Tauber Lektuerebeggingselling

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FABIAN JACOBS & JOHANNES RIES eds.

unter Mitwirkung vonHERESA LORENZ & NINA S OFFERS

Roma-/Zigeunerkulturen in neuen PerspektivenRomani/Gypsy Cultures in New Perspectives

Leipziger Universitätsverlag GmbH2008


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Inhalt / Content

Einleitung 9

Introduction 15

BERNHARD S RECKKultur der Zwischenräume – Grund ragen der siganologie 21

JUDI H OKELYGypsy Justice versus Gorgio Law – Interrelations o Difference 49

OLAF GÜN HERPraktizierte Relationen – Das „Zigeunerische“ in Ordnungsvorstellungenbei Zigeunergruppen und der Mehrheitsbevölkerung Mittelasiens 71

HERESA LORENZMusikkulturen der Zigeuner – Regionale Viel alt im transnationalen Diskurs 97

LÁSZLÓ FOSZ Óaking the Oath – Religious Aspects o the Moral Personhood among

the Romungre 119

MARIA ELISABE H HIELEGeschichte und Mystizierung der Zigeuner in Brasilien 135

ELISABE H AUBER“Do you remember the time we went begging and selling” – Te Ethnography

o rans ormations in Female Economic Activities and Its Narrative in theContext o Memory andRespect among the Sinti in North Italy 155

UDO MISCHEKDie Straße der Handwerker – Roma in Istanbul 177

MAREK JAKOUBEK & LENKA BUDILOVÁVerwandtschaf, soziale Organisation und genealogische Manipulationenin cigánské osady in der Ostslowakei 193


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HUUB VAN BAAR Scaling the Romani Grassroots – Europeanization and ransnationalNetworking 217

FABIAN JACOBS „Reich, aber ohne Rang“ – Mittel und Wege sozialen Au stiegs bei denGábor in Siebenbürgen 243

JOHANNES RIESWriting (Different) Roma/Gypsies – Romani/Gypsy Studies and theScientic Construction o Roma/Gypsies 267

Autoren / Authors 293

Dank / Acknowledgements 297

Inhalt / Content


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Elisabeth auber156

and she also goes out tomanghel . Tis article will examine the ethnographic data o anarticle originally published in Italian in 1999 ( auber 1999) 1, reproducing some parts oit. Ten I will examine what has happened in the past ten years to the practice omanghel ,an understanding o which is crucial to an understanding o Sinti logic and philosophy. Iwill suggest that in these ten years a trans ormation has taken place with regard to someli estyle eatures among Sinti amilies, but I will also say that this trans ormation has notaffected the concept o begging and selling as this reaches ar beyond mere economicactivity. Tere ore in observing begging and selling we have to see how the Sinti concep-tualisememory and respect , concepts which, or them, are strongly linked to the relationbetween the living and the dead. Tese ideas will help to ampli y the anthropologicaldiscourse, in particular Piasere’s analysis o Gypsy mendicancy (2000), and it will help us

to understand why young Sinti women in 2007 decide to go begging and selling ratherthan accept other orms o employment.

Respectand the Cohesive Structure of Family Networks

Te Sinti amilies this article is concerned with consider themselves to be the rst to havediscovered the mountainous north Italian region called South yrol, Alto Adige (Italian)or Südtirol (German). Te great-grandparents o the oldest had always lived in Viennaand in the Carinthian region o Austria. Teir ancestors moved to the yrol be ore theFirst World War and later, afer 1919, to South yrol. Families that are called “Italian Sinti”are considered to have only moved to this region afer the Second World War. Te dataon the graves o amily members and some archival data conrm this narrative, but weknow that there have been Gypsies in this alpine region at least since 1600 (Zani 1990). Imy interpretation o the cohesive structure o this North Italian Sinti community is cor-rect, the term “ amily networks” may be help ul in understanding how Sinti cohesivenessworks within these different amily groups.

1 Te ollowing text reproduces in part a rewritten and revised version o the text originally publishedin 1999 inItalia Romaní II edited by Leonardo Piasere, CISU, Roma. Te 1999 version was translatedalso into Hungarian in: 2002 Prónai Csaba:Olaszország. Cigányok Európában 2. Új Mandátum Könyv-kiadó. It is interesting to see that 10 years ago I decided not to translate the sentence in the title “ enkrehtut kau molo ke giam manghel” (Do you remember the time we went begging), as i I mysel would liketo re er to an exclusively Sinti audience. From 1997 until 2000 I lived on acampo nomadi . I wrote thearticle while I was still living in a caravan and participating in the everyday lives o these Sinti amilies.I am grate ul to the Fritz Tyssen Stifung and the Stifung Südtiroler Sparkasse or the research undingin 2007, urthermore to Fabian Jacobs and Johannes Ries or comments and suggestions on this versiono the article and to Chris Fisher or the language revision.


