We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture Read online

  WE BORROW THE EARTH

  An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture

  Patrick Jasper Lee

  First published by Thorsons 2000

  ISBN 0 7225 3994 0

  This e-book Mobi edition published by Ravine Press 2013

  ISBN 978 1 909882 09 6

  © Patrick Jasper Lee 2013

  Patrick Jasper Lee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FOREWORD

  INTRODUCTION

  Chapter One

  A CHILD OF THE WIND

  Chapter Two

  THE DARK PAST

  Chapter Three

  BORROWING THE FIELDS AND FORESTS

  Chapter Four

  LIFE AND DEATH BEYOND THE HEDGEROWS

  Chapter Five

  THE WHISPERING FOREST

  Chapter Six

  ANCIENT ROMANI HEALING AND LIFE SKILLS

  Chapter Seven

  THE ROMANI OTHERWORLD

  Chapter Eight

  THE CHOVIHANO’S PATH

  Chapter Nine

  MEETINGS WITH ANCESTORS

  Chapter Ten

  ENCOUNTERS WITH ANCIENT SPIRITS USING GYPSY MAGIC

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To Anni, my beloved wife, for her support, awareness of the old ways, and for her strong values. To the inspiration of the Greater Ancestors of the natural world. To Puro, my ancestor, mentor and friend, for all he continuously brings to my life.

  For information on the Romani gypsy culture and Patrick Jasper Lee please go to:

  www.patrickjasperlee.com

  FOREWORD

  This revised second edition of We Borrow the Earth is a social and cultural milestone for the ancient Romani gypsy tribal people. With its frank insights into Romani nomads, its sincerity and wisdom, and its somewhat revolutionary approach to modern perceptions of tribal life, this edition was no less difficult for my cousin, Jasper, to write, because no member of our family had ever undertaken a project like this before. It is therefore a phenomenal achievement for us all.

  We Borrow the Earth received a devout global following the first time round, bringing its author lecture tours of the USA and Canada, and workshops in many parts of Britain and Europe. I was one of those awkward and cynical family members who doubted that this book could ever be a wise and clever move. With thieves already out there poaching the traditions of tribal folk across the globe, why would our culture receive any better treatment? The fact that no one - unless they were indigenous to our culture, above 79 years of age, and possibly living in deep obscurity - knew what the traditions of the Chovihano were until this book appeared, meant that in good old-fashioned gypsy language a hard game of what we call the bujo was being played - a word which basically means that folk are, literally, ‘on the con’. The bujo is a dishonest and shameful practice, so very few true gypsies will admit to playing it when they know they are destined to be found out. For the general public, it therefore transpired that just knowing the Chovihano granted a licence to ape what he and his kind had been doing for hundreds of years.

  From journeying by lying across the floor with feet pointing towards a candle, to freely using Romani words (mostly out of context); from shaking tambourines in people’s faces to exorcise demons, to gaining academic friends only to discover that once our craft had been learned, the ‘friends’ were nowhere to be seen, it all became crazy. We thought, ‘Who will ever understand that we have never behaved in this fashion?’ Wasn’t the original point of the book to enlighten and educate people on our race and our traditions? It soon transpired that we were not allowed to complain. Instead, many criticized Jasper for not giving enough of what the Chovihano had to offer, as we began witnessing an adulteration of our culture, at first hand. It’s putting it too mildly to say that tribal folk everywhere have been robbed of their traditions; it’s more the case that they’ve been drained, very slowly, and somehow agreeably, which is how cultural theft goes.

  The truth is that the Chovihano, and this book, are a rarity, and Jasper is one of the most skilled advisers anywhere in today’s society. Fortunately, there are those who appreciate opportunities to learn about an ancient culture; some understand what it means to abuse indigenous traditions, and share our discomfort. With true Romani gypsies of our kind now being thin on the ground, those remaining are, still, a secretive and hardy people, unashamedly guarding old traditions. In fact, our culture has to be one of the most guarded anywhere in the world, which is why it has survived intact up until these times, and which is why, with the writing of this book, it has become the victim of so much controversy regarding the authenticity of its mythical and folkloric past.

  I know that those fans who have supported We Borrow the Earth and learned from it over the years will welcome this second edition with open arms. Their love and respect has been appreciated. While much of the book has been rewritten in a much more gutsy way, with more information and revolutionary thinking in its revealing extra chapter, its flavour hasn’t changed. I hope, therefore, that it attracts a new breed of follower who sees it objectively, and who digests it sympathetically. People who read this book will certainly discover how easy it is to kill a culture, but how necessary and courageous we are if, even when in the minority, we find it in our hearts to champion and preserve a near-extinct ancient way of seeing the world.

  Chilly (Charles) Lee, Rye, Sussex. 2013

  INTRODUCTION

  The fire crackled in the hearth of the darkening room of a small terraced house in Erith in Kent. The old white-haired gypsy sat in the armchair with the sleeping child in his arms, gazing into the flames of the fire as he had done many times before beside his campfire in the open air. Deep inside him there stirred a familiar feeling, which disturbed him, for he knew that he was losing something precious, something he and his people would call the tacho Romani Drom - the true gypsy path or way.

