Tsingani

From Wiki

The Tsingani are a largely nomadic race of people, the fantasy equivalent of "Gitanos" or Tsiganes in French, similar in many respects to their real life counterparts. They are horse-traders, gamblers, and fortune-tellers, persecuted in many lands but tolerated in Terre d'Ange. According to the Carey books, the Tsingani are doomed and destined to wander eternally, with no proper home for their people, because they would not give Elua sanctuary during his travels in Bhodistan. There is no accurate estimation of how many Tsingani live within d'Angeline borders, as they are too itinerant to be counted.

The Tsingani are noted for being great horsemen, and hold a horse fair in early spring in Kusheth each year. The fair lasts for three days: the first for looking, the second for talking, and the third for trading.

Terms

• baro kumpai : the four mightiest kumpanias.

• chaidrov : a route-marker, a signal known only to Tsingani.

• chavi : girl.

• Didikani : halfbreed.

• dromonde : the art of speaking prophecy, either looking into the future or the past, generally a natural-born talent in women. It is vrajna for men to speak the dromonde. Base word of drom or road, so literally: seeing down the long road.

• gadje : non-Tsingani people.

• galb : coin-wrought jewelry.

• gavvering : strict, belligerent.

• Hokkano : the many ways Tsingani part D'Angelines from their money.

• Kralis : king.

• kumpania : a tribe or clan.

• kushi gurya : good horses for sale.

• laxta : the unsullied virtue of a Tsingani woman. If a woman loses her laxta, she loses all her worth.

• Lungo Drom : the "Long Road" that all Tsingani travel.

• mulo : ghost, spirit.

• rinkeni chavo : pretty boy.

• tseroman : headman of a family or kumpania.

• vrajna : unclean, forbidden, against the Tsingani code of behavior.