Marcel Courthiade claims that the Gypsies emigrated from India as enslaved in India, Kannauj, by the Afghan prince Muhammad al Ghazni in 21 November 1018. In favor of Marcel Courthiade’s hypothesis, which he assumed from Professor Eric Meyer, there is no linguistic evidence. Linguistics is the only science that would solve the mystery of the origin of the Roma. But here we will not talk about the Roma, but about Cingari, another Indian population whose name became synonymous with slavery, being mentioned in slavery in 1385 at the Tismana Monastery together with the Tartars. This clue is very important, because in 1250, the Mongol Sali Noyan attacked India, and brought Hindu slaves in Iran:
„…Rashidu’dd Fazhullah said in Jami’u’t Tawarikh, I, p.66 that the hindu slaves found in villages of Inju in Iran in his time (c.1300) were mostly the descendants of the multitude of the Hindu slaves gathered by the Mongol commander Sali Noyan in his raids into Hindustan and Kashmir during the 1250s. The accounts of Timur’s removal of a large mass of civilian population from Delhi and other areas may be read in Sharaffu’din’Ali Yazdi Zafarnama II. pp.122-24, 136,141, 153. Timur had earlier slaughtered about 100,000 captives in his camp gathered before his assault on Delhi (pp. 92-94), though Yahya Sirhindi, Tarikh i Mubarakshahi, p. 106, puts the number 50,000.”(Footnote nr. 26, page 113, Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500, by Irfan Habib)
The most interesting thing is that Syrian Dom, whose language differs from Romani, claim that they lived in Europe before coming to Syria, and that they were brought by the Mongols in 1260:
„Like Gypsies throughout the Middle East, the Gypsies of Syria do not appear to know the details of their origins. One Dom man told the writer that his people have been in Syria for about 200 years. He went on to share a vague legend about their origin. He remembered his grandfather telling him about the „Mountain of the Kurbat.” This legendary homeland was located somewhere in Europe. According to the tale the Dom went from Kurbat Mountain in Europe, then to India and finally to Syria where they have been for approximately 200 years. He also said, „During the last 25 years we have begun asking ‘who are we?'” Judging from the legend, it appears that they have had some outside source of information about their origins that have been mixed together with some general tales from their ancestors. The story about the mountain might be influenced by reports of a mountain pass in Iran called „Koli-Killer Pass” located near the city of Shiraz. The European location for their homeland may arise from bits of information from European Gypsies. In fact, many of the Syrian Gypsies have contact with European Gypsies and recognized the distinctions between their languages. Some of the Gypsies believed that they had originally come from Bulgaria. Another man volunteered that the older people say their origins were in the time of the Mongols, which would be around 1260 AD.„
( source: http://www.domresearchcenter.com/journal/14/syria4.html)
In both Iran and Afghanistan, the majority population confuses the nomads, referring to them with either Indian or Arabic names: “The same label ̶ along with the names Hindustoni-Lyuli, Afgon-Lyuli and Chingar / Changar ̶ is given to other ethnic communities in the region, such as the Kavol and Chistoni, who migrated to the territories of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from Afghanistan in the same period … The local population is unaware of their distinctiveness and perceives the Parya, Kavol and Chistoni as one and the same community” (Gypsies in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Elena Marushiakova).
Those Indians could be the Cingars, (with whom the Roma have been confused) who were described by Cesare Vecellio, who wrote about the Cingari into his work, “Degli habiti antichi et moderni di diverse parti del mondo” (1590). The drawing was made by Veccelio himself in 1590. On it it is written Cingara Orientale.The sculpture of Nicolas Cordier dating back to 1607 is called Zingarella.
Those Indian Gypsies were not Roma, because the Roma do not practice dishonoring marital customs as they are represented by Indian Cingars from the book written by Cesare Vecellio, „Degli habiti antichi et modernni di diverse parts of mondo”:
[There is a certain group of people, who stop for three days in one place, and three in another, and have no permanent home, they are Christians, but they have some differences from our Catholic Faith. Their Lord and other Nobles smear their faces, and all the rest of the body with ground sandalwood, and other precious scents. They have a Lord, whom they call the King of Colucut, who like a Gentile worships the Devil as an accurately carved and painted likeness, saying that his God-given task was to do justice, if indeed they believe in God now. This King has some Brahmins, or priests, who are much respected, and when the King wants to take a wife, one the most respected of these priests has to sleep first with his bride, and take her virginity, and then a payment of four or five hundred ducats, gives him the freedom forever to use her carnally, as his Queen, under whose rule these people live. The clothing of the Gypsy shown above has her wearing on her head a coronet made from light wood, covered with canvas bands many feet long. They wear shirts worked in silk, of many colours and fine decoration, with long tails reaching down to their feet, which have large and finely embroidered and worked sleeves. She ties a cloth mantle over one shoulder, so that it goes under her other arm, and it is so long that it reaches almost to her feet. Her hair falls from her head over her shoulders, and perhaps with a baby held in a kind of band tied round her neck, they go wandering.] The above text is scandalous from the viewpoint of Romani purity practices.
