My Gypsy Family

My mom grew up in Serbia in a small gypsy village.

Everyone in that town is somewhat related and they all know each other.

I remember when I came down to visit every summer, and was walking down the street, I was invited in by strangers who told me, hey I’m family come eat with us.

Its polite to accept and eat at least a little bit, so we had a lot of stops around a lot of households that summer.

Everyone greets each other by kissing you 3 times on the cheek, and I remember at a party where there are 100 people this can take a while saying hello to everyone.

When you get invited in to eat dinner, you have to eat something, and the more you eat the better, if you end up burping it’s a good sign, and its basically a way to say thank you.

I always wondered for this reason why people in western culture apologies when they burp, because I was brought of thinking it was something you had to do.

Family:

This is the most important thing for gypsies, and they have very big families.

Everyone who is a little related is close family, even god mothers and god fathers are considered close family, and their families. So, my family is huge. Its not all blood related. I have no idea who is blood related to me, I just know they are family.

They do anything for family, and if someone dies, they all mourn the loss, If someone gets married they all come, everything is shared, even small events. If someone steps out of line, they all intervene.

Appearance:

This is important for gypsies. How they look and what they wear.

For girls, they all look like super models, wearing high heels, miniskirts, big puffy dresses, gold jewelry, and a lot of makeup.  

Before a girl gets married this is how she shows status, even though she wears skimpy clothes they are all virgins until they get married, this is something they take pride in. If a girl isn’t a virgin when she marries, that’s her status gone, she is considered impure, and her worth falls.

For men, they always wear clean clothes, with gold necklaces. Their hair and everything in order.

If they have a nice car that’s a plus and sign of wealth.

When they get married, how they hold their household matters. It must be constantly cleaned, so if they get surprise visitors its spotless.

I remember when I was back home, my friends would always have to clean the house before agreeing to go out and play. I would have to sit and wait or even help.

Flowers on the table, a bowl filled with fresh fruit or candy, and making sure everything was dusted off.

I remember growing up and my grandmother yelling at me from time to time, because I was a messy head and had left my plate on the table not cleaned. She was the kindest and most loving person I’ve have ever known, but it was important for her everything was clean at the house.

My mom is the same way. She values looking good when she goes outside, she puts on makeup before she goes shopping, she always told me to clean up, because what if we the Danish queen came to visit us, and saw the mess we where living in.

Everything matters. That the house smells and looks good, that you yourself always look your best. Its all signs of good status and wealth.

If you are a little round around the waist, that’s a sign of good status too, being curvy, means you have a lot of food, and live a rich life.

Superstition

Gypsies believe in good signs and bad signs, they believe in the supernatural, ghosts, reading the future in coffee cups or your hand.

They believe in curses, and the evil eye.

They give their kids protection with a red bracelet made of yarn or give them religious symbols to war around their neck, like a cross made from gold, or a picture of a saint on it. Its to protect from curses and evil eyes, that is to be believed to cause illness or bad events happening to a child.

Its important that a kid is baptized when they get born, if they aren’t, they will grow up evil, and go to hell.

You can’t address your kids or anyone to be beautiful, you have to say the opposite.

I remember going to see my family and everyone would pinch my cheek, kiss their fingers, and say I was rusno. This confused me growing up because rusno, means ugly, and I didn’t understand why everyone would say I was ugly until I asked my mom and she told me that they cant say I’m pretty because then one day I wont be, so they use the word ugly to say I’m pretty.

They give their kids nicknames that’s related to a flaw in them. I was named Zuba, because I had big teeth growing up.  Zuba means teeth.

If your nose itches the left side of it, you will get into a fight, if the right side has an itch something good will happen.

If you left hand itches you will have loose money, if your right hand has an itch you will get money. Its all connected and has a meaning. Left side is bad things happening and right side is good.

There is a lot more of these superstitions they follow. Things you can and can’t do.

Dreams and coffee cups:

Dreams are important to gypsies. If you have a dream about an elephant they will try to determine if the dream was bad or good, going from the letter E for elephant, and then try from what the dream was about to predict if it’s a good omen or a bad one.

