Hunting pheasants. The Gypsy man put raisins on a nylon string then dropped them along their tracks as bait. He knew the pheasant tracks by the droppings they left and bits of feathers. He'd hide and wait for one to come along, eat the raisins and swallow the nylon with it and while the hapless bird tried to bring up the string, gagging in distress, he'd run up to it and catch the bird around the neck and kill it.

There's many different styles of Gypsy music. I myself have always liked the good old Gypsy Kings. But there's a much wider field of Romani music that can be explored. For instance, a CD called "World of Gypsies" introduces Gypsy music from all over the globe and includes music from Hungary, Spain, Poland, Romania, Rajasthan, Greece, Macedonia, Egypt, Bulgaria, Serbia and the Czech Rep. Then there's Romani folk music from North America and from Europe on the Spanish guitar. Also the Kalyi Jag style Romani folk songs and the Balkan-style music from the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece. I like Flamenco and Middle-Eastern music which uses musical intruments like the bouzouki and for the more sentimental and romantic at heart, nothing can beat a good Gypsy violinist. I think I'll go and put on one of my Gypsy CDs right now.

Roma were excellent horse dealers and horse breakers. They didn't break the horses like in the American rodeo, but used a long plank which they placed over the horse's back and two men would pull down on the plank until the horse got used to the weight. Some men did have a skill in communicating with horses called Horse Whisperers. I've also been talking to a horse breeder, but don't know enough about the subject to go into any futher details. Perhaps someone could elaborate on the subject, Romanies and their horses, a bit more.

My Romani grandmother told me that the Sinti were known for their ability to melt tin and mend pots and pans to make them look like new. That was one of their jobs back in the early 1900 hundreds. Other jobs included: Horsetraders, Metalsmiths, Basket weavers, Sieve makers, Umbrella makers, Coppersmiths, Blacksmiths, Musicians, Entertainers, Fortunetellers, Dancers, Artists, Actors...We also had the knowlege to heal ailments with herbal medicine as it was necesary for us to do this because we often didn't have a doctor to consult, so we learned to use the power of nature to heal many things.

How do the words Kale, Kal, Kali, Cale relate to Romanies? The Europeans would have seen us as dark skinned when we first appeared in Europe and perhaps that's how these descriptives came about? Welsh Romanies called themselves K�le (Kawl�) and Finnish Romanies call themselves Kaale and of course in Spain, they are Cal�s or Romani Cale. K�lo is the adjective black, dark skinned, etc. (Hindi k�la) black/dark-skinned as an adjective or kal�, black/dark skinned man, kale would be the plural of both genders and kali the feminine.

Kali (Sanskrit ) is a goddess with a long and complex history in Hinduism. The comparatively recent devotional movement largely conceives of Kali as a straight-forward benevolent mother-goddess.

Kali Sara, Goddess of Retribution

According to her devotees, Kali in her human form was the wife of a despotic Rajah who ill treated his subjects so she strangled him in his sleep and was then elevated to goddess stature. The Thugs, a sect of religious killers were devotees of Kali and strangled rich merchants and distributed their money to the poor, sort of Indian Robin Hoods. Other aspects of Kali as a Shakti include the protectress of the oppressed and persecuted which is probably why Roma and Sinti attend the shrine of Sara Kali in France. Sara is also another aspect of Kali, through Kali/Durga/Sara, a Trinity mentioned a lot in Hindu scripture. (Ronald Lee)

An Indian temple near where we live.

Christian missionaries have a history of deception and distortion that spans centuries. In days gone by, their efforts directly supported the aims of imperialist powers that were bent on conquering lands and destroying the way of life of any indigenous people. Today, missionaries are more subtle, but their goal is still the same: to trick or buy their way into the population to win converts - by any means necessary. The result of their wrong doing is still visible today. Just take a good look at us. We've been denied basic human rights. We're the outsiders and will stay that way if we keep letting them rule us. We can, and must speak for ourselves. Look what has happened to the North American indians, Australian Aborigines and the Maoris to name but a few. The brutal suppression of us by christians, calling our women witches and burning them at the stake and taking our babies away and forcibly assimilating them into Western society. Christianity has its share of forced or induced conversions. For the Romany people, the history in Europe tells it all. We're still looked down upon as a pagan if we admit and pay homage to our Goddess, Kali Sara (Earth Goddess) but over the centuries, to gain more acceptance and have less persecution, many of us converted to christianity, for our lives were at stake if we didn't, but now with the freedom of speech, we have rights to openly speak about our Goddess and the history and culture which links us to our ancestral homeland, India.

