ABSTRACT
The author of the rom and scholarly encyclopedic history of Rom groups, Angus Fraser, who himself tends to the Indian historical explanation of Gypsy specificity, pointed out that “it would have taken only about one marriage per hundred on average to be with a non-Gypsy since they left India to bring their present proportion of non-Indic ancestors to over one-half.” It may be that the particular way that the Gypsies and Rom have been reproduced was originally conditioned by the cultural, technological, and social baggage brought by those of their ancestors who were foreign. Acknowledging the fact that Rom “culture” can best be seen as oppositional to that of the non-Gypsies enables us to place the Rom “adaptation” in a sociologically revealing perspective by comparing them with others who labor for their living without the aid of land or capital or the Gypsies there is no angel of history, nor is there a past to be redeemed.
