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¡CUR CNIANO ) Gypsies of Southe rn Spain Bertha B. OuinanaN Lois Gray Floyd ¡QUÉ GITANO! Gypsies of Southern Spain NAAA AALAACA e e Na Na Na a Na a a a | FRANCIA ~~ Barcelona ~EOI~ w ee” PH ewe” O II DOOSA Qa »& Nee ee Q & Mal, aga A SI ICO cost" Gibraltar “=->—— ws —> MA Morocco eee en @ Gitanerias =—eoEeeer~ o> Early Gypsy Migration Routes ¡QUE GITANO! Gypsies of Southern Spain By BERTHA B. QUINTANA Montclair State College and LOIS GRAY FLOYD Montclair State College Waveland Press, Inc. Prospect Heights, Illinois For information about this book, write or call: Waveland Press, Inc. P.O. Box 400 Prospect Heights, Illinois 60070 (312) 634-0081 Cover: Isabel listening to a taped playback of herself singing. Copyright © 1972 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1986 reissued by Waveland Press, Inc. ISBN 0-88133-217-8 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. With affectionate gratitude LO AUGUSTA and WALTER STARKIE who have generously shared their fifty years of marriage with the students, scholars, and Gypstes of the world. Foreword About the Authors Bertha B. Quintana was born in New York City and received her training in cultural anthropology at New York University. Prior to joining the faculty at Montclair State College in 1961, she taught at New York University and Upsala College. She serves as department Chair and Professor of Anthropology at Montclair, and in 1983 was the second person to receive the Montclair State College Alumni Association’s Outstanding Faculty Award. A specialist in the culture of the Gypsies of southern Spain, Dr. Quintana has conducted extensive field work among the Gypsies of Granada. In 1959 she completed her pioneer anthropological study of the traditional themes and Deep Song of the Andalusian Gypsies (the subject of her doctoral dissertation), and in the years that have followed, has returned more than twenty times to Spain to study Gypsy enculturative/acculturative adaptations in the context of cultural change. She was joined in this long-term research endeavor on five field trips by her colleague, the late Lois Gray Floyd, a social psychologist. Their interdisciplinary collaboration focused on individuation and stress, changing aspirations, and minority/majority accomodation patterns. Dr. Quintana has worked also in West Africa, the English Midlands, and with Spanish peasantries. She is a founding member of the North American Chapter of the Gypsy Lore Society, was elected as its first President (1978 and 1979), and continues to serve as a member of the Chapter’s Board of Directors. Her other professional affiliations include the American Anthropological Association, Society for Applied Anthro- pology, and Society for Psychological Anthropology. Lois Gray Floyd (Mrs. William Floyd, 11) was born in Iowa and received her graduate training in psychology at the University of Texas and New York University. In addition to a long tenure at Montclair State College, Dr. Floyd taught at the University of Texas, New York University, and Long Island University. Her research interests in cross-cultural studies of cognition took her to Pakistan, Vietnam, and Japan, and were reflected in interdisciplinary courses in psychological anthropology she and Dr. Quintana developed and taught together. At the time of her death in 1978, Dr. Floyd was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Montclair. vii + FOREWORD About the Book To anyone who has traveled in Spain and seen the Gypsies of Andalusia in their Sacro Monte caves, or engaged in flamenco dancing and singing in hotels and nightclubs, or encountered small nomadic caravans along the road, this study rings true. Gypsy culture has been a subject of great interest in the Western world for centuries. Gypsies and Gypsy ways have been written about, praised, disparaged, legislated against, and supported by patrons, but social scientists have made few serious studies of them and their way of life. The authors of this case study, an anthropologist and a psychologist, are to be praised both for their attention to the historical dimension of Gypsy culture and for their ability to observe directly and interview relevantly. This case study moves from the general to the particular and back to the general. It is about Gypsy culture in the more abstract sense of cultural themes and history as well as about individual Gypsies and their responses in particular situations. It deals with the romantic and creative aspects of Gypsy culture, but it also provides insight into the immediate problems of existence faced by a people who have lived by their wits and by their art in a frequently very hostile environ- ment. It is unique not only because anthropological and psychological methods and interpretations are combined and because history, cultural themes, and Gypsies as living people are dealt with, but also because we are treated to that rare event in ethnography—when the people studied state their views of the culture of the ethnographer. That the views are not entirely flattering gives the reader a better understanding of both Andalusian Gypsies and American culture. Though the authors are clearly deeply impressed by the quality and vitality of traditional Gypsy culture, they are also concerned with the ways in which it ts changing and adapting in response to contemporary pressures. But in their change, still, Gypsies do not become uniform or ordinary. They continue to view them- selves as separate from others. This sense of separateness is something important for all of us to understand since it is in this sense that human beings have always found their pasts and their futures. GEORGE AND LOUISE SPINDLER