Restoration of woodland areas is, I believe, one of the most important conservation tasks we human beings have. This also extends to restoration of the spiritual life of woodland areas and that is why I encourage people I work with to conduct ‘journeys’ or visualizations around the rescuing of the Bari Weshen Dai. Our old fairy-tale world lies sleeping within these enchanting places and it is, without doubt, the true essence of what the real old Romani world is all about. We have no word for ‘nature’ in the Romani tongue. Few tribal communities have a word for nature, as it is essentially a modern word created to explain our sudden separation from the natural ancient part of ourselves. So the Bari Weshen Dai becomes the closest spirit we have to what the old meaning of nature truly is.
I now have a special ran in my keeping, which was given to me by the ancient woodland near to my home. This ran conceals a sword, which was given to me by the woodland and which symbolizes my fight to restore the Bari Weshen Dai and her woodland and fairy-tale spirits and the ancient tribal life. The spirits are all still there in that wood: the Bari Weshen Dai, Jack the Hero, the giants at the end of the vines which stretch down from the Upperworld in the sky, the Bitee Fokee and the dragons, all manner of woodland folk who are down in their holes beneath the Earth, and the ancient people, or ancestors, who live alongside them. They are all still alive; they are all still waiting to join us in the great journey through life, could we but allow them to.
These are our ancestors, the ancestors of the European world. They will always be a part of an indescribably beautiful and complex structure in our world, which existed for thousands of years as an integral part of the European landscape and an important part of our education in life. I, as a Chovihano, am a guardian of it all. I will make it my task to revive and preserve this ancient world for as long as I live, as many gypsy Chovihanos have done before me.
At times like this, I find myself thinking of one of my most important more recent ancestors: my great-grandfather, who put me on the path to where I am today. I also think of my ancestors further back in time, together with all those primitive tribal people throughout the world who have had such a difficult time with their survival. Without them, and without my own ancestors, I know I wouldn’t feel so inspired to talk about my culture in the way I do. Fortunately, because I am able to talk about it, I know that the old curse on our family and on all tribal people everywhere, is slowly lifting as they are transported into realms of safety that exist in the Otherworld, and I want to say to all ancestors of all ancient worlds, ‘I will now work with you and stand together with you to help the ancient values of the natural world and the Otherworld survive, for no one can ever finally take our magical worlds away from us.’
I toast that greater ancestral place where my ancestors now are, and where I will one day also live - if I hopefully earn the right. I toast the place where all the fairy-tale spirits reside, where the imagination and tribal life are respected, where there is no prejudice, no civilization, no ownership, no geography and no time.
Chapter Ten
ENCOUNTERS WITH ANCIENT SPIRITS USING GYPSY MAGIC
A Chovihano’s Investigation of Ancient Settlements in the South of England
I have long had the ability to commune with spirits, also a lineage and knowledge which others haven’t had. When I came across some ancient hill forts, whose origins were in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, and realized that some of the ghosts there needed help, I couldn’t refuse.
There are many places along the South Downs in Sussex where you can look across the landscape and see the remnants of prehistoric settlements stretching to the West. Devil’s Dyke, in particular, is one such place, and in my investigations into ancient settlements, Devil’s Dyke is where my encounters with ancient spirits first began.
A line of settlements, dating mostly from the Neolithic times, begins with Coombe Hill near to Eastbourne in East Sussex, and runs all the way to Stonehenge in Wiltshire. The feeling one has as one takes that route from east to west is like moving from a most ancient natural plateau to the more sophisticated remains of a more modern settlement, which we call Stonehenge. When accessing Stonehenge in this way, it is like travelling to the beginnings of civilization itself.
When a group of us, consisting of my wife, Anni, a couple of friends, and myself, visited Devil’s Dyke in 2009, we were met with a mystery which served to pull us into the kind of rescue operation I have never experienced before.
The hill fort at Devil’s Dyke is, today, a very social place where people go to walk, exercise their dogs, and enjoy the panoramic views. A pub, aptly named ‘The Devil’s Dyke’, nestles enticingly beside the rather large prehistoric structure. This prehistoric settlement, 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, would have been very different from how it is today.
Once a bustling centre of trade and social and magical eminence, the area would have seen ancient travellers passing along the trade route stretching from east to west taking in much of the South Coast. Perhaps some travellers came from the continent in the East, crossing the English Channel, with pottery and arms; perhaps others came from places like Cornwall in the West, where tin was mined, or Wales, also west, where magical stones were found. Who knows exactly how or why they came?
After having studied these ancient places for quite some time, I got to see a vastly different but realistic picture of the prehistoric world and its people than is otherwise talked about in many academic books.
The picture we have of the prehistoric tribal past is often very sketchy, and we tend to fall back on the old habit of basing its individuals on the proverbial unintelligent ‘caveman’. Detailed accounts of modern tribal people, however, help us to see things in a clearer light. Not only do we find that they are extremely intelligent, but more importantly, they are also unchanged and unchangeable, meaning that they are the same in their psychological and emotional make-up, their traditions and beliefs as their forebears who lived many thousands of years before them. Indeed, many of them have DNA, which may not have changed in 50,000 years or more, so we might even want to see them as a quite different species if we are to compare them with modern man.
