From: Argrath@aol.com
Date: Tue 05 Dec 1995 - 04:10:17 EET
Folks:
RW Gypsies (or, as they call themselves, the Romany Rye) are descended
from an Indian group (as in the country India) which left India no later than
about 1000 C.E. (as I recall reading; I don't have the sources in front of
me). Their language, Romany, is in an Indian language group. Europeans in
the Middle Ages believed that they were from Egypt, maybe because of their
dark skins. Hence the name "Gypsy." They are quite distinctive looking,
being below average height, dark skinned, but with sharp caucasian-like
features. (At least the ones I know all answer to this description.)
In the Middle Ages, Europeans had a legend that the Christ was crucified
with only three nails because the Gypsies stole the fourth. Thus, the
Gypsies were collectively forgiven the crime of stealing.
Gypsies have long had a reputation for being petty thieves and for
cheating people in trading. Hence the (offensive) English word "gyp,"
meaning to take advantage of someone in a deal, or to defraud someone about
the quality of goods being traded. The Gypsies in my area (Prince William
County, Virginia) have a reputation of running driveway paving scams.
For those of you unfamiliar with this particular scam (or who don't live
in a country with lots of driveways), I'll explain the two most common types:
A. Offer to pave a person's driveway for $x "per foot." The property owner
thinks you mean linear feet, and then you bill him for square feet. B. Offer
a ridiculously low price to pave someone's driveway. Dump a big pile of
asphalt at the base of the driveway, and threaten to leave it there instead
of rolling it out unless they pay a ridiculously high price. In both the A.
and B. scenarios, it helps to claim that you just finished a job and have
some left-over asphalt you'll let go for cheap.
The gypsies I know are semi-nomadic, living out of trailers for the most
part and spending every winter in Florida. One effect of this lifestyle is
that their children do poorly in school and end up with no options but to
follow in their parents' footsteps.
The Gypsies I know all have English-sounding surnames.
Many American travellers to Europe in the past few years have returned
with tales of Gypsy beggars and pickpockets/purse snatchers in France,
Germany, and Italy.
And that's all I know about Gypsies. A little less romantic than
tarot-reading and all that jazz, but a bit more of a realistic portrait, at
least of how outsiders see them.
As for Gloranthan Gypsies, there are probably all sorts of displaced
populations in Glorantha, including some which are somewhat Gypsy-like. Some
are permanent minorities, others are representatives of a population in the
majority elsewhere (like Hungarians in present day Slovakia or Romania), and
still others have different situations. Think of the Wends, the Welsh, and
the Walloons, or the Bretons, the Basques, and the Burgundians. Each has a
different and interesting story, and that's just European analogues. It
seems odd that we know little or nothing about Gloranthan
minorities/refugees, other than the Tarsh exiles and some Pelorian
populations. The West should be chockablock with people nursing old
territorial ambitions. Safelster should be the Balkans and then some.
--Martin
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End of Glorantha Digest V2 #250
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