Slovensko Roma

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Slovensko Roma

ETHNONYMS: Märe Roma, Märe Romora, Roma, Roma Sloveni, Romora

Orientation

Identification. The Slovenian Roma are a small Gypsy group, the main nucleus of which came to Italy during the 1940s from northern Yugoslavia. Together with the Croatian Roma (Roma Hervati) and the Istrian Roma (Roma Istriani) they form a fairly homogeneous group, both culturally and linguistically, which is clearly distinguished from other Gypsy groups in Italy. From a socioeconomic point of view, the Roma can be said to be a peripatetic group (an endogamous group that bases its subsistence on the sale of goods and services to the surrounding non-Gypsy population and that adopts strategies of spatial mobility).

Location and Demography. The Roma in Italy are concentrated in the northeast of the country; small groups are also found in central Italy. There are no general census Reports directly concerning them. On the basis of fragmentary and approximate reports carried out on a local level, one may hazard a guess that the number of Roma in Italy at present is about 1,000.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Slovenian Roma speak a dialect of the Romani (Gypsy) language, classified by some Linguists as a West Balkan Gypsy dialect. Compared to most of the Gypsy dialects of Indian origin spoken in Europe, it possesses certain unique features (the absence of the article, the presence of the infinitive, special adjectival inflections, etc.). The Roma also speak standard Italian as well as the Italian dialects spoken by the surrounding non-Gypsy populations. Only the elderly are still able to speak Slovenian.

History and Cultural Relations

The history of the Roma is closely connected, on the one hand, to the history of the surrounding European populations and, on the other, to the attempts made by the latter to assimilate the Gypsies. Linguistically related to some groups living today in Macedonia and Bulgaria, the Roma appear to be the descendants of a Gypsy group that reached the Croatian and Slovenian regions via the Adriatic coast. The first documents to cite them with certainty date from the first half of the nineteenth century, by which time they were already established in Croatia and Istria and had started to move into the Dolenjska region (southern Slovenia). They were divided into bands comprised of only a few families and exercised a circumscript nomadism, setting up camp on the outskirts of villages and in woods. They took to horse trading and working as blacksmiths with an essentially rural non-Gypsy clientele. Another important activity (exclusively female and juvenile) was begging. The Hapsburgs and the various Regional governments tried to assimilate the Roma by outlawing nomadism and even, in certain cases, forbidding their Commercial activities. Such a policy resulted, toward the end of the last century, in the virtual sedentarization of many Families who came to live on the outskirts of villages and small towns, forming in certain cases real Gypsy "colonies." Sedentarization, proletarization, and schooling were the means adopted by the government of the new Yugoslav state in their attempts to assimilate the Roma. During World II War they suffered from the genocide of the Nazi army and of the Croatian Fascists. Many of them were slaughtered in their encampments or taken to concentration camps in Croatia and central Europe. The Italian Fascist army, which had occupied a part of Slovenia, also deported hundreds of Roma to Italy. After the arrival of the allied forces in Italy, the Roma fled from the concentration camps but remained in the country, restricting their presence to the northeast. The policies of assimilation developed in Italy (from the 1960s onward), though attempts at sedentarization, schooling, and evangelization have been absorbed by the Roma, who continue to manifest and reproduce a peculiar identity. The attempts at compulsory schooling, in particular, are negated by the Roma by means of a refined system of school absenteeism, based on an ideological consideration: in their opinion literacy is something for the non-Gypsies and is of no value to the Roma themselves.

Settlements

One of the most peculiar aspects of the Roma's settlements is their immersion and dispersion in the midst of the Gadje (non-Gypsies). In order to maintain dispersion, based on economic and sociopolitical considerations, they are both nomadic and sedentary. Most of the Roma live in caravans and camp in locales that are either less than ideal or specially prepared by the local authorities, on the outskirts of town. However, a number of families live in permanent dwellings, ranging from simple huts to luxurious villas. A fair degree of mobility is, nevertheless, found even among those living in fixed abodes; removals are frequent and they often alternate between house and caravan. Dispersion is achieved by maintaining a minimal density of Roma in any given locality. A local group rarely consists of more than fifteen nuclear families.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities . Adaptability and flexibility are characteristic of the Roma's economic practice; they tend to avoid salaried jobs as much as possible in order to retain a total control over what they do with their time. They tend to occupy a commercial niche, in part left free by the non-Gypsies, and, if necessary, they engage in more than one activity at a time. Over the last hundred years the Roma have engaged in activities typical of peripatetic groups: the sale of goods, the sale of services, and the occasional and temporary sale of labor to the non-Gypsies. In Slovenia they worked, above all, as smiths, making or repairing the small tools used by the non-Gypsies for agricultural purposes; they also acted as horse dealers and every so often worked for wages as gravel makers on the roads. The women and children were mainly beggars; begging often involved an exchange of goods for services: the Gypsy women would enter peasant farmers' houses, reciting spells that would bring prosperity to the household and receiving food and clothing in Exchange. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Roma had already begun to abandon working as smiths. In Italy, until the sixties, they were mainly involved in horse dealing and begging, while in more recent times they have developed activities connected with the sale of used metals, used cars, fruit, precious objects, and even real estate. Only a few Families have continued to practice horse dealing, while begging has been replaced in part by requests for church and public assistance. Some families, albeit discontinuously, will accept salaried labor connected with seasonal fruit harvesting.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Kinship provides the base for the socioterritorial organization, even though the Roma themselves do not propagate any marked kinship ideology. They recognize a bilateral kindred (slahta ), a pragmatic rather than cognitive category, which includes first cousins, beyond which the confines become somewhat imprecise. Affines are not considered kin. Even if kinship is bilateral, certain practices demonstrate a patrilineal ideology—for instance, their preference for forming local groups based on a nucleus of married brothers. There are no corporate groups; their genealogical memory is impaired by the censorship resulting from the fact that it is prohibited to mention the name of a dead relative and usually goes back no farther than the second ascending generation.

