Many Romani groups throughout the world, nowadays, have lost the knowledge of all the aspects that make up our great Culture and that includes the knowledge and the skills of healing.
We survived many epidemics, including the plague. In fact Amare Chel were being accused of spreading the plague without being affected by it, being accused thus of witchcraft, of being in league with the devil. The fact that we called and still call god Devel or Debel did not help in that matter either.
What the Gadje did not know then and understood is that the plague was spread by the flees of the black rat (Ratus ratus) and the fact that we did not have cats and dogs in the living quarters was one reason we did not get affected by it, or at least not badly.
It is also reported by chroniclers, who were not the kind of fanciful writers creating the myths of gaudy clothes and such, that most of Amare Chel used to go nango, and not just the Chave. Thus the fleas had nowhere to hide.
However, it can also be assumed that our medicine women may have had powerful natural cures. On the other hand there are no records as to whether Amare Chel did not succumb in some numbers to the plague as well.
Urine was one of the treatments that many would balk at today, no doubt. However, asthma and other lung condition were treated with urine and in some groups it had to be the urine of a prepubescent Chavo of around five to six years old and ideally taken directly from the source.
This “medicine” was also used for the treatment of some skin conditions and other ailments. I don’t have an entire list and neither, I hasten to add, do I have a list of what herbs and other treatments were used for other things.
While my Mami was a Drabarni, among other things, as a Chavo I did not take a great deal of interest in what it involved; making knives and carving spoons was much more interesting at that time and then again the healing department was very much the domain of the women and the old ones especially.
But this is just one small part of the knowledge that we have lost while having gotten too close to the Gadje and wanting to ever more emulating their ways and all that. We have done so and are doing so at our peril and specially at the peril of our Culture, and, indeed, at the peril of our very existence as an ethnicity, as a People proper.
Many of our taboos may be somewhat outdated to some, and some may have come about in other ways and are not original at all, but the one about not having dogs and cats within the living areas today have been proven by science to having been correct in avoiding certain diseases and conditions. It would appear that there was a knowledge there already in our ancestors that modern science had to discover and discover it it did rather late.
The ways we raised our children, especially the boys (and this is the only part that I can really attest), but which are rarely practiced today, also appears to be now validated by science, especially coming out of India (and Asia) where many of the ways are also and similarly practiced.
Some of those ways we can still find in use in the homes of many of the Ciganos (Calon) in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. It would appear that they, because many of their ancestors left – were forced to leave – much earlier the influence of Europe, have retained many of the old ways albeit, it has to be said, not the language.
There we can also find many of the true old Customs and Traditions of our Culture, though many aspects of the religious and spiritual practices are now hidden in those of Catholicism.
When the virgin is being venerated for the Calon it is invariably a black Madonna, and this is also more often than not the case in Europe. Whether they know it or do not the black Madonna represents not the Virgin Mary but the Goddess Kali, Amari Devi, although, it has to be said, the “patron saint” of Brazil itself is a black Madonna. Then again there is the possibility that this “patron saint” came about due to the amount of Calon in the population.
Also many of the festivals of the Rom in Eastern Europe, though having an Orthodox or Muslim mantle, are in fact original Romani festivals though they maybe, and often they are, no longer be celebrated at the correct days of the lunar (and solar) calendars but on the days of the Christian or Muslim holidays. However, those religious festivities in Eastern Europe are far fewer than those that are still being celebrated by the Calon in Brazil, and often they are actually celebrated at the correct time.
Many of our Customs and more have either been entirely hidden or been abandoned for fear of what the Gadje could and might be thinking while others were camouflaged in other ways and today few understand the real meanings and even that those celebrations are even our own.
The same goes for a great number of valid taboos that have been abandoned because we wish not to be seen different (from the Gadje) be that the one about dogs and cats in the home or others, while others have been misrepresented and molded, to some extent, to be used where and in a way they never were intended to be used. The latter due to the Elders who still had the knowledge having perished in the Samudaripen, for instance, being thus unable to teach the right way to the younger generation, to the survivors, who were not as yet completely initiated.
The fake patriarchy is also one of those things that was created to “pacify” the Gadje who would, in no way, discuss with a female clan chief, for instance. So the men became the spokespeople to the outside world, initially representing the points of the true chief, but slowly but surely they also took on the mantle of being the boss in the family and clan and usurped the role of the woman leader(s), aided and abetted by the Abrahamic religions they began to follow, whether the various forms of Christianity or Islam, where the role the woman is subservient to the man. By doing so we have created a problem, or more than one in fact.
The list could be extended but it would fill pages upon pages, thus this here shall, for the moment suffice.
2024 © Michael Smith
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