  The house and all the ‘perks’ of mid twentieth-century England were said to be beneficial but he wasn’t so sure. He had, however, been temporarily blinded by them, together with the pressures imposed by modern education.

  In the earlier part of the twentieth century his people had wandered more freely in Britain. There had even been a time when it was fashionable to be a gypsy, for intellectuals and the upper classes had wanted to live with the nomads and adopt their ‘Bohemian’ lifestyle - they obviously felt the pressures of civilization too. But some of his kinsfolk were never quite in agreement with this, for it meant that after long years of persecution and victimization gypsies had suddenly been romanticized and become merely a novelty. The gaujo, the non-gypsy, was strange like that, a victim to whims dictated by whatever was in vogue.

  In the old days this old man had understood the old ways. He had inherited an ability to practise some ancient life skills from an ancient past. No one exactly knew what this ancient past was all about but he treasured it. So he could only sigh now. ‘What have I done?’ was all he could mutter, quietly, as he looked up to the window, where a small sprig of rosemary hung, twirling in the draught. The herb was hanging there for protection, but he never really felt qu
ite safe in this house, for it was dark and enclosed and airless. Becoming a house-dweller brought some strange magic with it for your home did not move any more and you just stayed in one place within it - and within yourself.

  The old gypsy looked down once more at the sleeping child, who was no more than two years old. He instinctively felt that this child was destined to develop as a Chovihano, or medicine man, in the old way, destined to travel to and from the Otherworld and to learn the ancient craft of the race, which also meant meeting with darker forces of life in their many different and dramatic forms, and encountering the modern civilized world in its many forms. In truth, this child would be inheriting something rare in these times, an indescribable power that was as old as time.

  As he looked into the flames of the fire, my great-grandfather shed a quiet tear for the power he had misused and for the life he felt he had lost. That tear probably fell on me as I lay sleeping in his arms. He had tried to buy the Earth, he said to my father, his grandson, who was sitting nearby, observing all this, and you could never buy the Earth, no matter how much you paid her; you could only borrow the Earth, as you could only ever really borrow all the things you came across in your life.

  I have my father to thank for that account, but I remember Jack Lee, my great-grandfather, extremely well, as he lived far into his eighties. He was a quite slender man of medium height with a shock of white hair, a dark weathered face, equally dark mischievous eyes and a tobacco-stained moustache. Whenever I saw him he was dressed in a collarless shirt and dark waistcoat, with a muffler, which we call a diklo, at his neck, often sitting gazing thoughtfully at the fire. He was, like many Romani gypsies, non-literate, and something of a mystery for after he became a house-dweller he travelled far and no one ever knew exactly where he went. He always returned quite casually after each sojourn - which would sometimes amount to weeks at a time - as if he might only have popped out for some tobacco!

  This man was my role model and was instrumental in helping me take my first steps along the Romani Chovihano’s path. He taught me that to be a Chovihano medicine man, you had not only to be in contact with nature, but also needed to be a true spokesperson for her in her many forms, telling her story for her since humans had severed their ancient spiritual connections with her, for the Chovihano had long spoken with her voice.

  I learned from Jack Lee to tread where others fear to tread, and to spread my wings and fly, not in imitation of a bird, but as a bird. I learned that to be as small as a ladybird and as large as an ocean, with all the accompanying thoughts and feelings, calls for an imaginative sensitivity and identification, which transcends the boundaries of human understanding. I had to learn that to practise as a Chovihano of the highest order you had to be, more than anything else, emotionally free and also emotionally courageous, for there were times when you would feel vulnerable and subject to feelings and sensations which were not within the obvious realms of human understanding. Jack Lee, in his own sensitive way, introduced all this and more to me.

  I still remember the loud infectious laughter of this old man; his sense of humour, rather childlike in essence, was in fact just one of the rare and treasured gifts he passed down to his family, and it also helped to balance the more serious side of the craft I was learning.

  But there was also the curse! Like a gaping wound, we all seemed to carry the burden of the mistake Jack Lee felt he had made in leaving his native past behind. It was as if something had stepped out of time with its well-established dependable rhythm. A curse can hang over your head with the heaviest of weights. It would have been something of a disturbing thought for Great-grandfather himself, because for hundreds of years, if not thousands, his ancestors had walked the nomadic path and the realization that he might just have been the first person in his immediate line to step off that path must have been devastating indeed.

  He was not, of course, to blame for becoming a house-dweller, for he, together with his wife and many other Romani gypsies, was very much a victim of modern progress, as many tribespeople still are today. The nomadic gypsies with their vardos, or wagons, and their shaggy piebald grais walking freely along leafy lanes were destined to meet with opposition and restriction in a society bent on land ownership and living apart from nature. There was no more room for these tribespeople, who had been living in the country for 500 years or more.

  For Jack, and Amy, his wife, as well as the rest of my family, there was no longer a tribal/Earth relationship upon which to depend, a partnership steeped in ancient and sacred tradition. The Lee, or Purrum, clan, a clan long associated with seership and early folk tradition, was bequeathed a legacy from tribes past: befriend and borrow the Earth, and the Earth will befriend and borrow you, and she will freely give all her natural wealth to you, all her fruits and spiritual insights. But try to own her and you could find your relationship with her breaking down. That is how it was always put over to me.