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“Do you remember the time we went begging and selling”

Tere are at present several different Sinti amily networks in South yrol. Amongthem, there are the so-called Italian Sinti including the Sinti Lombardi, the Sinti Mucini,and the Sinti Piemontesi; and the so-called German Sinti (Sinti taitsch) including the Sin-ti Extraixaria and the Sinti Efavagaria. Tere are at present also some Roma amilies oSloveno-Croat provenance as well as Roma rom the ex-Yugoslav regions o Macedoniaand Bosnia in South yrol who arrived at the beginning o the nineties. Te ex-YugoslavRoma are engaged in wage labour and live mainly in social housing. Tey are not Italiancitizens, see themselves as part o the Roma Diaspora, speak Romany and have strongconnections to their home countries (Golino 2005). Since 2004 we nd also Rumanian,Slovak and Hungarian Roma in South yrol. Tese Roma ollow a migratory pattern ostaying a ew months, returning to their countries or a ew months and then coming

back again. Many o them have no caravans or lodging and sleep in their cars, beg onthe streets, make music or are involved in minor commercial activities. Little is knownabout the Rumanian, Slovak and Hungarian Roma who have been coming to South yrolregularly since 2004. Some Sinti musicians eel strong sympathy or those virtuoso Romamusicians arriving rom the new EU member states playing “music like we play” on thestreets, i.e. so-called Hungarian czardas and popular Italian songs. Te South yrol Sinticonsider all these Roma simply as “Slavi”. Certain specic characteristics which differentiate these Sinti are worth pointing out.Te Italian and German Sinti practice an economy which is essentially based on doingbusiness with the Gage without getting involved in wage labour or hierarchical labourstructures. Many o them would pre er to live on small plots o land equipped with bath/showers and wooden houses or sleep in their caravans. As this is only possible or a ew

amilies in small municipalities, many amilies have moved into social housing. TeseSinti amilies are Italian citizens, speak both Romany and Italian, and consider them-selves to bethe Gypsies o the region. Tey would also claim to be thetrue Sinti, the ones whostill respect the tradition which,as will be explained, means their ancestors. Tis is even truer when they reect upon the

li estyle o their cousins south o the South yrol. A eature that is maybe slightly irritat-ing to these Sinti is the act that they speak Romany and Italian but most o them do notspeak German even though the region where they live is mainly a German-speaking re-gion, and the Gage with whom these men and women are in economic contact are mainlyGerman. It is great un when men and women tell stories about their daily verbal inter-action with German-speaking Gage, stories o misunderstandings, unintended offencesand comic German pronunciation. It seems as i German is a language they do not wantto know despite the acts o their historical migration and present situation. Elsewhere( auber 2006) I have given some explanations or this disinterest in the German language

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Elisabeth auber158

which I will only touch upon briey here: Sinti use the term “Hitlari” or German-speak-ing people and they are used to saying that Italians are better, kinder people who do notdiscriminate against the Sinti. Tis observation, on a political and historical level at least,is inexact, but it seems that, on the basis o day-to-day interaction, the Sinti get along bet-ter with Italians. Anyhow these Sinti amilies not only speak the same Romany dialect, undertake simi-lar economic activities and ollow the same marriage customs, they also say about them-selves that theyrespect their dead . Te concept o respect among the linguistically relatedManus in France has been described and analysed extensively by Patrick Williams (1993),Jean Luc Poyeto (2000) and or the Sinti in Italy by auber (2006). It isrespect (rispetto,era) which regulates, structures and gives sense to Sinti lives on this territory.Respect

means to move on different levels. Tere are theown dead Sinti (relatives) and there arethe anonymous,collective dead Sinti (relatives) who are respected. Further, there is the re-spect ul relationship and speech among the living Sinti ( auber 2006). Sinti invest a lot odiscussion and reection on how they should go about their lives and on how certain Sin-ti individuals are respect ul and others are not. O interest and central to our understand-ing o Sinti cohesion is the act that the whole group o amily networks only becomesapparent i non-respect reaches critical limits. Ten the cohesion o the normally invisiblenetwork moves into action among those Sinti who are related through kinship and/ormarriage. Again kinship among Sinti means the recognition o each others’ practice andlogic o respect or the dead. Both kinship and marriage are negotiable, andrespect playsa key role in this negotiation, but to the Sintinon-respect is non-negotiable. I have sug-gested that we should consider this logic orespect as a cohesive structure that allows Sinti

amilies to live quite isolated lives dispersed across regional territories ( auber 2006). ooutsiders, they are not acting as “a group”. Gage working with Sinti continue to complainabout the missing sense o solidarity among Sinti, the absence o any sense o group orcommunity and the absence o any recognizable political authority or leadership. Eventhough similar patterns are ound on every caravan site, social housing complex orcampi

nomadi (nomad camp)2, this absence o recognizable denitions and eatures is ofendescribed. Tese patterns – Patrick Williams (1993) speaks o atmospheres – say noth-ing about how these different amilies are interconnected. Elsewhere, I have discussed atgreat length this logic orespect and the need to see it as a total social act able to explainnot only Sinti interaction, rhetoric, discourse and narration but also Sinti marriage, gen-der conceptions, nomadic movements, politics, conicts and even economic activities

2 Campi nomadi are a specic Italian solution, introduced in the 1980s, to limit places where Gypsiescan stop with their caravans. Tesecampi nomadi are today regarded as being places o exclusion parexcellence (see Piasere 1992, Sigona 2005).


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“Do you remember the time we went begging and selling” 159

( auber 2006). In our analysis o the economic activity o begging and selling it will behelp ul to distinguish between two levels: On the one hand we are speaking about theeconomic activity which guarantees nancial income; on the other, we are re erring tothe narrative dimension which includes the respect ul memory o the dead and the re-spect ul interaction between the living.

Manghel – Going to Beg and Sell

I had known the Sinti or a year and had lived with them or just a ew weeks when Na-poli, a 72-year old Sinta said to me: “Come, we are going tomanghel .” It was a sentence I

was ofen to hear in the uture. From then on, I started an activity which would occupy amajor part o my attention or quite a long time. Manghel or Sinti has several meanings:

• to ask one’s help (mangau tut, ker mange kau kova ),• “to ask down” – afer elopement and marriage, young couples coming back and

excusing themselves in ront o their parents (ti manghes tele) (see auber 2006),• to go selling and begging ( ti manghes). Some Sinti translate the word as “selling”

or even “working”. In act,manghel is a combination o both selling and begging.I Sinti are only “selling”, there is another word or it:ti bikues (to sell).

