Gypsy world : the silence of the living and the voices of the dead / Patrick Williams ; translated by Catherine Tihanyi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williams, Patrick, 1947-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Standardized Title:

Nous, on n'en parle pas. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Romanies--France--Social life and customs.

Romanies.

Manners and customs.

France--Ethnic relations.

France.

Ethnic relations.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xi, 104 pages, 22 pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2003]

Summary:

For many of us, one of the most important ways of coping with the death of a close relative is talking about them, telling all who will listen what they meant to us. Yet the Gypsies of central France, the Manus, not only do not speak of their dead, they burn or discard the deceased's belongings, refrain from eating the dead person's favorite foods, and avoid camping in the place where they died. In "Gypsy World, Patrick Williams argues that these customs are at the center of how Manus see the world and their place in it. The Manus inhabit a world created by the "Gadzos" (non-Gypsies), who frequently limit or even prohibit Manus movements within it. To claim this world for themselves, the Manus employ a principle of cosmological subtraction: just as the dead seem to be absent from Manus society, argues Williams, so too do the Manus absent themselves from Gadzo society--and in so doing they assert and preserve their own separate culture and identity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 97-99) and index.

ISBN:

0226899284

0226899292

0226504700

OCLC:

50447563