General facts of Finnish gypsies culture and manners

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The main things in gypsy culture are to respect the older people, take care of purity and chastity. Gypsy culture is daily good manners. Even if you are feeling down, you can't just suddenly throw it away like a crab.

Respecting the older people

In hierarchy the older people always has the highest location. It means that they are respected and everybody must act correctly. For example, younger gypsies can't curse when there is older gypsies at the same place. Gypsies should address every older people, even their own parents.

There is a phrase in gypsy culture, that respect is for them, who really deserves it. So, older people must also heed youngers. It is not decent purposely to make normal things impossible.

When gypsy takes care of symbolic purity including clothing, it means that older people is respected.

Manners of purity

Every kind of purity is very important in roma culture. If you don't care of it, you'll very quickly have really bad reputation. So called unclean houses are places, where anybody don't want to go, and filthy people are soon alone.

Symbolic purity is kind of complicated concept. Shortly we could say that things upside everything are clean and things below everything are unclean. This two things are two different terms and they won't get mixed. Clean can become to unclean, but unclean can never become back to clean.

Unclean things are for example floor and carpets (because you walk on them), chairs and seats (because you sit on them), some clothes like underwear, shoes, gypsyskirt and mens trousers (because you wear them for lower body), bedroom and toilet (because there you are half naked or even naked), ... Also every thing which has some doing with sexuality and sex are unclean things. These things are for example pregnancy, birth of child, period, youth (every fertile aged people).

Clean things are for example tables and working surfaces, kitchen (there you are always dressed), older people, outermost clothes on torso, tissues and pillowslips (you put there only your face and head), female who haven't have sex with anybody and wears still to long, narrow skirts and photos.

Clean things are very important and gypsies try to hold them clean in future too. Clean things are saved to place, which is safety enough to keep symbolic purity. Gypsies don't usually talk about unclean things and if they do, they use very much paraphrases.

Clothing

Gypsies of Finland has very unique turnout. Especially gypsy womans costume is very obtrusive. Consequently we could say that gypsy women with their costumes are the most visible feature of roma culture. Clothing really has a big importance in gypsy culture, and gypsies without right clothes won't get older gypsies' decent. Being and living without traditional clothes is very big insult for older gypsies, and also for manners of purity in gypsy community.

Aim of mens and womens clothes is to hide body's shapes.

Dating and secrecy

Pregnancy, birth of child and so called time of unclean after birth