Manghel leads Sinti women to the houses and shops o the Gage. Tese women moveonto a territory which is completely occupied by a non-Gypsy presence, leaving no blankspaces on the map to be lled in. Women move on this territory selling and begging, butthey also remember and describe their experiences. While begging and selling re ers tothe Gage, remembering and narrating is concerned exclusively with the Sinti. Manghel is strongly gender-dened as an everyday economic activity, but Sinti use it also as a

philosophical concept which explains their relations with their surroundings: the world,nature or the Gage. So women going out tomanghel are not only practicing a gender-de-ned activity but also a Sinti-dened philosophy. When I started to accompany Napoli to the surrounding villages, cities and valleys,the “external world” disappeared rom my view and I started to practice a pro essionwhich in the eyes o non-Gypsies is marked by a certain medieval ascination, but alsowith many prejudices, stereotypes, ears and shame.

Afer my rst experiences, other women would also invite me to come with them.Tese different women’s personalities o course had an inuence on how they addressed


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and traded with a Gagio or a Gagi, but they all kept the necessary distance rom them.Ever since I have known these women, tomanghel has been the subject o lively discus-sion. Te subject becomes particularly important when their daughters are about to bemarried as women reect on how their daughters will manage tomanghel in their new

amily. When one meets these young women, one might ask why they still go out tomanghel when they have a proper school education. Why do these young and modernwomen continue to practice an activity which exposes them to mainstream arrogance,racism and discrimination? In this article I would like to provide an answer specic to theSinti context in the South yrol, taking the concept orespect as the basis or explainingthe young women’s decisions. First I would like to describe my experience o going out tomanghel with the Sinti women o the South yrol ten years ago.

o Manghel in 1997

I quote rom my diary rom 15th February 1997, in which I described my rst experienceo going out tomanghel :

“It is the rst time that I go out tomanghel with Napoli. We are going to a village notar rom our town, we park our car (which I am driving) and we start to walk. Napoli

moves rom one house to the next with great assurance; she knows precisely wheregood people (kamle gage) and bad people (cilace gage) are living. We arrive at the rst

armhouse, the armer’s wi e greets Napoli. Tey have known each other or a longtime. Te armer comes out o the house and asks us i we have come rom Hungaryor Rumania and Napoli answers: ‘Yes, exactly at the borders there. We lef this regionwhen I was still a little child.’ Te armer starts to talk about his Second World Warexperiences, how they had to retreat on oot and how rich Hungarian Gypsies hadhelped him with ood and had given him something to eat... Te armers give us some

potatoes, 1.000 lire (ca. 0,50 Euro) and a bag o apples.We go on walking. On the street we meet a Gagi and Napoli asks i she wants to buysomething, but the Gagi shows no interest and Napoli says in her old ashioned rudi-mentary German dialect: ‘Goddamned witch.’Te butcher’s wi e doesn’t want to buy anything, and Napoli says: ‘So give me something.’Te butcher’s wi e gives us a big bag with lefovers.In the local pub we sell another ‘centrino’3 and afer two hours we return home.”

3 Knitting handicraf.


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Afer going out tomanghel several times, Napoli insisted on the importance o the lan-guage and told me: “We cannot speak Gagio in ront o the Gage. You must learn ourlanguage!” When I was demoralised by my lack o success, she said: “Don’t give up, oryou won’t be able to get any money!” Only when I was able to sell knitting handicrafsin her presence, and even though the armer women didn’t show much interest, she wassatised and stated that it could work like this.

Te Sinti women used their own language when talking among themselves, there-by excluding the Gage. Napoli used to speak to me in a loud voice in the presence oGage but about minor, even really unimportant things. Her own voice, loud and strong,marked her presence both among the Sinti and the Gage. She was not the only womanI met among the Sinti with a loud, strong, deep, sometimes smoky voice. Most o these

women have such a voice. Te Sinti themselves say that they have these strong voicesbecause they live outside and not in houses. When con ronted with racist or discriminatory reactions, Napoli would behave in anoffensive manner. You can imagine her as an old woman who directly addresses a shop-keeper who re uses to speak to her, asking i she is scared o her, stating that she is not ill,and protesting that she is not stealing! Again, her voice is loud, strong, and without ear.Ten without giving the shopkeeper time to react, she opens her bag and demands to begiven something. In my sorties with her, I never observed any kind o subordination in her relation withthe Gage. She asks and begs while she talks to them about the weather, the children orother important or less important things o li e. She doesn’t like the word “begging” butshe actually “begs” while she speaks with the Gage. Her voice remains power ul, whileasking: “Give me something, my children and grandchildren are hungry, you are helpinga poor person.” When Sinti women talk aboutmanghel they insist on the act that they all have theirown style, their own method, pre erences, strategies and techniques. But all these womenI went out tomanghel with addressed the Gage in a similar manner. Te pose o subor-

dination in describing poverty, hunger and desperation was a sur ace attitude while atthe same time they spoke to the Gage earlessly and proudly, interacting strongly. Teir voice impressed me the most, but also the nonchalant way they wore their shoes/slippers,o knowing where to drive their car, their knowledge o the territory, and their ability tomemorize places and people. But the most astonishing thing was that these women ranno risk o subordination when they uttered the sentence “Give me something!”. Napoli’s way o doingmanghel , her old- ashioned Austrian dialect, her lack o precisionin response to numerous questions, her precise inexactness, were all reected in the wayshe gave and took goods, money or told stories, each act characteristic o her strategy. She