GYPSY SURVIVAL

It is a known fact that genocide of the Gypsies began back in the 16th century with the Christian Church and spread throughout Europe and continues to this very day, inheriting with modern times new names (assimilation, proletarianization) to describe the same human destruction.

As Dr. Jan Kochanowski sums up,

We must tell the story of the horrors ...so Gypsies see that today they have their last chance. They are faced with extermination or assimilation--two facets of the same fate.(in Kenrick 1972:206).

ROMANI HISTORY

A new theory on Romani history based on ongoing research into recorded and factual evidence is being prepared by Ronald Lee and other scholars, including Ian Hancock, Marcel Cortiade and Adrian Marsh. Using language studies, blood groupings, DNA tests and the factual evidence in the writings of the period by Firdausi and other scholars at the Ghaznavid court of Mahmud and later, the Persians, Armenians, Turks and Greeks, the theory suggests that a group of Indians numbering in the thousands were taken out of Northern India by Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century and incorporated as ethnic units, along with their camp followers, wives and families, to form contingents of Indian troops to serve in the Ghaznavid Emirate in Khurasan as ghazis and in the bodyguard of Mahmud and his successors. The existence of such troops is well documented in contemporary histories of the Ghaznavids, as is their participation in the battles in Khurasan. The theory goes on to explain that in 1040, the Ghaznavid empire was overthrown by the Seljuks and that the Indian contingency, numbering around some 60,000, were either forced to fight for the Seljuks and spearhead their advance in their raids into Armenia, or fled to Armenia to escape them. In any event, the Indians ended up in Armenia and later, in the Seljuk Sultanate of R�m. These proto-Romanies remained in Anatolia for two to three hundred years and during that time they abandoned their military way of life and took up a nomadic lifestyle based on artisan work, trading, animal dealing and entertainment. Gradually, small groups wandered westwards across the Bosporus to Constantinople and from there up into the Balkans to reach Central Europe by 1400, leaving local groups in all the regions they had passed through. Roma made their home in almost all countries of Europe where it has been, and still is, the failure of all of the governments of those countries to provide protection for Roma against persecution and massive discrimination by the police, local authorities and the local population that are the causes of the present conditions. Under the Geneva Convention on Refugees, this is tantamount to official persecution and allows Roma to seek refugee status in signatory countries. Little action is taken to prevent massive job discrimination in the workplace, housing and public sectors. In Romania and elsewhere, employment ads in the local papers are allowed to state: No Roma wanted or words to this effect. Roma are in effect living in a state of Apartheid in the New Democracies. In the Czech Republic signs appear in windows of discotheques, cinemas and restaurants stating: No dogs or Gypsies allowed! Now that Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are EU members and the other new democracies that have large Romani populations are in line for EU membership in the near future, it remains to be seen whether conditions will improve for the Roma, or will proposed improvements be endlessly delayed or even abandoned. If the evidence of the treatment of Roma in some of the long-established EU countries is any example, such as the deplorable refugee camps in Italy, the campsite problems in Britain, prejudice and actual persecution in Germany, Austria, France, Britain, Italy and elsewhere, the future of Sinti and Roma in Europe is not all that promising. The problem is not so much one of ethnic or national rights of Roma as minorities, where the present focus now lies, but of fundamental human rights as guaranteed under the United Nations Charter of Human Rights.

