About 20 years ago, I had an old friend who came from the mining area of Southeast Kansas. He went back for a family reunion and spent a week there. When he came back, he showed me a double handful of old coins. There was a lot of seated liberty silver, silver three cent coins and half dimes. He told me that he finally located the "old Gypsy camp" and had detected all those coins there. He would NOT tell me where the camp was and unfornately, he passed away shortly after that.
INFO NEEDED, GYPSIES
- Thread starter jeff of pa
- Start date
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Near Dyersburg a gypsy camp was completely demolished, the occupants saving themselves by climbing into concrete culverts. It is reported that only one horse survived and it was carried a distance of 500 yards. November 1900
Several coats were found in the southeastern part of Henry County that had been blown a distance of more than 20 miles. They were identified as belonging to persons who were killed near Trezevant.
Finley also made an elaborate report on the tornadoes of the year 1884, which was a most unusual year for these storms, more than 60 tornadoes occurring on one day, February 9, of that year.
Might be a good area to hunt
Several coats were found in the southeastern part of Henry County that had been blown a distance of more than 20 miles. They were identified as belonging to persons who were killed near Trezevant.
Finley also made an elaborate report on the tornadoes of the year 1884, which was a most unusual year for these storms, more than 60 tornadoes occurring on one day, February 9, of that year.
Might be a good area to hunt
Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp
Gold Member
HOLA GOLDEN EARRINGS: Ah so, another lovely gal running off to cruise the world, sigh'.
Another tropical Tramp like me.
Jose ? de La Mancha ( I tilt windmills )
Another tropical Tramp like me.
Jose ? de La Mancha ( I tilt windmills )
beeper
Full Member
Hey Jeff-- do you relize it took a whole YEAR for this thread to take off! just noticed
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Thats because you needed a Gypsy for input ! 
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
gypsyheart said:
Sorry ...This area is in Tenn.....forgot to post that part...guess state is important
beeper
Full Member
GEE DO YA think!gypsyheart said:Thats because you needed a Gypsy for input !
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
.........then I will be in good company......RealdeTayopa said:
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
These symbols were carved on trees in or adjacent to their camping places, at the time of departure. A circle quartered on a beech ash or linden indicated "Everything as it should be, a safe and pleasant place to camp. We were in no hurry to leave." Left-hand upper quarter on a beech or ash, "One of our band in trouble here." Left-hand lower quarter on a beech or ash, "Two of our band in trouble here." Right-hand upper quarter, on beech or ash, "Three of our band in trouble here." Right-hand lower quarter on beech or ash, "Four or more in trouble, unsafe to remain." Upper half, on beech, "Fined, or robbed, or ill-treated." literally "purses emptied." Lower half, on beech, "Will camp within five miles." Lower half, on an ash, "Will camp one day's travel," i.e., twelve or fifteen miles distant. Lower half, on a linden, "Will camp two days' travel." Lower half, on a pine of any kind (bad tree), "Have killed a white man here." Lower half on a hemlock, "We have committed a minor offense, being watched or molested, unsafe to remain." Some of these marks are still discernible on venerable beech trees, and are called by the Pennsylvania mountain children as "Gypsy Trees."
A diamond, cut on a beech, bisected, translated to mean that "must leave for reasons (best known to self). Will be within two days' journey." The bisecting line when extending on both sides beyond the diamond, "four days' journey." On one side only a "three days' journey.
http://www.altoonalibrary.org/books/treelanguage/tree language0001.htm
A diamond, cut on a beech, bisected, translated to mean that "must leave for reasons (best known to self). Will be within two days' journey." The bisecting line when extending on both sides beyond the diamond, "four days' journey." On one side only a "three days' journey.
http://www.altoonalibrary.org/books/treelanguage/tree language0001.htm
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
OP
OP
- Thread starter
- #51
Very Cool !
And Your Right on the Carving.
Definately ALOT of work involved.
And Your Right on the Carving.
Definately ALOT of work involved.