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chats, tells, listens and through this guarantees a ow o stories, in ormation, money andgoods. Te exchange o in ormation and stories is not the main motivation or going outto manghel , since when Gage do not give either money or goods, she cannot stay. She hasno time or chatting, she would say. Over the ollowing months I would see how she waswelcomed in manykamle kher (good houses). She needs these good houses, and will comeback to see these Gage every two to ve months. She has established her own way o work-ing this circumscribed territory, and she is keen on counting on “her Gage”. She speaks o“my Gagi” or “my Gagio” who will be recommended according to her/his generosity. Each o the Gage with whom the women are going tomanghel are considered to bedifferent to one another. When good (kamle), the Sinti would use expressions likelittle,

good girl, beauti ul and little good woman, good woman, big lady but good etc. I should

point out that the word or girl is differentiated: the Gage girl is calledrakli and the Sintigirl ciai. Te same is true or a woman: the Gagi woman is called gagi while the Sintiwoman is a giual , romni , sinta or ciai ( or an analysis see auber 2006). It is important

or us to realise that although Napoli may label some Gage as good and nice, this doesn’tmean they start to become like Sinti or get closer to Sinti. Te individually good Gage aredifferentiated rom the anonymous Gage who undamentally are not good. When Napolitalks about a young Gagi whose ortune she tells regularly, she mentions that she eelscompassion or the “tini rakli ” (little Gage woman): “Oh, how poor this little Gage woman is!” Zinda means compassion, sympathy or someone or something towards whom orwhich an affective relation exists. It can be a thing or an animal; it can be a comment onpoor people, or even or a person who has died.Zinda expresses regret:the poor, little,nice cup, the poor little cat , the poor little girl , the poor (zinda), poor (cioro) dead person. Napoli calls some women her riends: women she regularly visits tomanghel , womenwho buy or who seek assistance through ortune telling. Gage are good because they givemoney. Tese riends rarely know her Sinto name (romano lap ). She has several namesamong the Sinti, and she has several other names or the Gage. Indications she givesregarding her origin, her name, her address remain vague. It doesn’t mean though that

her Sinti names are kept secret rom the Gage, but sympathy and compassion, althoughsometimes expressed, in no way create a closer relation with the Gage. As we walk through the different villages she tells me aboutmanghel and about the Gage.She knows the Gage and their houses well. She knocks on their doors almost every day:

“Do you see the house up there? Tis Gagi has always given me something; in thishouse lives a widow; there lives a young woman, she always gives me 10 000 or 20 000Lire (5 to 10 Euro); this Gagi has lost two children. Tere lives one who used to begood, now she doesn’t buy anymore, the bastard! You should try! You see the houses


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up there? I know them all. How many years since I haven’t gone up there anymore?My legs aren’t so strong. You can try i you want.”

Te Gage and their houses are “ good, bad, gentle, how many stories I could tell you… oh je! ” Napoli knows about their needs, their dreams and wishes, their li e stories and theirdestinies. At each house she asks i someone wants her to tell ortunene. She takes out hercards with acrobatic elegance. She always carries her old, worn out cards with her. Hold-ing the cards in her lef hand, she takes out one card at a time, making comments andtalking about li e and love. She speaks with betrayed women, with women who want tomarry, with women who want to have children, but she also speaks with young men whohave economic troubles or are lovesick. She promises that her magical powers will bring

improvements and trans ormations.

Te Sinti Narration of Manghel

Once, be ore the Sinti had access to cars, they had to walk or kilometres on oot with alltheir belongings wrapped in a linen sheet ( pingla). Tey walked rom village to village,crossed valleys and slept in armers’ barns or stables. When they couldn’t nd a placeto sleep among the armhouses, they withdrew to the woods. When they could affordhorses, they slept in their wooden caravans. oday, many armers among whom thesemen and women used to sleep have trans ormed their armhouses into hotels. Te Sintiare not allowed to stop and camp in the woods anymore and when these amilies passby the old places in the towns or valleys where they used to stop, they nd signs that say“Camping Forbidden” or industrial areas or new petrol stations. Napoli’s li e has changed too. By 19974 she is living on acampo nomadi . She receivesa pension and during the winter she gets additional economic assistance or heating; hercaravan is immobilised on thecampo nomadi with a wooden shelter in ront o it where

she does the cooking. Her grandchildren go to school. Up until the 1960s Napoli was always looking or a good barn or stable where her am-ily could stay the night and every day she explored a new village. In 1997 she pays waterand electricity bills and she goes out tomanghel every day in a well circumscribed region.

4 By 2003 she has moved into social housing. In 1997 two o her children were living in social housingwith their amilies. In 2007 all her children except or one daughter, who in 1997 had lived in a at andnow is living in a caravan, are living in social housing. Similar patterns o moving rom ree sites tocampinomadi to social housing and than again moving out o social housing can be observed among many othe Sinti amilies in this region.


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Elisabeth auber164

She goes rom house to house in search o new good Gage, telling ortunes, selling knittedhandicrafs, and asking or money, clothes and ood. But what happens on those days when going rom house to house to beg, sell and tell

ortunes, all her chatting and joking with the Gage is not met with success because theGage mani estbadness (cilaciapen): I again quote rom my diary or 30th March 1997:

“We want to try at a armer woman Napoli has known or a long time. oday we didn’tearn anything. Napoli is cursing: ‘Gage are moody. What is this all about? Tey con-tinuously lament that they have no money, but i they are without money then whatshall we do? All Gage are rich. Millionaires, no, billionaires!’ We reach the arm and

meet the Gagi. We ask her to buy something, she declines but Napoli insists: she keepsthe knitting handicrafs under the Gagi’s nose, asks and insists, but suddenly gives up:‘What a lousy bitch. Let’s go home.’ Afer two arduous hours o driving around by car,moving rom house to house, we turn back home. While driving back Napoli comesto the conclusion that the other Sinti are talking about her and this brings bad luck.”5

Diary entry or 14th July 1997:

“It is July and very cold. Our caravans are parked in the valley. Te men are sittingaround the re. But the doors o this mountain village remain closed with old womenlooking suspiciously out o the windows rom behind the curtains. Some women ad-

vise us to go and get a proper job. We come back with 20 000 lire (10 Euro). Tewomen say that one has to take this village as it is. Tere are days one can earn muchmore, and there are days one earns nothing. Te Gage in this village are moody. Gageare always moody. In every village you have to take them as they are.”

