speak Romani
(xiii) and was a Borrowesque Rai. He traveled extensively and gathered his material about the
Roma in the East, and his book primarily is related to his observations and insights about the commonalities between the Indian Jats and the titular group, and about their surviving descendants who were still in the East. He also provides a synopsis of European anti-Gypsy laws from the early fifteenth century to nearly the end of the nineteenth. Burton comments at the beginning of The Gypsy , “[o]f general works upon the subject of the Gypsies we have perhaps enough, and more than enough” (132). In this work he refers to a considerable number of such publications, many not written in English, though as his editor W. H. Wilkins attests, “the materials . . . were gathered for the most part by personal research, in Asia mainly, and also in
Africa, South America, and Europe” (xi). His personal knowledge of the relationship between
Asia and Africa and the Romanies led him to write of them despite this superfluity of generalized
Gypsy books. However, these areas do not affect the general Western conception of Gypsies.
166 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
During the years when Borrow’s influence was most keenly felt—approximately from
the 1860s to the end of the 1910s—much scholarly attention was paid to the Romanies. The books
mentioned above are just a couple of the many books of Gypsy discoveries and insights that
emerged. Francis Hindes Groome, another GLS member who knew Borrow, published a
collection named Gypsy Folk-Tales in 1899. George Black published his accumulated Gypsy
Bibliography in 1914, listing hundreds of English novels, plays, and poems “written about or
which feature Romani characters” (Hancock “Origin and Function” 47). One year later, in an
issue of Modern Philology , George Northrup wrote on “The Influence of George Borrow on
Prosper Merimée.” Leland published yet another book, simply titled The Gypsies , in 1916. For
a time after this period, though, it appears that “Romanology”—a term by which I wish to indicate
a more methodical form of inquiry than “Gypsiology”—waned as a popular topic for researchers.
It must have seemed to many readers that the subject had been exhausted, and that all that was
once a tantalizing question about the Romanies was now answered. When it appears that nearly
any question on a given topic can be satisfied with a bit of research, or that there is hardly anything
new on the subject left by prior researchers to discover by oneself, even relatively strong curiosity
can be overcome with torpor.
Fresh Forging Supplanted by Forgery
The century that had begun with fresh attention to unfortunates and to outcasts, with idealism and enthusiasm, ended with the fires already dying down and the idealized outcast still not recast into a new potential role as a realistic human subject. The Romanies had been given more public prominence, more imaginative head-space, than ever before in history, but the public had been hoodwinked into believing that the fantasy was largely truth—and that the truth was boring. Despite scattered efforts to help the Romanies, most people were led by writers such as Matthew Arnold to believe that they needed the Gypsy more than the Romanies needed them: as an avenue of escape and a symbol of unsullied innocence. Though certain
167 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s aspects of Gypsy life, such as their reputed cannibalism and wanton sexuality, were dissipated by the outspoken George Borrow, his ratification of the greater part of the traditional image tended to wash his minor reservations out of the public eye. Ironically, though great fiction such as Robinson Crusoe and “La Gitanilla” led Borrow to an active and hungry enthusiasm for the imaginative life and probably allowed him to write his books at all, they also prevented him from seeing Spain and the Romanies with clear vision, and his books that claimed absolute authority on Gypsyhood show them through a veil of literary imagination. His reading of “La
Gitanilla,” as well as other books in Spanish, no doubt, affected his perceptions of the Iberian peninsula and the Zincali people there, and, I argue, similar reasons interfered with his impressions even of the Romanies he knew personally, for as a voracious reader he naturally read a good deal of books about them and absorbed the standard image, including those of the
Enlightenment and the Romantic periods. It is hard to say how much of his paraphrasing was done intentionally, and how much was subliminal. We know that Borrow’s memory for sound and vision was extraordinary, and he may have had long passages stored in his mind, ready to copy or to influence his own writing without an actual intention to refer to the previous writers’ works, or he could have been planting hints in his mystic and sly manner. Regardless, the near-quotes certainly fasten Borrow’s accounts to classical fiction in a tenacious manner.
His personal relationship with “Jasper” and the other Romanies could not entirely efface the romantic image he had derived from his readings, and his writings reflect the romantic image to the virtual exclusion of their persecuted and impoverished lives. The same would be true of the avid Borrovians of the GLS and like-minded “Gypsy-Scholars” who were lorists in the ensuing decades. These reinforce my hypotheses about the strong role that the imagination plays in human perceptions.
A more balanced portrayal of Romani life would need to include more thievery, as well as the Romanies’ tattered clothing, their begging, their probable health deficiencies, their selling of potions (the activity is only attributed to the Spanish Roma, never to the British ones),
168 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s and above all, their desperate poverty and terrible want of life’s necessities. Borrow’s pastoral
Romanies may have found the natural world an ideal home, but the actual ones who were forced off formerly public lands after the enclosure movement of the 1820s and 30s, and the contemporary Vagrancy Act of 1824, were finding even natural settings hard to come by (see
Nord Gypsies 43-45). In short, Borrow was able to generate interest and enthusiasm for
British-Romany ways by representing the travelers as bucolically-appealing children of nature, and with the addition of many fresh details, convincing readers that this portrayal was a true one. Borrow could have added a more balanced set of details, hinted at above, to his writing, and propelled, instead, new and more tolerant laws, public sympathy and support, and chances for his pals to be educated along with the other British children. He had the opportunity to make a final split between romantic fantasy and Romany reality: a decisive one that would have sold his assertion that his brothers and sisters had human souls that were as worthy as his own of respect and succor. Instead, though, he showed readers happy and content wanderers who would have scorned such empathy from the hated gad źé, blighting any other volunteers from even offering any.
He did not even allow the Romanies their own voice, aside from only
semi-convincing picaresque narration. He quoted traditional Romani verses but asserted that
they were at once “authentic,” and that they were “trash ,” devaluing the Romany mind even as
he proffered it ( Zincali 6, Borrow’s own emphasis). While he claimed to be fascinated with the
Romani language, he asserted that its main quality was its primacy: its lack of development. In
effect, he was labeling Romani as a primitive and unsophisticated tongue, and its speakers
either immature or else unrefined. It was as if he had learned to speak with a lower life form,
such as one of Darwin’s apes.
As Nord points out, it was not until 1970 that a full-length autobiography of a Rom
was published ( Gypsies 167 and 203); for the nineteenth century, then, the Romanies’ own
expression was always to be mediated, never direct, and they never had a way to reach a
169 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s widespread audience and state their own case before a public forum. However, the following century continued to experience major changes that are still going on, and as Chapter 4 reveals, the iron may soon be as hot as necessary to allow the Roma and others to strike again more effectively.
170 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
Notes
34 See Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome for an extensive account of this slavery 35 Despite the stern and forbidding tone of these laws, Fraser makes it clear that only seldom were these laws acted upon, as noted above. 36 Ironically, although Grellman was interested in understanding the origins of the Romanies, and thus their culture to some extent, he was aware of the Hungarian punishments and assumed that the charges of cannibalism and such were true; evidently, his interest in their culture did not translate into sympathy or support for his subjects’ rights (Fraser 195-6). 37 It is ironic to modern readers from America to think that the children were initially refused for xenophobic reasons, since it is clear that they were natives of England, and therefore not really foreigners, but as Nord points out, “Any reader of nineteenth-century writing knows that the term is used very loosely, without a precise or consistent definition…. A number of meanings of the word coalesce: a group descended from common ancestors, a nation or tribe, a group identifiable as decidedly non-English in appearance and habit…. It almost always implied a group with shared characteristics, although such traits could be either biologically or culturally generated” (Gypsies 20). 38 Nord adds that Hoyland’s book “owed a great deal to Grellman’s work” in her journal article “Marks of Race.” However, it is not clear from her comments whether this statement embraces its linguistic and historical portions, or only its assertions about Gypsies as a race, which is her main point on page 22, because the word “work” could refer to Grellman’s research, or else to the book itself. 39 Despite assertions cited in Chapter 2 that cant was not used by criminals, a “glossary and grammar of low-life” language was appended to the fifth edition (1719) of Smith’s work (Roberts xxiii); either those assertions are inaccurate, or cant had started since the 1600s. 40 This similarity of this title suggests that, though this work is one of fiction, it inspired Captain Smith’s work: Smith’s glossary is similarly derivative. 41 The first ballad opera, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), satirized the genre typified by Smith’s Complete History and the two books by Defoe; Roberts further indicates that Sheppard and Wild were specific models for the leading criminal characters of the ballad opera (xxiii). 42 G. H. Maynadier indicates that whereas Defoe’s story of the criminal’s life may have been inaccurate only in its details, Fielding’s account appears to be entirely imaginary, aside from certain aspects that were probably taken directly from Defoe (Introduction). 43 See Nord, The Gypsies Chapter 2 for a detailed, though rather different, discussion of this poem, along with others by Wordsworth and certain of his contemporaries. 44 Indeed, since Wordsworth is perhaps one of the primary people who gifted Western society with the concept of being “one with nature,” it is startling that he should take such a negative view of Romanies, who are usually seen as having a native closeness with wild and natural things. One would rather expect that a poem by Wordsworth named “Gipsies” would contain descriptions of how the Romanies are attuned to Nature, which offers “Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, / breathed by cheerfulness,” (“The Tables Turned” lines 19-20) and praise for their willingness to flit wherever the “will of the wind” takes them so as to commune with nature. Instead, they are blamed for their refusal to be up and about, to the point that even thievery would be better. What is more, as poor people, the Romanies seem to be fitting subjects for a more sympathetic poem, more on the lines of “Michael” or “Resolution and Independence,” than we find here. 45 That Esmeralda is actually a White woman is usually overlooked in adaptations of this story, and the whole subplot about her grieving mother, and the final reunion with the girl, is cut out entirely. For example, in the 1996 Disney animated feature, Esmeralda is depicted as a true Gypsy, with dark skin and hair, whereas in the 1939 adaptation starring Charles Laughton, though Maureen O’Hara is clearly a White actress, the script calls no attention to her racial difference, so the character comes off as simply an extra-pretty Romani person. A study of this novel that examines Quasimodo’s Romany identity and his portrayal in the novel as compared with that of the Caucasian girl Esmeralda is currently in progress by this writer. 46 This thirst for vengeance may be another innovation of Ainsworth’s, as this is the earliest book to mention it. It is true that Mrs. Herne tries to murder Lavengro, but this is not called vengeance, but instead just an act of hatred. Kanwar describes Vlax Roms’ traditions of blood feud, but explains that the term “blood” does not indicate a need for bloodshed; instead, it is clear that this feuding leads members of the parties’ families to keep them apart to avoid any kind of violence. Instead, there are spates of mutual curses of the mystical, superstitious kind as well as the vulgar kind (1269; 1273) 47 A close analogue to this is the inauthentic after-dinner fortune cookie that is served in the Chinese restaurants of the USA. 48 It is especially ironic, in the light of my observations, that Eliot sent her Gypsies to Africa to claim a
171 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
homeland, even if not their original one, since it would create a second layer of historical indifference: like the British colonists of hers and the preceding centuries, Eliot seems to assume that if the Zincali wished to seize a plot of land as a new home, they simply could do so in Africa, as long as they prevailed over the still-more-primitive natives who lived there already. In fact, one could say that Eliot had fictively colonized the empty space of the Romanies’ historical truth, claiming their “plot” in her own name and using it for her own desired purposes, and was encouraging her Zincali figures to do the same in the “dark continent.” 49 I specify the sixteenth century as the likely setting of the poem because Browning does make some effort to posit his tale as partially based on historical fact, and as we know, the Romanies first are mentioned in history as having arrived in England shortly after 1500. This poem has a link with “The Monkey’s Paw” and other tales in which a badly-phrased wish is granted by giving the wisher what he asked for in words, but is appalled to see in the flesh. 50 This is a key message of more than one of the rants that Borrow inserts after the main text of The Romany Rye . Borrow takes pains to articulate that his protagonist has always been virtuous and blameless. As Jenkins makes plain in his Life of Borrow , the eponymous hero of Lavengro was, until nearly the eleventh hour, Borrow himself, without any evasion. Borrow’s defense of Lavengro reads very much like self-defense against others’ claims that the protagonist is as culpable as a Gypsy. Presumably this desire to be held blameless is another reason why Borrow, at the last minute, decided to deny that he himself was Lavengro, though he still takes his critics’ comments on Lavengro as personal attacks. 51 Incidentally, I should note that different editions of The Zincali are textually different, with some having “extra” text and others “missing” passages; the Philadelphia edition lacks this passage, but it is retained in the unspecified text that provided Project Gutenberg with its fulltext transcription. 52 In an oddly noncommittal way, he refers to himself in the introduction to The Zincali as, reportedly, others seem to think of him: “I, who seem to know so much of what has been written concerning the Gypsies;” (4) this apparently is because of his numerous scholarly references to such texts. This phrasing is probably not an avoidance of an outright lie, though it seems evasive enough; it may be that after reading a number of such fantastic books he gave the habit up in some disgust, and after that generalized about such books as a class. 53 Writing five years after The Zincali ’s publication, Prosper Merimee writes in Chapter 4 of Carmen that “[a]n English missionary, Mr. Borrow, the author of two very interesting works on the Spanish gipsies, whom he undertook to convert on behalf of the Bible Society, declares there is no instance of any gitana showing the smallest weakness for a man not belonging to her own race. The praise he bestows upon their chastity strikes me as being exceedingly exaggerated”. Merimee claims to have experience of the Gitánas himself. 54 In the last of these quotes, Borrow plays coy: in this and numerous similar references to other writers’ work, he appears fully aware of the truth of his statement, but perhaps does not want to be accused of libel by them; in cases where the writer is from long ago, however, he usually specifies both the writer and the work. 55 Jenkins asserts that “ The Bible in Spain . . . had the advantage of being spontaneous, having been largely written on the spot, whereas Lavengro and The Romany Rye were worked on and laboured at for years” (180). Jenkins appears to have confused The Zincali with The Bible in Spain , since The Zincali was clearly written in the field, whereas the later publication was, according to the preface to the second edition of The Zincali , worked on in England over several seasons, with a long interruption in the interim (2-3). 56 The tinker’s demand that Borrow guess, Rumple-stilt-skin style, what his name is, seems a ridiculously arbitrary requirement, one that no reasonable person would add into a business transaction. It is highly probable that Borrow put this unreasonable stipulation into the tinker’s mouth only to allow Lavengro to flaunt his ability and to show how much he was able to impress others with feats of memory. 57 The other edition of The Zincali that I consulted for the dissertation has an alternate version of this passage, with significant differences in meaning: As I did not visit Spain with the express purpose of labouring among the Gitanos, nor indeed had them at all in view in my visit to that country, I could only devote a portion of my time, and that a slight one, in endeavouring to remove the extreme ignorance under which they laboured with regard to the most common points of religion, and of interesting the minds of these strange people in the subject. It will be as well to observe, at the commencement, that I can scarcely flatter myself with having experienced any success in my endeavours ; indeed I never expected any, or at least any which I myself could hope to witness ; I knew too well the nature of the ground on which I was casting seed ( Zincali A 85) Indeed, it should be noted that there are numerous discrepancies between these two editions, with various passages that are only available in one of them, as well as passages that are rewritten. Though I have been in personal communication with David Price, who has done monumental work in scanning the Borrow and Borrow-related Gutenberg e-texts, he has not told me which edition the Gutenberg Zincali is derived from. 58 I follow Henry Behlmer in referring to the main character of both Lavengro and The Romany Rye as “Lavengro”, agreeing with his contention in “Borrow’s Wild Nomadology,” but note that in his Appendix to the second novel, Borrow himself uses the same approach, and for similar reasons. 59 However, it is abundantly clear that Lavengro was written as an autobiography. Borrow advertised his
172 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
incomplete work as such, but when it was finally printed, he had changed his mind: see Jenkins, chapters XXIII and XXIV. 60 Most commentators on these two novels find an opportunity to point out that “Lavengro” is never given any name in the texts, but this is erroneous. In Book I Chapter XII of Lavengro , in a conversation between the protagonist’s elder brother John and himself, John tells Lavengro: “I am very comfortable, George, in many respects” (Lavengro Vol. 1 155). Very likely, after deciding to cease referring to his book as an autobiography, Borrow willfully removed most of the uses of his name in the text, but missed this one. Again, in Chapter XXIV of The Romany Rye , when Lavengro is conversing with an elderly ostler named Bill and a postillion, the latter figure says, “I say, George, catch the Pope of Rome trying to curry favour with anybody he robs… the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him…” (Romany Rye Vol. 1 287). Clearly, since only three people are present, Bill is explicitly the name of the ostler, and it is the postillion talking, “George” must be the name of the other party: Lavengro himself. I suggest that though these scholars noticed the great general avoidance of Borrow’s given name and assumed that it had been entirely removed, in the flow of reading these passages with the firm knowledge that, whatever he is called in the books, Lavengro is actually George Borrow, these passing uses of his Christian name slipped subtly by their notice: it just slips out subliminally: another example of the interference of the imagination with clear perception. 61 This word “area” is probably a typographical error: “arena” makes more sense. 62 Like Jenkins, Ian Hancock refers to the model for “Jasper” Petulengro as being named Ambrose, but in “The Concocters: Creating Fake Romani Culture” he indicates that the Rom’s true name was actually George Smith, though in “George Borrow’s Romani” he cites an article by Angus Fraser about the matter and asserts that the same person’s name was really Ambrose Smith (69). If the former is true, then both the boys who met at the time described were named George. It occurs to me that, since the Romanies are described by Borrow and others as having both a Romany name and another one for use among the gad źé, perhaps Ambrose Petulengro corresponds with the first type of name, while George Smith represents the second. What is more, the name George is quite close to Borrow’s Romanization (no quibble intended) of gad źé: Gorgio, as Ian Duncan has remarked (392). Perhaps, instead of feeling himself to be a true Rom, Borrow never lost the awareness that he was the primary “Gorgio” of George Smith’s acquaintance. As an interesting coincidence, there is another pair of Georges, also closely, though not officially, related to each other: George Henry Lewes (who shared his first and middle names with Borrow) and George Eliot, who wrote The Spanish Gypsy . Like the unofficial marriages of Romanies in Eastern Europe today, most people did not recognize those Georges as husband and wife. 63 Borrow was handling a tame and fangless viper when, as a boy of six, he first met Ambrose’s parents by accident. They are aware that Borrow is not a Romany child; at first, frightened by the snake, they superstitiously suppose that Borrow is a demon, and invite him to stay with them so as to bring them good luck. Both are adept enough at English to flatteringly call him “gorgeous,” though they oddly do not seem to be referring to his looks (Lavengro 18, 19). Though Borrow never draws the reader’s attention to the fact, it is very likely his intention to cast this adjective as a pun, for later in the same book, the word “gorgious,” doubtlessly pronounced the same way, is used three times as an adjectival form of Gorgio , applied to one who is not a Romany (204, 205, and 232)—though these alternate with the other spelling in a haphazard-seeming way. Borrow recorded the episode many years after its occurrence, and therefore, despite his marvelous memory, he may have had to reconstruct the actual dialogue. We cannot assume that the conversation’s words were really spoken as recorded in Lavengro . This episode takes place years before he realizes that they are Romanies, and many more years pass before Borrow apparently hears the adjectival form of Gorgio, so Borrow would have remained in the dark about such wordplay. Therefore, he is unlikely to have especially remembered the use of the term, despite its apparently incongruous use, in the Petulengroes’ salutations. Therefore, it is most probable that Borrow has purposely inserted this word “gorgeous” here as a sort of in-joke that readers could not understand until hundreds of pages later. Ian Hancock notes the use of “gorgeous” here as a term in Romani as well, but possibly overlooking the English meaning of the word and spelling: at least, he makes no comment on it. (“Borrow’s Romani” 235) 64 This encounter between Jasper and the boy who would become Lavengro, which Jenkins seems to accept as having really happened to Borrow, calls to mind the Medieval practice of choosing local settled people as godparents for newborn Romany children, as described in Fraser. This, Fraser suggests, was done in order to secure benefits such as protection and gifts; the Petulengro parents could not have anticipated the mixed and surprising benefits that George Borrow’s brotherhood would bring to their people. 65 This word is a phonetic representation of an informal pronunciation of “gentleman” that is used by other contemporary writers as well. 66 George K. Behlmer, in his article “The Gypsy Problem in Victorian England,” describes John Hoyland as the first Romany Rye, reports that at the time, the term “connotes a patron whose familiarity and generosity to the Gypsies has earned him an honored status among them.” (237). 67 Although this term is patently a spur-of-the-moment coinage in Lavengro , Green and Boucher’s story includes a Gypsy who uses the thimble-and-pea—or as Holmes refers to it, “the old shell game”—Lydia, the Gypsy girl, refers to him as a thimble-engro, as if it were a genuine word of Romani. She speaks at all times with an odd,
173 Chapter 3: George Borrow’s Revision of the Gypsy Image in the 1800s
foreign-type accent, so the word comes out as “t’imble-engro.” 68 A broadside ballad popular in the late nineteenth century, “Days When We Went Gypsying,” collected online by the Bodleian Library, describes how “gypsying” was done: “The lads and lasses in their best, / Were drest from top to toe. / We danc’d and sang the jocund song, / Upon the forest green, / And nought but mirth and jollity / Around us could be seen. / And thus we pass’d the merry time, / Nor thought of care or wo, / In the days when we went gipsying, / A long time ago.” Note that this nostalgia is double-layered: the singers don’t wish for the days when the world was more natural, but for the days when they could still pretend that they could go back to such untroubled times. There were numerous variants of this and many other Gypsy-related ballads at that time, which I will write about elsewhere. This is from Helston, England; another variant from Philadelphia has slightly different wording, and changes the British references to the Queen to more general wishes for absent friends. 69 This assertion in Carmen must have goaded future GLS members to try the female Romanies’ chastity for themselves, as described in the next chapter.