Y. Slee

Romani Origins and Romani Identity. Dec. 2006 (580kb PDF)

William Clinton, president of the United States between 1993-2001, was formerly named William Blythe. He is descended from the brother of the Romani leader Charles Blythe, who was crowned `King of the Scottish Gypsies' at Kirk Yetholm in 1847, and whose brother Andrew emigrated to America. Andrew's son, Andrew Jefferson Blythe, died in 1860 and was President Clinton's great-great-great grandfather. (Excerpt from We are the Romani people (Ame sam e Rromane dzene) Ian Hancock pp 130)

Her name is Dinara Sandu. She is 25 years old and a member of the Chur�ra, a nomadic Gypsy group in Romania known for making and selling cooking utensils. The roots of the Gypsies-or Roma, as many call themselves-run back a thousand years to India. "It is the Indian factors, linguistic, genetic, and cultural that different Rom populations share that makes us at heart one people," says Ian Hancock, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading adviser on Rom affairs. "But it is the more recently acquired non-Indian factors that divide us." (Extract and photo from National Geographics)

More on Romani history based on Ronald Lee's 'Roma in Europe Introduction.'

The countries of western Europe already had strong trades and artisan guilds that resented Romani artisan interlopers and requested the rulers to get rid of them. They drove the Romanies into the hinterlands where they obtained some protection from the nobility who appreciated their services on their vast estates. Thus, the Western-European Romanies were forced into commercial nomadism, which eventually evolved into their traditional way of life. Artisan work, entertainment, middle-men activities, horse trading, fortune telling by the women, begging and other nomadic professions were augmented by smuggling, a widespread practice among non-Roma during this period supported by people in high places and were lumped with the "masterless men and their wenches." After the 17th century they were seen as an undesirable social group rather than an original, ethnic population, even if misnamed "Egyptians," but because of persecution, hangings, banishments and transportation to the colonies of the maritime, empire-building nations, such as Spain, Portugal, later France, the Netherlands and Britain, Romanies in western Europe were never as numerous as those of Central/Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire where the greater part of the Romani population was located. Over the course of time, Romanies in the West became divided into sub-groups which were unconnected with Romanies elsewhere as new arrivals from Eastern Europe were few and far between right up until the mid 19th century. Gradually, their Romani dialects decayed until they lost their original grammatical structure and became registers of the vernacular surrounding language. Nomadism was outlawed in Spain and Romanies were forced to settle in gitaner�as in towns and cities. Their ethnic clothing and language were banned and they were ordered to become New Castilians.

As persecution in Britain, France and other countries of Western Europe declined, Romanies became part of the rural scene, colorful and mysterious, if often feared nomads, who passed through villages peddling their wares and plying their trades, trading horses and attending local fairs while the women told fortunes and practiced midwifery and herbal medicine.

On the other side of Europe, beginning in the 14th century in the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, Roma were being enslaved and were not totally emancipated until the Slubuzheniya of 1864. Serfdom and even slavery for Romanies existed elsewhere in Europe but not on the totality and scale of the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The Roma who had escaped slavery or serfdom existed in numerous sub-divisions, often defined by occupation of the group as a whole, by geographical location or some other factor. They were further divided into extended families and clans and leadership of these sub groups was centered on the "big man," variously called Rrom baro, bulabasha, shero-Rrom, etc., depending on the group and location and whether nomadic or sedentary. Self-appointed and accepted because of their abilities to eliminate problems for the group and to obtain money and favors from the local baron, the church or some other outside source, much like the modern executive directors of citizens; the self-help organizations, they were often referred to as "Gypsy kings" to the outside world, which gave rise to a mythological belief in Gypsy Royalty (sic) among outsiders. The Elders of the group were spiritual advisors and custodians of the traditions, genealogies and culture, while post-menopausal women served as spiritual advisors to the young women and were feared for their knowledge, real or alleged, of magic and witchcraft. This gave rise to the mythical phuri dai in literature, another hackneyed creation by the concocters of the Gypsy myth.

In time, these various groups found an economic niche in their local communities which varied between groups. Nomadic Romanies practiced artisan work, horse trading, entertainment and other skills suitable for nomadic existence. Sedentary jatis and communities also found a niche manufacturing items, blacksmithing, entertainment and agricultural work. Certain extended family groups and clans followed traditional occupations. Some were musician and entertainer groups, others metal working groups, others horse traders down to those who were mere beggars and sharpeners of augers or simply straightened bent nails for resale. Skills changed along with the economies and advancing technology and all Roma had more than one trade or skill they could turn to when another went into slump. Versatility and adaptability in self-employment enabled them to survive the terrible persecutions, but events far more horrific than could ever be imagined were to come which would decimate the Romani people.