As we drive and walk around, I get an idea o what Napoli is doing. Beside her daily ac-

tivity, there are moments o talking and remembering, moments o narration throughwhich these women trans orm their everyday lives and their close relation with the Gageinto story-telling.

5 Te concept o Sinti “talking” is extensively described and analysed in auber 2006. For reasons oclarity, I should mention that “talking” and “eating” are concepts which are interlinked and which canhurt and cause great damage to Sinti social li e. Te extreme orm o other Sinti “talking/eating” can leadto mis ortune, illness and even the death o an individual. “ alking/eating” is also strongly connected tothe respect or the dead. Trough disrespect ul “talking/eating” respect or the dead is endangered andthis can provoke violent reactions by male representatives o the different Sinti amilies.


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Fundamentally we can distinguish between two categories o story: those which recallthe dead and their actions and those which speak about their everyday and sometimesadventurous lives in the midst o the Gage. My argument is that this narration does nothave the unction o talking about matters o earning money even though earning moneyis, o course, important. I say that the narration places women’s daily activity at the centreo social attention so that it conrms emale’s economic capabilities which are strictlyconnected to emalerespect , the way o being a woman and herrespect or the dead.

It is Berga, a 35-year old Sinta, mother o our children, whom we quote now:

“Do you remember, Napoli, the time Ruma and I went tomanghel in this village? I amspeaking o 25 years ago. Do you remember? I bought a yellow skirt and a blouse that

was also yellow. Ruma bought a dress in a Spanish style, made o silk. Ask Ruma. Howbeauti ul this dress was! I liked it so much. I remember it well. It was easier to makemoney then, two hundred, three hundred, our hundred thousand lire (100, 150, 200euro), right Napoli? oday Gage are not good anymore like they were 25 years ago.We went tomanghel all the time, all the time. I and Ruma and my cousins. Alone,together, alwaysmanghel , when I was still at home (not married). I was ten years oldwhen I went tomanghel or the rst time. Dora and Ruma went on their own, theywere maybe eight or ten years old, they went on their own and came back with a bigamount o money.”

Te opportunity to talk about their remarkable abilities ofen arises when there are onlywomen present, without men. In contrast to men, who meet in the middle o the placewhere their caravans are, who one can see, who speak loudly, who gamble around the site,who possess the whole world and time … women meet in a more discreet and marginalmanner in their caravans or shelters, surrounded by their children or narrating theirmemories and experiences. Te narration begins by reviewing the past, remembering yesterday and starts to in-

terweave with an event o today. Te connection and interlinkage o past and presentstories turn them into a continuous event. Te contents seem to become immobile. Tenarration trans orms the past and present into a non-time or, better, it trans orms it intotoday:Once, a time, then, I tell you, do you remember? I remember well, I tell you a storywhich we remember well . Te vivid memory conrms the presence o the past. Te story is happening in thepast and in the present – yesterday, many years ago, today – it is related to a place andexpresses Sinti lives among the Gage, or better, the very existence o these Sinti in thisworld. An example o this is the amount o money the women mention in their stories.


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Tese are amounts o present earnings on good days. wo hundred thousand lire in thesixties was the monthly wage o a worker. Te sum Berga indicates is not showing-off oran exaggeration, it rather shows thetrueness (cacapen) o her narration, because womenspeak o now, today and remembering leads us to the authenticity o the present.

Who would remember a day like this so precisely, a day like so many others? It is notexactly this day which Napoli and Berga remember, it is their common experience whichbecomes the narrative. Te activity, which covers three or our generations, testies to the uninterrupted ex-istence o manghel. It also means that all Sinti women go out tomanghel . Tey have goneout to manghel since they were little girls, with their sisters, riends, mothers, aunts andgrandmothers. Manghel connects young married women with older women. Old wom-

en remember the experience or their whole lives. Manghel becomes their link to theirchildhood, their youth, their leaving home or marriage, their being a married woman;young women are called to go tomanghel even though one or the other would like to dosomething else; but even a non-Sinta marrying a Sinto goes out tomanghel . All non-Sintiwomen married with Sinti have learned tomanghel .

o manghel is more than surviving. A woman conrms her Sinta-ness throughman- ghel , her ability to control the Gage, and her capacity to be different to the Gage. It is thiswhich Napoli’s anger expressed one day:

“Gage are destroying everything! Look at these little trees. Tey destroy the little treesand owers only to make money. I have earned 4 000 lire (2 Euro) today. It is nothing.Who would be able to cook with this money?”

While the Gage destroy nature, the Sinti leave nature as it is6, while the Gage think aboutwork and money, they orget their amilies. Sinti women go tomanghel so as to ensure thematerial and social wel are o their amilies but also or narrating:

“Our lives are hard; it is not like you might think. When I was in Verona – how manyyears ago? – I went tomanghel . It was so difficult to make money. Te children werecontinuously hungry, and we had to steal bread, chicken and sometimes peaches. Techildren were always hungry, oh je, I tell you, I couldn’t even put ood in a pot andnobody helped me. Once we ound some money in a house, me and Patria. ula was

6 And in act, they are doing nothing on behal o or against nature as environmental philosophy andgreen politics would expect. Nature is something which they live in, not something which they look aferand try to maintain.