While it is difficult for many of us to imagine such people who manage to remain the same for such a long period of time, an undeniable fact is that prehistoric tribal people - and the Romani gypsies are included in these - would not have expected any kind of change to occur within their own social structure, so the idea of change would have been foreign to them. Change is expected today. Changing something means that there is something that is unlikely to have been tried and tested, but in modern times we expect it and even welcome it. Primitive tribal people have never been so accommodating of this, and would probably have run from a structural change in fear.
I know how much all this rings true because I hail from indigenous people who were also unchanged regarding their traditions, having practised them throughout hundreds of years, and this in itself provided me with the motivation to unravel this prehistoric mystery - a challenge I couldn’t resist.
So our casual walk through the Devil’s Dyke wood on that day, was about to reveal a new journey, and indeed a great surprise, for on entering the wood in expectation of a relaxing walk, we were met with an immediate stark atmosphere as damp, oily blackened oaks, ashes and beeches stretched up and down a slope around us, above us and beyond us. Menacingly they loomed as we walked the designated footpath, and I wondered what on earth these trees were all about. People walking alongside us with their dogs, nodded greetings as they passed, which we returned, but everyone seemed distant somehow, unable to acknowledge the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that was present in the wood. I wanted to say to them, ‘Can’t you feel the strangeness that’s coming off these trees in this place?’
It was strange indeed. In all my years of working with ‘ghosts’ as a Chovihano, I had never once been in a natural place that was so intimidating. The strong inexplicable presence accompanied us as we went deeper into the wood, where we r
ealized that there were fewer and fewer people around. The wood was as if watching us, with unseen eyes that wanted to record everything it was seeing. It is a strange sensation when this occurs. As much as I love trees, I do not care for this overpowering intensity. It can instinctively cause one to want to find the quickest route out of such a place. Little was I to know that this kind of incident would become a feature of our visits to ancient settlements along the South Downs, beginning with Devil’s Dyke, and ending with the famous Stonehenge in Wiltshire.
Trees can absorb the darkness that is present within the human psyche. When I spoke in an earlier chapter about the tree that was called ‘Julia’, the trees in Devil’s Dyke wood were really a huge step on from what Julia had been, because these trees were trapped within a much more complex human scenario. I say this because it is impossible for trees in their natural state to become so menacing without human interference. Humans have the capacity for developing a strange psychology; trees don’t. In fact, the human is the only animal that can sustain a muddled and complex psychology. We, unfortunately, have the capacity to create a kind of unique emotional force field, an invisible shield that gives off a ‘leave me alone to do whatever I wish to do’ kind of message, which is easily acknowledged by other humans around us; other animals and trees are not endowed with the kind of supremacy it takes to do this, being far more attached to the natural law as they are. So the Devil’s Dyke trees, it seemed, were being governed and manipulated by something far worse than the human Julia and her simple suburban semi-detached garden. These trees not only seemed to be under some kind of spell; they were also giving off a clear message, ‘Do not linger here, if you know what is good for you.’
My first realization that strange feelings could become attached to ancient settlements began with a casual visit to the Long Man of Wilmington, on Windover Hill, also in Sussex. Etched into the ancient hillside, a figure some 235 feet long looks out over the Weald and a section of the A27 that runs from Brighton to Polegate. The chalky Wilmington giant holds a pole or spear in each hand. Looking every bit like a guardian of the magnificent ancient hillside, which contains Bronze Age burial mounds, there are debates as to how old he actually is. Otherworldly guardians of hills and mountains are not uncommon in earlier times; they protect a gateway to the Otherworld contained within the hillside along with any powerful spirits who dwell there; hills and mountains have always given access to the Otherworld, big time.
There is a belief that the Long Man may once have been a helmeted figure, possibly dating back to Roman times, until the current shape was overlaid some 300 years ago. From attracting women to sit upon him to increase fertility a few centuries ago, to being used as a powerful message to women as part of a TV fashion project initiated by ‘Trinny and Susannah’ in modern times, the Long Man has successfully contributed to people throughout the ages in all sorts of ways. He still attracts ramblers and hikers, and neo-pagans with their rituals, but in much earlier times, prehistoric peoples would have perhaps seen him somewhat differently as they passed him on their journey across the South Downs trade route, carrying with them their good-luck charms, prayers for protection from good spirits, and offerings for spirits of the ancient hills. The Long Man has played a key role over a significant period of time.
While standing on the top of Windover Hill, a feeling not unlike the feeling in the wood at Devil’s Dyke, had stolen over me. With dark clouds gathering on the horizon, a strong feeling of a presence was there, but this was short-lived when compared to the feeling in Devil’s Dyke wood. Anni and I experienced sadness on looking over the land from Windover Hill. The Weald stretching away below us was a complete patchwork of worked fields, with the fast A27 cutting through them, whose noise could be clearly heard: a very modern view. We would once have been looking over large patches of ancient woodland stretching away to the North.