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Pennsylvania Gypsy's
Chikener also brought with them a "symbolism of good and bad trees. They classed as good trees first the beech, widely known as the "Gypsy tree," after that the ash, and the rowan or mountain ash, the white oak, the birch, the linden and the maple. Pines and aspens were evil, and the Chi-kener?s prejudice became a prime cause for early settlers cutting down all pine trees near their dwellings." 28 As well, the giant stag-horn sumac was called the "devil tree." 29 The Chicanere also used trees medicinally. For example, in newly cleared pastures rattle snakes and copperheads killed many cattle. As a remedy the head of a newly killed reptile was inserted into a hole bored into a young "snake ash" and plugged up. The following year switches were cut from the suckers of the tree and gently used on the bitten area.
"As they were naturally an extremely reticent people, the Pennsylvania German Gypsies developed a tree language which in time was their chief defensive weapon against the constant persecutions of the white people."29a Pictographs were carved into trees. "A circle quartered on a beech, ash or linden indicated...a safe and pleasant place to camp." A half or quarter circle meant danger, ranging from loss of money to death, the severity being indicated by which quadrant the quarter was taken from and the type of tree on which it was carved. Likewise, "a diamond, cut on a beech, bisected, translated to mean that "must leave for reasons (best known to self). Will be within two days journey." The bisecting line when extending on both sides beyond the diamond, "four days journey." 30 On one side only a "three days journey." Also carved on a beech tree a heart and a cross were "symbols of Gypsy lovers."
Shoemaker also describes "the white man?s warning against the Chi-kener:
a white star and black hand" 32" While still In the Rhine when a Gypsy came to a house looking for work and found their was no money to be made he painted a discrete white star was on the doorjamb as notice for the next Gypsy traveling through. 32a It is uncertain who added the black hand and when but the black hand and white star appear in a Gypsy Holocaust Memorial in Salzburg leading me to believe that this image originated in the Rhine and traveled to Pennsylvania, a clear visual indicator that the intolerance they had hoped to escape in the New World had followed them.
In 1930 Shoemaker wrote that "They were expert horsemen, and created the first interest in horse-breeding and horse-racing in rural Pennsylvania. In other words, they stood for better horses. They were expert potters, making better pots, jugs and flasks than the Indians, or the potters of Huguenot, Spanish or Moravian antecedents. They were expert coppersmiths, and turned out finer work than any other foreign element in Pennsylvania. They were clever ironworkers and artistic tile makers. Everything they executed was distinctive and of artistic merit, and yet they did not try half so hard as the plodding gentiles they out-created and out-sold. They knew how to make glass, and the famous Baron Stiegel whom Pennsylvania is so tardy in honoring, used every inducement to secure their staying with him at Manheim, his chief glass-maker?s name was Stanley, a German speaking, Gipsy, whose descendants are today part prosperous and sedentary and part wanderers and impecunious. They were famous musicians, and as dancers excelled for their grace. The She-kener were the vanguard of the artistic impetus which the so-called "Dutch" gave to Pennsylvania, the colonial houses, furniture, stoves, firebacks, glassware, tiles, illuminated manuscripts, sconces, urns, pottery and bells, as well as ballads and music that have caused antiquarians to remark that the Pennsylvania Germans alone of all the colonial elements left behind them artistic remains."20 Because no people are ever all good or all bad, they also had the reputation of being able "to put a "disturber" on a person, a spell that may last indefinitely. Pennsylvania witchcraft, the black art the "hechs," is theirs.." and "In telling "fortunes" the She-kener girls and women never impart anything that is pleasant, for example, they will tell a married man that his wife is false," etc. 21 The Pennsylvania Dutch people, although pious, were also superstitious which brings us to the famous Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs that decorate the barns of Lancaster County. By all accounts the symbols are purely decorative but I find it hard to imagine that the Pennsylvania Dutch, believing it possible to be hexed would just coincidentally call their barn decorations "hex signs".