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waiting in the car without petrol. We divided the money between ula who waited inthe car, Patria who ound the money and me. We didn’t say anything to our husbandsbecause we needed the money or cooking.”

Such a precise narrative marked by repetition, the exact description o each person’s roleand nally the stolen peaches conrms the absolute truth o the story. Te hungry chil-dren represent not only material misery. Children go hungry when social li e – every-day exchange, communal dishes and talking together – is disturbed. Napoli is talkingabout the undamental components o these Sinti’s social culture. Te need or ood iscompared to the need or social exchange; the social intimacy o the Sinti is expressedthrough common dishes, the sharing o ood. A lot o ood isromanes, which calls or it

to be eaten together as a group. An empty pot contains nothing which can be shared, sothe empty pot becomes a symbol o disturbed social relations7. Tis means that womengoing out tomanghel play a key role in providing the substance or the material and sociallivelihood o Sinti amilies8. All women love talking aboutmanghel , their stories vary a lot, but they all ocus onthe experience o walking/driving around, being seen as Gypsy women, exploring orimproving their skills in getting enough money and ood or their amilies, theirownSinti9. While in everyday li e remembering each Gage or house exactly with their charac-teristics and weaknesses is o enormous importance or survival, such precise indicationsregarding villages and the Gage lose their importance when narrating and remember-ing. When they tell their stories, the Gage only exist as absent witnesses attesting to thematerial and symbolic presence o these Sinti in a world which seems to be completelyinvestigated and mapped. Te emale presence in direct contact with the Gage becomes anatural thing; talking and narrating to theirown Sinti demonstrates the presence o beingSinti.

7 I have analysed at great length the symbolic signicance o sharing ood and the concept o eating.Eating, as in many other cultural contexts, goes ar beyond the physical act. In the Sinti context eatingcan be trans ormed into a dangerous threat to the relation between the living and the dead. (See ootno-te above and auber 2006).8 Women are more than proud o the act that their husbands are not obliged to work. In many ami-lies they are the only ones to earn the amily income. Prestigious objects like new cars, caravans and gold jewellery are an expression o their abilities as women. A Sinta who is under house arrest tells me withtears in her eyes that her husband never ever needed to go out to look or money, that it was always herwho had brought in thebeauti ul little money (sukar tine love). Men in general are proud o their wiveswho obtain money, ood and clothes rom the Gage (see auber 1999).9 Te concept o own Sinti is very important as it re ers to one’s own living amily and one’s own dead

amily members who are respected actively (see auber 2006).


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Elisabeth auber168

o Manghel in 2007

In 2007 many o the girls o 1997 are married and have their own children. Te daughterso Berga or example go out tomanghel and it seems quite natural. Tese young womendid not continue school; they wanted to go out tomanghel like their mother and grand-mother. ake the example o two other young Sinti women who are 22 and 26 years old.Both are children o mixed marriages (a Sinto ather and a Gagi mother). Both, afer com-pulsory school, attended a vocational school. Both women took upmanghel denitelyafer their uga(elopement and marriage). It seemed to be an almost logical consequenceto quit their jobs and go out tomanghel . What is going on here? Napoli’s granddaughter, the one we met at the beginning o this article, took upman-

ghel afer school when she was 21 years old; her young Gagio husband quit his job andstarted to collect scrap metal.10 Maybe, in a ew years time, this young couple will makeother decisions, but or now they are living in the Sinti tradition which is a mani estationo respect or the elders and deceased Sinti. When the granddaughter is going tomanghel she will not always say the same things Napoli said to the Gage. She presents hersel as ayoung student or as a single parent or as a young Gypsy. While amongst the Gage, she re-calls her memories o when Napoli went tomanghel . When she gets back, she talks abouther own experiences and those o her grandmother. Women adopt modern strategieswhen they go out tomanghel , they go by car, no longer on oot, they wear trousers, not visibly long skirts, they do not always reveal their Gypsy identity as their grandmothersdid, but when out tomanghel they think about how their grandmothers, aunts and moth-ers went be ore them. Teir thinking is also their remembering and these memories aretheir respect.

Writing aboutmanghel in 2007 it is important to examine the phenomenon o howthe Sinti remember and how they practicerespect by also analysing the concept o rela-tions between the generations. Napoli used to call her granddaughtermami (grandmoth-er) when she was little.Respect between generations is also guaranteed through terms o

address which I have called reciprocal. I have described reciprocal address terms at greatlength elsewhere ( auber 2006) but let me mention the most important here. Grandpar-

10 In 1997 I was quite sure that the expression tomanghel could be used or male activities and wrotethat to manghel is not an exclusively emale activity, as men do business with the Gage as well. oday Iwould say that male business is less strongly dened asmanghel . Malemanghel is a shifing category as,

or example, when men play music or money (bassues), one could also say that they get their money bymanghel . When men collect scrap metal they use a specic term or it (ti gas sastrenge), but the conceptbehind it could bemanghel . I writecould , as I am more convinced now thatmanghel as a clearly denedcategory is a emale occupation.