174 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
۩Ж۩
Chapter 4 . The Gypsy Image after Borrow The Current State of Affairs: Cultural Awareness and its Blind Spots
Borrow, the Rais, and the Death of Gypsy Mystique
As hinted above, despite the significance of Borrow’s impact on the Western Gypsy
image, the changes he brought about—the wider interest in the Romanies and a greater
emphasis on the Gypsies as literary character—the public’s awareness of the alternative
Gypsy figure he presented was fleeting. Even the burst of fresh investigation and writing that
he inspired lost the favor of the reading public, and, except for some notable exceptions,
Borrow’s work and those of his “Rai” successors had largely been forgotten by the middle of
the twentieth century. Today, in the early twenty-first century, his works are available on the
Internet, but they are read by few, and he is usually considered a forgotten author by those
who are aware of him. This part of Chapter 4 attempts to explain how the revised Gypsy
image and the writers who celebrated it gradually lost the interest of Western readers and how
the more traditional Gypsy figure has steadily reasserted itself in all its stereotypical
characteristics since then.
Borrow wrote of the Romanies with frequent indications of strong feelings: admiration,
disapproval, sympathy, curiosity, and the like. Those who were inspired by his books may have
been moved by a personal feeling of interest or curiosity, and sometimes even a sense of
spiritual kinship. Many who became Gypsiologists at the instigation of Borrow’s books
followed his example to some extent, befriending the Roma and celebrating the culture they
found among them—highly colored, though, by the ‘real, live Gitanilla ’ culture that was
posited by Borrow, which took over their imaginations and tinged their perceptions to some
175 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow degree.
At times, the Gypsiologists’ writings also reflected this sense of excitement over learning about the Romanies: about being privileged to learn the answers to secrets that had been hidden from the Whites for centuries. In general, Borrow’s statements were tested in the field and, when appropriate, corrected by Gypsiologists’ own works; they took a less “amateur”
(as Nord describes it, Gypsies 130) approach to studying the Romanies than he had. Charles
Augustus Leland composed a study including a Romani-English dictionary, The English
Gypsies and Their Language , published in 1873, which was more accurate and scholarly than
Borrow’s own list; he had met Borrow and later requested permission in writing to dedicate his dictionary to the “Nestor of Gypsyism” (as he referred to Borrow, Jenkins 208), but instead of replying, Borrow hastened to bring out a competing dictionary of his own ( Romano Lavo-lil ,
1874), basically a collection of words he had already used in his earlier works, which however was found to be full of mistakes (Jenkins 208). Other Gypsiologists took Borrow’s strong assertions that the Romany girls were utterly chaste people as a sort of challenge—even a dare.
As Hancock notes in “George Borrow’s Romani,” the appellation of “Rye” was conferred, in private, upon men who had successfully seduced and slept with such a one. 70 Nord adds that
John Sampson and Augustus John frequently engaged in sexual “philandering” that “was
deeply associated with their ‘gypsying,’ and [that] the marriage of Francis Hinds Groome to a
stunning and talented Gypsy, Esmeralda Lock, became a subject of scandal in the press and a
legend among Gypsy lorists” ( Gypsies 132).
Some of these writers, like Borrow before them, found expression for their ardor in
fiction and creative writing. Theodore Watts-Dunton wrote a long poem, “The Coming of
Love” (and a follow-up novel with some of the same characters, Aylwin ), about his romantic
notions of the “true Gypsy,” which was a term used by numerous GLS members for the
Borrovian model (see, for instance, Nord, Gypsies 133). J. M. Barrie similarly wrote a tale of
Gypsies in Scotland, The Little Minister that was published in 1891, combining realistic
176 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow attributes of the Scottish tribes with a romantic story of “true Gypsies.”
However, like many of Borrow’s scholarly passages of discourse, most of the GLS members’ writings got rather boring. Nord explicates: “many of these new Gypsiologists aspired to a level of philological and theoretical sophistication that would gain them academic respectability, if not university positions” ( Gypsies 127). She identifies their publication, the
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society , as “a way to claim intellectual and professional authority for their efforts” (130). Though the novels and other creative writing on Gypsies may have been quite engaging, the treatises and other pseudo-scientific works had an odd effect on the Gypsy image, which was perhaps unanticipated by these writers. In a phrase, the seemingly methodical study of Gypsies seems to have killed the romance of the Gypsy image for many members of the reading public.
For many early Rais, the Romanies were thought of “as sources of data, as objects of study, rather than as people with sensibilities of their own” (Hancock, “George Borrow’s
Romani” 237). Indeed, when George Borrow talks with the Romanies and asks questions about their culture, he sometimes claims that he is not asking because he wants to understand his
Romany friends better, but just because he is thirsty for data. For instance, in the conversation under the hedge—a traditional trysting spot—with Ursula, Borrow seems, though indirectly, to be proposing marriage with her, but when asked about this directly, Borrow denies it, insisting that he “wished to have a conversation with you beneath a hedge, but only with the view of procuring from you some information respecting the song which you sung the other day, and the conduct of Roman females [...]” (36). Similarly choosing scholarly zeal over any sort of romantic encounter, Bernard Gilliat-Smith wrote in 1908 that one day he “could see clearly five or six black tents pitched on the left side of the road under some birches. I would fain have stopped, […] and there and then collected material of interest for the Gypsy Lore Society. (154, qtd. in Hancock, “George Borrow’s Romani” 237).
In England, and even in the United States, readers soon became aware of these scholars’
177 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow quest to reveal the truth about the Roma. An early reviewer for the United States Democratic
Review , commenting on Borrow’s first book on the subject, The Zincali , observed that although
“[t]he origin of the Gypsy race has puzzled many an antiquarian, and has given rise to various speculations in the different countries inhabited by them,” the situation was already changing.
[Borrow’s] work has a practical and genuine character belonging only to that
information which comes thus, as it were, from the fountain head; and the light
which he has thrown upon the habits of this mysterious people, enables us to trace
out the rusty and decaying links that bind them to ages long past, and to far distant
lands. (58)
As the self-described Romany Ryes, or Rais, furthered Borrow’s research and
published their own findings and conclusions, those who noticed such happenings perceived
that, like other former mysteries that had recently been explained by scientists and theorists,
such as the idea of evolution, the mystique of the Gypsies had largely evaporated.
In Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling , Leland is explaining how fortune-tellers make
accurate insights into customers’ lives, not how a mystery loses its aura, but his observation is
nevertheless exactly right, and applicable to this sort of disillusionment.
“What is it that makes people’s heads ache?” inquired an old lady of a youth
who had just begun his medical studies. “Oh, it is only the convolution of the
anomalies of the ellipsoid,” replied the student. “just see now what it is to git
larnin!” commented the dame. “He knows it all in a straight line!” [She] is
pleased to find that the mystery has at least a name. (Chapter 9)
The example Leland uses above is also quite suitable to our present topic in that the student’s
answer is “not exactly true.” The Rais were certainly fascinated with the Romanies and
pursued the answers to centuries-old questions with vigor, but they changed their personal
obsession for solving the mysteries of the Gypsies into scholarly curiosity, or at least it seems
so in their books. The common reader, whose vim regarding Gypsy lore was not as strong
178 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow originally, experienced a similar lessening of excitement when they read these books. Though as individuals, most people didn’t know the Romanies well, the reading public began to be aware that the ages-old questions about them were being answered, and they were content to let the experts handle the inquiries for them.
As a result, the thrill and wonder were, for many, more or less over, and people stopped being even curious. The legendary associations of the Gypsy with passion, danger, and freedom were more remembered than experienced. Most of the Romany-related writings of the late 1800s were by Gypsiologists, and were in the main only of interest to serious enthusiasts and scholars.
Gypsies, who had enjoyed the spotlight for a few decades, appeared less frequently as central, serious characters. Instead, when Gypsy figures appear, from the late 1800s until the present, they are either used to add a bit of color and variety to a narrative, or used, as in the period between the Renaissance and the Romantic era, as a narrative device, to evoke the traditional associations.
When Gypsy figures appear in recent works, the reader or audience member is aware that a feeling of mystery, romance, or danger is implied; however, artists seem relatively uninterested in exploring the Gypsy as a character, possibly because the Romanies are seen as already explored.
However, in 1938, only fifty years after the foundation of the GLS, and a curious series
of fits and starts of the Society’s operation, the general public’s awareness and recollection of the
Rais’ achievements in uncovering certain elements of the Romanies’ culture—for it is rash to
assume that all has or will be known—had been lost, along with the old allure. Victor Weybright,
in The New York Times Magazine , called the “Roms” “a once-romantic minority . . .” (10). He felt
it important enough to remind his readers twice that the Romanies, whom he calls “[the] Huck
Finns of the universe,” (10) are thought of as “quaint or undesirable,” but not as “human beings”
(10, 14). 71 Though the GLS was founded by an American, the group’s anniversary was marked
in America by only one scheduled event: “a display of literature pertaining to gypsies, at the New
York Public Library;” Weybright expressed his doubt that any group or person would have the
179 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow enthusiasm to organize anything further (14). Though he acknowledges that “[i]n song and story gypsies are still a symbol of carefree romance, as remote from actuality as nightingales and wolves,” (10) Weybright’s language makes it clear that this symbolism did not translate into romantic feelings any longer. 72
Though the Gypsiologists may initially have longed to be of service to the Romanies,
the writings they did in this vein left the Romani worse off than before, and the plans for
assistance half completed. Charles Godfrey Leland was clearly aware of this tendency. He
notes that “To the vast multitude, even of learned men, Folk-lore is only a ‘craze’ for small
literary bric-à-brac , a ‘fancy’ which will have its run, and nothing more” (188). Leland
disagreed with such an opinion. His motivation for collecting Gypsy lore was certainly not to
eradicate mysteries.
It would seem to all who now live that life would be really intolerably dry
were it utterly deprived of mystery, marvel, or romance. […] it would seem as
if we had come, or are coming, to a time when science threatens to deprive us
of it all. […] Has the world been hitherto a child, or a youth, were poetry and
supernaturalism its toys, and has the time come when it is to put away childish
things? (Chapter 12)
Leland was in favor of maintaining a sense of wonder amid the solemnity of scientific facts.
He saw his research as a way of building towards a higher level of human understanding.
However, his fervor was unusual among his colleagues. As Leland predicted, most of his
contemporary Gypsiologists appeared to reach a level of satiation, and then their writings
tapered off. Indeed, the GLS itself, which had a notable and vigorous beginning, was brought
to an end after only two publications of JGLS , their Journal (which is currently named
Romani Studies ).
The popular fascination with Romanies, widespread for a season, passed out of the
minds of most readers. The concept of the Romanies as a real population—which is obviously
180 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow a vital one for any sort of progress in Romani rights activism—faded out of the Western Gypsy image. However, as with nearly any specialized topic, there have always been a certain few to keep the interest alive.
The Oblivious: Caravan to the Present Day
With the sober and semi-scientific time of the Rais in command of the image, a new
“lull” period began in the popular imagination, as regards the Gypsy figure, as well as the related Borrovian Romany figure: e. g. the research-proved portions of the traditional stereotype, along with suitable verisimilitude. Arguably, this lull is still in effect, by and large, and serious interest in the Roma is presently a specialized field, limited in its appeal to the popular reader. Even in twenty-first century mainstream productions of literature and art, most
Gypsy figures are now mere tokens of whatever part of the old image the artist wishes to evoke, without elaboration.
Most Gypsies in works of the twentieth century, as well as their stereotypical habitats, are of minor importance to the story in which they appear, just as they were in the 1700s. They typically either add a bit of color to a scene, or solve a plot problem. Thus, in For Whom the
Bell Tolls (1940), Ernest Hemingway includes some Gitáno figures to add variety to his rather cramped story of the Spanish Civil War; their opinions are sought on the conflict, but the
Romanies mainly stay in the background. T. S. Eliot brings a presumably Gypsy fortune-teller by the name of Madame Sosostris into his poem The Waste Land (1921, line 43) as a representative of mystery and fate, but she gets no real characterization.
In recent decades, television and the movies have become a much more effective and homogenizing means of disseminating the stereotype of the Gypsy. Ian Hancock, in his essay
“Romance vs. Reality,” describes the television show Chico and the Man, which featured a
Gypsy character in 1975. Despite the request of the International Gypsy Committee that the producer would make sure the character was portrayed fairly, Hancock reports that “when the
181 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
Gypsy character was introduced complete with guitar, gold teeth, earring, bandanna and sash, all the stock jokes concerning theft, curses, stupidity and immorality were reeled off” (16). A
Gypsy fortune-teller was introduced into the February 5, 1989 television episode “The Gypsy
Cried” of the American situation comedy Married with Children , written by Richard Gurman, in which a neighbor’s wife, Marcy, is impressed when Madame Olga’s predictions come true for the Bundy family’s members. When the fortune-teller tells Marcy that she will die in an airplane crash, Marcy accepts the idea and becomes obsessed with anticipating her death to the point that she virtually assures it of coming true.