From what I’ve noticed its only women who practices the art of interpreting dreams.

They also learn how to read your fortune in coffee cups.

I think it’s passed down from mother to mother. I can’t tell if it’s true for every family, but my mom learned it from her mother.

Funerals:

When someone die there is a lot of tradition going with this event.

They believe the spirit will stick around for 40 days.

The spirit will haunt the family for 40 days, either appearing as an animal, or a shadow or something else.

When my grandmother died, my mom firmly believed she came to visit her one day as a cool breeze. My mom went to bed one night and thought it was too hot, it was in the middle of summer, and suddenly after having thought that, a cool breeze came through the window, and cooled the room down. My mom got up scared and told my grandmother to stop haunting her.

I’ve heard a lot of similar stories from most of my family members, either stories of shadows, animals or objects in the house suddenly being out of place or being moved around.

After those 40 days, when a person has died, they have a big party.

When my grandmother died. They bought a lamb, it was important it was female, because my grandmother was one.

Its bad luck if they get a male for a woman and the other way around for men.

Before the lamb is roasted over a pit of fire, they must address the lamb and say goodbye to the spirit inhabiting it, this case my grandmother. My mom told me she kissed the lamb and dried it of tending it as it was my grandmother lying there.

Then later that evening everyone would be feasting on the lamb comforted by this action had sent my grandmother to the afterlife, and no longer roaming around as a spirit.

If they would fail to get a lamb after 40 days, my grandmothers’ spirit would roam around creating havoc forever.

After a death, everyone in the family would have to wear black clothes for an entire year, in the old days the women would wear black headscarves, but now they just wear a black shawl around their shoulders.

No music or television is aloud for 1 year, and you can’t laugh or smile too much.  

My mom told me that my grandmother had asked everyone in the family to not follow this tradition when she died, she wanted us to laugh and still listen to music.

My mom still honored the tradition and didn’t listen to music for a year.

It’s all part of showing everyone you are mourning a big loss, a person you loved dearly and its all about showing their pain of loosing them.

When my family went to visit grave sites of the dead, we would bring a ton of food and have lunch at the grave. My grandmother was a smoker, so my mom would put a cigarette in the ground, so my grandmother was with us smoking in spirit. All the favorite foods and drinks of the person who has died, is placed upon the grave site, and sits there until next time they come to visit.

It’s believed that they get to enjoy these things in heaven if it’s brought to their final resting place.

On the walk to the grave site, its tradition for mostly the women to start screaming and crying very loudly. This always scared me a little when I heard it, but its again sign of showing how much they loved the person who had died.

Weddings:

This is filled with many traditions.

What happens mostly is, boy meets girl, boy goes to his parents and says he is in love with the girl, the girls family gets a visit from the boys family and they discuss If it’s a match and what the price will be to marry the girl is.

On the day of the wedding, his family will go meet the girl and her family, and they will have the money with them. Then they get married and after have a big party.

The party is mainly held in a big tent or a big venue that’s big enough for at least a 100 people, and they all dance, drink, smash plates on the floor and celebrate.

The day after they have another party, if they found blood on the sheets of the newly wed. To show the girl was a virgin.

My mom told me if I had gotten married that way, she would have had to kiss my bloody sheets and then show them around dancing to everyone. To show everyone I had been a good girl and that she had raised me well.

Old traditions say that if a girl isn’t a virgin, she would get put on a donkey and had to ride out of town while everyone would have to throw rotten fruit at her.

This tradition is outdated now, but I have seen a case where the girl got sent home the day after because she wasn’t a virgin and the couple got divorced.

That’s why its so important that the girl is a virgin, and everyone of my friends upheld this. They did tell me however that they had sex before marriage, but It was anal sex, since they would still be a virgin when they got married.

The wedding can last up to several days, up to 7 days depending on the family and how much they can afford.

Everyday the girl wears a new dress, a big puffy dress with loads of jewelry and a crown on her head, either made of flowers or jewelry.

