I remember seeing a grave in a local cemetery. It was surrounded by small stones, and the space filled with the clean sand you find in children's sandbox. In the sand were handsful of little plastic toys, all seemingly new, all immaculate. I was told it was the grave of a 6 year old gypsy girl, and the toys were regularly cleaned and/or replaced (and the sand raked clean) so that she would always be able to play.
Thanks for the excellent information. My great great grandfather was a Traveller and was transported to Australia for a very minor crime as a child. I It's good to see so much interest in the community.
The Roma in Canada don’t wash for 3 days and all the family and friends stay with the deceased until the funeral. They also buy a new outfit and put in new things that would have been the persons favourite things. Like jewellery, cigars or perfumes. Gold coins as well. The head stone is large, but most do bury their loved ones in the ground now. Times change over the years. But their superstitions do not. They also go to the grave site and bring that persons favourite drink and food and cigarette if they smoked. By sitting and taking with them it gives comfort to the family.
I have Irish on one side, and Romani from Slovakia ending up in South Italy traveling across the country back and forth until coming to America. In America our Romani married into the Martinez tribe, Native American. I am fortunate to have names and photos. As this all occurred parallel with the assimilation trauma of native Americans, it's almost unheard of to have records. There have also been slight name changes on both sides for the purpose of hiding from ethnic cleansing attempts.
Particularly loved this video. The GRT communities have long held a fascination for me, I have a great respect for them. The very few I’ve met I felt a quite “at home” with, I enjoyed their company and loved their stories. Your presentation was great, unexpected and took me back in time. I remember my youth and my experience of meeting the ‘few’ I’ve met, and who’s company I enjoyed so much. Thank You. ( Although my enjoyment of this particular episode, should be expressed more like “ THANK YOU FOR SHARING ! ! “- a Trump like shout. ) ❤😊😊🎉
We have a sizeable Roma population here in Greece, but they don’t follow all those traditional customs now. Funerals are still extended family events and mourning is important, but they are buried in standard graves like everyone else. Cemetery regulations are tough most of the time and graves are quite small today. Also many believe that the spirits of the dead, can persist on earth and retaliate on the living, particularly in cases of suicide or murder. The dead are respected a lot and never talk about negatively, so if someone has a great disagreement with someone else, he may insult his dead relatives.
A Roma friend explained to me that gypsy as an identity is not a slur, but it can still be treated as one. It's similar to how in North America some people will call anyone from South America "Mexican" even if they aren't from Mexico. It's not that there's anything shameful, wrong, or offensive about being Mexican. It's an identity millions of proud of damn proud of! It's the context in which the word used. It essentially erase the rest of South American identities, It's a refusal to respect people's cultures, ethnicities, nationalities, and identities. It's also treated as a "subtle slur" by some people, even towards people from Mexico. It's not that the identities themselves are bad, it's the context in which people outside of those groups use them.
Love your videos about death and different cultures. They are very educational and it’s interesting to see how different cultures traditionally take on death and dying
Very interesting video! Keeping the deceased at home seems unusual for many of us, but i have a friend from Romania who says that it is normal practice there, I suspect it it normal practice in many countries. I expect we are the weird one for whisking away our loved ones the moment they have passed.
Fortunately, the death positive movement is slowly beginning to return us to older times here in the US with Home Funerals and Death Doulas and Home Funeral Guides assisting families in designing and holding their own funerals at home.
Mine did too, only once when I was little, she was talking about her mom and then said to me they were Gypsy, I had never heard that word before at the time and was young so just forgot about it until I was older, I just know bits and pieces and that her mom had family in Austria.
Funny side note. There are prejudices going back to those days within my larger family. There was a great bitterness where my Irish side, were staunchly against the inner marriages with the other culture.
Ah, so that's an irish traveled, my granddad would call me an Irish Gypsy cause I just can't settle in one place. And also they're Irish but yeah. Now I get it. Then I picked up tarot cards and dead people so that makes sense