When a Gypsy is a key figure, or if a Gypsy camp is an important setting, one of the standard works on the Romanies, typically from the late 1800s, is consulted. A few bits of verisimilitude, such as a few words or Romany or a reference to Romany culture, are usually added. All through the twentieth century, the standard starting point when searching for quick and convincing details for Gypsy characters and scenes was the works of Borrow; either that, or some second- or later-generation work did so, such as the twentieth century Rai Jan Yoors
(Hancock, Introduction 2).
An interesting and typical example is the script from a radio episode of The New
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes written in 1946 by Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher. The story “The Guileless Gypsy” takes place at a Gypsy camp. The script partakes of the standard
Gypsy image from before Borrow’s time, replete with all the ordinary features. The actors
Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone, who appeared numerous times in Holmes movies as Dr.
Watson and Sherlock Holmes respectively, reprised these roles for the serial. As Watson sets the scene, he describes how the duo entered a Gypsy camp:
We […] strolled across the field to the Gypsy fair that was encamped nearby.
It was a colorful sight […] flares lighted a group of tents [and] caravans dotted
round the edge of the marsh. And as gold-earringed Gypsy girls told fortunes
and danced, swarthy Gypsy men played on their violins the haunting melodies
182 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
of their ancestors.
Just as we can find many references to Cervantes in Borrow’s Zincali , we find that during the
exposition of the episode, liberal handfuls of Borrow quotes and references are worked into the
script in order to give it a more authentic feeling: indeed, it appears that Green and Boucher felt
little need to go any deeper into the subject. The fortune that the Gypsy girl tells is every bit as
accurate as that of the Gypsy in The Monk , which suggests that the writers of the radio script
availed themselves of surface details of Borrow’s content, but did not internalize Borrow’s
deeper themes and messages: Borrow makes it quite clear that telling fortunes is nothing but a
sham. Words of “Borrowmani” (a coinage of Ian Hancock’s, signifying the words that Borrow
represents in his books as being authentic Romani but which are frequently phonetically or
linguistically inaccurate [“George Borrow’s Romani”]) are inserted, such as Romany , penning
dukkerin (telling fortunes), boshomengro (violinist), and Gorgio. 73
Lydia, the female Romany character, is delighted that Holmes understands some
Romani (which fact seems to imply that he is a Rai himself), and addresses him as “Brother” with great frequency; in fact, she does so immediately as soon as Holmes uses a single
Romani phrase, penning dukkerin , and declares that he is a “ lavengro : a master of words.”
This character is, in the program’s context, a true Romany: one of the earlier such figures to be featured in a romantic story. Though she is an innocent and personable figure, she appears to be exceptional among her peers, since, as the title of this episode suggests, most Gypsies are not free of guile. Though the Gypsy characters, accused of kidnapping a White child, are vindicated, and the sweet Romany girl is given a sympathetic death scene after taking a bullet intended for Holmes, one can hardly say that this script is effective at engendering a new image of the Romanies, although perhaps the script might have inspired some compassion, as the
Gypsies in the story appear to be innocent. Japer “Pentalengro” (perhaps a mispronunciation of Petulengro or an adaptation of it), the leader of the “tribe,” is grateful for Holmes’s intervention when the White villain would have framed the Gypsies for the kidnap of his
183 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow nephew.74
Sherlock Holmes, I met you less than five hours ago. You have saved my tribe
from a devilish plot that would have blackened their names: a plot that would
have driven them from the countryside. What can I do in return?
The program, and indeed the series in general, was specifically meant to provoke a feeling of
nostalgia. The standard opening of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes includes a visit
between the radio announcer Harry Bartel and Doctor Watson (Bruce), in which the announcer
requests that the doctor indulge him by reminiscing about the old days when he and Holmes
used to share exciting adventure stories of a time that is thought of as simpler and more
natural than the present: just the sort of atmosphere that the Gypsiologists also favored and
wished to protect. This approach to the show is well suited to the culturally familiar and
comfortable, including the aforementioned Gypsy stereotypes, as well as standard Holmesian
evocations of foggy London nights, hansom cabs, and Holmes’s fragrant shag tobacco.
This is the current state of the fictional Gypsy image: complacent and, usually, shallow
references that are blatantly stereotypical. Stereotype is also at work in the way that settled
people today relate to living Romani people, usually to the former wanderers’ disadvantage.
However, as discussed in the next chapter, a new time of change for the image seems to be
coming, and with some concerted effort, a clearer and more equitable image may well be
forged soon.
The Social Situation of the Modern Roma
The Roma and their Rights in the Twenty-First Century
Still today, the situation of the Roma is generally not enviable. For every wealthy
Romani family, there are dozens more who are struggling to live, and only a few who are
comfortably off, and once a Rom becomes wealthy, Godwin reports, he becomes disinclined
to help his poorer fellows (Godwin 81-85). In Eastern Europe, there are thousands of Roma
184 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow who have little more than lean-tos to live in, as vividly described in Isabel Fonseca’s eyewitness travelogue journal Bury Me Standing . Due to the relatively high levels of Romany population in that region, the members of which are in such concentrated spaces that they are unmistakably Roma, there is no losing oneself among the crowd, except for certain members who have either had greater chances, or who have taken some. The world’s largest numbers of
Romani rights organizations have been founded in Eastern Europe, which on the surface seems to be a hopeful sign. However, although this may well be a very well intentioned movement on the part of these Romani activists, the leaders of the groups reportedly disagree about nearly everything, revealing how competitive they are, instead of showing a united and cooperative front to the world (Hancock “Talking Back”). If this is their attempt at making a good impression on the West, it is being foiled yet again by unruly members of the larger group.
In England, hundreds have been affected by laws that, though they seem to be kind in granting government land for the purposes of legal camping for Romanies, they have in fact made it illegal to camp anywhere else, and the land that is allowed them is far too little for any reasonable person to imagine that all unsettled English citizens could fit there, let alone live in comfort. For these people with no other homes to live in, the government has essentially forced them to break the law. Many are brutally tossed out of their own vehicles, and then told that it is because they are illegally camped; if that were tried with members of another racial group, they would suffer long and hard for such a statement, but the law enforcers again get away with it.
As in Eastern Europe, British groups of Romanies (joined and often conflated oddly with other groups like the tinkers and the Irish Travelers, who have different historical and ethnic backgrounds, by the modern GLS and numerous other non-Romani-led groups) have formed activist groups. Like the Eastern Europeans, they all fight amongst each other (Woodard 86).
In the United States, where the land is much wider and the concentrations of Roma families are fewer and farther between, there is less emphasis in the news, and as a result, there is little public consciousness of the Roma, except in certain areas. A relatively small number of
185 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
Americans know that “Gypsies” are present in their country, and many doubt it, and indeed this erroneous idea has persisted for many decades, as Hancock attests in The Pariah Syndrome
(203). Fewer still have heard of the Roma by that name. Few Americans have ever met a Gypsy:
at least, not knowingly, for it is customary for the Roma to adopt a name—or, rather, multiple
names—for use outside the Gypsy community (Sonneman 129), and to deny their Romany
heritage when asked by members of the gad źé community (Hancock Pariah 217). These extra
names are often noted in American reports of “Gypsy crime” for their likelihood of being
pseudonyms to conceal or otherwise confuse their identities, in order to make it harder for law
enforcers to pin the criminal down; this may be true in many cases, but this is a typical Romani
cultural trait, not specifically started for purposes of concealing criminality.
There are also Romany interest groups in America, as well as independent activists. 75
Perhaps foremost among them is Dr. Ian Hancock, whom I have already mentioned. Despite his numerous publications and public appearances, his messages are not reaching nearly as many
American citizens as the anti-Gypsy crime task forces and “Gypsy crime experts” are, as will be discussed below. Most of the time, when Americans hear anything of the Romanies, it is in connection with a crime. It appears from the available literature that America has more
Romanies passing as either White Americans or else as Americans with one or another national heritage.
Many who have been brought up as Roma look little like stereotypical Gypsies,
especially when not wearing “Gypsy” attire, and by dropping the Gypsy costume, they can
“pass” as “regular” members of the community.76 Many such have taken up ordinary jobs,
avoiding the kind of discrimination that Romanies often meet, by both intentionally and
successfully blending in with the rest of the local populace. The result is that the American
Roma often live “invisibly;” these members of the Roma encourage the misconception that,
like those of other cultural backgrounds, any Roma who have immigrated to the USA have
been culturally subsumed into the proverbial “melting pot.” In fact, Hancock asserts, such
186 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
“melting” has been “strenuously resisted” by the Roma, who wish to retain their heritage while still finding a place within the American society (Hancock, Pariah 222). Peter Godwin provides a typical example: he tells of meeting Kelly Marks, a young American Rom who was dressed in typical American clothes, who suggested that, though he and his family do not display any outward signs of being “Gypsies,” such as earrings, bandannas, or violins—not to mention that they were not involved in stealing babies or picking pockets, “inside we’re pure
Rom” (Godwin 101). This statement calls into question the meaning of his phrase: he implies that traditions of dress or behavior may not be essential to the Romani character, but what is it that constitutes a “pure” identity as a member of the Romanies?
Surely, Kelly Marks’s definition must differ from those of elder generations of Roma; part of this may be because many of the traditional ways of the group have external signs, which Marks has suppressed or rejected. Many of these ways are not generally known outside the Romany circle, despite their being written about in various publications, because these are hardly read except by those with a special interest, or have assigned research to do. As I have already mentioned, many of the Gypsy figure’s attributes are not actually traditional Romany ways—for example, their fortune-telling is only performed for the gad źé to see; Kanwar states that “Roma believe in magic and healing powers, but telling fortunes for one another is considered bee-baxt , or very bad luck” (1287). Despite the Western view that the Roma are highly superstitious in other ways, especially in their rituals of marimé purity, they consider fortune-telling as nothing but a trick designed to cheat gullible or self-indulgently nostalgic
Whites out of some money (Sonneman 127). Indeed, as Hollandsworth reports of Texan
Romanies, it is often the financial mainstay of the Romany communities (88).
Crime reporter Bob Norman asserts that this is maintained because the Romany culture
“is based on ripping the hell of the gadje” (“Gypsies, Cops, and Thieves”). However, it is clear that not all fortune-tellers are swindlers in the sense he means; for one thing, from what I read, the client is seldom charged a very high price. Norman, in making his claim, focuses on recent
187 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow instances of the traditional scam called the Big Trick, or hokkano baro , which is indeed a widespread ploy with a long history, described as far back as 1613 by Cervantes, which still is in active use today with only minor details changed (see, for example, Hollandsworth 86).
Nevertheless, few clients, I hope, are so credulous as to believe that fortune-telling has any legitimately magical merit; many must wish to participate in such activities because of the thrill of being part of such a long and exotically romantic tradition, of which they have heard so much.
Romany Othering: a Reciprocally Negative Stereotype
This dissertation attests to the racism that most settled groups have shown to the
Romanies. Perhaps in retaliation, the Romanies are said to consider the gad źé unclean and untrustworthy. As explained by Borrow in The Zincali :
The greatest crimes, according to the Gypsy code, were a quarrelsome disposition,
and revealing the secrets of the brotherhood. By this code the members were
forbidden to eat, drink, or sleep in the house of a Busno, which signifies any
person who is not of the sect of the Gypsies, or to marry out of that sect; they were
likewise not to teach the language of Roma to any but those who, by birth or
inauguration, belonged to that sect […]. (29)
In general, the writings of most other researchers, including the Rom Ian Hancock, back these statements up, while providing many more details. The data given by non-Romany investigators such as Peter Godwin (77) also agree, though gathered from Eastern European
Romanies who are most unlikely to be acquainted with specifics of Borrow’s and other writers’ claims, and so they seem to substantiate the claims by their very similarity.
With these ideas in mind, the welcome that Lavengro/Borrow received at the hands of his
Romany pals is still more difficult to accept as literally true. Many Romanies, if we may trust
Borrow’s accounts, either thought Borrow was one of them, or were favorably impressed with
188 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow his mastery of the language; it is hard to reconcile both accounts of Borrow’s, for if the Romanies really believed in these laws, and detected a Romany Rai (modern meaning), they would be more prone to shock and anger than delight—unless it was delight at a prime chance to hoodwink a gullible White Gypsy poser. In Lavengro , according to Jasper Petulengro’s mother in law, Mrs.
Herne, Lavengro is not the first gad źo to whom Jasper has befriended and taught Romani to; once before this practice ruined her chance of stealing a farmer’s pigs when the supposedly secret communication between Mrs. Herne and her sister was betrayed by one of Jasper’s gad źé pupils
(Vol. 1 224). She maintains that such an action is against Romany law and takes great exception to it:
[… N]ot whilst I am here shall this gorgio learn Rommany. A pretty
manoeuvre, truly; and what would be the end of it? […Y]ou had better be
moving off, my gorgio; hang you for a keen one, sitting there by the fire, and
stealing my language before my face. (Lavengro Vol.1 223)
She is already outraged, but when Mrs. Petulengro presently offers her own sister, Ursula, to
Borrow as his wife, Mrs. Herne’s tolerance is exhausted, and she leaves her son in law’s group of Romanies to live with her own relatives.
You say you like him: in that we differs; I hates the gorgio, and would like,
speaking Romanly, to mix a little poison with his waters […] In all kinds of
weather have we lived together; but now we are parted. I goes
broken-hearted—I can’t keep you company; ye are no longer Rommany. To
gain a bad brother, ye have lost a good mother. ( Lavengro Vol. 1 229)
The feeling of disgust for the ways and persons of the gad źé is, according to numerous
reports, not only authentic, but also close to universal among the Romanies (see Fonseca).
Non-Romanies are seen as unclean and any contact is polluting, resulting in a state of
marhime , or contamination. Perhaps Borrow is trying to suggest that the ways and thoughts
of the younger generation are drifting away from the more conservative ones of their elders,
189 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow but it is unlikely that they would have entirely reversed themselves to the extent that Mrs.
Petulengro’s words suggest. Either Mrs. Petulengro was needling her mother by making the suggestion, or else she was joking; or else Borrow simply made it up. Mrs. Herne’s attitude towards George Borrow, Hancock remarks, may reflect the most common opinion of the pretending Rom, instead of being, as Borrow seems to indicate, almost unique. The same dislike of non-Romanies seems to be behind Jasper’s reply when Borrow, meeting him for the second time of his life, asks if he is staying in the town. “Not in the town; the like of us don’t find it exactly wholesome to stay in towns, we keep abroad.” (55) The motivation for this is probably a sense of prudence as well as a dislike for the gad źé’s ways. This feeling of deep revulsion towards the gad źé continues to the present day, and it represents here another strong
reason to doubt that Borrow was treated with such thorough respect and affection by nearly
all the Romanies he met.
Based on the reports of Fonseca and Hancock, as well as a number of others, regarding
the way that Romanies tend to interact with well-meaning outsiders, and the nature of their
culture, one can detect a number of further points in Borrow’s narratives which are similar
enough to suggest that Borrow was less in-the-know regarding Romany culture than he imagined
himself to be. As we have seen, for instance, the Romany culture does not feature kings, even
supposing all its members were in the same area and could cater to a royal family’s wishes; each
group supposedly has a leader of some sort, however. During the same conversation when Jasper
and Lavengro first become intimately acquainted, though, Jasper intimates that he is no ordinary
Romany.
“I am Pharaoh.” […]
“And you are what is called a Gypsy King?”
“Ay, ay; a Rommany Kral .”
“Are there other kings?”
190 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
“Those who call themselves so; but the true Pharaoh is Petulengro.” ( Lavengro
Vol. 1 218-220)
Jasper goes on to explain that his “fathers” came from Egypt (220). It is unclear whether he
really believes this, or is simply deceiving Lavengro. At any rate, it does not appear that
Lavengro actually believes Jasper to be the king of all Romanies, despite Japser’s claim.77
Numerous other gad źé reporters who have sought information about the Romany culture have
also been put off by false answers, as noted below.
When the public was first gaining reliable information about Romany culture,
Borrow’s account was its only resource. For the Romanies of Borrow’s novels, the gad źé are seen as sources of income and of potential danger, but the virulent hatred of Mrs. Herne seems to be unique among the Romany characters. It appears to be a relic of harder times that subsequent generations, such as that of “Jasper” and his children (hardly mentioned in the novels, it is true), have already learned to overcome, perhaps due to being better adjusted to life in England and being better acclimatized.
At the time when Borrow and the other Rais were writing, the us/them dichotomy of
Roma/ gad źé seems to be quite simple, for there was such a majority of White people in
England that such a “Black and White” distinction was essentially enough to be comprised of
just these two groups. 78 Though some “races” (as they were considered at the time) such as the Irish were present, the Romanies probably saw them as being too similar to the English to draw any distinction. Indeed, for all the history of the Gypsy image, speaking generally, the
Roma/ gad źé distinction seems to have been sufficiently clear to distinguish between the only
two dominant groups present.
