Since their unexplained appearance in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Gypsies have doggedly refused to conform to the settled life. As wandering blacksmiths, tinkers, pedlars, and horse-copers, as musicians, dancers, fortune-tellers, and bearleaders, as thieves and poachers, they have covered the continent and spread to America. This is the story of their origin and dispersion, their occupations and traditions, their customs in love and death, and their language, signs, and magic.
Jean-Paul Clébert was born in Paris in 1926. He was educated in a religious boarding-school until, in 1943, he abandoned his studies and joined the Resistance. When the war was over he took on various jobs in order to be free to continue his writing. At this period he knew Blaise Cendrars and Henry Miller and wrote under their influence. Clébert’s books always reflect the bonds between man and society; solitude and communication. His first book, Paris insolite, was a documentary about the tramps of Paris; his second, La Vie sauvage, about vagrants; his third, Le Blockhaus, portrayed imprisoned men. At the moment he is working on a new novel dealing with the psychology of a spy.
Author(s): Jean-Paul Clébert, Charles Duff
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 1970 (1967)
Language: English
Commentary: scantailor made
Pages: 340
City: Middlesex, England
Tags: gypsy culture;gypsy anthropology;gypsy sociology;gypsies00jean
The Gypsies
Contents
Translator’s Foreword
List of Illustrations
List of Drawings
Introduction
1. Origins
Legends
Gypsies and the Bible
Gypsies and the East
Hypotheses
Gypsies and the Jews
Gypsies and the Forge
Gypsies and India
Supplement: The Various Groups of Gypsies
The Kalderash Gypsies
The Gitanos (Gitans in France)
The Manush (les Manouches in France)
Note on the word ‘Gypsy’ and its equivalents
2. History
The Dispersion of the Gypsies
Appearance in Europe
Dates of the Appearance of Gypsies in Europe
Gypsies in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Names given to the Gypsies
Gypsies and the ‘Dangerous Classes’
Gypsies and Witchcraft
Gypsies and the Sabbath
Gypsies and the Fairies
Gypsies and Repressions
Gypsies in France under the Old Régime
Gypsies in the Basque Country
Gypsies in the Rest of Europe during their Past
Gypsies in the Balkans
Gypsies in Romania
Gypsies in Hungary
Gypsies in Russia
Gypsies in Germany
Gypsies in Poland
Gypsies in Scandinavia
Gypsies in Britain
Gypsies in Spain
Gypsies in the Nineteenth Century
Gypsies and Romanticism
3. Occupations
Choice of Occupations
Gypsy Blacksmiths and Workers in Metals
Gypsy Horse-Traders
Gypsy Bear-Leaders
Music and Dancing
Arts of Divination
4. Traditions
Tribal Organization
Adoption and Exclusion
Authority
Matriarchy
Justice
Gypsy Law or Tradition
Oral Tradition and the Absence of Writing
Religious Beliefs
Mythology
Sara, the Black Virgin
Demonology
Magic
Pharmacopoeia and Medical Magic
Witchcraft
5. Everyday Life
Sterility and Fertility
Pregnancy and Childbirth
Birth and Baptism
Puberty and Virginity
Love
Betrothal and Marriage
Matters of Sex
Clothes and Finery
Habitat and Means of Transport
Food and Cookery
Hygiene
Death and Funeral Rites
6. Language and Means of Expression
Gypsy Language
Handwriting
Means of Expression
7. Gypsies and Society
Nomadism
Gypsies in the World Today
Spain
Britain
Belgium
Germany
Communist Countries
Gypsies and Non-Gypsies
Supplementary Notes on British and American Gypsies by the Translator
Bibliography
Supplementary Bibliography
Index