On page 472 of the 1589 edition, the title is Libro XI degli habiti dell’Asia, Indo Orientale di Conditione [Book XI on the costumes of Asia, East India, (high) status]. On the next page we find the drawing of a Gypsy woman, with specifically Indian clothing and Indian appearance, with the caption Cingara orientale [Eastern Gypsy] – shown in the picture at the head of the article. On page 472 we read the title Mulier orientalis, que vulgo Cingara dicitur – [Eastern woman, commonly called Gypsy]. Page 474 shows another Indian, labelled Donna Indiana Orientale di conditione [Eastern Indian woman of (high) status], or Nobilis Mulier Indica Orientalis [Noble Eastern Indian woman]. On page 475, we see the costume of a woman described as Indiana Orientale di mediocre conditione [Eastern Indian (woman) of average status].
The Roma have never had Brahmans, nor does this word exist in their language.The Roma never worshipped the Devil. The clothes with which Cingar is represented are not characteristic of the Roma women. The Roma have never practiced shameful habits like those described by Veccelio. A Roma woman must be virgin on the wedding night. The conclusion is that the Indian Cingars described by Veccelio were not Roma.
The various migrations in India over the centuries
On the other hand, many different Indian groups set out from India towards Europe. I have arranged this list in chronological order, showing the exodus of several different Indian peoples that have migrated to Europe. I stress that all of them had their own languages. And today, speakers of the dialects called Domari, from Turkey or Israel, do not understand one another with speakers of the dialects called Romani in Europe:
- 1. In 2166 BCE, the first colony of Indians in ancient Armenia was mentioned, who were converted some centuries later, by force, by St. Gregory the Enlightener of Armenia, to Christianity.(-The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia, Volume 22, London 1837, p. 181)
- Then in Persia, in 450 BC, the Indians brought by King Bahram Gur.
- In 700 CE, when the Arabs attacked the Indian province of Sindh, and enslaved the Jatt Indians. Regarding the Indian Jatt population, Maidani’s collection of Arabic proverbs specifies that the Zott are prisoners from Sind. Mafātīḥ al-‘Ulūm, the work of Persian statesman al-Khwārizmī, was compiled in 975-997. He wrote about the Zott: “the Zott are the keepers of the roads. These people are, strictly speaking, of Sindhi origin, also called Djattan”. This book is one of the oldest Islamic encyclopedias. We see that the Jatt are described as the prisoners of the Arabs taken from Sindh. From Goeje, MJ de (Michael Jan), Mémoire sur les migrations des Tsiganes à travers l’Asia, pp. 6-7: “Don’t teach the Police Commissioner how to do investigations, and don’t teach a Zott to steal”. The author notes, regarding the first, that the Zott are villainous people, and regarding the second, that every Sindhi of low origin claims to be the son of a king. (Freytag Collection, Prov. II, 580, N. 609). The Arab attack on Sindh occurred in 700 CE.
- In 1250, the Mongolian General, Sali Noyan, brought Hindu slaves from Hindustan and Kashmir to the villages of Inju in the 1250s, according to footnote no. 26, on page 113 of Irfan Habib’s work, Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500: Rashidu’dd Fazhullah notes in Jami’u’t Tawarikh, I, p.66, that the Hindu slaves present in Inju’s villages in Iran in his time (about 1300 CE) were the descendants of the numerous Hindu slaves gathered by the Mongolian conqueror Sali Noyan in his raids in Hindustan and Kashmir in the 1250s. A Syrian Dom said that their elders remembered that they originated in the Mongolian era, around the 1260s CE. (http://www.domresearchcenter.com/journal/14/syria4.html)
- Approximately 1800 CE, came the last modern exodus from India ̶ the Parya Indians, who currently live in Iran and Afghanistan. “According to the Parya themselves, their ancestors migrated from India through Afghanistan around the turn of the 19th century”. Elena Marushiakova, Vesselin Popov, Gypsies in Central Asia and the Caucasus, p. 13.
In both Iran and Afghanistan, the majority population confuses the nomads, referring to them with either Indian or Arabic names: “The same label ̶ along with the names Hindustoni-Lyuli, Afgon-Lyuli and Chingar / Changar ̶ is given to other ethnic communities in the region, such as the Kavol and Chistoni, who migrated to the territories of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from Afghanistan in the same period … The local population is unaware of their distinctiveness and perceives the Parya, Kavol and Chistoni as one and the same community” (Gypsies in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Elena Marushiakova).
Bibliography
Footnote nr. 26, page 113, Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500, by Irfan Habib:
M. M. Bartlett, „Munster’s Cosmographia universalis” în JGLS (3), 31 (1952), pp. 83-90.
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