Since the nineteenth century, many more researchers have gained far greater insight into
Romany culture, and there are presently Romani scholars who explain their own culture quite
candidly, so that those interested in modern attitudes can gain a fuller understanding of the
Roma. In present-day America, perhaps more so than in any other land, there is naturally a
191 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow great variety of visibly-different races, but despite this fact, I have not encountered any reports that draw any clearer distinction between the various nationalities or ethnicities than before: the two groups are still “us” and “them,” as far as I can discover (see Petrova for a discussion of this dichotomy). For this reason, then, I suggest that the Roma are not, strictly speaking, racists; instead, they are what we might term otherists . However, though the animus that some Roma still feel is not seemingly directed at a single race, its characteristics are much like those of racists from other backgrounds, so perhaps the effect is more or less the same.
The us/them stance, from such a small minority, may seem to others exaggeratedly selfish and myopic, but it is surely a key factor in the continued survival of the Roma as a cultural group. Consider this passage from Anne Sutherland’s article “The American Rom,” which Joy Kanwar quotes in her lucid discourse on “Romani Law in America:”
Economic relations between Rom are based on co-operation and mutual aid,
and it is generally considered immoral to earn money from other Rom. The
gaje are the only legitimate source of income and skill in extracting money
from them is highly valued in Rom society. (21, qtd. Kanwar 1287) 79
This reads suspiciously as if the Roma were targeting the gad źé as crime victims, but as I
show below, this is more likely an indication of legitimate business dealings with them, and
that the Roma do not wish to exploit their own people, as if they were all a sort of extended
family. If the above were describing a specific race instead of the gad źé, the passage would
come across as extremely racist, but since the gad źé group entails all other races that live in
America, it might instead be taken as actually rather broad-minded.
Kanwar also provides the most thorough and the clearest exposition of the complex
concept of marimé that I have found (I adopt Fraser’s spelling, explained 245). She portrays
this concept of “pollution” and purity, applied to specific body parts, situations, and
conditions as a key to the Romani people’s solidarity and cultural survival, since it
192 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow encourages this sort of otherism. Because the gad źé do not follow these ritual laws of purity,
they are seen as all being polluted (Hancock “On the Origin”) and, it seems, rather vile: a
condition that the Roma themselves are loath to experience. However, several writers have
observed that gadji who marry Roms can, by observing the purity rituals, become pure in the
eyes of the Romanies (O’Nions; Hancock, Introduction 10). Several writers, including
Kanwar and Fonseca, have claimed a gadjikane jail as the Roma’s ultimate place of
loathsome horror, “since they have no right to their own food, they must sleep in the same
room with a toilet,” and also because “being imprisoned in a gaje jail would certainly make
the men marimé ” (Kanwar 1295).
To modern Americans, of course, influenced by a spirit of modernism and an
enthusiasm for being “civilized,” such a superstitious belief that arbitrarily holds newborns to
be marimé but the time between being six weeks old until marriage as a period of being
incorruptibly vuzo , or pure (1280), is clearly too primitive and irrational to accept. An
American White who seriously insisted, for example, that walking under a ladder or having a
black cat cross his path had brought him bad luck would probably be regarded as being
mentally disturbed, or else hopelessly naïve.
We have seen that when Americans encounter Romanies in the flesh, it is usually in
the context of fortune-telling, though this is hardly an experience that most people ever have.
Though some must come for the thrill of experiencing a storybook scene in real life, the fact
is that many gullible and superstitious people still remain mentally “uncivilized” in this way,
and believe, or half-believe, in Gypsy fortune-tellers’ predictions, as in horoscopes and The
National Enquirer ’s headlines. Though it is true that the bulk of these fortune-tellers’ clients
may see this activity as nothing but entertainment, some take it very seriously; the White
House used to have a regular clairvoyant on staff, after all. Many of these people, as Bob
Norman reports, are elderly women, often widows (“Gypsies, Cops, and Thieves”).
Fortune-tellers clearly do play heavily into the traditional Gypsy stereotype, as noted
193 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow already, and so this false image is the only one that such clientele encounter. Obviously, this cannot but color gadjikane impressions of modern Romanies. People who believe in these
pretenders are often willing to tell them all the sordid and miserable facts of their lives. When
those earnest seekers of information describe “incest, adultery, homicide, unethical business
practice, or a myriad of other anti-social behaviors” as part of their troubling situations, it is
frequently “difficult to convince [a Romni that] there are non-Gypsies who do not commit”
such acts, so repugnant to the Romanies’ sensibilities (Sway 88, qtg. Kanwar 1287-8).
Thus we can see that the same brief and stylized encounters between lying Romani
women and credulous gad źé that skew the non-Romany view of the Other also provides one of the few personal experiences that the fortune-tellers have of the gad źé. Clearly, such a theater of interaction provides a very limited chance for clear-sighted mutual understanding, as the Romni is acting unnaturally while the gad źé are not representative of what we may call
normal America. Kanwar indicates that “this business practice in itself is enough to dissuade
Roma from leaving the community for the gaje world” (1288) if they were ever tempted to
defect to the larger community of Americans. She seems to be indicating that this sort of
rather maudlin encounter leads the Romani people to conclude that such troubled, confused,
and sinful people are representative of the great majority of the population. However, it
should be remembered that most Roms also deal with the public in such businesses as selling
used cars and dealing in scrap iron, as nearly all reporters on modern Romanies profess.
From years of research, I have come to a general conclusion about the modern
“business practice” techniques and policies, gleaned from scores of articles and books. To all appearances, the Romanies are truly not the exaggerated, criminally-minded figures of literature, and indeed relatively few of them are guilty of major crimes. Certainly, physical violence is strongly tabooed in Romaniya , the “way of the Rom,” a Romani term that is used
by Vlax Romanies for their code of laws (Kanwar 1275). Further, as Hancock declares to his
readers,
194 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
There are hundreds of thousands of Gypsies in the United States who deplore
the illegal activities of those who make the news, and who make a clear
distinction between themselves and “ le Rom kaj choren ,” i.e. Gypsies who
steal, and there are hundreds of thousands who try to make a decent and
honest living in the face of adversity. ( Pariah 218-9)
At times, as mentioned elsewhere, the Roma play into the stereotype in order to afford
themselves some benefit or protection, and may therefore wish to appear criminals, but
Hancock’s statement makes it appear as if they are essentially bluffing.
Kanwar provides reinforcement of the idea: “Renegades, who are no longer either governed by Romaniya or considered Rom, are responsible for most serious crimes, which are unfortunately ascribed to Roma in general by gaje society” (1268). This statement appears to avoid specifying that other Roma are still responsible for some serious crimes and other minor ones, though. Also, neither Kanwar nor Hancock here seem to be addressing many serious charges of scamming the public: for example, by bringing
a Gypsy child into a jewelry store, hav[ing] him swallow jewelry while they
were talking to the clerk, and later remov[ing] the jewelry from the child's
feces [or telling] homeowners, usually elderly ones, that they were repair-men
who could seal roofs and repair driveways; after the money changed hands,
they'd spray aluminum paint or cheap motor oil over the roof or driveway and
then be long gone by the time it washed off. (Hollandsworth 88)
However, the overall impression is that, despite the obvious facts that “The association of
Gypsies with crime is deep-rooted” and that “Gypsies have often turned to theft in order to
survive in a universally hostile environment,” a majority of this association “is the result of
exploitation of a stereotype by a popular press which is less interested in the honest Gypsies
who have not been equipped to challenge this misrepresentation” ( Pariah Chapter 14). The
very fact that, as Hancock suggests, there is a specific phrase for criminal Romanies in the
195 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
Romani language, impresses readers with the idea that even among the Roma there is a mental division between “us” and “them,” specifically distinguishing between lawful and unlawful members of the larger group.
Nevertheless, despite such assurances, it is still apparent that in some, and perhaps many, cases, fortune-tellers are on the lookout for victims. Hollandsworth describes those of
Dallas, Texas, as the main breadwinners of the Romany communities there. Most customers tend to come for entertainment, but others seem desperate, and are therefore willing to suspend their civilized disbelief in the supernatural in hopes of some comfort.
The fortune-tellers’ goal was to convince their customers that their lives were
plagued by a curse—and that only the fortune-tellers had the power to remove
it. Most customers came to the parlors out of curiosity. […However,] every
now and then there were clients who were so emotionally unbalanced or
desperately unhappy that they would do just about anything for a little peace.
The fortune-teller could sense the desperation the moment such a client
arrived. (91)
In such cases, the vulnerable client would be treated to a modern-day variation on the hokkano baro , which may be compared to those described above; reporters on “Gypsy crime” indicate that such techniques are, indeed, still popular among these criminals.
The fortune-teller would give her client an egg to put on her stomach for a
period of time, then crack it open. A master of sleight of hand, she would slip
a felt spider in the yolk to show the client that an evil spirit had entered her life.
Upon seeing it, the fortune-teller would go into a frenzy, chanting, “There is
evil in your body! Your life and your money are cursed!” It was astonishing
how many gadje would give their “cursed” money to a fortune-teller to be put
in a bag and burned or buried or flushed down a commode—unaware that the
fortune-teller had switched the bag and was really disposing of a bag filled
196 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
with paper. (91-2)
With the continuance of such trickery, and the indications that fortune-telling is still a mainstay of the Romanies’ finances today, one must wonder to what degree Hancock and
Kanwar are glossing over the truth. Would they consider such tricksters “renegades” and assume they are rejected by those hundreds of thousands of better-behaved Romanies, or are these Texan and Floridian communities exceptions to the rule? Or are the “hundreds of thousands” in fact in the minority? It is hard to be sure, but at least it appears at least somewhat reassuring that there is an element of the American Romanies which considers crime, and criminals, beneath their dignity.
Playing Into and Playing Against the Gypsy Image: Public Relations and Ambivalence
Contemporary American Romanies, according to modern researchers and activists, sometimes embrace and at other times reject aspects of the Gypsy image, as suits the situation.
One way to do this is by choosing whether or not to adopt such traditional trappings as Marks mentions above: if the Romani person’s physical appearance and behavior conform to the public image of the Gypsy disseminated today by movies and television, it is easy to believe the masquerade. Modern fortune-tellers play heavily into this image intentionally to add to clients’ feeling of living a legend. Toby Sonneman discusses this and related role-playing in her excellent article on the Gypsy image, “Dark Mysterious Wanderers.” She quotes Silverman as specifying the deliberate affectation of a foreign accent as one of the techniques of Romani women who wish to exploit the stereotype to seem to clients “the ideal fortuneteller” (127, quoting Carol Silverman, “Pollution and Power” 386). Another way in which the Romanies sometimes play into the stereotype is to use various Gypsy attributes for leverage. Hancock cites two recent examples of Gypsies threatening targets of their personal animus with a “gypsy curse:” a concept perhaps transferred from the idea of Egyptian curses on tombs of King
Tutankhamen and such (“Romance vs. Reality”). Sonneman also demonstrates, by quoting
197 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow such writers as Carol Silverman and Anne Sutherland, that by portraying himself as a rom baro or “Gypsy king,” a Rom can sometimes be afforded greater respect and other advantages
(127). 80 Further, as Sonneman discovered from personal correspondence with a Romni,
[…] they can occasionally serve to elicit sympathy for Gypsies who fall victim
to discrimination or persecution. Romantic images may help non-Gypsy
couples who adopt Gypsy children from Romanian orphanages ‘to appreciate
their Gypsy children,’ she suggests […] ‘So don’t rock the boat.’ Thus, she
reveals that many Gypsies may want to retain romantic metaphors because
they have proven useful. (129)
On the other hand, sometimes Romani people wish to distance themselves from identification as “Gypsies.” By removing or explaining away any telltale signs of the Gypsy, they can remain unrecognized or misidentified when necessary. Dimitrina Petrova, in her valuable article “The Roma: Between a Myth and the Future,” suggests that the census figures she discusses may be unreliable when regarding the Roma, because “Roma in some countries are reluctant to reveal their identity” (115). Similarly, when people, including authority figures such as police officers or immigration officials, ask about their ethnicity, for instance, some
Roma defensively call themselves Greeks or Spaniards, or whatever local minority is present in the area, instead of Romanies (Hancock Pariah 217; Sonneman 129 quoting Silverman,
“Everyday Drama” 382). With the still-extant laws in some areas against Gypsy activities and
in some cases even simply being a Gypsy, it is hardly surprising that Romanies would wish to
reduce the antagonism they experience from local officials.
Alternately, by using visible signs of non-Gypsy identity or by avoiding such signs of
being a Romani person, and instead suggesting a less-stigmatized minority as their own,
Romani people may be able to claim certain rights that they fear would be denied if they were
labeled as Gypsies. Anthony Goldston specifies that in Eastern Europe “Roma […] are
routinely denied access to housing, jobs, restaurants, bars, and even health care simply because
198 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow of their ethnicity” (157); this is also true elsewhere, including the United States. 81 Romanies are aware of some telltale signs that are impossible to disguise, such as their skin color, but by dissembling they are sometimes able to explain these signs away, misdirecting others. They may be able, also, to gain the confidence of potential gad źé customers who might be otherwise put off—whether for legitimate services, or for fraudulent purposes, such as those that fall in the province of “Gypsy crime” investigators and reporters; in the latter case, appearing to be other than a Gypsy might serve to encourage clients to let their guards down, so that a trick has a better chance of coming off.
Perhaps, whenever Romanies wish to misdirect or deny Romani identity by claiming or pretending to belong to an alternative ethnicity, they are hoping to adjust other people’s perceptions so that the visible traits people see are in a sense ‘rerouted’ to refer to these other nationalities or ethnicities instead. For instance, a Romani person may claim that his or her dark skin is actually because they are members of a different dark-skinned race. In other words, they may be attempting to reassign the details of their own appearance and actions to different, more culturally-accepted referents.
People who take advantage of the image might see in others’ dream of equal Romani rights the loss of one of their key advantages in relating to non-Romanies. Therefore, we might expect that two groups of Romanies—the strongly traditional and (to the Western mind) superstitious, and the intentional image-manipulators—to resist the achievement of the stated objectives of some of the Romani Rights leaders. That is to say, they might well equate “equal rights” with blending in and losing their traditions, mingling their ways with those of the
“polluted” and “contaminated” (e. g. marimé ) gad źé.
Gypsy Crime Task Forces, Crime Reporters, and their Victims
Individuals are often biased against the Romanies, but often whole governments discriminate against them as well. It appears at times that laws are written specifically to trap
199 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow the non-sedentary Roma and other travelers in order to punish them, frequently evicting people from their residences with brutal force (for British examples, see Gmelch and Gmelch 51-2), and as Hancock is fond of reminding readers, the Gypsy is the only ethnic group still named in
American laws of various areas ( Pariah Chapter 13)—this is only true, however, if it can be demonstrated that by “gypsies,” a term used in many such laws, the Romanies are actually the intended group, instead of merely vagabonds in a more general way: something that Hancock does not adequately prove. In continental Europe and the United Kingdom, with different social situations and less available land than the United States, as well as a more visible population of Roma and fewer of them admitting their ethnicity, conditions are much more dangerous, and there is much more blatant discrimination at all levels, from the government’s lawmakers and law enforcers to common citizens.
When Romanies in America are identified by members of the general public, they’re typically tagged as Gypsies by a small number of people: often, by their victims. 82 The only
way that a larger number of Americans is likely to learn about the encounter is if they were
badly behaved, in which case, the story is likely to attract the attention of the press. As
Hancock has established, reporters have shown the tendency to romanticize or sensationalize
these events, frequently identifying the culprits as “gypsies” (with a lower case “g”) and
calling in age-old stereotypical references to fill out their stories. In describing this tendency,
Hancock indicates that such stereotypes are largely based on the influential writings of
George Borrow:
Journalists invariably tend to exploit the fictitious image of Gypsies, catering to
a public familiar only with the Borrovian stereotype they help sustain, and fail to
investigate in their reports the real problems which Gypsies must deal with on a
day-to-day basis. ( Pariah Introduction)
When the event involves any type of scam or deception—the United States
government’s Federal Bureau of Investigation has emphasized specific trends in driveway
200 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow repaving and roof-retiling rip-offs (Mazzone 7)—the media, as well as the victims, will frequently refer to the operation as a “gyp.” Using this term seems redundant, in a way, because it is a short form of “gypsy,” and such crimes are by now closely related to the “Gypsy” population in people’s minds: the language suggests that anything these people do must, by definition, be a “gyp.” The result is that, even when Americans are notified to the presence of the Roma, it is typically through this kind of racist, essentialist story—so that the myth predominates over the fact that there is a population of such humans residing in America. For people who take the Gypsy image for granted, firsthand experience is often insufficient to dispel the haze of fantasy, because the elements that allow them to recognize the Roma are the same points that seem to verify the image’s authenticity.
This is clearly another case of misconfirmed preconception, though there is a difference between this and most other cases. Since the Gypsies are primarily identified, typically by small groups of individuals, by their proclivity to “gyp,” the great majority of Americans never achieve personal confirmation, or disconfirmation, of the Gypsy image at all. Those whom the media do reach directly only encounter a biased account by people whose understanding of
Roma culture is hardly any better than their own, despite a brief encounter, and then only on one aspect of the people—one which nearly anyone would rightly consider a negative aspect.