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ents address their grandchildren with the words or grandparents, i.e. grandparents calltheir grandchildren grandparents, just as grandchildren call their grandparents grand-parents. I my interpretation is correct, this unidirectional reciprocal address term be-tween generation +2 and generation 0 allows the establishment o a relation orespect be-tween grandchildren and grandparents.Respect among Sinti is expressed between equals:male respect among Sinti men (young and old) expresses their equality; emalerespect expresses the equality among women. Tis is true even though age is considered to beparticularly respected. It means that young Sinti behave in a respect ul manner in ronto elder respected Sinti. But it doesn’t mean that the younger is not equal to the elder. Tecombination o age andrespect is a challenging combination o how to establish relationso equality and the value orespect or the elders. With this reciprocal term o address

Sinti are introducing, asking and provoking reciprocity orespect . My argument is thatthe introduction o equality-based terms o address between the generations allows theSinti elders to claim the “right” o being respected so o being remembered in death (see

auber 2006).In Patrick Williams’ analysis (1993), Manus remember silently without ever explain-

ing things. In my analysis o Sinti memory I say that memory is not only silent and invis-ible but also an ongoing process o talking respect ully or and about those people theywant to remember. Te process o talking-about-respect ully involves both the living andthe dead including those persons an individual respects. For Sinti remembering meansto make a point o dressing like the mother liked to dress or o not dressing like this any-more, o cooking the ood the loved person liked particularly or o re raining rom eatingit, o using the mother’s or ather’s dishes or o destroying them afer death or o keepingthem in a respect ul manner without using them.Respect and memory means to recallthe person’s way o talking, his or her avourite songs, o conserving their pictures in away that shows they have to be respected (Williams 1993, auber 2006). In the economicsphere, I have seen young Sinti men who have decided to take up collecting scrap metallike their athers used to do 30 years ago. Circumstances have changed, but as they drive

around in their small pick-up truck, the men remember how their athers collected scrapmetal, recalling stories, adventures and characteristics o the person remembered. Patrick Williams (1993) is right in saying that remembering and thinking in the Ma-nus context mean the same thing: the Romany verbtenkres (remembering) indicates anactive controlled action. Remembering/thinking means to recall in a per ect and exactmanner the dead person’s characteristics. Remembering is an act o thinking and a con-scious act orespect which can take place silently or in conversation. For the Sinti context,I have described how men are requently remembering collectively, when going to playmusic, when drinking together, when meeting in a bar or on thecampo nomadi ( au-


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Elisabeth auber170

ber 2006). Female remembering and thinking is ofen a more individual and lonely act.Women remember and think when going out tomanghel , when cleaning up the caravanor the house, when cooking or when sitting with other women. Women out ormanghel are moving among the Gage, selling, begging, ortune-telling and remembering respect-

ully.11

Perspectives for the Anthropological Narrative of Begging

Be ore and afer my own experience omanghel with Sinti women, Judith Okely publishedher account o raveller Gypsy women going “calling” (1983, 1996) and Patrick Williams

his analysis o economic strategies used by Kalderash women in Paris (1982). OrsettaBechelloni writes about ravellers who are moving between being ravellers and thedream o social recognition (2006:186). Some young scholars have started to write aboutsimilar phenomena in India (e.g. Robertson 1998).12 As ar as I know, Leonardo Piasereis the only anthropologist who has proposed a rst theoretical analysis o Gypsy mendi-cancy, conceptualising begging in the context o pre-modern, modern and post-modernmarket models. In analysing the phenomenon, Piasere (2000) proposes a challenging ex-planation o which I will give a short summary be ore going into my own interpretationo the phenomenon in the Sinti context. Piasere starts with a historical review criticisinghistorians or using only the external perspective on the phenomenon, which is how the

11 I said that this quite lonely activity outside a spoken social context allows women to become themain actors in the highly conictual context o the elopement/marriage ( uga). When their daughtersrun away, mothers use words o immediate, sometimes dangerous non-respect which calls into relationthe amily o the eloping man. While doing this she is accepting the other Sinti amily’s orm o respectand opening a dialogue or a new marriage alliance ( auber 2006). Te more individual emale respectplays a key role when Sinti have to deal with marriage affairs, as it will be the mothers o the daughterswho are establishing the discourse o possible new affinal relations which because o different amilytraditions o respect are not easily accepted.12 I would like to mention studies o other phenomena o begging unrelated to the Gypsy communitywhich deal with different ethnographic and historical issues. In 1929 Gillin reects on the social condi-tions o mendicancy as a consequence o changes in the economic order or in a political system (1929);Gilmore analyses social patterns and the philosophy, technical knowledge and status o a amily o be-ggars, saying that “the measuring o intelligence quotients” (1932:768) did not explain their situation;Hershkoff and Cohen (1991) speak o the democratic right to beg; in Durham’s analysis o asking inBotswana, the important aspect o asking is how the individual becomes created. “Individuality is reco-gnized not in the spirit o Weberian calculation but in the spirit o asking” (1995:126). Hanchao’s (1999)research can be seen as an interpretation o how the Chinese state and Chinese philosophy has tried tocon ront mendicancy in history up to the present. Hanchao shows that mendicancy in China is connec-ted to migration rom the land to the cities, making mendicancy a phenomenon o urban realities.


