Gypsy And Irish Traveller Origin Traced To Dalit Untouchables

The sales practices of Gypsies (Romani) and Irish Travellers in the U.S. are often branded scams but represent a cultural legacy that appears to have originated with India’s Dalit Untouchables. Centered on driveways, roofs, and stone walls that over the centuries have all been made with stone, the sales techniques used by Romani and Irish Travellers mirror North Indian market-style negotiations where vendors overprice and buyers bid low, as low as 10% of the asking price, with the Romani or Irish Traveller initial low bid on a driveway job representing a customer’s low bid in a New Delhi market. Gypsies, Roma, Romani, or Romanichal originated in India, and their language called Romani is related to Hindi and Rajasthani. This article traces how a group of traveling Dalit Untouchable stonemasons likely fled India around 1000 AD and became the Romani Gypsies, who then taught their sales practices to homeless Irish enabling them to become the Irish Travellers in 1650s Ireland, post-Cromwell. The TLC show My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding documents both Hindu cleanliness codes and Eastern market negotiations being used by modern American Romani Gypsies that ties them to North India and the Dalits.

Dalit Untouchables: Origins of Romani Stone Craft (~1000 AD)

Dalit Untouchables, the lowest caste in India’s system, are likely the ancestors of the Romani, particularly the Vishwakarma stonemasons. In North India, Vishwakarma—stonemasons, blacksmiths, carpenters—are often Shudras or Other Backward Classes, but stone-workers are Dalits in Rajasthan and Bihar due to “polluting” dust (The Hindu 2022; Al Jazeera 2023). In Hinduism, silica dust dirties sacred spaces, unlike Buddhism, where stonemasons built revered stupas (Tricycle 2021). The caste system assigns Dalits “wrong livelihood” tasks (e.g., waste removal, butchering) to absorb bad karma (HRW 1999). Stone-working, neutral in Buddhism, is impure for Dalits in Hinduism due to dust.

This stigma appears to have driven Dalit Vishwakarma from India (~1000 AD), fleeing oppression or invasions (PLoS ONE 2012; Telegraph 2012). Outside India, stone-working was neutral. All evidence points to their craft—sacred for Hindu temples (Economic Times 2017)—being paired with market-style sales: low quotes for stone jobs (walls, repairs), high bills, haggled down. Today, Dalit Vishwakarma in India (2018–present) are accused of overcharging for stone wall repairs, reflecting ongoing caste bias, though specific evidence of stone wall overcharging is scarce (Pulitzer Center 2019).

Romani in Europe: Stone Craft and Cleanliness (~1500s)

The Romani reached Ireland by the 1500s, carrying their stone craft and cultural practices (Telegraph 2012). Their sales technique—quote low, bill high, haggle—echoed North Indian markets, where a vendor overprices a scarf at $40, expects a $4 bid, and negotiates to an agreed upon price somewhere in between, with both parties satisfied (Tripsavvy 2019). Romani practices reflect North Indian roots, in My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, Romani women dust stairs twice daily, mirroring Hindu caste purity where Vishwakarma stone-workers use strict hygiene for “clean” stone to maintain ritual status (BBC 2024).

The Birth of Irish Travellers: Romani Mentorship in Cromwell’s Ireland (~1650s)

In 1650s Ireland, Cromwell’s campaigns evicted peasants, seizing their farms (BBC 2024). Homeless, they wandered into forests, meeting Romani caravans. The Romani, out of compassion, welcomed them, sharing a sales practice for stone-based work—driveways, slate roofs, stone walls—that birthed Irish Travellers. This sparked a 22-generation legacy (~375 years, early marriage at ~16, ~6 generations per century) for Travellers (PLoS ONE 2012). The method is bold: quote low to land the job, do the work, then bill up to 10x higher, haggling to a middle ground. Irish Travellers’ adoption of this method in 1650, an entire sales technique from a people that were illiterate to another people that were illiterate, was a tool that enabled the homeless Irish to live from day to day and become the Irish Travellers. They carried it to the U.S. by the 1850s post-Great Famine, making it their cultural backbone.

