Roma people

Romani people

Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress
Total population
2–20 million
Regions with significant populations
Turkey	2,750,000
Romania	1,850,000
Bulgaria	750,000
Spain	725,000
Russia	720,000
Hungary	700,000
Slovakia	500,000
France	400,000
Greece	265,000
Czech Republic	250,000
Italy	140,000
Germany	105,000
Languages
Romani, languages of native regions
Religion
mainly Christianity and Islam, minorities practice Buddhism, Judaism, Bahá'í Faith and Shaktism

The Roma are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group. The Roma originated from India. Starting from the 9th century, the Romani people gradually migrated across Europe, passing through regions that are now Iran, Armenia, and Turkey.

Genetics

Genetic studies show that the Roma share ancestry with various groups from the Indian subcontinent. The studies prove this by finding similarities between DNA patterns in the different groups.

Early history

Historians believe that the remnants from the Indo-Greeks, the Atsinganos left the Indian subcontinent as traders. During the European migration period in the 4th to 6th centuries, they traveled through the Byzantine Empire into Egypt, using the Silk Road. They lived in Egypt for centuries.

Around the 12th or 13th centuries – following the Crusades – the Roma reached the Balkans. From there, the Roma spread across Western Europe. They crossed Europe aboard large caravans, which contained all of their belongings.

The Romani people were enslaved in Wallachia and Moldavia by ethnic Romanians. Vlad the Impaler owned between 11,000 and 12,000 Romani slaves. Additionally, the British transported Romani slaves to the Americas, where they were sold into forced labor. Many were sent to the Caribbean to work on Scottish and English plantations in Jamaica and Barbados. There was miscegenation and mixing between ethnic Romanians and Romani people. White men considered Romani women as hypersexual, promiscuous sexual objects during the time of slavery in Romania, and Romanian men frequently committed sexual assault against them.

Some linguists and historians, including Dr. Ian Hancock, believe that early Romani people were probably low caste Indian people from around the 10th century CE who were forced to serve as soldiers against Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi's invasions. Ghaznavi ruled the Ghaznavid Empire, a Muslim empire with Turkic Mamluk origins. These invasions lasted over a century, during which the soldiers established families and built communities near the battle areas. After the Indian soldiers lost, they were taken captive and moved westward with their families into the Byzantine Empire between 1000 and 1030 CE. By this point, a whole new culture and people had developed and traveled west, either willingly or unwillingly. Since that time, Romani people have faced persecution, been hunted, deported, and enslaved for 500 years in Romania, suffered during the Holocaust, and been constantly misrepresented. Even with all this persecution, Romani culture has survived and continues through our customs, art, music, food, language, and our digital and written records. When Romani people first arrived in Europe around the 1300s and 1400s, they faced hostility, which meant very few jobs were available to them. Many worked in trades such as metalsmithing, animal training, basket weaving, farming, and entertainment. Some Romani people became fortune tellers, using divination tools that were available at the time to develop this skill of intuition, reasoning, and emotional guidance. Famous paintings by Regnier (1600s) and Caravaggio (1594) showed Roma as both criminals and fortune tellers, portraying them as untrustworthy, attractive, and dangerously different, which created lasting visual stereotypes. Romani people were probably among the first to use tarot cards, which were created in Italy, for divination. Romani people helped popularize and spread other traditional divination methods like tea and coffee reading and palmistry across Europe.

Another theory holds that the Romani people descended from the Luri, skilled Indian dancers and musicians who were sent to serve the Persian king Bahram V. In his 11th-century epic, the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), Persian poet Ferdowsi offers one of the earliest written accounts of the Romani people’s origins and migration.

Persecution

Romani people are often stereotyped as deceitful scammers, robbers, pickpockets, criminals, nomads, beggars, con artists and thieves who are prone to scam, cheat, lie and steal that practice black magic. Because of these stereotypes, many Romani people hide their ethnic background. Roma people have faced rejection across Europe, with a history of persecution in many countries. They are often made scapegoats and targeted by skinheads and neo-Nazis. Their homes have been set on fire, and some have been murdered. American singer Madonna auctioned personal possessions to benefit a charity that supports Romani children's education. In 2009, during her “Sticky and Sweet” concert tour in Bucharest, Romania, she attracted international attention by speaking about the issue. Thousands of attendees largely booed her remarks.

Romani people are also often seen as frightening, malevolent, and dangerous, and are stereotyped as being illiterate, unemployed and involved in begging. The scary, frightening stereotype of the Romani witch is commonly perpetuated in horror movies. These films often employ the "Gypsy curse" theme, which is based on long-standing racial stereotypes and portrays Romani individuals as mystical, vengeful, or malevolent outsiders who cast harmful curses. The stereotype of the evil Gypsy woman appeared in American horror movies like Drag Me to Hell (2009) and the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel Thinner (1996).