The Gypsy image is alive in American culture, through myriad references and stories so numerous as to constitute a veritable tradition of storytelling—a downright legend. This is the presumption that most Americans hold in their minds before reading such journalism. They read stories written by people who have themselves bought into the myth, and who have enhanced their story with references to it, and who have emphasized the present case’s continuities with the stereotype, and who have in fact written an article that resembles folklore rather than news; naturally, with so much corroboration, the tendency is to accept this material as accurate. Naturally, average Americans will take such stories as confirmation of the entire myth, saying: “I always thought those gypsies were con artists!”
201 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
There is a real dilemma of any minority group that is trying to win the acceptance of the
majority within a host country. It is evident that humans have a predilection for discriminating
between “us” and “them:” for Othering. To a large degree, we all have to conform to cultural
norms, if we want to be accepted as a member of a larger group. When a cultural group yearns
for inclusion, there comes the troubling question of how much to minimize its social
idiosyncrasies in public, in order to avoid discrimination. In the USA, minority groups’ cultural
practices and traditions are tolerated as long as the law is not violated. Traditions of dress and
grooming may be easily suppressed, for the purpose of fitting in, but perhaps for some that
would feel like denying the Roma heritage they share, and that is not comfortable to do. And
deeper traditions, such as traditional Roma religious beliefs, can hardly be shorn without
rejecting the whole culture—too much of a sacrifice, even for modernized Roms who have left
off wandering and use cell phones, such as those described by Godwin (1).
One wonders to what degree ripping off the gad źé counts as a Roma tradition. Gary
Mazzone, of the United States FBI, asserts that Travelers and Gypsies in America who break
the law “generally carry on criminal traditions that have evolved over many generations” (6).
Mazzone is here recalling a common assumption of the gad źé, but in this case, it is documented as an accurate one, at least in some cases. From the historical evidence, and corroboration from the literature, we know that fortune telling and the hokkano baro are in
essence unchanged from the Romanies’ early days in Europe until now, so they appear to be
quite genuine and venerable traditions. Thievery from the non-Romanies, for whatever reason,
began in 1417 at least, and can be shown to have continued until now. From an early age,
young daughters of fortune tellers know that penning dukkerin is nothing but a sham, and
learn the “shtick.” Numerous recent reports from many areas agree that, among Romany
communities that have not been “mainstreamed,” fortune-telling is the mainstay of their
group economy.
Probably, most Americans would agree with Mazzone that, even if the “gyp” is a
202 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow cultural tradition among the Romanies, it is not a socially acceptable one, and ought not be tolerated by the “host” culture’s law enforcers, despite the risk of stifling the Gypsy heritage, since it encroaches on the rights of “law-abiding” and “ordinary” Americans. Perhaps such a
“business” would be considered a legitimate source of income if only there were a disclaimer provided, similar to those found on play money or game tokens: ‘this business is provided for entertainment purposes only; no guarantee of predictions’ accuracy is made or implied.’
Perhaps this would even do little to harm the potential for fortune tellers to make money, as self-avowed civilized gad źé people think themselves above such superstitious behavior, and
may well rationalize with themselves that they ‘don’t really believe there’s anything to this, but
it is so enjoyable and titillating’ that they want to try it anyhow. This is just the attitude of the
would-be sophisticated clients of the male fortuneteller in the comedy-of-manners short story
“Lord Alfred Savile’s Crime” by the Irish celebrity Oscar Wilde. 83
Hancock reminds his readers that, although “Gypsy criminals” (who, as even Dennis
Marlock admits, are not always members of the Romani cultural group) get bounteous attention from law officers and the press, “Gypsy priests and ministers don’t ever seem to generate media interest” ( Pariah Chapter 15). He quotes David Nemeth’s book The Gypsy
American: An Ethnographic Study :
[…] the popular Gypsy motif has been so resistant to change over the decades that
recent Gypsy-organized political efforts to erase its influence over the public
mind seems wasted […] some Gypsy activists have been more than anxious to
distance themselves from the stereotype [… but] the tactic must fail because it
only fuels non-Gypsy skepticism. (195-6 qtd. in Hancock, Introduction 12)
Here, Nemeth comes close to suggesting that the Gypsy image that inhabits the Western mind is so persuasive and powerful that, whenever it is mentioned or referred to, it immediately tends to overcome any other protestations of its falsity, or any alternative image that is proposed. The mere mention of the term “Gypsy” quenches further thought.
203 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
This leads to the problem of how to spread a greater awareness of the characteristics of true Romani identity. Just spreading this information presents particular challenges, for most
Americans do not know the word Romani or its other forms, and those who wish to teach readers about the Romani culture often prefer to avoid use of the word Gypsy. It is hard,
therefore, to explain this cultural group without calling the false image to mind. In most of the
available information that introduce the Roma, or at least attempt or pretend to introduce them,
the term (allowing for variant spellings and variations) is immediately explained as being
equivalent to the other, better-known term. This even is true at broad levels of international
policy. For instance, using an alternate spelling of Roma which is preferred by some, Jennifer
Tanaka relates that “In response to the recommendations put forth by Rroma associations, the
Council of Europe recently approved the use of ‘Rroma (Gypsies)’ in its official documents”
(rroma.htm). 84
Apparently, public awareness of the Roma is so slight that writers feel it necessary to
explain who they are every time the group is mentioned; yet this fleeting and well-intended
explanation dooms the following defense or exposition about real Romani culture to failure.
On the other hand, since people do not usually know who the Roma are without this help, it is
tempting simply to avoid mentioning the word Gypsy , in an attempt to avoid evoking that
stigmatic image at all. However, this has its problems as well, for if the public hears about the
group objectively in this way, no matter how positive or sympathetic an impression the new
image is that is formed, its members will feel cheated and angry when they undertake any
independent research. Such a technique would not work well in the present case, I believe,
because the expectations for the Gypsies are so strongly negative, and the Romanies are still
present in American society: in fact, the backlash from such a fiasco would probably result in
increased levels of racism.
Even leading proponents of the Romani cause appear to have ambivalent feelings about
this problem of the group’s various labels. Ian Hancock, in particular, has seemingly changed
204 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow his policy on the words he uses when referring to this group. In numerous articles, Dr. Hancock articulates the significance between the various terms that are used, explaining that the term
“gypsy” ought to be capitalized, since it was, from the start, a shortened form of Egyptian (for example, in “Romance” 105). He explains elsewhere that Romani advocates have demanded this second requirement of certain newspapers, with spotty results (“The Roma: Myth and
Reality 98-99). Further, Hancock uses “Gypsy” as his main term for his ethnic group in many articles of his own. However, he often deplores the name Gypsy as being an objectionable exonym (see below). This discrepancy might be claimed to be either the result of an inconsistent policy, or the result of a change of mind. It is likely that he wishes to make the first of these points because, as Tony Wesolowsky explains, “[t]oday, most descendants of the original nomads still call themselves Gypsies.” (12) Therefore, that name is very hard to avoid, and so the capital-G policy is necessary to articulate, though when trying to disseminate information to non-Romani people it is perhaps better to use another, distancing the people from the reputation.
As Hancock insists, “[a] traditional, fictional image of the Gypsy, of non-Gypsy origin, has emerged and has become so deeply entrenched in the popular mind that the real thing remains unseen” ( Pariah Chapter 15). He specifies that “In the United States and Canada, the average citizen is likely to think that there are no Gypsies in those countries at all. They never see the campfires and waggons they associate with Gypsies, or the violin-toting individuals sporting earrings, embroidered vests and tambourines” ( Pariah Chapter 15).
With this consideration in mind, it seems reasonable to specify several different types of encounters that are likely to occur when Americans meet Romanies. If North American gad źé encounter Romanies, with no prior awareness of who they are, they will be wholly
unsuspected of being Romanies—as long as there are no stereotypical indications of
Gypsihood. However, if markings of the image are in view, such as a telltale headscarf or an act
of fortune telling, the visible evidence will convince the onlooker that the whole raft of Gypsy
205 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow attributes is both true and present in the individual Roma persons in question. On the other hand, if a North American is expecting to meet a Romany, and knows, very likely from a quick
Internet search of the term, that a Romany is “the same thing” as a Gypsy (with the attendant expectations taught by the media), the onlooker will automatically assume that the person embodies all of the Gypsy attributes, unless the Roma in question seem to have obvious traits that better match a different stereotype.
A related point that Hancock makes repeatedly is that the term “Gypsy” and its related forms are of gad źé origin:
For the first five centuries after the Romani presence was first noted in the
West, Europeans were…completely baffled by the newcomers…about whose
identity they offered a multitude of incorrect hypotheses [...]. [T]he words
“Gypsy”, “Gitano”, “Gyphtos”, “Sipsiwn,” “Gitan” and several more in
various languages derive from Egyptian (Introduction 2-3) .
In another paper addressing the misrepresentation of Romanies by the media, he reiterates, in a
different context:
The reasons for anti-Gypsyism are complex, but originate not only in a
difference in skin-color, language and dress, but also in the early erroneous
identification of them with the Muslim threat (some names still applied to
Romanies today reflect this, including “Tatar,” “Turk,” “Saracen” and even
“Egyptian,” from which the English misnomer “Gypsy” derives). (“Romani
Population in Europe” 1)
However, Fraser’s collection of documents suggests the likelihood that the Romani
pioneers invented this notion themselves, for use as a cover story. Even if it was not a Romany
invention, the story was still repeated by them many times during that same era. Further, in
their continuing use of the term Gypsy and so on, the story has been effectively endorsed by
them for centuries, to the point that Ambrose Petulengro, Borrow’s Romany pal, asserted its
206 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow truth, and claimed that his parents had taught him so.
Hancock quotes Fraser’s The Gypsies , and other publications by the same scholar, in his own articles. Hancock’s “Borrow’s Romani” even reprints some of Fraser’s words in his satisfying conclusion section, appearing to respect and endorse Fraser’s opinions. Since
Hancock seems to respect Fraser, curious and concerned readers are likely to read his books with care and discover the Romanies’ complicity in spreading—even to the present day—this false image. One can certainly appreciate Dr. Hancock’s wish to distance his people from the
Gypsy stereotype, because it clearly foils most current attempts to redefine the Roma in the present day. However, making statements that seem to go against the historical evidence seems to be counterproductive. Hancock is incensed at irresponsible reporters’ frequent anti-Romany bias. He does not mention an article pointed out by Royce Turner:
The Sun headed a story ‘Gypocrite!’ in December 1990, with the smaller heading:
‘Don't brand us all thieving gypsies says thieving gypsy’ [12]. That story was
about Hughie Smith, leader of the National Gypsy Council. He had complained
about a cartoon strip in Viz called ‘The Thieving Gypsy Bastards’. This was a slur,
he believed. Then Smith himself was convicted of handling stolen goods. (41)
The “slur” was admittedly outrageously unfair to many Romanies, but it revealed
(unless the conviction was unjust) that the leader of the National Gypsy Council had earned at least part of it. 85 Naturally, Hancock would not prefer to bring this story to light, since it seems
to contradict his arguments: Smith’s actions tend to worsen the public image of Gypsies.
Further, this episode certainly does not support Dr. Hancock’s arguments about how the press
tends to pillory the Gypsies. However, Hancock seems to be familiar with Smith, since he
quotes him in another context ( Pariah Chapter 13), and it is likely that he is aware of the above situation. However, perhaps it would be prudent for Dr. Hancock to mention, as I am currently doing, that this sort of thing happens sometimes, making Romani rights activists’ work that much harder. Indeed, when the leader of such a group—it is hardly the only organization with
207 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow such a comprehensive-sounding name—is shown to be a hypocrite, his whole group begins to seem suspect.
Smith’s case is perhaps quite similar to that of some of the very first Roma to enter
Western Europe, whose opportunity of instilling in the local populace a positive impression was ruined for centuries when certain members of their groups, for whatever reasons, got caught stealing. Omitting mention of such occurrences despite their true existence, as Dr.
Hancock does here, and possibly elsewhere (though I cannot pretend to have read all of his publications), makes the writer himself seem partial and biased.
Hancock has also made at least one radical change in his attitudes, but without acknowledging the shift, with the effect that his earlier and later arguments strongly conflict. In his 1981 article “Talking Back,” Hancock is discussing his perceived need for the Romanies to publish their own accounts in Romany periodicals and conferences, pointing out false
“gadjikane ” accusations and misperceptions; he clearly wants to provide a strong and convincing finish to his article:
The gadje know more about us today than they ever have, and to keep ahead we
must study our own history and make our own pronouncements where and
when they concern us. This is no cultural sellout […]. It is necessary if we are to
gain respect. It is necessary if we are to stop being gypsies and start being Rom.
(20, emphasis added)
This final statement, which apparently implies that the Romanies should shed the gad źé’s false images of them and be simply the Roma, for the world to witness, is not specifically explained or prepared for. Hancock, along with other Romani spokesmen like himself, as he has stated earlier in the article, “can maintain our integrity by making accurate information available to the gadjikane scholars, and to the journalists, so that it is obtained at first hand, rather than via the garbled ramblings of Borrow, Bercovici, Maas and others” (20). In this article, Borrow lists a number of the popular misconceptions arising when people conflate the Gypsy image with
208 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow the Roma’s actuality. He does not specifically mention criminal activity, but instead scorns the entire body of misinformation, mentioning certain elements selected for their relevancy to his argument, such as the “nonsense” that groups of Roma from different countries can simply greet each other in a common tongue and spontaneously beginning a joyful and shared dance
(15).
In 2004, in a 180-degree change in attitude, an incensed Hancock wrote another article,
“Gypsy Mafia, Romani Saints: The Racial Profiling of Romani Americans,” in which he writes,
The increase in racial profiling by the police directed at Romani Americans has
led to some fumbling attempts on the part of their spokesmen to cover their
bigotry by creating their own distinction between “Gypsy” and “Romani,” on
the model of the distinction between “Mafia” and “Italian.” But it’s not
working.
This is the article’s first paragraph; subsequently, Hancock repeatedly asserts the identity of the two contested terms: “Romanies (‘Gypsies’)”, a distinction that he makes twice in slightly different forms at the beginning of the article; thereafter, it appears that Hancock alternates rather randomly between the two as if there were really no important difference; he also calls the distinction “an entirely spurious distinction between ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Romanies.’” However, there are important differences in how these terms are used, as Hancock admits sometimes, and particularly in Britain some writers seem to include the Romany population there as only one element of the larger group of “Gypsies” (Turner 90). In his “Gypsy Mafia” article, then,
Hancock seems to either forget or willfully ignore the fact that he had made almost exactly the same dichotomy himself, in an emphatically powerful part of an article that he himself, on reviewing it 25 years later, characterized as having “strident tones” of urgency and pique. 86 It is not illegal or even immoral to change one’s mind, but since Hancock is making all of these articles available at any time over the Internet, without any comment provided that explains
209 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow the discrepancy, people who only sample some of his articles in this way may get either one or the other viewpoint and be unaware that Hancock may no longer stand by his stated opinions, for articles distributed this way have a strange and timeless character, all equal in the eyes of the Internet surfer. Hancock sends mixed messages in this way, and those wishing to benefit from his proposed education of the gad źé will get diverse ideas of the current state of Romani politics.
Of course, in this dissertation I have basically adopted the 1981 dichotomy suggested
by Hancock as a way to articulate the distinction between the Gypsy image and the actual
ethnicity of the Romani people, who are, though not perhaps universally law-abiding “Romani
citizens” (Dowling, qtd. in Hancock “Gypsy Mafia”). Dowling, Marlock, and other “Gypsy
experts,” at times, at least, seem to be calling the criminal Romanies “Gypsies” because they
have chosen to embrace, in some of its negative aspects, the Gypsy image and play into them,
being as malicious and untrustworthy as a literary, stereotypical Gypsy character—reducing
themselves, intentionally, from a real person to a caricature. Personally, I cannot condemn
those who are forced by circumstances to steal in order to save themselves or their dependents
from starvation, but if people of any ethnicity and background decide to make deception and
malicious acts their substitute for earning an honest living, they have forfeited their claim for
any social privileges or respect, and I hope that Dr. Hancock is not trying to protect or defend
any such criminals simply on the grounds that they are Romanies; I trust that he is not.
Accusations of such a prominent spokesperson for the Roma being, like Smith, a
“Gypocrite” (a term that, if the reports on Smith are accurate, is perfectly well deserved as well
as being marginally witty) would hurt both ordinary Romanies and the causes of Romani rights.
I do not doubt Hancock’s earnestness in his efforts to gain the world’s sympathy and respect,
but he would gain more credibility if he avoided glossing over the statistics that are properly
brought up by his adversaries, as well as the reverses in his own policies; after all, the articles I
take issue with here, previously protected by copyright in journals, anthologies, and such
210 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow publications, are now in the public domain at Hancock’s own decision so that the public can gain a greater knowledge of the Romanies and a broader view of his writings.