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different states and the Catholic Church regard it. He agrees with Geremek’s assumption(1992) o initial “assistance” and subsequent “repression” but the historical phase o stateand church assistance, according to Piasere, can be compared to, rom the Gypsy point o

view,the great trick (Fraser 1993:60-83), meaning that Gypsies arriving to Europe told thestory o the great Christian Egyptian pilgrimage. Saying that they were pilgrims allowedGypsies to ask, beg and get goods rom the non-Gypsies. “Tey say they are pilgrims butthey behave like conquerors.” (Piasere 2000:411) Te great trick is to conquer a continentwithout an army, leaving the ones who are giving goods and money with the convictionthat they are superior. By 1430 Piasere starts to nd the rst documents o chroniclerswho begin to write about these pilgrims asmala gentes. In as much as the campaignagainst Gypsies is part o the more extended campaign against vagabonds, Gypsies are

always also seen as a category apart. Tis is the period o transition rom eudalism tocapitalism and o the rst primitive processes o capital accumulation (Geremek 1980).Gypsies are a marginal people set apart rom other marginal peoples. Piasere tries todemonstrate this by the absence o any Romany linguistic inuence on other dialects.He urther says that Gypsies were thought o as abnormally marginal, just as in the 15th century they were thought o as abnormal pilgrims. “Tey pretended to be pilgrims eventhough they went on pilgrimages (in the 15.century). In the 17th and 18th centuries, theypretended to be marginal even though they behaved like marginals.” (Piasere 2000:413)Gypsies made a practice o marginality, trying both to escape proletarianisation and tomaintain, rom their point o view, world dominance (see also Asseo 1988 who speaks o“pro essional” marginality). According to Piasere the activity o begging represents a category that has “bizarre”characteristics that he denes as “ uzzy” (2000:414). Piasere introduces this uzzy cat-egory as resulting rom an interpretative transcultural process, which includes many op-posite positions.13 I would like to mention these many positions briey: Marcel Mauss(1923-24) in hisEssaies sur le don touches on the implications o relations in the contexto begging. Georg Simmel (1908) writes o the gif as something which engenders a rich

scale o reciprocal relations. Te gif in relation to begging can be ound on this scale.Starobinski (1994) elaborates on the compassionate gif. But begging does not reect thetriadic aspect o the gif: the receiver does not give in return. Godbout (1992) speaks othe constellation in begging as a “bizarre” one since it is a unilateral action made to anunknown who is unable to give back. Godbout, ollowing an anti-utilitarian approach,has paid more attention to this “bizarre”, abnormal situation. He suggests that in a marketsystem things possess a value in relation to other things while in a gif system things have

13 For the category o uzzy see also Piasere (1998).


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Elisabeth auber172

a value that reect the value o the relation (Godbout 1992:17). In other words it is the value o the relation which blocks or hinders theexit in a relation between people. Gifscreate a relationship between people that the market exchange does not. Te modern era,uniquely, has introduced shame as a undamental attribute connected with asking andbegging. What can be said is that we are dealing with a distinction between the inside andthe outside. Shame is a undamental construct among many Gypsy groups. Ideologically,asking/begging outside is seen as a business transaction. “One merely makes a request othe Gage; no reciprocation is expected.” (Piasere 2000:424)

Piasere’s suggestion o how to understand Gypsy asking/begging ollows this interpre-tation. Asking/begging always represents danger since it is intrinsically an act o relating.In his essay Piasere concentrates mainly on those Gypsies who practice begging by asking

or only small amounts rom a large number o Gage, and it is here that he draws his mainconclusions: not all the Gage give; those Gage who do, give lefovers. Lefovers are likenothing. And receiving nothing does not require establishing a relation. In contrast to thegif which establishes a one-on-one relationship, asking/begging creates a one-to-manyrelation. One person is asking a little or nothing rom many. So the Gypsy mendicant isexercising an activity which is not so much “asking/begging” but rather “asking/begging-a-little- rom-many”. Te mendicant eels no shame towards the Gageen masse. It is anability o thinking o the Gage’s giving as i it did not exist. Piasere’s thesis is that Gypsieshave been able to maintain ahabitus or more than 500 years which has allowed them toenter modernity earlier than others but has also meant that they outlived it earlier thanmany others. It is thishabitus which has allowed them to avoid the market mechanismso dominance and subordination (Piasere 2000:425).

Conclusion

Piasere (2000) reasserts the proposition that different Gypsy groups can pass through the

increasingly rigid system o economic pressures and hierarchies to establish non-recipro-cal relations with the Gage, maintaining ahabitus o asking a little rom many. We needto review this analysis in the Sinti context, as women going out tomanghel also practicethis asking- or-a-little, or lefovers, or things the Gage have enough o , and here I agreewith Piasere. Te emale Sinti economy is also based on the rhetoric o begging or a little

rom many. I am not quite convinced though that women when going out tomanghel arenot giving Gage anything: stories, com ort and entertainment, the eeling o being chari-table or o worthiness? Maybe the Sinti practice omanghel could be thought o as the


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exchange o words or goods and money (see also Okely 1996)? But in any case we have toampli y our analysis taking into account the internal dimension o the externalhabitus .

A person (man or woman) who is able to evaluate territory or its economic potentialis appreciated by the community. But Sinti will recognise those people who leadrespect ul (romano ) lives in Sinti terms as the authentic, respect ul Sinti. omanghel , even i eco-nomically unsuccess ul, is part o this authenticity. omanghel is to demonstrate, amongother practices o Sinti li e, the concept o being Sinti in relation to or in the presence o theGage. Tey say i there were no Gage, the Sinti would not exist, and we can be certain thatthe emale practice omanghel assures their existence both materially and symbolically.

Napoli’s granddaughters are taking upmanghel not only or economic reasons or be-cause o having no other employment opportunities but because they are per orming a

narrative andrespect towards theirown Sinti. omanghel lets Sinti women retainrespect ,as women who are per orming gender-based activities or using emale orms o speechwhen remembering and narrating. I am convinced though that remembering and memo-ry, respecting and respect are those aspects which establish relations among Sinti. Tere-

ore Sinti women interact with the Gage but maintain anexit by remembering/thinking acontinuously respect ul relation with their deceased Sinti.


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“Do you remember the time we went begging and selling”

Tauber Lektuerebeggingselling

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