Some authorities have claimed that from 1845 to 1870 there were approximately three thousand of the She-kener following the roads in Pennsylvania." By the 1930?s, " three hundred would be a liberal estimate of their numbers. The World War drew many of them to Hog Island and other industrial plants, with the result that they settled down in cities, and will probably never take the roads again." The three thousand would not have included the second wave of German Gypsy migration in 1850-70. Those "Gypsies in large numbers...travel in handsome automobiles...on the Pennsylvania highways in the summer months. But beyond acknowledging a racial and lingual kinship the She-kener maintain no intercourse with them.".42
Chikener also brought with them a "symbolism of good and bad trees. They classed as good trees first the beech, widely known as the "Gypsy tree," after that the ash, and the rowan or mountain ash, the white oak, the birch, the linden and the maple. Pines and aspens were evil, and the Chi-kener?s prejudice became a prime cause for early settlers cutting down all pine trees near their dwellings." 28 As well, the giant stag-horn sumac was called the "devil tree." 29 The Chicanere also used trees medicinally. For example, in newly cleared pastures rattle snakes and copperheads killed many cattle. As a remedy the head of a newly killed reptile was inserted into a hole bored into a young "snake ash" and plugged up. The following year switches were cut from the suckers of the tree and gently used on the bitten area.
"As they were naturally an extremely reticent people, the Pennsylvania German Gypsies developed a tree language which in time was their chief defensive weapon against the constant persecutions of the white people."29a Pictographs were carved into trees. "A circle quartered on a beech, ash or linden indicated...a safe and pleasant place to camp." A half or quarter circle meant danger, ranging from loss of money to death, the severity being indicated by which quadrant the quarter was taken from and the type of tree on which it was carved. Likewise, "a diamond, cut on a beech, bisected, translated to mean that "must leave for reasons (best known to self). Will be within two days journey." The bisecting line when extending on both sides beyond the diamond, "four days journey." 30 On one side only a "three days journey." Also carved on a beech tree a heart and a cross were "symbols of Gypsy lovers."
Shoemaker also describes "the white man?s warning against the Chi-kener:
a white star and black hand" 32" While still In the Rhine when a Gypsy came to a house looking for work and found their was no money to be made he painted a discrete white star was on the doorjamb as notice for the next Gypsy traveling through. 32a It is uncertain who added the black hand and when but the black hand and white star appear in a Gypsy Holocaust Memorial in Salzburg leading me to believe that this image originated in the Rhine and traveled to Pennsylvania, a clear visual indicator that the intolerance they had hoped to escape in the New World had followed them.
In 1930 Shoemaker wrote that "They were expert horsemen, and created the first interest in horse-breeding and horse-racing in rural Pennsylvania. In other words, they stood for better horses. They were expert potters, making better pots, jugs and flasks than the Indians, or the potters of Huguenot, Spanish or Moravian antecedents. They were expert coppersmiths, and turned out finer work than any other foreign element in Pennsylvania. They were clever ironworkers and artistic tile makers. Everything they executed was distinctive and of artistic merit, and yet they did not try half so hard as the plodding gentiles they out-created and out-sold. They knew how to make glass, and the famous Baron Stiegel whom Pennsylvania is so tardy in honoring, used every inducement to secure their staying with him at Manheim, his chief glass-maker?s name was Stanley, a German speaking, Gipsy, whose descendants are today part prosperous and sedentary and part wanderers and impecunious. They were famous musicians, and as dancers excelled for their grace. The She-kener were the vanguard of the artistic impetus which the so-called "Dutch" gave to Pennsylvania, the colonial houses, furniture, stoves, firebacks, glassware, tiles, illuminated manuscripts, sconces, urns, pottery and bells, as well as ballads and music that have caused antiquarians to remark that the Pennsylvania Germans alone of all the colonial elements left behind them artistic remains."20 Because no people are ever all good or all bad, they also had the reputation of being able "to put a "disturber" on a person, a spell that may last indefinitely. Pennsylvania witchcraft, the black art the "hechs," is theirs.." and "In telling "fortunes" the She-kener girls and women never impart anything that is pleasant, for example, they will tell a married man that his wife is false," etc. 21 The Pennsylvania Dutch people, although pious, were also superstitious which brings us to the famous Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs that decorate the barns of Lancaster County. By all accounts the symbols are purely decorative but I find it hard to imagine that the Pennsylvania Dutch, believing it possible to be hexed would just coincidentally call their barn decorations "hex signs".