The 19th and 20th centuries brought forced assimilation on a mass scale with the removal of Roma children and babies from their parents to be raised in European families and integrated into European life. With this and the cruel hardships of WW1, there was no end to the suffering of the Romani people, yet another war was looming on the horizon that would wreak catastrophic havoc to the Roma and Sinti living in central and eastern Europe. Between 1 and 1.5 million would lose their lives in the ensuing Romani Samudaripen (Holocaust).

Yvonne Slee

"My grandfather had a job in Hungary breaking in wild horses. (grai)" (Sharon telling Frank about her Gypsy ancestry: Sharon's Sins) The photo at right: My husband's grandmother, Alice.

Gypsy food: Spicy to hot paprika beef goulash and other meat and vegetable stews or grills which contain different types of paprika, the most often used spice, ranging in flavour from mild to hot. There's also Sarmi, cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and highly spiced.

   My Grandmother              A poem that I wrote             Forget-Me-Not Flowers      Elsa's greatgrandkids.

My grandmother once told me that because her father's skin was so dark, he reminded her of an Indian bathing in the Ganges River My grandmother's sayings: Following the power hungry self centred megalomaniacs is like a flock of sheep following the wolf in sheep's clothing. The dinosaurs didn't improve nature, neither do racists.

Luck Flowers for the Month of your Birthday

January -carnations and snowdrops. February -primroses. March -daffodils. April -daisies. May -lilies of the valley. June -roses. July -water lilies. August -gladioli. September -asters. October -dahlias. November -chrysanthemums. December -holly.

A Nostalgic Camping Scene

A Modern Camping Scene

Every year Gypsies gather in the Vosges Hills in France. Perhaps this is what it may look like.

---

Press Reviews:

Writer of the Year 2000-Award from THE PRESS NEWSPAPER:
I regularly contributed letters to a few north London newspapers and this particular paper awarded me and four other people with the distinction of Letter Writer of the Year. I wrote about many different issues that appeared in the local papers and recieved many responses from readers. Also, when the Press paper knew we were leaving they did an article and a picture about us to say good bye.

---

97.3FM Brisbane radio station advertisements:

Weekends�winter days�whenever you have a moment alone, it's wonderful to curl up with an intriguing book. Like the new novel, "Sharon's Sins" from Yvonne Slee. Sharon is a free-spirited woman hiding a dark past, who falls in love with the high priest of a church sect. Their relationship grows until a link from her past comes back to haunt her. Meet author Yvonne Slee and get your copies of "Sharon's Sins" and the sequel "Sharon Sins Again" this Saturday at Dymocks Chermside - from 11 am.

Romani Gypsy Author Yvonne Slee is steadily building a reputation as a writer of distinction; with fiction novels that pull no punches, and the real life recount of her gypsy heritage - Torn Away Forever. This and other titles by Yvonne Slee are out now at Angus and Robertsons Strathpine and Dymocks Chermside�

Gypsy Author Yvonne Slee is a writer that pulls no punches. Her two novels, Sharon's Sins and Sharon Sins...Again are evidence of this. Find out for yourself. Buy these and other titles by Yvonne Slee now, at Angus and Robertson Strathpine, American Bookshop, The City and other exciting book stores.

The first radio interview I did was in May 2005 at a community station in Redcliffe, QLD. with Heather about my books.

Jake Bower, Romani presenter of the Rokker Radio program on BBCs 3 Counties radio in the UK, recorded an interview with me on the 28th of May about Romanies in Australia and my Romani cafe. Thanks for remembering the Romanies in Australia and doing the interview with me.

I just did a radio interview in Melbourne (aired 22 June 2006) at 3CR with Jan Goldsmith about my book, Torn Away, Forever, the cafe, the food and the Romani literature available.