Adolf Hitler's ideology of white supremacy led him to persecute Jews, Black people, and the Romani population, whom he regarded as inherently inferior to white people and Germans. The genocide of Native Americans in the United States such as the California genocide, including what happened in California where white settlers wiped out a lot of Indigenous people, gave Hitler ideas about targeting groups he saw as different, like the Jews, Roma and Sinti in Europe. The Nazi regime viewed Roma and Sinti people as asocial, workshy, lazy nomads who refused to work and weren't part of the white European community because they stayed away from education and jobs.

The Roma have been victims of persecution and systemic discrimination in Europe for centuries. The persecutions were mostly motivated by anti-Romani sentiment, academically known as antiziganism. The Egyptians Act of 1530 forced the Roma to leave England. Around 10,000 of these people went to the Ottoman Empire and became Muslims. Their descendants still call themselves Egyptians. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted an official definition for antiziganism on October 8, 2020:

Genocide

In addition to the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany committed a genocide against the Roma. The Nazis considered the Roma an "inferior race". They persecuted the Roma, executed them in large groups, deported them to concentration camps, used them for medical experiments, and killed them in death camps. 250,000‒500,000 were killed in the Roma genocide. Some historians give a higher death toll estimate, ranging from 800,000 to 1,500,000.

Today

The Roma still experience discrimination and antiziganism. In some countries, they are not accepted in workplaces and schools. Their squatting communities also irritate locals. The Roma created an association in 1978 to defend their rights.

The largest Roma populations today live in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. However, there are populations of Roma all over Europe, including:

• The Kaló in Spain
• The Sinti in Germany
• The Romanlar in Turkey
• The Ciganos in Portugal
• The Romanichals of Britain
• The Gitans of southern France
• The Manouches in France and Catalonia

Human trafficking is widespread within the Romani community. Romani children are particularly at risk of being trafficked for purposes such as forced begging, theft, and forced stealing. Prostitution, drug abuse, and sex trafficking are also widespread issues that affect the Romani community throughout Europe.

Romani people across Europe often face poverty and live in poor-quality housing without essential infrastructure, such as running water, electricity, and sewage systems, while remaining segregated in ghettos.

Culture

Roma culture differs from country to country, from group to group, and from religion to religion. Roma cuisine also differs from country to country. Music has always been important in Roma culture. Musical instruments like guitars and violins are an important part of Roma traditions. The Roma influenced musical and dance styles in Europe, such as belly dancing, flamenco, rumba and jazz.

Most Roma enter into arranged marriages with other Roma at a very young age. It is rare for Roma to marry gadje (non-Romas). Some groups ban cousin marriage. On 8 April 1971, the Roma nationality was legally recognized in Europe. Since then, 8 April is the International Day of the Roma.

After migrating from South Asia through Armenia, the Romani people developed a deep understanding of the nutritional and medicinal qualities of many natural foods. They learned to cook with berries, nettles, beech leaves, and herbs. Those living near the sea gather limpets and mussels to add to their meals, which they also support with groceries often paid for through horse trading. When choosing meat for its flavor, they favor goose, goat, pork, and wild salmon over beef and mutton. They keep dried mushrooms on hand to give ragouts a distinctive taste, and use dandelion roots as a strong base for coffee, which they sweeten with wild honey. Their recipes often include butter, eggs from free-range hens, molasses, unrefined sugar, and wholemeal flour. They believe that using plenty of bread, garlic, pepper, salt, and vinegar brings good luck. They also hunt and forage for dulse, eels, sea kale, game, seabird offal, gooseberries, and mulberries, using them to make tasty soups and boiled puddings. One favorite treat among Romani children is a potato hollowed out, filled with elderberry jam, and baked in the embers. Stuffed cabbage and frybread are also popular dishes in Romani communities.

Romani occupations include fortune-telling, music, metalwork, cleaning, farmwork, road construction, stonemasonry, and horse trading.

Vampires are a common theme in Romani folklore, and the Roma people are referenced in the novel Dracula. Werewolves are also a well-known part of Romani folklore.

The hedgehog represents a distinctive culinary tradition among the nomadic Romani people.

Language

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages made the Romani language an official language in many European countries.

Religion

In ancient times, the Roma followed Hinduism and Buddhism. Today, most follow Eastern Orthodox Christianity. However, many are Muslim. The Dasikane (Christian Roma) practice baptism, while the Xoraxane, or Muslim Roma, practice male circumcision. Other Romani people around the world practice faiths including:

• Islam
• Bahá'í
• Sufism
• Hinduism
• Palmistry
• Buddhism
• Witchcraft
• Romanipen
• Catholicism
• Mormonism
• Evangelical Christianity

Other Romani people practice Noahidism, a Jewish new religious movement based on Orthodox Judaism..and a set of moral laws called the Noahide Laws). People who live according to the Noahide Laws are called children of Noah (B'nei Noach) Noahids.

Footnotes

References