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-Cromwel...