Also, Hancock takes issue with all those who make such claims as the following:
Rich Sewell states that the term ‘gyp’ was a racial term that offends
Gypsies. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t racial slurs supposed to be
offensive towards a race? Last I checked, Gypsies weren’t a race, but a rather
unique lifestyle. (qtd. in Hancock “The Roma: Myth and Reality”)
The writer of this letter to the editor of The Anchorage Daily News is right; indeed, he is being proper and correct, for as Hancock has pointed out elsewhere, many dictionaries and encyclopedias do indeed define the Gypsies in this way. As stated above, the term “gypsy” in various forms has been used in so many different ways that there is no really standard meaning for the term, outside the authoritative definitions given in reference materials. People rely on such works to provide defensible explanations of the term. I am not saying that the definitions are justified, but that they are standards for accuracy—until their definitions are altered. They are right because they are definitive—though in this case they do not really deserve to be regarded so. Furthermore, many laws and statutes are cited as giving the Gypsies a behavioral, rather than ethnic, definition (Helen O’Nions cites Section 16 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which “refers to ‘persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin’” [“The
Marginalisation of Gypsies”]) 87 , so this interpretation of the word is also legally binding—again, until the laws are rewritten or repealed. Hancock’s position, though based on solid facts, cannot be considered definitive or legally binding simply because he is morally or logically justified. Unfortunately, officially correct and historically accurate are not always the same, and Hancock needs to recognize this: dictionaries, encyclopedias, and laws hold more authority than his opinions do…and even more than history does. Therefore, his pique against ordinary citizens seems misplaced; instead of trying to get the newspapers to use a capital G, thus propagating the stereotype, I would instead urge the bastions of received truth (these
211 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow dictionaries, encyclopedias, and so forth) to reform their definitions.
In America, traveling Romanies are often forced to move on, denied permission to stop in one jurisdiction to rest or live, or even to receive rations of food for survival (211), although there are examples of such action with widely divergent explanations. For example, some of these instances may be due to stereotypical discrimination of some sort, while others may be simply reinforcing actual laws against unauthorized camping, not related to “Gypsies” or to any particular group. Groups of White supremacists and other bigoted groups have taken the old roles of the highwayman and the brigand, attacking Romanies (see, for instance, Godwin
77) and burning their homes (Hancock, Pariah Chapter 13).
It is true that, mostly due to the negative impressions Americans have been fed by the
media, most United States residents have a passively negative idea of the “Gypsy” that can lead
to insensitive words and to discrimination. However, there are certain members of American
society who are actively involved in working against the interests of perceived Gypsies, as well
as those identified as Roma. Among these are law enforcement officers who, by choice or by
assignment, seek out the perpetrators of confidence tricks, which they call “Gypsy crime.”
There seems to be some confusion about these “Gypsy experts:” are they in fact discriminating
against the Roma as a “race,” or are they instead giving the word Gypsy a behavioral definition,
as many on record tend to do? The statements of such self-described experts reflect some
seeming ambivalence on this point, as demonstrated by Marlock and Norman below.
From a legal point of view, it is truly difficult to account for the conflicting attitudes of
the US government. As noted in the first chapter, the Romanies are now officially recognized
as an ethnic minority in the United States of America as well as the United Kingdom. It appears
that, far from being reprimanded, dismissed, or arrested for their strongly racist propaganda,
many of these anti-Gypsy activists are congratulated and even given official commendations,
flouting the higher authority of the Constitution. Some laws that discriminate against the
“gypsy,” similarly, are still in effect, requiring of them special actions or procedures which
212 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow others need not undergo. For example, in Pennsylvania, one must pay a $1000 fee for a license permitting him or her to behave like a Gypsy, as Hancock has repeatedly pointed out
(“Romance vs. Reality”). This law’s wording reflects the uninformed general idea of the Gypsy image, giving the Gypsy a behavioral definition rather than a cultural one. Hancock cites several instances from the 1960s and 70s when Romani people were forced to either pay a licensing fee or a penalty for setting up local residences in the Eastern USA. He also quotes
Mrs. Sandra Eli, a Romni who as one of the “gypsies” (according to the wording of Maryland
State law), was required to purchase a license in order to live in Montgomery County,
Maryland in 1975, who claimed, “you think black people have problems! They don’t have to pay to live here.” (qtd. in Hancock, “Romance vs. Reality”)
In addition to targeting unsettled people who seem to match the Gypsy image to some
extent, these “experts” are also actively declaiming the ways of the “Gypsy” perpetrators of
various confidence schemes. The saying that “any publicity is good publicity” does not apply
to a group of people who wish to be overlooked, and there is a great difference between fame
and infamy. Although they seem, on one hand, to be accomplishing one of the Romani
activists’ goals—that of informing the public of the presence of Gypsies in the United States
who continue to call themselves by this name—the anti-Gypsy task forces and similar
government agents are specifically linking this genuine fact with the stereotypically negative
gypsy image. In effect, such agents are, to some extent, following several of my own
suggestions for helping the Roma, but unfortunately their goals are contrary to my own, and the
interests of the group.
The publicity generated by Marlock and his collaborators does not usually reach the
general public. Instead, it appears that most of their presentations are to their fellow law
enforcement officials in the police and the FBI. On one hand, this seems relatively harmless,
since this negative publicity does not sway most Americans directly. Nevertheless, this tends to
antagonize more officers against the Roma, as well as others who are not of that group, but who
213 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow commit similar deceptions. This leads to more arrests and discrimination by those people who are entitled to monitor the behavior of the public. Arrests of such criminals, as well as of those who are falsely accused of such crimes, are likely to appeal to readers and viewers of the press, and so eventually, the false assumptions of the crusading Gypsy task forces filter down to the public anyway. For many average readers, the same effect is achieved, but in such an indirect way that the slanderers can get away with their vilification processes, and continue them.
Despite the disclaimers that he does not believe that all Romanies are criminals—which seem to have been defensively added after “critics” of his page complained about his evidently racist messages on his homepage, www.fraudtech.bizland.com, identified certain crimes as “Gypsy” crime, Marlock seems unwilling to remove the stigmatic “Gypsy” label from his pages, so that he is still effectively targeting Romanies specifically, not just a type of criminal. Indeed, he specifically refers to a segment of that population, with a strange qualification: “Gypsy: (as used by me) a reference to a specific segment of the Romani population who call themselves Gypsies, and who support themselves through various organized and very predictable criminal activities.” 88 Since Marlock has stated that other people also commit “very predictable” crimes of the same sort, it is disturbing that he keeps singling the “Gypsies” (his meaning) out for mention. His presentations, web pages, and publications have influenced untold numbers of law enforcement professionals, providing them with racist (at least racist-sounding) misinformation.
This sort of propaganda leads to inflammatory articles written by reporters who are investigating reputedly “Gypsy” crimes, as Bob Norman, reporter for the Broward-Palm Springs
(Florida, USA) New Times , seems to demonstrate in his online article “Gypsies, Cops, and
Thieves.”
What makes somebody a Gypsy? Well, the Rom is a race of people, sanctioned
as such by the United Nations. The band of vagabonds left India more than four
centuries ago and has been pretty much on the move ever since . The culture is
214 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
based on duping the hell out of gadjes , their name for non-Gypsies, with
fortunetelling cons, roofing scams, automobile rip-offs, and other schemes
perfected over the years. (emphasis added)
As Royce Turner asserts, “Newspapers, perhaps even government ministers, can get away with saying whatever they want about [the Romanies], whereas saying similar things about black people or Asian people would be likely to land editors and politicians alike in trouble” (77). Based no doubt on the stereotypical “common knowledge” all Westerners share, as well as an encounter with a Rom who pretended to assist the police in Florida, Norman imagines he is savvy to the nature of private Romany life: Norman describes “the closed Gypsy society” as a milieu “where the double-cross is standard and the truth is hard to come by” (“The
Double Life of Nick the Cop”).
Besides those who draw government checks for their discriminatory “services,” there are other, less publicized groups who seemingly wish to interfere with the Romanies’ desires to be accepted as a cultural minority by the public. Little needs to be said here of hate groups and
White supremacists, whose radical opinions are so blatantly unfair, unreasonable, and politically incorrect that only those who have been manipulated into it, have some sort of mental or emotional irregularity, or who have some vendetta that transcends mere anger, could sympathize on a conscious level (See Godwin for examples). Nevertheless, such groups’ racist actions are possibly exaggerated examples of what many others, at least subconsciously, might tacitly approve.
The Gypsy and the Tactics of Romani Rights Activism in America: Evaluation
The main methods of promoting the causes of Romani rights in the United States can be summarized as disseminating accurate information, as well as more objective creative work, and forming and participating in Romani organizations. The first thing that must be observed about these categories is that, by and large, Americans are wholly unaware of them; in this
215 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow sense, at least, they are not off to a superlative start. However, situations can change in these areas. Each of these kinds of strategies has some degree of potential for helping the Romanies’ situation, I think, if it is planned and undertaken with a firm understanding of the core of the problem: the false image that masks the real Roma from the world’s eyes must be removed, new data must be supplied, and the data must be digested by the public, resulting in a redefinition of the Roma as a world citizen, instead of an outsider.
By far, the most accessible of these, to interested researchers, has proven to be the first of these groups. In fact, a large amount of material has been emerging on the Roma, and is being spread in various ways: perhaps most prominently, over the World Wide Web. The
Internet has several key sites for this information, primarily the Romani Archive and
Documentation Center (www.radoc.net) and Patrin (www.geocities.com/Paris/
5121/patrin.htm). 89 Through such sources, which also include television programs, magazine articles, and the like, those who wish to correct the erroneous thinking of the public explain aspects of Romany society and history. In addition, a rather small number resources dealing with Romanies’ history and their contemporary lives have been made, but many of the stories have been but rarely seen in America, being European, such as those by Tony Gatlif and The
Raggedy Rawnie by British Rom Bob Hoskins, and what is more, they tend to buy into the
stereotype as much as many gad źé-made productions have in the past.
The second approach to winning respect for the Roma is to form rights organizations that will speak out on their behalf and act for their protection and their good. Peter Godwin comments that “It is axiomatic that for a group of people, especially an ethnic minority, to advance its interests it needs effective representation. Without a ‘voice’ that is regarded as having some credibility, it is difficult to make headway” (41-2). He describes organizations that have this function on behalf of the British Jews and Muslims, and states that the former
“wields some influence” and the latter ensures that “opinion on issues which affect Muslims becomes known through the media to the outside world” (42). For the purposes of public
216 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow relations, these groups present a front which allows their constituents to appear both united and purposeful. “By contrast,” Godwin attests, “the groups that claim to represent Gypsies [in
England] simply fight and feud, in private as well as public. And there are many, bickering, [sic] groups which claim to represent Gypsies. […] All these purport to be national organisations”
(42). Therefore, of course, there is no clear leadership to turn to for questions of Romany policies, and no united front or face the public can identify as a respectable leader or even a representative. What is more, the groups’ factious behavior can do little for the Romanies’ good since the public impression must be that the groups have no real leadership, and that those who pretend to be leaders are immature, petty squabblers.
In North America, leading proponents of Romani rights include Ronald Lee of Canada and Ian Hancock, centered in Texas; each describes various similarly “national organizations” who, nevertheless, have made little popular impression on most North Americans’ consciousness. Skip Hollandsworth describes two families of Texas Romanies, both of which have been fighting and falsely charging the other of crimes for years (86-90), which attest to the similarly fractious nature of American Romany leaders. All these writers’ articles note various efforts and successes of some of the groups described, but it seems clear that if the leaders were united, at least within a single country, they would have more credence and would probably be more effective in achieving the Romanies’ goals.
Learning from History: Foretelling the Final Split of the Gypsy/Romani Image
Those interested in the Roma as a cultural group have been considering their welfare and musing about their future since the time of Borrow, who saw a British mania for what he calls “gentility” a dangerous force that threatened to lure the Roma from their traditional ways: “I tell you what, brother, if ever gypsyism breaks up, it will be owing to our [Romani women] having been bitten by that mad puppy they calls gentility” ( Romany Rye Vol. 1 156).
Elsewhere, he describes this breakup as having already started:
217 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
With respect to the gypsies, [gentility] is making the women what they never
were before—harlots; and the men what they never were before—careless
fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of Ursula the chaste take up with
the base drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown, the gypsy
man, leave his tent and his old wife, of an evening, and thrust himself into
society which could well dispense with him. ( Romany Rye Vol. 2 298)
Another source of threat that Borrow felt likely to lead to Romanies’ future integration was police and legal persecution.
[…] Gypsyism is declining, and its days are numbered. There is a force abroad
which is doomed to destroy it […] That force is the Rural Police, which, had it
been established at the commencement instead of towards the middle of the
present century, would have put down Gypsyism long ago. […] ( Romano
Lavo-lil “The English Gypsies”)
Borrow indicates that this destruction is coming from being forced to integrate with the rest of the population of England.
By living amongst the Gentiles they [the Romanies] have, to a certain extent,
lost the only two virtues they possessed. Whilst they lived apart on heaths and
commons, and in shadowy lanes, the Gypsy women were paragons of chastity,
and the men, if not exactly patterns of sobriety, were, upon the whole, very
sober fellows. Such terms, however, are by no means applicable to them at the
present day. Sects and castes, even of thieves and murderers, can exist as long
as they have certain virtues, which give them a kind of respect in their own
eyes; but, losing those virtues, they soon become extinct. When the salt loses
its savour, what becomes of it? The Gypsy salt has not altogether lost its
savour, but that essential quality is every day becoming fainter, so that there is
every reason to suppose that within a few years the English Gypsy caste will
218 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
have disappeared, merged in the dregs of the English population. ( Romano
Lavo-lil “The English Gypsies”)
Other Gypsiologists agreed in principle; they treasured the quaint culture of the Roma for its romantic qualities and, apparently, often treasured this conceptualization even in the face of extended personal encounters, just as Borrow had (see Nord Gypsies 135-6). In more recent
decades, though, some Romani rights leaders have portrayed assimilation as being a desirable
goal, or perhaps better said, integration, with the Roma as one of the “stubborn chunks” in
Homi Bhabha’s metaphorical “menudo chowder” (4). This refers to a group that functions
within a larger society without losing an awareness of its own heritage, nor all of its cultural
practices.
Obviously, the Rais wished the Romanies to retain their own heritage, seen in terms of
the romantic realistic vein spurred initially by Borrow’s internalization of “La Gitanilla,” in my
view. Nord stresses that their concept of the “pure Gypsy” or “real Gypsy” put emphasis on
both blood purity (not intermarrying with gad źé) and on cultural or traditional purity (not adopting gad źé ways or attitudes) as a way to disregard those who did integrate with the dominant culture as being false Gypsies ( Gypsies 150). The early Rais’ emphasis seemed to be
also centered on nostalgia for “a waning rural culture” typical of the golden age of Old England
(13). She characterizes their rhetoric as a possible forerunner of the racist policies of the Nazis
that led to at least half a million Romanies to their deaths, and possibly several times that many
(150-155).
More recent members of the GLS have retained this attitude. Those quoted by
Hancock below are all prominent representatives.
The late Hon. Sec. of that organization, Dora Yates[,] asked in reference to a
nationalist movement “except in a fairy tale, could any hope ever have been
more fantastic?” (1953:140). Twenty years later, the former sub-editor of the
same society’s journal, Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, called the notion “romantic
219 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
twaddle” (1973:2). Werner Cohn in the same year wrote quite bluntly that “the
Gypsies have no leaders, no executive committees, no nationalist movement
[…] I know of no authenticated case of genuine Gypsy allegiance to political
or religious causes” (1973:66), while most recently another Gypsy Lore
Society member, Matti Salo, observed that “political activists, both those who
claim Gypsy identity and those who do not, have attempted to construct a
pan-Gypsy identity, dismissing as irrelevant the ethnic categories of the actors
themselves” (1977:2). (Hancock, “Talking Back”)
In light of the developments that are actually taking place today, and the GLS members’
apparently still-strong love of the romantic Gypsy image, one is tempted to thrust the charge
of “romantic twaddle” back in their faces. It is the insistence on picturing the Romanies as
stereotypically romantic figures with no real human counterparts that interferes with the
accomplishment of their goals of winning basic human rights.
I wish to focus on one article by Werner Cohn, “The Myth of Romani Nationalism,”
which insists on the presumed “truths” suggested in the above quote in order to point out
several seeming breaks in his paper’s cognitive continuity and logic, as well as other features
of the writing that rob Cohn of credibility. Not that he needs too much credibility, since he
represents the status quo, which does not currently favor the odds of success for the
still-nacent Romani Rights movement—unless he seeks to stifle its development by his denial.
He insists, in response to Ian Hancock’s earlier article in Nationalism Papers , that the movement Hancock claims to be taking place for Romani nationalism “this movement is confined—totally so in American [sic], and overwhelmingly so in Europe—to a few individuals who have no meaningful contact with actual Gypsies.” (errors in English are part of the original document). This phrase “actual Gypsies” is the signal for Cohn’s main contention, which is that being a “Gypsy” is truly defined by behavior.
The essentials of the Rom lifestyle are four: Romanes language, bride price, 90
220 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
ritual feasts, and specifically Rom business occupations. From the Rom point
of view, those who do not practice these four are not Rom, not Gypsy. It is,
therefore, particularly presumptuous and misleading when people who stand
outside the Gypsy lifestyle pretend to speak on behalf of the Gypsy people.
He goes on to explain that “Rom business occupations” really mean the sort of activities that most people would call “the confidence racket:” a statement that essentially endorses Bob
Norman’s suggestion that the culture is based on ripping off non-Gypsies. He characterizes such an opinion of Gypsy business as being held by “unsympathetic outsiders.” One is led to wonder what sort of outsiders would feel sympathetic towards confidence tricksters. His claims also seem to exclude honest Romanies from the “actual Gypsy” roster.
