Gypsies date back more than 1,000 years and are part of the Romani people. But not all Romani are Gypsies. Think of it as equating all Sicilians with the Mafia. Sicilians are not crooks but rather people from Sicily. The Mafia is a specific group of Sicilians. Similarly, not all Romani people are crooks, but a particular sect of Romani who have evolved into a ongoing culture of crooks are what we know as the "Gypsies".
The Romani people originally hail from India, which explains why the Gypsies you see and may be dealing with right now look so dark in hair color. Gypsies are a very strict, closed society that has lived outside the law of every nonGypsy culture they feed off of. In fact, they have rules about Gypsies only marrying other Gypsies, which explains how their physical traits have stayed so consistent.
So where does their culture of crime originate? Ironically, they'd have you believe it's with the story of Jesus, which explains some of their use of Christian imagery and so-called prayer in their homes. But the story you're about to read is about the only thing Gypsies have even remotely in common with Christianity in any way, shape or form.
The story that Gypsies teach and pass down from generation to generation basically goes that on the day before Christ was to be crucified, a Roman soldier found a Gypsy blacksmith, who had set up shop on the edge of town, and ordered the Gypsy to create four spikes which the Romans needed the following morning for a crucifixion. The Gypsy blacksmith created the spikes, but that night the Gypsy kept hearing a voice outside his tent saying, "This is my son they're going to crucify."
The Gypsy couldn't see anyone outside though, but the voice continued. That next morning, when the soldier arrived, the Gypsy displayed his handywork and then rolled them in a cloth to give to the soldier. However, the Gypsy had performed a bujo, or "trick" and kept one of the spikes. He then fled with the fourth spike -- the spike, as the Gypsies tell their next generation, which was intended to be driven through Christ's heart.
God was so pleased with the Gypsy that He promised that from then on, Gypsies could travel anywhere and steal for a living, that this was from that day forward allowed by God. The only rule was that they could not steal from another Gypsy, only from gadje, or non-Gypsies.
Any of you who are Christian are by now laughing at the absurdity of the Gypsies' story they've based their way of life on. Crucifixion was of course by design meant to be a horrible, prolonged and agonizing death. It was a form of torture. By default the Romans would not drive a stake through a victim's heart since that would kill them in seconds. Also, I highly doubt God runs around offering cultures the open license to steal from other cultures as a way of life.
Yet this is exactly what the Gypsies are taught with each new generation. While Gypsies are master cons, having perfected their art over centuries of living outside the rest of society and living by their wits, they're on a whole uneducated, very superstitious, and ironically brainwashed people themselves. Gypsy culture is harsh and unfair. The women actually do the brunt of the breadwinning (or breadstealing, as it were) since a good Gypsy fortune teller can bring in a small fortune each year.
In fact, in Gypsy society, marriages are arranged between families, with the groom's family having to pay a daro or bridepeace/dowery determined by the bride-to-be's fortune telling (read swindling) abilities and its potential for income. Many of these marriages take place before the Gypsy girl is even of legal consenting age. Also, Gypsy boys are typically truent from school and eventually removed from it entirely once there's a risk they might become too Americanized or adapt to any culture but that of their Gypsy heritage. Any Gypsy woman who does not follow the rules of her Gypsy society is marime or impure, the ultimate stigma to be avoided at all costs.
The Gypsy fortune teller's storefront or ofisa is where she practices her scam. Gypsy families, familia, will relate to other closely related families who live in other parts of the country, forming a mutual assistance network called a vitsa. Members of a vitsa are housed, fed and entertained when in town.
Locally, one large Gypsy family or a combination of families or family members either from the same vitsa or even multiple vitsi will form a common crime organization called the kumpania. Kumpaniyi work together to exploit a particular area. The Kumpania is ruled by a rom baro, a male patriarch selected from among the different patriarchs in the families making up that kumpania. The rom baro would be what the police would refer to as the "Gypsy King". He is the father figure that leads the families involved. However, while there is a rom baro, there really is no such thing as a "Gypsy King" as much as Gypsies would like to have us gadje believe. In fact, a more accurate definition of "Gypsy King" would simply be "bail bondsman".
Members of the kumpania will often form a wortachiyi or work team sharing duties, expenses and profits equally. This might be Gypsy women working from the same fortune telling parlor.
(Source: License To Steal: Traveling Con Artists, Their Games, Their Rules -- Your Money, Paladin Press, 1994)
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