Torn Away, Forever Radio Interview (August 2005)

Going to the interview, I felt quite confident but a little overwhelmed by the size of the listening audience as the station was Brisbane's main ethnic radio station, 4EB98.1FM. The interviewer, Bep Torkington was very friendly and chatted with me for a couple of minutes before we went on air. They played sentimental Gypsy violin music to lead into the interview then she introduced me, before asking me a bit about myself and my book, Torn Away, Forever. I spoke of my Romani background and talked about the book, which Bep had read a copy of beforehand and told me that she liked it, found it interesting and had no hesitation in recommending the book to the listening public. I explained how life was for my greatgrandfather, the Rom who was torn away from his natural mother. Bep wanted to know what my grandmother's childhood was like and then the interview led into the subject of prejudice, which, I told her, is still rife in Europe today. She wasn't aware that Romanies were murdered in mass numbers in WW2 before she read my book. I explained to her that half a million Romanies died in the Holocaust and she was shocked and deeply saddened by that. The interview ended on this note leaving the listener with those thoughts and closed with more Gypsy violin music.

---

Dukh - Pain. A newly published book of Romani poems.

Available from Magoria Books

'dukh - pain' is Hedina Sijercic's collection of richly evocative poems, weaving together the author's fleeting joys and enduring tragedies with traditional Romani folklore. Hedina's poetry is enlightening in its candidness, which shatters the fanciful myth of the mysterious and ever-carefree Roma, replacing it with lyric images of a people living, loving, and dying, not immune to the caprice of the world that surrounds them. It is through such tragedies that the lingering message of these poems has become simply dukh, pain.

---

"Ame, le Rroma, sam yekh b�ro kop�chi kai si les but kriy�nzhi thai sw�ko kriy�nga si la but v�tsi - We the Romani, are a great tree that has many branches and each branch has many clans." (This ancient tree has its roots in India with many branches or nations while each nation, Kalderash, Kovara, Sinti, Romanichel, Kale, etc., has many clans or subdivisions. The individual Romani person is a leaf on the tree.)

Ronald Lee's new language book, Learn Romani is down to earth with plenty of every day phrases and terms that are well explained and easily understood for anyone interested in learning Romani. I even had a chuckle at some of the lighter examples used. It's a good book and I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.

Goddam Gypsy, Ronald Lee's autobiographical novel, is a fascinating and interesting look at ten years of the author's life in Canada. It makes for good reading. I enjoyed it a lot. Recommended!

To get hold of a copy of Ronald Lee's language book, type in "Learn Romani" on a search engine

COOL CATS LEARN ROMANI

E ZHIVINDI YAG CD

Evidence from blood groupings

Ongoing studies of Indian and European Romani blood groupings reveals that there is more similarity with Indian blood
groups than with European blood groups despite the 500-year sojourn of the Roma in Europe. A 1987 report in The Lancet,
a British medical journal stated:

Analysis of blood groups, haptoglobin phenotypes and HLA types established the [European and American] Gypsies as a
distinct racial group with origins in the Punjab region of India.

The ABO blood groupings also reveal that the European Romani blood groups are much closer to the Kshatriya or military
castes of India than to the nomadic groups usually referred to as "Gypsies" in India. A recent study concludes that:

The Rajputs occupy the position nearest the Gypsies. The dominant ethnic element in the Doms and Kolis (However) is
not reflected in any sizeable proportion in the genetic makeup of East European Gypsies.

(Ronald Lee)

---

---

Links to other Websites:

ROMANO SINTI UNITED COMMUNITY OF QUEENSLAND (A registered organisation)

Writer Ronald Lee's website. (The wagon is a stage prop from the children's play, The Fool's Whistle, based on a Romani Folk Tale.)

NEW!! The Rromani Connection website

Union Romani: Info for journalists

De Tinten Weblog

ERRC website

Roma Student net Archives (Italian)

RomanyGypsyTrailers-caravans

Gypsies: A Persecuted Race

---

links to other pages on this site:

Globetrotter      Sharon's Sins 1 & 2 & Torn Away Excerpts      Caravaning      Gypsy Festival      Mystical      Jewellery     

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws