Gypsies in Space

Wandering legends. Essay. 1100 words, 6-minute read.

Image: Microsoft Image Creator

Gypsies in Space

By Ray Tabler

The word “gypsy,” as far as I can tell, derives from the (probably) mistaken belief that, at some point in the sparsely-documented past, the ethnic group known as the Romani originated in Egypt. Genetic studies indicate that the Romani came from India, not Egypt. But, to the medieval mind, Egypt and India were more-or-less equally exotic, and so somewhat interchangeable. At least they’d heard about the land of Egypt from the Book of Exodus, in the Bible. If the ancient Hebrews had high-tailed it out of there, it was plausible that other groups might’ve done the same. Hence, gypsies.

And people didn’t have to look all that different back then to be viewed with suspicion. The average medieval peasant didn’t know very much about people who lived 20 miles away. Let alone 200, or 2000. Piled on top of the normal distrust of outsiders was the disturbing fact that the Romani lived a life completely at odds with wider society. At the time, almost everyone was tied directly and permanently to the land, one specific, traditional, very well-defined spot. (Still are, truth be told.) It was the surest way to survive, plowing, sowing, and reaping a plot which might’ve been in your family for hundreds or thousands of years.

The only other groups who exhibited a degree of mobility were the seemingly-endless parade of conquerors thundering off the Eurasian steppes every few generations. The Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards, Magyars, etc... would come flooding into Europe, take over, then adopt the top layer of society for themselves. After a few generations, the barbarians grew soft and civilized, setting themselves up for displacement by the next horde.

In stark contrast, the Romani only wanted a place to camp for a while, then move on.

“You don’t want to conquer us?” <Narrows eyes in suspicion.> “What’s wrong with you?”

The Romani exploited a loophole in the brutal power dynamic of medieval and pre-modern Europe. The fact that they didn’t seem to want a homeland effectively removed them from consideration as a threat by everyone else, who jealously guarded, and would fight to the death over, every square inch of dirt. This didn’t make the Romani loved by kings or commoners. But it did buy them a grudging tolerance. As long as they kept moving on at a reasonable pace, it just wasn’t worth the effort to run them off. Not usually anyway.

This rootless existence was not easy, or certain. There are very good reasons why most cultures cling tenaciously to a specific patch of dirt. It’s the surest way to guarantee that you’ll be able to feed yourself and your family. Instead, the Romani chose to possess only what they carry with them, depend only on themselves, each other, and what can be found along the way. It’s a radically different approach than almost the entire rest of humanity. Yet they have made it work for more than a thousand years.

That was, and is, the Romani, a very real ethnic and cultural group, which to this very day exists apart from the wider world in many important ways. There are two coping mechanisms which we, mainly the Western world, has chosen to deal with this “other” roaming free within our midst. Mainly, we ignore them, the traditional answer. But also, we have fashioned from the Romani, the legend of the gypsies. That is, we’ve romanticized and fantasized an entire culture which has, in a manner of speaking, run away to join the circus.

Even in the most conservative and settled soul, the wandering lifestyle evokes a tiny, quiet yearning. It whispers of freedom from the burdens and obligations of everyday life. In reality, the gypsy existence is just as fraught with worries and duties. But constantly changing scenery makes it all easier to bear. Or so the subconscious logic runs.

Science fiction is a genre which thrives on such romance. In Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy, the main character is, briefly, adopted into an insular guild of wandering interstellar Free Traders, due to a blood debt owed from decades earlier. The Free Traders hold themselves apart from the rest of humanity, considering only the hulls of their ships as home. “The blood is in the steel. The steel is in the blood.” Poul Anderson creates a similar society of traders, who grow farther and farther distant from planet-bound people due to the effects of relativistic time dilation, in his Starfarers series. Neither set of characters are called out as gypsies. But that’s what they are.

Star of Gypsies is a Robert Silverberg novel, set in a future when the Romani supply the pilots for all faster-than-light vessels. This is a nod to the mysterious powers we have bestowed upon the gypsy legend. Murray Leinster’s Space Gypsies finds a portion of humanity which wanders from planet to planet, to survive in a hostile universe.

Both versions of the TV show Battlestar Galactica revolve around the remnants of humanity, fleeing a vengeful robot apocalypse in a ragged fleet of starships. The only quibble with applying the gypsy label to Battlestar is that they seek a place to settle and call home, and eventually find one. The gypsy legend, as our popular culture defines it may allow this ambition, but never permits attainment of the goal. Gypsies must be ever-questing, never resting.

A common aspect of legends, once conjured up, is the bestowing of special powers upon the legendary. Gypsies in popular lore are fortune-tellers, curse-wielders, shape-shifters. They frequent horror and fantasy fiction as convenient, though rarely evil, villains. There is much to be said about this fact of the legend, but I’m simply not well-read enough to do it justice. I’ll stick to science fiction, and leave gypsies in fantasy as an exercise for the interested readers more knowledgeable than I.

The Romani are a real people, who adapted to survive in an often-hostile world. The roving existence they have been forced to adopt strikes a chord within us, sparking the creation of the gypsy legend. That legend is built upon reality, but conjures up special powers for the gypsies so we can come to grips with the way it calls to our longing for freedom from the everyday burdens of being rooted to one spot. Regardless of the true nature of a wandering existence, the grass is always greener far down the road. Or so it seems in popular imagination. A hallmark of science fiction is space travel. And it is inevitable that gypsies will be among the first to wander away from Earth.

END.

Reference links:

· Gypsies in SF (other views)

o Romani (Gypsy) Power in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Lechler https://fantasyliterature.com/expanded/the-expanded-universe-romani-gypsy-power-in-sci-fi-and-fantasy/

o Gypsies & Other Fantasy Beings, Jim C. Hines https://www.jimchines.com/2013/10/gypsies-and-other-fantasy-beings/

o Dharmapedia https://en.dharmapedia.net/wiki/Romani_people_in_fiction_and_popular_culture

· Citizen of the Galaxy, Heinlein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_of_the_Galaxy

· Starfarers, Anderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfarers

· Star of Gypsies, Silverberg https://www.amazon.com/Star-Gypsies-Robert-Silverberg-ebook/dp/B00C4B24B6 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/449305.Star_of_Gypsies

· Space Gypsies, Leinster https://www.amazon.com/Space-Gypsies-Murray-Leinster-ebook/dp/B07TC2G3CK

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