Kinship Terminology. The Roma have a Sudanese System with descriptive terms based on the six elementary kin terms denoting father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and sister. For the vocative, first names are always used, except when speaking to small children; in this case the terms for "mother" and "father" are used reciprocally and also as terms of affection toward the children in general.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. The Roma practice marriage by elopement, following which consent must be given by both families. It is on such occasions that the more violent feuds may break out. There are no formalized exchange units, but ethnographic data demonstrate that despite the apparent "freedom" of choice, the patrilinee tend to practice a sort of delayed Exchange, following an irregular triad model A>B>C> A by means of marriages with consanguines or affines' consanguines. Apart from the nuclear family, where incest is frowned on, the only exogamous group would appear to be the set of the patrilateral parallel cousins, whereas endogamy is practiced toward non-Gypsies and toward a few different Gypsy groups. Postmarital residence follows three fairly distinct phases: uxorilocality immediately after the marriage, followed by a period of bilocality, which leads to virilocal residence. Divorce does exist, but it always involves a high level of conflict and requires the divorced man and woman to live in separate local groups.

Domestic Unit. Roma ideology stresses the autonomy of the nuclear family. Each family always must have its own home (mobile or fixed) distinct from other families, be Economically self-sufficient, and be free to move. Commercial associations between two or three families are always temporary and short-lived.

Inheritance. The Roma have developed a system of "Respect for the dead," which involves, among other things, the destruction of the goods belonging to a deceased person. The destruction involves either burning the possessions (even a caravan, a car, or money) or selling them to a non-Gypsy. In the latter case, the money received from the sale is used to decorate the tomb. Very few objects escape destruction (a knife, a watch, and so on) : they are chosen and kept individually by the members of the family in memory of the deceased. Apart from this modest passage of goods of a symbolic nature, there is no other economic inheritance. There is, Therefore, no accumulation of wealth that passes from one generation to another. However, the system of respect encourages the family not to abandon the locale in which the deceased is buried; therefore one can say that the deceased "leaves" the survivors an exploitable commercial territory.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization and Political Organization. The only recognized authority is the father/husband within the domestic unit. Otherwise the Roma have an acephalous Organization based on local groups of about ten families. A local group is formed by a nucleus of married brothers, to which can be added bilateral kin, whose presence is more or less fluid. Every local group expects a commercial monopoly over the territory where it is camped and will be prepared to make sure it is observed. It is possible for a leader to emerge in a local group (usually one of the brothers), even though he is not officially recognized by all the members. For many Families nomadism is limited to movement from one local group to another.

Social Control and Conflict. The more serious conflicts arise from disagreements over marriages or commercial activities. The Roma do not have any formal council. The resolution of a conflict always results from a settlement obtained by mediators assigned by one of the two parties. For other matters, social control is spread widely: every head of family has a gun, which serves more as a deterrent against possible violence aimed at his own family than as an offensive instrument. A violent conflict is made official by pronouncing "Eat your dead!" against the other party. Thus the conflict is extended to the group that has the same dead "to respect," the core of which is a group of brothers. Often, the fear of having the formula pronounced against one is a good enough reason for settling a dispute immediately. Social control may also involve requesting non-Gypsy police intervention.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs and Practices. The Roma consider themselves to be Christians and turn to divinities of the Catholic church. Each local group is tied to a particular saint (called devloro, "little God") and to his sanctuary. The saints have a non-Gypsy nature, as indeed do the ministers of the cult, who are all non-Gypsies: the Catholic priest and the faith healer. The former is considered above all the intermediary between the living and the dead; the latter (devloro or hailigo gadjo, i.e., "little God" or "non-Gypsy saint") is called upon in cases of illness.

Death and Afterlife. As mentioned above, the Roma follow a complex system of respect for the dead, a system that involves all social spheres. The various ways of showing respect are pursued by the family of the deceased and by anyone else who wishes to show respect. The respect involves a taboo on mentioning the deceased's name, the destruction of his or her possessions, the abandonment of the place where he or she died, and the decision to avoid doing something the deceased loved to do (for example, listening to a certain song, using a certain tool, eating a special dish). The respect also involves frequent visits to the cemetery (where the dead Roma are buried in the midst of the dead non-Gypsies, just as living Roma live in the midst of living non-Gypsies), no exhibition of photos of the deceased, and the substitution of red objects for black ones. As already noted, the group practicing respect acts as a group of defense/offense in cases of conflict.