One of the traditions is to shoot an apple of a big pole, if the couple manages to do this, they will have a fortunate life.

Everyone had to show they are happy, and dance as must as possible.

I remember these weddings, and everyone would be dancing throughout most of the day.

Even the elderly would shake their legs, laugh and shout, maybe even dance on the tables.

You can say a lot about the gypsies, but they sure know how to party.

When I was 15 I fell in love with one of the boys from my moms village, and he courted me for 2 years, we where supposed to be wed, when I was 18, but I discovered he had been cheating on me with one of my friends, so I broke up.

I remember it was very innocent when we where dating, we where constantly being watched by family to make sure I would be a virgin if we ended up being married.

I’m happy to this day it didn’t end that way, I was way to young for marriage, and having grown up the way I did, I wouldn’t have been suited for a gypsy life style.

He married a year later and has a few kids now.

The language:

I was taught to speak both gypsy and Serbian.

The gypsy language is called Romani, and they people call themselves roma.

Rom means man, and romni means women. So, therefor roma means the people.

I once meet gypsies from Spain, and I was surprised I could understand what they said, mostly.

The language is passed down from generation to generation, and varies, depending on dialect and what country you live in.

What I learned from asking my family about the gypsies.

There are several kinds of gypsies. The once who has taken root in a country, and no longer travel, they adopt that country’s religion and some of its culture. And then there are the ones who still travel.

Depending on what country you live in, your religious beliefs will be different, so because my family live In Serbia and they are mostly orthodox catholic there, they have embraced that religion as their own.

I know some gypsies in Denmark who are catholic, some are protestants, some are Muslims.  

I do find the fact, that the language and most of the traditions they have across countries are the same, interesting.

I’ve watched a lot of documentaries and videos from gypsies around the world, and a lot of their way of life is what I grew up watching.

I think that’s why tradition is so important to the gypsies around the world, that and their language, if they don’t pass it along to their kids, their way of life and their culture dies out.

I was raised mostly Danish, living here in Denmark, and my mom didn’t want me to grow up gypsy. She didn’t want me to be married of like she was when she was younger, she wanted me to live a more modern life, but some of the traditions she follows, she still tries to pass down to me.

Believing in the supernatural is something she managed to pass down, and that’s another blog post for another day 😊

My family aren’t travelers. They have their home in Serbia, some of my cousins moved to Germany or Austria to live a more modern life, but they all value the traditions they grew up with, passing down from our ancestors.

Some of the traditions aren’t as strict anymore, I see more and more of my family members marrying out of love, and the women have jobs, and aren’t just at home watching their kids.

They still value how they appear, and how well kept their homes are.

Gold is a big part of our family and decorating the homes with religious paintings and objects.

Many people believe that gypsies steal and are great con artists.

Some are, I’m not going to lie, but the only people I know who follow this lifestyle is my sister and her kids.

My sisters father, married my sister off to a guy when my sister was only 12, and the guy was raised to steal and lie, so it was the life style they lived by, and because of this we don’t talk to my sister anymore.

My family on my moms’ side, we value hard honest work, and my grandmother was the biggest influence on that. She taught me that giving is a virtue.

My grandmother was a poor woman, she lived of her own land, and sold what she could at the market. Every night she would make too much food, and one day I asked her why, she told us, if a poor man knocks on my door hungry, he doesn’t have to go home hungry.

She lived by this until she died.

I remember she would walk to town for an hour, to get me a pizza slice because I told her my favorite food was pizza.

She was the kindest loving woman I have ever meet, and I miss her gentle spirit every day.

If only everyone had the heart, she had, the world would be a better place.

Growing up watching 2 different cultures, has been interesting to say at least, I take the good from both cultures with me.

The good things I got from my gypsy heritage is our family views, we take care of each other, and we value giving.

Its in the small things, the traditions they have, that always strive to live an optimal life with great joys and celebrating the good events life through at you.

I don’t get to see them often but I know I’m loved and will be by all of them, even the ones I haven’t meet, because we are family. And family is everything for them.