I should point out that these “mainstays” are not specified by any of the other articles
I have found as being “four” in number, nor that these are the only essential ones of Romani culture; it appears that this is a list based on Cohn’s own gadjikane observations of the Roma.
In this definitive conception of Romani identity, Cohn shows better counting skills than logical ones. He strongly implies that Hancock (whose parents were both from Romany stock) cannot be considered a Rom because, he implies, Hancock does not follow these four mainstays. Cohn’s implicit statement is that failing to practice a specific lifestyle can erase one’s “Gypsy descent.” In effect, Cohn is echoing the traditional legal and reference-book definition of a Gypsy. However, according to a more informed standard of measurement,
Hancock is indubitably a Romani person, with both parents from among the Romanies
(Acton, “Introduction.”). Even if Hancock has ceased to deal with bride prices and the other three requirents Cohn treasures, it is unclear how he has lost his “descent.”
Cohn chides Hancock as having described a number of conferences whose purposes were to discuss and promote “Gypsy nationalism.”
[Hancock identifies] twenty-three international (!) organizations in twenty-two
countries in 1972 (p. 261), sixty delegates and observers from 26 countries in
221 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
1978 (p. 262), three hundred delegates in 1981 (p. 263), and nearly five
hundred participants in 1990 (p. 264), etc.
Cohn strongly implies that Hancock has invented all or most of this information, since he has not provided details about them.
Yet, there is no convincing ethnographic detail behind these numbers. We are
not told anything very helpful about these “hundreds” who are said to have
attended, which languages they may have spoken, what their occupations were,
nor, most important of all, how they were elected or appointed to be delegates.
Failing to find such information in Hancock’s article, Cohn appears to have given up any further search.
Moving to a more fundamental gripe, Cohn makes a flawed logical argument: namely, that because there is no evidence of worldwide, large-scale awareness of a Romani Rights or nationalist movement, it must not exist at all. “Similarly, we are not told whether people who actually practice the Gypsy style of life, all over the world, support or even know about any of the ‘nationalist’ activity.” The logical mishaps are perhaps unwittingly showcased in the following conclusion to Cohn’s indignant paper:
In any of the cities in which the reader of this journal is likely to find himself,
Gypsies are engaged in the ancient fortune-telling trade of their forebears and
are, therefore, available for consultation in return for suitable remuneration, In
New York, for instance, it is difficult to walk more than two or three blocks in
any of the business areas without encountering the red neon palm, sign of he
[sic] Rom. Here are some questions you can put to the fortuneteller:
1) “What is Jekhipé ?” Hancock (p. 266) tells us that it is a word used by
Gypsies to denote the ‘oneness’ [unity] espoused by a Gypsy nationalist
movement. It is true that iek (or jek , in a different transcription) is the word for
“one” in Romanes. But, from what I can tell, there is no noun known to the
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Rom that expresses the abstract notion claimed by Hancock. As far as I can
tell, Jekhipé is an artificially constructed form, invented by a clever outsider,
alien to the Rom. 91
2) “What do you know about the Fourth, or for that matter, any World Romani
Congress ?” [sic] Hancock (pp. 264 and passim.) tells us of these events as
important to what he calls Gypsy nationalism. Can any of your Rom
consultants, even under offer of reward, give reasonable details of these
alleged happenings ? [sic] Can any of them produce the names of even a single
one of the alleged Gypsy leaders that [sic] are listed by Hancock ? [sic]
3) The existence of a Gypsy flag is alleged by Hancock on page 262. Can any
of your Rom informants, with or without reward, give a description of such a
flag that would match Hancock’s ?
In view of the competing claims made in the pages of this journal, I call on the
reader to verify the facts for himself. (Errors in original document)
I submit that Cohn’s suggested method (which seems to represent “The existence of a Gypsy flag” as a question one may put to a fortune-teller) would certainly fulfill Cohn’s alluded-to prophecy: the inquiry would produce no proof of Hancock’s claims. However, this is because his means of inquiry are unreasonable, not because there is no such movement. Cohn’s suggestions will not secure any facts aside from the fact that fortune tellers are unaware of a meeting; such a method can not prove that the will for nationalism does not exist in the
Romanies’ community: a body which is only a “community” in the sense that they have shared attributes and early-heritage histories.
Considering his suggestion from the other direction immediately reveals its impracticability. It is unlikely that any New Yorker would be able to describe all gadjikane meetings, or even a small percentage of them; even Cohn himself would be unable to do so, so why does he imagine that if Hancock’s statements were true then all Romanies would be
223 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow aware of them? A better way to substantiate the “alleged happenings” would be to ask a participant listed by Hancock, or to undergo library research on the matter. And, after all, as this dissertation discusses, some Romanies wish to retain their “invisible” status, and to pass as non-Romanies, while others are (as Cohn himself has asserted) deceptive as part of their professional training, so whatever answers a non-Romani client might receive would be of dubious value anyway. Even though the “actual Gypsies” he describes are seemingly involved in organized crime, they could not reasonably be organized to the degree he suggests, with worldwide lines of communication that would inform the entire “Gypsy” community of all members’ activities. Indeed, as Hancock and many others have repeatedly remarked, there is no shared language, and most of the Romanies are poorly educated, or wholly uneducated by public school systems (see also Fonseca 163).
Several modern writers have had suggestions for assisting the Romanies in their fight to win the respect and recognition of the outside world. Hancock, along with others, not surprisingly finds his own life as a type which others might follow into prominence; he urges that education is the key to respect (“Of the Origin”). Essentially, he wants the Romanies to be generally educated, probably in mainstream schools, and to earn higher degrees so that the
Romany community can have its own professionals, such as lawyers and doctors (qtd. in
Woodard 32). He stresses that the Romanies themselves are too unaware of their own collective background, and wishes that to be corrected (“Talking Back”). Finally, he is active in helping the Western world in general to be more aware of the Romanies and their history and culture
(“Of the Origin”), as well as helping them to be recognized officially. For one thing, he writes prolifically on his people, and a large number of his published writings from scholarly journals and similar outlets are provided over the Internet for mass availability. He has also represented his people at the United Nations in the 1990s and has met with the Dalai Lama to discuss the situation of his people.
After prolonged consideration of the ways in which the public image of the Romanies
224 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow have been altered over the years, and the ways in which the public has related to them in response to the changed image, I conclude that the key to winning equal Romani rights in our lifetime is, intentionally and forcefully, to redirect the public image by making more accurate images and mediated experiences available through mass media. Currently, the primary reason why the Romanies are mistreated is that people simply do not understand that the Gypsy of literary and media fame is not the same as the Romani. To gain acceptance of the Roma, activists must make the public aware of the Romanies and their real lives, and to articulate clearly and candidly in what respects the image corresponds, and fails to correspond, with
Romany life. The public imagination must be seized, so that the Gypsy image is seen for the
“historical fantasy” it is, and new images that truthfully, yet engagingly, reveal the Romanies as a group of often-underprivileged human beings.
I have pondered the problem of how to overcome public discrimination against the
Romanies in view of this perceptual impasse, and believe that—provided that these ideas, properly developed, were rigorously applied with a maximum of Romani cooperation—my suggestions could effectively alter the situation for the better. The best case scenario is that the split between the Gypsy image and the Romani people would be successfully achieved, and the
Roma would no longer be conflated with the fictional characters. They would no longer be able to “play into” the image, nor could they “play against” it again, for that would foil the entire purpose of the split by reinforcing the identity of the Gypsy with the Roma. To those who currently have such a habit, the split might be seen as something of a loss, but I think both the
Romanies and the gad źé can, in the last analysis, recognize that accepting the image as a fantasy and the ethnicity as the truth is a step into maturity, and this step has been delayed for centuries in a mutually unhealthy manner.
I feel that this current era is an especially viable time to activate such ideas as I am about to recommend. Although it is almost surely true that the mass media are more pervasive and more persuasive than ever before, the Gypsy image is not currently receiving much
225 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow attention. In other words, the image is present, but hidden away in the subconscious minds of the public, in many cases, instead of being considered or evaluated actively, nor being displayed by the media for active consideration. We have already seen how images are often insidiously powerful because they are formed passively; a revised, or updated, version of the
Gypsy/Romani dichotomy might be introduced subtly, so as to have the same hidden power.
Like the initial debut of the Roma in Western Europe, this would be a deliberate effort to forge a reputation for the Romanies. However, in contrast with that early fiasco, this would have to be scrupulously honest and unbiased, because the ultimate goal would be to win equal human rights for them. The desired result would be to pry the Gypsy stereotype away from the
Romani people once and for all.
Persuasive Entertainment that Effaces the Gypsy-Romany Conflation
In my view, the primary impediment to the general acceptance of the Romanies is a mental one: the presuppositions that non-Romanies have about the group, and the conflation of
Gypsy characteristics with all Romani people. In my perception, the work of the Romani
Rights activists so far has largely failed because this fact is not recognized clearly enough; as long as these activists are misidentified as literary or movie Gypsy figures possessed of the long-standing negative aspects of the image, their efforts will be discredited out of hand, as we have learned from examining centuries of Gypsy and Romani history and representation.
Therefore, I suggest, the best way to overcome the difficulties and achieve the goals of
Hancock and many of his colleagues may well be to alter this mindset. I propose that a two-pronged approach to the campaign, both elements of which would make use of the powerfully persuasive and pervasive modern mass media, might be effective in achieving
Romani activists’ goals. The first of these to be made public, most likely, would be an effort by concerned people on behalf of the Romanies to bring high-quality stories and documentary programs to the entertainment industry.
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Vladimir Mayakovsy wrote, “Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it.” While this is not the intended use of all art, it certainly can be used in this way, and historically certain works of art, from propaganda to more subtle and artistic works, have influenced people’s thinking and opinions. In the past, we have seen certain movies which have had a great influence over the public image of certain ethnic groups. In these, the synecdochic fallacy occurs frequently. The movies tend to showcase a single example, or a few of them, of members of a cultural group, with particular characteristics. These movies are also engaging and encourage suspension of disbelief. One of these, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather , is about a group of criminal Italian Americans. It is now considered a film classic, with excellent production, direction, script, and acting. However, whether or not this was the intention, the effect of this movie was to color the American image of Italian culture in a profoundly negative way. Coppola’s story of certain Italian Americans, members of the Mafia, portrayed them as being extremely dangerous and violent, and it depicted some of the Mafia’s (fictional) ways of doing “business:” the same term, incidentally, that Werner Cohn uses for what he considers
Romany confidence scams and other criminal acts. After this film became famous, people one meets who are recognized as Italian Americans began, in some minds, to call to mind the
Mafia image, if only fleetingly or on an unconscious level. 92
Clearly, this film can serve as a sort of reverse example of what might be done for the
Romanies, who already are, at least in one part of the image, organized criminals. Instead of
hinting that the average member of the assumedly peaceful ethnic group is in fact a dangerous
criminal, the Romanies’ project would hint that the members of the assumedly dangerous
criminal ethnic group might in fact be average and peaceful. Such a movie might show the
facts of Romanies’ real lives, focusing on one family or central figure and its difficulties. It is
important to demonstrate in the story how other Americans’ preconceptions of the Gypsy
figure are projected onto the protagonist, and how he or she does not typify the literary Gypsy.
It is also necessary to teach by example, I think: to show that this prejudice can be overcome
227 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow with a frank exposure to the truth.
Audience members should feel sympathy for the protagonist, a modern young Romani person. However, I also hope that viewers can recognize their own stereotypes active in other characters that treat the protagonist as if he or she were a fictional Gypsy. Viewing the
Romani character and the ways that the character is treated would help audience members to acknowledge the absurdity of assuming that a single Romani person possesses all the conflicting Gypsy traits. Of course, in order to suspend disbelief, the acting, script, and direction must be carefully done, and the product must be engaging, revealing, uplifting, and generally excellent, if the desired effect is to take place.
The same sort of conditions, as well as other ones, can also be explored in other ways.
An documentary about American Romanies would be advisable, created with the purpose of
influencing the popular image of the Gypsy by demystifying the Romanies and revealing the
truth about the Romani people—simultaneously showing the Gypsy image to be a false and
unreliable one. However, the Romanies must not be taken as a sort of backwards tribe of
uncivilized people. They should be explained historically, and the filmmakers should show real
examples of what I have described in this dissertation, as well as any other helpful details that
would give the impression of the Romanies as a disadvantaged, but resourceful and modern
cultural group. A documentary program that presents an entirely positive image of the
Romanies, or one portraying them as innocent victims of society, would be accused of
partisanship and falsehood, and of course it would be easy to find even unbiased proof of
glaring omissions, rendering the Romanies even more closely related to the Gypsy image of
trickery. Such a program would prove no more convincing to the cultivated mind than one that
presents the Romanies a la Bob Norman’s image—a culture based on “duping the hell” out of
outsiders. People who think clearly know that no culture is entirely homogeneous, and no
group’s history is entirely uniform. It is the mixture of good and bad points in the Romanies’
nature and culture that would strike a chord in other viewers, so that despite surface
228 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow dissimilarities, they would feel at least one level of kinship. In place of the fantastic false image of the Gypsy, an excellent goal would be to seize the world’s imaginations with a believable presentation that would forward an alternate characterization: one of a group of definitely mortal humans.
Aside from these high-profile projects, more convincing details and corroborative evidence can be added in a smaller way from other sources. In fact, many reliable sources of information on the Romanies are already available. These are already in place, and are ready to be discovered by greater numbers of people. To these, more books, web logs, and the like can be added, both by Romanies themselves, and non-Romanies, too. Indeed, it is perhaps a key idea that young generations of Roms and non-Romanies should be seen as friendly and cooperative, and engaged in mutually beneficial projects, despite the mutual mistrust in which the two groups have long indulged. One effect of this publicity might be that a sort of enthusiasm for the “new Romanies” might take hold for a time. However, as hinted above, it might be best to let these new images supplant the old and unfair ones in a subtle, half-unsuspected way.
A United Romany Professional and Political Organization: “The Character of a Nationality”
George Eliot, as Nord interprets her works, wrote in Daniel Deronda a remake of her poem The Spanish Gypsy (Gypsies 121-3). She had written the first as a story of “a young female prohibited from experiencing ‘ordinary womanhood’ because [she was] ‘chosen to fulfil a great destiny’” (120). In Nord’s view, Eliot
believed that she could not use other persecuted groups in Spain—Jews or
Moors—because their fates were disastrous and she wanted a “working out,”
rather than a recapitulation of catastrophe. This resolution took the form, of
course, of exodus from persecution and embarkation on the search for a
homeland. (120)
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Nord further suggests that everyone would notice if she falsified the other groups’ histories, but seems to have considered that the public would consider the Gypsies an “essentially fictive people” with no known history. Indeed, she puts such a suggestion into the heroine’s father’s mouth: he portrays his own people as “wanderers whom no God took knowledge of / […] /
Who have no Whence or Whither in their souls […]” (Eliot Spanish Gypsy 142). Nord suggests that when planning Daniel Deronda Eliot considered this a key to her poem’s failure to convince readers: “The Jews, she believed, had a clear past and, as a consequence, a clear destiny” (Nord Gypsies 122): things that the Romanies lacked. The latter book, then, was intended “precisely to establish the modernity of the Jews, their candidacy for nationhood, and their fitness to contribute a political vision to the other nations of the world” (123). Nord quotes a character in Daniel Deronda as declaring, “the effect of…separateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation unless [the] race takes on again the character of a nationality” (Eliot Daniel Deronda 594, qtd. Nord Gypsies 122). Nord’s point is that because the Jews, in contrast with her Gypsy characters, do have a history and cultural identity, they are able to return to their homeland and win the respect of the world, at least within the world of the novel.
Today’s Romanies are recovering from the lack that Eliot sensed as missing: their history is being discovered and their homeland is known. Education is beginning to revive in the Romanies a sense of identity. They no longer lack “home, tradition, and memory of their past,” and therefore they can now be rendered as “a people with a future, or, to put it differently, with a modern identity” (122). These possessions are now providing the Romanies with the credentials to see itself as a genuinely modern people. Like the respected Iroquois Nation of
Native Americans, the Romanies may now be able to gain the world’s respect, in part by sharing with it the same sense of identity and history, and also by demonstrating that the
Romanies can behave in ways that will win the world’s esteem: ways that will serve as refutations of charges that the Romanies are essentially primitive or fanciful or antisocial.
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This situation seems a propitious one, with a view to the Romani Rights advocates’
goals of gaining respect and equal treatment with other peoples of the world. With this
renewed self-image in mind, the second stage in this worldwide, or at least national,
image-remodeling campaign could be overtly political in purpose and technique. Though it is
true that activism is already underway in America, as elsewhere, it is not a unified effort, and
the disparate promoters often seem more self-aggrandizing than helpful for the entire group.
Though it is well known that there are indeed different groups of Romanies who all claim
prominence or distinction from the others,93 now might be the time to unify against the
common foe: the stereotypical Gypsy image, not the Whites.
I would recommend to Romani activists that a national association of Romany professionals 94 that would have high moral and business standards, and would legally
represent Romanies who are wrongfully accused, be established as a measure that would help
the Romani people to gain respect in the world community. This group’s role might be played
by one of the already-existing groups, but on a more inclusive basis, including all of the
hypothetical or historical groups that came from India and are considered ethnic Romanies. 95
A constitution should be drawn up and made available for outsiders to read. The group might
be seen as a sort of guarantor of upright, honest business practices for Romany professionals.