As the dark clouds gathered above, thickening on the horizon, it looked as though we were about to suffer some heavy rain. I imagined the Bitee Fokee residents within the hill, together with their Otherworld giant looking out over the land, reminding humans around them that the strong South Downs magic should never be abused.
In the Devil’s Dyke wood I was experiencing the same strong magic, which the Long Man had first introduced me to. ‘Who on earth would have the power to create an atmosphere like this?’ I asked. ‘What has been going on along the South Downs to produce such an atmosphere? Where are the humans who are responsible for having such negative power over the trees?’ Our friends were, understandably, a little uneasy to say the least about returning to the wood, so Anni and I made the decision to go back to Devil’s Dyke on our own.
The wood felt much the same the second time round. As we took the same path, I stopped and stood still, opening my mind and senses, aiming to go deeper into the eerie feeling lurking there. I have already talked about the Mulo. Ghosts are not favourite companions of Romani gypsies; our approach to them is clear-cut. They must be sent packing at all costs, for the Mulo can only ever bring bad luck; end of story. You are not advised to counsel the Mulo or make excuses for ‘it’ - unless you happen to be a Chovihano. I had my ran by my side. I was more than ready.
As I stood there with the same strong presence washing over me, I realized it wasn’t the kind of presence I was familiar with. As I focused my mind on the trees near to me something was stirring and I knew that a human presence was near. I encountered a young woman who seemed to hail from a prehistoric age. She was loath to come close, however. Fierce and a little aloof, I had to entice her out of her isolated place so that I might question her about the trees. I was unconcerned for her, but just wanted to know who was responsible for passing such a negative psychological condition on to the trees, and I wasn’t going to let the matter go until I had found out.
As she lingered I discovered that, true to ghosts, who don’t always acknowledge the environment they are living in, she thought Anni and I were as weird as we thought she was! She immediately accused us of trespassing, as if we had walked into her wood in her own time, which seemed to be the Bronze Age (approximately 4,000 years ago). Were we to do with the ‘fires’ in the distance? she wanted to know. I heard this in a telepathic sense, as a feeling rather than words. When I questioned the fires, she said, again telepathically, ‘I’m talking about the torchlights over the distant hill.’ After some deliberation we realized she was in fact talking about the streetlights in the distant town of Brighton, which she clearly believed were torches.
Her manner was direct, her attitude unfriendly - at least so in the modern sense. As she stepped closer to me I was permitted to see her more clearly. She was wearing something that seemed to be a linen material with leather wrapped around her thin body, rather clumsily; quite youthful, she seemed to be in her early twenties, or perhaps even a little younger. She was every bit tribal in her manner and dress, her neck adorned with teeth, presumably animal teeth. She in fact told us she had bones and heads hanging up outside her hut back at the camp nearby, perhaps to scare us or to demonstrate her power. Exactly whose heads we didn’t know, but discovered that she wasn’t averse to lopping off the odd head or two! She also mentioned ‘him’, several times, which seemed to imply a man whom we later discovered to be a sorcerer. I was full of questions, but having asked her what was wrong with the trees and what was going on in the wood, there was the distinct feeling that I wasn’t easily going to get an answer.
Anni and I didn’t understand how this lady ghost could see us; nor how we could see her, and all so clearly. After this phenomenal encounter she finally moved away out of sight, with some impatience. I felt for her in many ways. To meet someone from such an early era and to feel the full extent of her personality was intriguing, and a great insight. We were already addressing her as ‘Teeth and Bones’ by the time we got to our second encounter with her. There was no question that she was honoured to have such a name, but as a ghost she was certainly one of a different kind, and I suddenly wanted to kn
ow more about what made ghosts tick, and how eras of time contributed to their psychological make-up.
I have mentioned before how humans have the capacity for the strangest psychology. This has developed over thousands of years, particularly since the Neolithic Age (around 6,000 years ago), when severe changes occurred for tribal people in Britain and in many other parts of the world. As ancient civilizations began springing up, Sumeria and Egypt for example, people were suddenly using sophisticated and civilized technology in their almost overnight shift away from tribal structure and values. In modern times we tend to think that people always lived as we live now, and that they thought as we think today, but we have little or no idea about the way people ticked so long ago.
Neolithic Britain not only saw the spread of farming, but as weapons were also being developed - presumably because of the rise in human aggression and an increased appetite for competitiveness - social hierarchy made its début, altering the structure within tribes, forever. The problem was that so much that was new was galloping in at such an alarmingly fast rate in areas that had never before known such changes, it was extremely dangerous, proving to be irreparably so, as time passed. It would not fail to bring psychological trauma and social breakdown in its wake. Such social changes, known by today’s archaeologists and anthropologists as the ‘Neolithic Revolution’, constitute by far the biggest and most influential human revolution of all time.
We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture Page 23
