Evening star. [volume], September 08, 1946, Page 5, Image 82

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Detective John Sheehan, specialist in way
ward Romanies for the New York City pick
pocket squad, gave me some less picturesque
lowdown on the Serbian tribe.
“They’re the slickest gyp artists in the
world,” he said. "They pocket as much as
nine thousand dollars after ten minutes of
fortune-telling hoCus-pocus.” The technique
goes like this: a fortune-teller rings your door
bell and offers to read your future for a dime.
She takes an alarmed view of your palm,
suggests you sleep with an egg under your
pillow. Next day she returns, finds the egg
"hexed”, and warns that all your belongings
are cursed. Your only chance for happiness,
she prophecies, is for her to take all your
money and have it blessed. This goes for your
fur coats, too. Needless to say, this cleaning
and blessing service skips town within an hour.
It's • $100,000 Uuaimmm
“Sometimes,” declares harried Detective
Sheehan, “they even park a truck down the
street and haul away the furniture, too.”
Sheehan estimates that Americans give
Serbian smoothies $100,000 worth of dirty
money, fouled fur coats, and bewitched furni
ture suites every year.
The Police Department says one thing for
the wandering tribes, however: they’re seldom
involved in crimes of violence. They rely
more on outwitting than out-hitting their
victims. For their part, the earth’s most pic
turesque hoboes don’t think our own honesty
record is anything to write home about, even
if they had a home and could write.
Sascha Bote ha, for instance, is one member
of the brotherhood who thinks that if there
are any scales in heaven weighing guilty
consciences, his people would tip them lightly.
He had just been charged $2,000 by a city
doctor, who had administered vitamin pills
to his dying father for one month. The next
Occidental Samaritans Sascha encountered
were an undertaker and a florist. They nicked
him for an additional $4,000.
I met Sascha Bote ha under somber circum
stances. He was sitting on the floor with a
dozen wailing members of his tattered
family in a bare, rat-reeking room on
New York’s lowest Lower East Side. Next
to him in a coffin lay his dead father.
"Excuse me for not shaking hands and for
our appearance,” Sascha whispered. “Shak
ing hands in the presence of death would bring
on another death. And our religion forbids
washing, shaving, or combing our hair for
several days after a relative dies.”
Sascha spoke well. He had once dictated
an authentic article on the life of his people
and sent it to a “true story” magazine. The
people there rejected it as being a pure fig
ment of the imagination.
But no fiction story could exaggerate the
reality of a Gypsy funeral. A 12-piece band
played Italian dirges behind the procession of
hair-tearing, breast-pounding, screaming and
sobbing mourners. Through the slum canyons
of Manhattan fat fortune-tellers snaked their
way, chanting Oriental death songs, smoking
cigarettes and scattering the ashes over their
shoulder to stop evil spirits from following
them. Loud arguments broke out about the
best route to take. The casket swayed danger
ously as questions of pall-bearer priority were
settled by jostling, pushing and shoving.
Both public and private welfare insti
tutions in the United States put barriers
in the way of Gypsy admissions. Few
private hospitals will accept them. Sick
Gypsies are invariably accompanied by large
retinues of sympathetic advisers. They camp
in hospital hallways and build bonfires in the
waiting room. Late at night, after the lights
are doused, they brew ancient cure-alls.
Although sickness and death brings the
Gypsy face to face with the civilization
around him, marriage is a strictly inter-tribal
affair. The ceremony is performed by an
elder of the tribe, and the bonds may be
dissolved at the husband’s convenience. But
this doesn’t mean the Gypsy takes his nuptials
lightly. Far from it. Matrimony is the occa
sion for the most luscious barbecue of all.
First, the family rents a hall. The next step
is assuring plenty of food for all. This is done
by having all the girls in the tribe enter a
cooking competition for the honor of being
bridesmaid. Guests are not allowed inside
the door unless accompanied by a roastable
pig or lamb. As the great moment approaches,
a ceremonial bottle of Plotska, or festive
whiskey, is brought out. Everyone takes a
symbolic swig except the bride and groom.
They save what’s left in the bottle and finish
it one year later on their first anniversary.
Making tka CoIbctiM
The Gypsies are past masters at the art of
collecting wedding presents. First, the parents
bring out an immense loaf of bread. The
bride’s mother tears a hole in the dough with
her fingers. Then the bread is passed around
and everybody is supposed to deposit a wed
ding present — gold and silver coins are the
accepted thing — in the dough hole. A double
check is kept on all donors by means of silk
handkerchiefs which the bride bestows on
every male who forks over a gift.
Finally, an old man binds the bride and
groom’s hands together with a silk scarf.
Then everybody gobbles barbecue for three
days. The newlyweds go home and kill a
rooster on the doorstep — the bride sets up
a fortune-telling business, the groom lies
down for a long snooze — and the Gypsy
cycle of all play and no work moves into the
next generation. The End
WIDE WORLD
GYPSY KIDS get plenty of fresh air, often run afoul of truant officers
MAN OF LEISURE. Gypsy husbands play, sing, and watch their wives make money