Culture 5

The people whose condition and origin I intend to deal with in this writing, the Z*******, are an extremely strange phenomenon in Europe. We may look around their homes, or sit as spectators at their meals, or finally just get a glimpse of their faces. We always find them peculiar and are surprised at every step by a new and unusual scene. But the strange thing about these wandering strangers is that neither time nor climate, nor example have hitherto had any appreciable influence on them.

Gottlieb Grellmann (1787): Historischer Versuch über die Z******* betreffend die Lebensart und Verfassung und Sitten und Schicksale dieses Volkes seit seiner Erscheinung in Europa und dessen Ursprung. Göttingen: Bey Johann Christian Dieterich.

Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1756-1804) is regarded as the founder of "Tsiganology". In his work he claimed Rom*nja stole and probably ate children. He also described the Romni as extremely sexually permissive. He was appointed professor in Göttingen in 1787.

Although Grellmann is considered the so-called founder of Tsiganology, he probably never spoke to Rom:nja himself. His entire body of work was either copied or written in conversation with a priest who worked with Rom:nja. Nor was it Grellmann who proved, through linguistics, their Indian origins. This piece of writing is an example of how social science research talks about, but not with, its "objects of research".

*Ian F. Hancock (1987): The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers.

1787