Any cool Irish traveler culture facts?
I only heard about y'all recently and I would love to hear anything you like talking about wrt your culture
sure !! here are a few
an owl hooting during the day is supposed to signal bad luck.
the woman is often the head of the family. this doesn't mean that there isn't misogyny (trust me, there is a lot) but that the woman is seen as the heart of the family & this grows with age. our elders are revered because we have so few.
we're famous for our bare knuckle boxing (something used to teach young boys camaraderie, strength & agility) but we also have heavy focus in horses (both riding & selling) & dogs.
a lot of traveller women go into healthcare, like me. our culture puts a lot of focus on caring for the elderly, it's very hard for us to receive the services we provide because we're supposed to care for our own. these attitudes are changing however, slowly but surely.
we have some absolutely gorgeous vardo that unfortunately, in my opinion, have been phased out for caravans. like just look at how beautiful they are.
gold is often given as a wedding gift / dowry. the value is pretty consistent & it's easy to wear & then sell if we ever have to for our own safety, but gold is also thought to have protective properties.
traveller women often have long hair, it's representative of the resilience of our women & our strength so cutting it is incredibly rare. our men also tend to have longer hair also but not so long as to be "effeminate."
a large amount of us are catholic, but we tend to venerate the mother mary rather than g-d themself. i am jewish but the rest of my traveller family are catholic besides my cousins' by my aunt who are muslim (their father is bangladeshi.)
our histories are mainly oral, spoken in shelta / cant which interestingly is spoken at 1.5x the common speed of speech, often thought to be this way to avoid gorja understanding us. a fantastic book of our traditional tales why the moon travels can be found here.
