The Banjara, Blacksmiths and Snake Charmers, nomadic peoples of Rajasthan India, are considered the closest ancestors to the Roma Gypsies of Europe. The history of the Romani people has been a history of movement. Not from some innate wanderlust as the storybooks would have it, but because of outside circumstances that have left them no option. Moving out of India a thousand years ago in response to the eastward spread of Islam, and arriving in Europe three hundred years later pushed ahead of Islam's spread towards the West by the Ottoman empire.
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