Members of this group would proudly display their credentials and thereby increase awareness.
Members displaying such identification would guarantee an honest deal for all customers. No
corruption must be allowed to enter the group, and if any member or members are proven less
than immaculately honest, they would not be permitted to continue to enjoy the protection or
membership in the group, and their badges, business cards, and the like would be confiscated. 96
In this manner, membership in the group would come to represent reliability.
Cooperation between non-Romanies and members should be encouraged, as well. If this group were to show real promise, other, more partisan groups might eventually be subsumed by the proposed organization, leading to a stronger feeling of Romany unity and promoting the
231 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow self-respect and self-worth of the Romanies, as well as to the respect of the American nation.
After this group has established itself as an incorruptible upholder of honesty, other regions’ Roma might adopt similar strategies that suit the characteristics of their own regions better; they might even decide to join the present organization and make it more international.
In time, perhaps, the cogency of this organization would convince more and more abstainers to join it, and make it seem to them more advantageous than a life of crime. Though at first this might set up a sort of good Romani/bad Romani dichotomy, this is indeed already an established habit of thinking, as Hancock and others have suggested; the real goal would be to end this dichotomy by uniting all of the Roma on the “good” side. Indeed, if such an organization led to increased respect for its members, more Americans, and other “settled” people (for most Romanies are also settled by now, anyway) might well come to respect the
Roma as regular people, to the point that, eventually, there would be little further need for these functions of such an organization, as their point would have been made, and the old conflations would have been forgotten.
Romani Pride, Reloaded
Supplementing these two strategies, and following, perhaps, their successful beginning at re-forging (without forgery) the image of the Romanies, more activities can be made to add credibility to the effort. In fact, there are already festivals, museum exhibits, libraries, and the like, in addition to representation on the UN council and official recognition by various governments. However, none of these is getting the sort of publicity it needs—just as the movies that show the Romanies in a sympathetic light get too little recognition.
Therefore, these activities should continue as before, establishing continuity, and gradually undergirding the two primary schemes.
Also, I believe that the Romani-Americans can achieve a status that is comparable to that enjoyed by other hyphenated Americans who retain a sense of solidarity and cohesion
232 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow despite their being integral to American society. These people can claim a Romany background, rather than defiantly rejecting American citizenship (that is not to claim that such citizens do reject their USA citizenship). Claiming Romany ancestors might put these people on a par with those claiming German or Irish backgrounds, who claim the right to celebrate their own particular festivals such as Oktoberfest or St. Patrick’s Day while still being proud of being
Americans. Such festivals, indeed, give these other hyphenated Americans the chance to indulge in their heritage for a time, and then go back to normal; this can be enjoyed by the
Romany-Americans as well. Celebrating Romani people’s festivals in public would raise awareness of the Romany culture and heritage in an enjoyable and non-exclusive way, and also indicate a past history, such as George Eliot felt the Roma lacked. Playing at being “traditional
Romanies” for festival periods would display, too, the disparity between the half-fanciful, but still worthy of respect, old-world Gypsy and the modern Romanies, the image of which the celebrants would revert into after the festival is done. Also, like others who can claim ethnic exceptions in public settings, the Romanies can eventually request that their belief be respected.
As the Muslim can be allowed to retain his turban in a driver’s license photo, or the Jew can be allowed to abstain from certain activities for religious reasons, the Romanies at the office or in a public school can be afforded his or her own cultural space. This would require some compromises, certainly. However, this is always the case, and I hope that the Roma will be willing to let some of their standards down in public in order to win their places as integral and valued members of modern society.
Conclusion
Sophie could not take her eyes from the woman beside Christ. The Last Supper
is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman? Although Sophie had seen
this classic image many times, she had not once noticed this glaring discrepancy.
“Everyone misses it,” Teabing said. “Our preconceived notions of this
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scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides our
eyes.”
“It’s known as scotoma ,” Langdon added. “The brain does it sometimes
with powerful symbols.” (Brown 263)
Just as Mary suddenly becomes visible to Sophie in this scene from The Da Vinci Code, breaking her years of habitual thinking of this image, the Romany is now beginning to be noticed as a living, breathing human, at long last, despite the world’s long habits of seeing only romance and villainy in their images. In this dissertation, I propose the idea that perception is composed both of sensory data and the imagination. Then I show how Western literature has long served as an arena for this interaction of the mental components. Next, I further show that this is true in real people’s minds even now. Finally, I apply these principles to a real problem in the attempt to solve it by using the natural tendencies of the mind.
In Chapter 1, I posit a hypothesis about the way sensory input, memory, and imagination mingle in the mind, with the result that what we seem to experience is not actually all present in the outside world, but instead a blending of the three. External stimuli invoke, or call to mind, memories of old experiences as well as old imaginings…which bring about newly blends of images. Since these newly blended images are not based entirely on actual experiences but instead on imagined scenes that are often inspired by creative art, they are frequently inaccurate.
Nevertheless, the mind does not always make a distinction between what is true and what is merely assumed, leading to synecdochic fallacies and misconfirmed assumptions. I also describe how the initial impression of the Romanies was specifically an intentional image-forging attempt, which would have given settled Europe a favorable impression if some of the Romanies had not been caught breaking the law; as it was, both the favorable and unpleasant sides became lasting elements of the image, developed during the two pioneering decades following the initial meetings in 1417.
In the next two chapters, I examine how the processes I describe played out in Western
234 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow culture, developed in the media of literature, which branched sharply off from reality and took on a stereotypical life all its own. The last chapter demonstrates how this divergence of reality and imagination is today as strong as ever, and also how the two are blended in the perceptions of today's Western mind. The end of the chapter takes all the preceding material into consideration, and proposes some ideas how the Western experience of interacting with the real
Romany and the imaginary Gypsy—and my examination of this interaction—can help us to learn from history, and historical errors—to use the natural processes described to good purpose: to remove the unhealthy and harmful negative (i. e. false) Gypsy image from the
Romanies. This sort of action is like removing the stigma of shame from someone who has reformed. Then the public imagination must be engaged, so that the stereotype-gap (one sort of information gap) is filled in with the image of the Romani as a real human group. If this
“paradigm shift,” if it is not too incorrect to term it so, is achieved skillfully, the Roma may soon have a better chance of being related to more fairly, and the Gypsy image, which many have implied is somehow “needed” by the Western mind as the “epitome of freedom,” will be seen as a false, though charming, image, and further, confidence tricksters might even be referred to as the criminals they really are, whether or not they are Roma—without using the derogatory term “gypsy criminal.”
However, there are still formidable impediments to such goals. If police and media pressure continue to harass the Romanies as criminals, and some buckle under the pressure, deciding that since they will be treated as thieving Gypsies anyway, they might as well be thieves, forging a new and more balanced reputation will be that much harder. There is currently a widespread pattern among the Roma of non-cooperation, of wishing to be overlooked, and a resistance to any gad źé help or sympathy. Even Ian Hancock, who desires more Romanies to be well educated, seems to resent the help and cooperation of non-Romany professors: “Several U.S. colleges now offer new courses in ‘Gypsy Studies,’ provided by faculty members with no qualifications in the area whatsoever […]” (Introduction 13),
235 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow though one wonders what sort of “qualifications” would satisfy him. Elsewhere, he makes his resentment plainer: “We do not need gadje to think on our behalf” (“Talking Back”).
Further, any new image that the measures described above would forge as an
alternative to the romantic/dangerous Gypsy image would be extremely fragile. Even if a
blockbuster movie were able to shift or replace the popular image, the next time a Romany
criminal was pilloried in the press, the work of years would be likely to crumble at once as
the synecdochic fallacy took effect once more, for audience members would be likely to
consider the older and better-established image as more reliable and the new one as a sort of
trick. “See?” audience members would be likely to ask one another, “We were right all along.
That movie had us going for a minute, though…”.
However, I feel hopeful that a combination of new representation, demonstrated integrity, and displays of Romany heritage might gradually gain credence within American society for a more reliable image that is based on the actual Romanies’ characteristics as a people. The main shift must be towards letting the Romanies finally have their own say, and towards allowing these “invisible Americans” to stand up and be recognized for their own properties. By making the world aware of the unique and rich cultural heritage and identity of the Romani people, and by showing the world a face that is finally recognized as beautiful without being mysterious, perhaps the Roma will be welcomed one day into the world community as an equal member, and the Gypsy can finally be celebrated independently from them—as a glorious but ultimately untenable fantasy.
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Notes
70 In note 6 to his article “George Borrow’s Romani,” Ian Hancock quotes a letter sent to Scott Macfie to Augustus John, both Rais and the partners who revived the GLS in 1907 after it languished after its first three editions of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, to demonstrate that “the designation rye, for some ryes at least, seems to have had a more specific in-group meaning: managing to bed a Romani woman.” 71 Weybright was clearly not merely an ordinary reporter for the New York Times Magazine ; he was a serious student of the Romanies. According to the homepage of the modern Gypsy Lore Society, “The Society has also established the Victor Weybright Archives of Gypsy Studies, specializing in recent scholarly work on Gypsy, Traveler and related studies, for the benefit of researchers and students.” 72 There is something strongly ironic about a romantic fascination with the mysterious. One of the first inclinations is to investigate the mysteries and attempt to discover their reasons. This is a deeply human instinct, and a powerful motivator, but there is the danger of satiation. Some topics continue to fascinate after all the collectible data is known. However, after the truth is discovered, the mystery is often gone, and with it the subject’s attraction can likewise vanish. Thus, after the initial thrill of discovery, the novelty frequently wears off until only indifference is left. 73 An amusing pronunciation error is made by two of the actors. The Gypsy characters are all read with a “Gypsy,” i.e. unspecifiable European, accent, but the supporting actors are Americans. The first man to speak to Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes responds to the latter’s inquiry with “You speak to me, Go rgio?” This actor (and the actress who plays Lydia, as well) appears unaware that the R in the word Gorgio is not pronounced, making it especially clear that the script writers have used Borrow’s Romanization of the Romani word; most others who have used their own spellings do not include an R at all. 74 In light of the notes above on Borrow’s relationship with “Jasper” Petulengro, it must be added that the crucial clue in the story was that the writer of the threatening notes refers to himself as a Romany Rye. Holmes, unlike Borrow, knows at once that no Rom would refer to himself with these words. A Romany Rye , despite what Major Threadgold said, does not mean a Gypsy, but a man who knows about Gypsy lore. It is a term no true Gypsy would apply to himself. He would use the expression “Romany chal,” so it was obvious from the beginning that no Gypsy threatened the child. This suggests that Major Threadgold, the “devilish” culprit, had relied solely on Borrow’s writing, but that Holmes had, by the story’s time of 1890, become aware of the phrase’s real meaning through the writings of Gypsiologists. Though Green and Boucher were more aware of Borrow’s GLS and Gypsiologist critics than the real culprit did, they apparently exhausted their knowledge with the revelation of this fact. One might conjecture that one or two of Borrow’s books was offered by the librarian when one of the scriptwriters requested a book on Gypsy culture, noting that the title of The Romany Rye was something of a misnomer, and that that information, plus the contents of the Borrovian works, provided sufficient information for their needs. 75 There are also special collections of related material, museums, websites, online communities, and so forth, as in the other lands. 76 Compare Michelle Cliff’s No Telephone to Heaven , which portrays similar attempts by Clare’s family members, who are pale African-Americans, to “pass” as white. 77 It is true that Jasper is not the only one to refer to himself as Pharaoh; his wife does too, but this is at a time when Lavengro is with them both; it is entirely likely that, if Jasper were teasing him, he would have told his wife about their talk, and that she here is playing along with Jasper’s game. 78 One name that Borrow indicates as being self-applied by Spanish Romanies is Cale , a shorter, plural form of Zincali, meaning “The black men” (Zincali 21). 79 Anne Sutherland, “The American Rom: A Case of Economic Adaptation” in Gypsies, Tinkers, and Other Travellers . Ed. Farnham Rehfisch 1975. 80 The Gypsy king is a position that is not traditionally held in Romany society, though the rom baro is also the name for a mediator between individual Romanies or between the Roma and the White authorities (Sonneman 127). 81 Compare the behavior that homosexuals are popularly said to engage in to camouflage their sexual preference, “passing” for straight in order to avoid the prejudicial treatment they know they would be likely to be subjected to if they were discovered. Similarly, consider those homosexuals who “come out of the closet” and proclaim their sexual identities, and the respect and rights they are currently gaining, as a possible model for the Romanies. 82 It should also be recognized that there are other confidence tricksters who emulate the infamous “Gypsy Crime” techniques. Similar instances of imitative lawbreaking is often referred to in the news and in movies as “copycat” crime. Surely, this is an instance of the criminals playing into the Gypsy image as an added layer of subterfuge, a sort of behavioral alias. 83 However, it is worth noting that Mr. Septimus Podgers is not a Gypsy character. 84 This alternate spelling reflects the rolled R spoken when many Romani people speak the word, and also
237 Chapter 4: The Gypsy Image after Borrow
visually distinguishes itself from the Italian capital city, spelled with only one R. 85 In this sense, it is comparable to the false Grandmother’s claims in “ La Gitanilla. ” 86 Admittedly, Hancock’s assertions in 1981 appear to encompass the whole raft of “gypsy” notions, and also I admit that the earlier article used the “Rom” rather than “Romani” term, though from what I can discover these terms do not have any important distinction that would be relevant to the issue at hand. 87 This instance is meant as an example, one of many from around the world; it no longer holds, though as Hancock discusses, such definitions linger on the books. 88 It is unclear if the phrase “who call themselves Gypsies” is a concession to their self-esteem, or not. It appears that any Romanies who are less predictable are not referred to in this manner, nor are those predictable Romany criminals who do not call themselves Gypsies. 89 I must not omit mention of Sándor Avraham, a writer whose learning and intuition are both very impressive and persuasive, whose writings are significantly at odds with the conclusions of many other writers, including Ian Hancock’s. I found the most persuasive of these essays at http://www.imninalu.net/Roma.htm, with strongly corroborative evidence at http://www.imninalu.net/Zakono.htm. However, since these were found literally on the last day of composing this dissertation draft, it was really too late to discuss. Furthermore, though his suggestions would, if accepted, add a whole era of Romany history prior to their life in India (Avraham’s conclusion is that they had lived in or near Israel), this would probably not affect the Western image they established. 90 Note that Fraser, whose survey of Romani culture appears to be more comprehensive, indicates that the tradition of “bride price is far from universal” among the world’s Romanies (242). 91 Cohn is very likely correct in assuming that this word is a neologism, built from Romani root words; Hancock has done this before with his coinage of a Romani word for the Holocaust that would otherwise have lacked a contextually-specific word. This is slightly ironic in light of Hancock’s indignant article “The Claim of Lexical Impoverishment as Control,” in which he insists that the Romani language does not lack its own words, and thus its own concepts, for “duty,” “beautiful,” “truth,” and so on. Clearly, the ideas of solidarity and the Great Holocaust are recent additions to the cultural world of the Romanies, and there is nothing wrong with providing native-language words for the Romanies to discuss without the need for any “exonymic” terminology. 92 In a similar way, since the main image offered to Americans of Asians is that of the kung-fu fighter, many Americans get the impression that all Asians are adept at fighting in this way. 93 In his introduction to Jan Yoors’s book The Heroic Present , Hancock posits that [t]hree salient, and hitherto not considered, aspects of the contemporary Romani condition rest upon the facts of their history: firstly that the population has been a composite one from the very beginning, secondly that while their earliest components originated in India, Romanies essentially constitute a population that acquired its identity in the West, and thirdly that their entry into Europe was not as a single people, but as a number of smaller migrations over perhaps as much as a two-century span of time. Together these account in part for the lack of cohesiveness among the various groups self-identifying as Romani. (8) These important factors, which are certainly worth serious consideration, do not interfere with the arguments in this dissertation, and are indeed not generally accepted as having been proven. Indeed, at other times, Fraser has argued that the Romanies were initially united, instead of being a “composite.” At any rate, Fraser’s account of the early introduction of the Roma to Western Europe, which forms the core of my discussion in Chapter 1, suggests a well-coordinated and united entrance, and not a “number of smaller migrations,” though there is much uncertainty about the facts of the matter. 94 For this concept, I take the lead of the fictional “Free People of Earth” league described in Orson Scott Card’s Shadow of the Giant , which has high standards of conduct for nations or states that wish to join them, and offers defense in case of attack. However, any breach of the standards results in rejection from the group. In time, the entire world becomes united as members of the FPE, and Earth becomes a peaceful place at last. I hope that a similar group of Romanies in the real world will help to unite the Romanies in the same way, and come to include them all. 95 Presumably because the Irish travelers and other such groups share much of the romantic stereotypes with the ethnic Romanies, the modern Gypsy Lore Society embraces them as well, but though they may be worthy of respect and sympathy in their own right, it is not their rights that the Romani Rights activists are considering; therefore, having such ethnically-different groups join the organization I am describing might dilute the Romanies’ unity and make it less effective at achieving the aims described by Hancock et al. 96 Indeed, if it does not seem too manipulative, I would say that some few years after incorporation, this group would be well advised to make an example of some transgressors in a well-publicized way, by way of demonstrating that they are serious about their dedication to upholding the law: this would add much credence to their claims and would win them believers.
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