A Masterclass in Sales on My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding (~2000s)

In My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, a young Romani man showcases a bold sales technique that he clearly learned from some older Romani. He loads a dump truck with asphalt in the morning for a couple hundred dollars, then cold-calls a homeowner negotiating off-camera with the man for ~$350. This $350 price reflects the homeowner stating his desired cost, mirroring the initial low bid a buyer offers in a New Delhi market. To the woman, he says, “It’s not gonna be a fortune, I just need to dump this load,” staying vague. After laying the driveway, he tells the man the total was $1,250, and the man says his wife suspected a scam. Haggling follows: $900, $750, $700, settling at $650. He claims the asphalt cost $700 and he will have to eat a $50 loss—a lie. The gravel work may ultimately match standard quality, and is perhaps priced like other firms, suggesting the technique itself fuels complaints (BBC 2024). Police in 10+ U.S. states, including North Carolina (2014), South Carolina (2022), and Massachusetts (2024), have tracked Romani and Irish Travellers using this pattern—quotes of $150-$350, bills of $1,250-$2,000, haggled to $500-$700—over decades, with 52 arrests in South Carolina (2017) for driveways, roofs, and stone walls (Pulitzer Center 2024).

Americans, used to fixed prices or 10-20% overages, call the 3.5x bill ($350 to $1,250) a scam, but it’s just market-style business in India. The Romani man’s gambit—buying the load first, then selling it with his truck as a prop—is a practice Romani have likely used for a thousand years, and likely taught to Irish Travellers.

Contrasting U.S. Sales Practices (~2000s-Present)

In the U.S., roofing and driveway sales are supposed to follow a structured process, not like the Romani and Irish Travellers do it. Companies are supposed to send crews to knock on doors, offering free estimates for home improvements (BBC 2024). If a homeowner agrees, a salesperson provides a contract-bound quote, and any overages beyond about 10-20% need justification (e.g., extra materials), or consumers can appeal to state authorities like their state Attorney General (Pulitzer Center 2019). But the way it is supposed to be done yields no guaranteed sales—homeowners often reject bids, and competition is stiff between companies. The Romani and Irish Traveller tactic— cold-calling, vague low quotes, high bills, and haggle down— locks in jobs but draws constant scam accusations.

Criminal Perception vs. Cultural Sales Technique (~2000s-Present)

In the U.S., Romani and Irish Traveller sales practices are often labeled criminal, with accusations of fraud stemming from their high bills (e.g., $1,250 after a $350 quote) and vague initial quotes perceived as deceptive (Pulitzer Center 2024). Police reports and arrests, like 52 in South Carolina (2017), reinforce this view, framing their methods as scams targeting vulnerable homeowners. But from the Romani and Irish Traveller perspective this is not criminal behavior, it’s just business as usual, the exact way they have been doing business for 1,000 years for the Romani and for 375 years for the Irish Travellers and just the way business was originally done in India, passed down from likely Dalit Vishwakarma ancestors, enabling survival across the centuries. This behavior is barely criminal—haggling itself is legal, though misrepresenting costs (e.g., claiming $700 asphalt costs when it’s really a couple hundred) may skirt ethical or legal lines, leading to civil disputes rather than felony charges in most cases.

Unlike organized crime groups such as the Italian Mafia, Chinese Triads, or Japanese Yakuza, Romani and Irish Travellers don't run a variety of criminal enterprises ranging from drug dealing, to smuggling, to money laundering, and protection rackets, not hesitating to use violence or murder to enforce control (IMDb 2024). In contrast, Romani and Irish Travellers lack centralized leadership or violent enforcement, focusing on itinerant sales of gravel, slate, and stone work. Their high-markup haggling, while controversial, is a far cry from the systemic violence and organized crime of the Mafia, Triads and Yakuza, who have connections to crime families in Italy, China and Japan. Instead the Travelers and Romani preserve a cultural tradition of negotiation that originated in Indian markets and continues to thrive despite Western misunderstanding.

A Lasting Legacy Forged in Stone (~1000 AD-2025)

From North India’s Dalit Vishwakarma who are still accused of overcharging for stone walls as recently as 2018 in India, as Indians become more Westernized and expect their price quotes to be more like in America, to Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the U.S., who all face scam accusations for quoting low and then charging a higher price after they fix a stone wall (Pulitzer Center 2019; BBC 2024). For 22 generations, Irish Travellers have thrived using these sales practices, born from Romani mentorship in 1650s Ireland where they taught them how to give low quotes like $350, high bills like $1,250, and how to haggled down to $650, which has allowed Irish Travellers to exist for the last 375 years. This legacy spans from 1000 AD India to 2025 America, uniting Dalit Untouchable, Gypsy Romani, and Irish Traveller communities. Defying caste stigma and Western bias, their stone driveway, roof, and stone wall sales represent Indian market-style negotiations in a Western world that continue to thrive despite scam labels, because it is a tried and true sales technique that has sustained their communities for centuries.

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