  When the idea for this book was first suggested to me it was rather daunting to think of writing openly about something which had lived for a long time and quite deliberately so behind the scenes. It is true that in my life skills work, which many call ‘healing’, I have, about 90 per cent of the time, used Romani gypsy methods, drawn from ancient folk traditions, but I have never talked about them so freely before. Few authentic gypsies will talk of their Romani blood - unless of course they happen to be talking to other Romanies! Fewer still will talk about the really old traditions. Though I had grown up playing a central role in what could be labelled the ‘spiritual’ life of my community, I was not expected to talk about it openly, so I didn’t - until the first published edition of this book.

  There is, however, every reason to speak freely now, for our world is quite plainly unresponsive to past traditions, and quite clearly in a mess, and tribes of all peoples everywhere are threatened with extinction. My great-grandfather must have known that this mess would worsen when he said that a curse would extend to all mankind if it insisted on owning rather than borrowing, which indeed it has done, in a big way.

  The gypsy spirit is undeniably strong. One thousand years ago Romanies were practising their old magic and tribal way of life; barely 50 years ago, there were still many doing exactly the same. There cannot be many tribal people in the world who have lived alongside the iron-hard fist of progress whilst remaining unaffected by that progress - and who have lived to tell the tale!

  I am perhaps living proof of that. In my mind I sometimes watch bands of ancestors moving across old Asia, or across sixteenth-century Europe, meeting all the misfortunes that came their way in those times, but always I see the remarkable resilience that accompanied them, the natural desire for freedom, the courage and humour and discipline, and the instinctive devotion to the Earth. Perhaps no race could have been more unwelcome on the Earth, but no race could have loved and respected the Earth more.

  A great comforter to me in these more lonely times is a spirit guardian in the form of a Romani ancestor who accompanied Jack Lee through his life and who now accompanies me through mine. My wife, Anni, and I have come to know him extremely well. He provides that vital link with the ancestral world, which we all so badly need, yet which few see a need to have in these modern times. We protect him and he likes to remain very much a mystery, for it is not appropriate for gypsy Chovihanos to ask too many questions of ancestors. That would bring wafdo bok - bad luck. But as a teacher and guide, a Romani ancestor is a vital thread who has the power to weave countless generations together.

  There is no doubt that preserving and practising this culture’s traditions and to understand what we mean when we say the word ‘shamanism’ has presented a difficult road for me, and if my great-grandfather were here today I know that he would undoubtedly shake his head as he looked on at our troubled modern world with all its muddled psychology, with the words: Dordi, dordi. Oh dear, oh dear!

  But in spirit I now rock him, along with all those primitive gypsies, in my arms, just as I was rocked when
I was just two years old.

  It is time, Jack, for the curse to be lifted.

  Chapter One

  A CHILD OF THE WIND

  A Romani Gypsy Childhood

  I had a most unusual childhood, in some ways perhaps a childhood straight out of the past. I grew up in a world of fairy-tale castles, dreams and omens, a world in which life and death were sometimes somehow intertwined, and where the Otherworld was not at all a secondary world, but a place that was every bit as real as the physical world, and where I myself was expected to spend much of my time.

  My own family was sandwiched between the gypsy world and the gaujo world, and I laughed and cried and fought and dreamed like every other youngster, except I was not entirely like every other youngster, a reality which perhaps first came home to me in my early days at school.

  I proved to be a formidable pupil in my junior school whenever I stood up in class insisting that a Romani word was a word commonly used in the English language - which of course it wasn’t, because no one else had heard of it, except other Romanies!

  ‘And so this is a - a what?’ my teacher asked one day in embarrassment and confusion as she held up a picture of a hedgehog.

  ‘A hotchiwitchi, Miss.’

  ‘A hot - a what?’

  ‘A hotchiwitchi.’

  She smiled, and many of the children were laughing, as if I had just made up a fancy word.

  The hedgehog was an important and respected animal to the Romani gypsy, a pal of the bor, or ‘brother of the hedge’. He was not only a delicacy at gypsy meal-times but was also considered to be, in spirit, a gypsy too. My great-grandfather had told me stories of how our guardian ancestor could transform himself into birds, in particular a buzzard, but many ancestors could change themselves into animals: a hotchiwitchi being one of them. I had also been told by my great-grandfather that I too could change into a hotchiwitchi - if I dared. What he meant was that if ever I learned the very difficult ancient craft of ‘transformation’, I would have to respect it and use it in the ancient way. He spoke very seriously about this, so I considered this craft to be special and therefore difficult to practise. I did not, however, tell my teacher any of this, for you didn’t brag about having gypsy roots, and you certainly didn’t talk about the cultural or shamanic aspects of your culture. But I did continue presenting my teachers with many different words, some of which were indeed made up, and I ended up not knowing which word was Romani, which was English and which was made up. When I was at home it didn’t matter anyway, because a word was a word, unless it was used in magic and rituals, and then it carried greater emphasis. Otherwise, words did not have to meet any recognized standards.