Some authorities have claimed that from 1845 to 1870 there were approximately three thousand of the She-kener following the roads in Pennsylvania." By the 1930?s, " three hundred would be a liberal estimate of their numbers. The World War drew many of them to Hog Island and other industrial plants, with the result that they settled down in cities, and will probably never take the roads again." The three thousand would not have included the second wave of German Gypsy migration in 1850-70. Those "Gypsies in large numbers...travel in handsome automobiles...on the Pennsylvania highways in the summer months. But beyond acknowledging a racial and lingual kinship the She-kener maintain no intercourse with them.".42
Well I ran across this thread while researching civil war sites (strange)
Anyway I grew up as an English gypsy, I have settled down now and married a gourga (Non gypsy) girl. I can assure you that all the Gypsies that I knew did not have 2 cents must less any money to bury. It's a shame that my grand children will never know the gypsy life or the Romany language or signs. Like most cultures we have been absorbed by the general culture of America. Gypsyheart: I am also from Tn and can remember visiting some of my people in Dyersburg when I was young. The rest of our clan still live in the Houston TX area. I will always be a Gypsy a Heart and every now and then i feel the urge to abandon it all and hit the road. But unfornationaly life wont let me. If you do find an old Gypsy camp ground please let me now, I would love to hunt one just in case. P.S. there was a large Gypsy camp in the Whiteville TN area in the 40's and 50's
Anyway I grew up as an English gypsy, I have settled down now and married a gourga (Non gypsy) girl. I can assure you that all the Gypsies that I knew did not have 2 cents must less any money to bury. It's a shame that my grand children will never know the gypsy life or the Romany language or signs. Like most cultures we have been absorbed by the general culture of America. Gypsyheart: I am also from Tn and can remember visiting some of my people in Dyersburg when I was young. The rest of our clan still live in the Houston TX area. I will always be a Gypsy a Heart and every now and then i feel the urge to abandon it all and hit the road. But unfornationaly life wont let me. If you do find an old Gypsy camp ground please let me now, I would love to hunt one just in case. P.S. there was a large Gypsy camp in the Whiteville TN area in the 40's and 50's
boogeyman
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I got into this conversation kinda late. The gentleman mentioned the gypsies were the ones doing the Bondo scams. Well, it is a scam that is prevalent here in Arizona, and to a degree in California. The library would be an excellent source of info on the gypsies. And I don't recall how long ago it was, but there was an episode on 20/20 about them. Try giving the station a call, sometimes the producers will cough up some of their research info unless they're planning on doing a followup. I almost always start with newspapers, preferrably the smaller papers. I was trying to find info on a cache in California, and ended up sitting in the newspaper office for 2 hours and walked out with info that I'm sure would've taken me a year to find on my own.
snake35
Hero Member
Never play poker with GYPSIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are the best cold readers that I have ever met. I know a few real gypsies. They are very interesting people.
This is defiantly one of the most informative threads. Thanks
This is defiantly one of the most informative threads. Thanks
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
Thats because gypsy's are taught to cold read from birth. So very much has been written about gypsy's ,but to tell the truth they are a very mysterious and closed mouth group. You will never know all a gypsy's secrets , because they just dont reveal.snake35 said:
R
Reddackel
Guest
Gypsyheart,
Thanks for the history. Great posts. I enjoyed learning. I'm in Tennessee and will now plan to do some research on visiting the areas mentioned above.
Red
Thanks for the history. Great posts. I enjoyed learning. I'm in Tennessee and will now plan to do some research on visiting the areas mentioned above.
Red
cptbil
Bronze Member
When I was last in Hawaii, there was a small colony of Gypsies
Living in Honolulu....
Living in Honolulu....
Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
hmmmmcptbil said:
Wonder how they got their vardo's there...hahaha....pontoons?
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