Romnichal - Hygiene Customs

Hygiene Customs

Romany culture is intrinsically linked to a nomadic lifestyle which brings with it very complicated yet vital rules regarding hygiene. In the days before tarmac roads Gypsies were travelling in wooden wagons or often on foot with tents and horses on dirt tracks all year round. This meant that everybody and everything had to keep extremely clean using methods of washing that would not be shared with the settled communities. The loss of a nomadic lifestyle did not erase the centuries of traditions that had arisen regarding hygiene. Gypsies never share cups, plates or cutlery with anybody else (not even their own husbands or wives) and all these items are washed in running water, never still, and then soaked in a separate bowl of boiled water, dried with a towel used only for that purpose (there is no such thing as multi-use tea towels) and then washed again in running water before being reused. In Wagon Times (the days before modern caravans and houses) this was essential to hygiene because of the pervasiveness of dust and the risk of disease from contact with stagnant water.

The upper body is viewed as clean and the lower body is dirty, therefore t-shirts, shirts, hats, scarves etc. can be washed together but lower body garments cannot. Underwear is washed in completely separate bowls from upper body garments and in some cases not even with trousers or skirts. Male clothing is always washed in separate bowls from female clothing so ideally Gypsy women (always women) would have at least four different bowls which are reserved for the different types of clothing. In Wagon Times men’s upper garments would be washed furthest upstream (in a river), followed by women’s upper garments, then men’s underwear followed by women’s underwear further downstream. Men would bathe themselves upstream from men’s underwear and women would bathe themselves upstream from their underwear. Plates would be washed upstream from everything else. Dogs would be allowed to swim downstream from everything else and horses could wash wherever they pleased, as horses are sacred animals and considered intrinsically clean.

Contact with blood or death renders one unclean as does contact with bodily waste. Urine is not allowed to come into contact with clothing and still water is avoided also. Menstrual blood is considered to be both unclean and to possess magical powers. When a woman gives birth she is treated with awe and many superstitions surround her presence. No outsiders are allowed physical contact with her and she will not sleep with her husband until the baby is christened. During this time she only washes in holy water and she cannot cook or clean, during this period the men take over the tasks normally only associated with women. This is not for fear of ritual pollution but for fear of her blood’s power. The baby’s ankle is tied with a red string which he or she will wear until the age of one, the red signifies the mother’s blood. Even the words spoken by a new mother are powerful.

In the times of the plagues in Europe Gypsies were declared to be in league with the Turks (and by default the Devil) because they avoided the plague due to their strict hygiene rules at a time when settled people in Western Europe bathed considerably less often; and then without the attempts at separating 'clean' from used water that would not be widespread in Europe until the Germ theory of disease was understood. It was at this time that Gypsies earned the reputation for occult powers and when the first laws against them settling were implemented. Back then Gypsies travelled but stayed in inns, the anti-settlement laws banned all that and they took to the road, settled people viewed them with fear and declared them dirty because they were polluted by the devil.