Kalderash

Each main confederation is further split up into two or more subgroups (Romani: vitsa) based on a combination of factors such as occupation, ancestry, or territorial origin.

[6][7] The name Kalderash (kalderash in Romani, căldărari in Romanian, kalderás in Hungarian, калдараш (kaldarash) in Bulgarian, kalderaš in Serbo-Croatian, 'котляри (Kotlyary) in Ukrainian, and кэлдэрары (kelderary) in Russian) is an occupational ethnonym which descends ultimately from the Romanian word căldăraș (coppersmith) derived from Latin caldāria, in effect describing their trade as tinkers.

Traditional societal traits of the Kalderash of Romania include endogamy, cross-cousin marriage, and customary courts known as Kris in Southern Transylvania and Wallachia.

Intra-ethnic marriages have united various subgroups such as Grastari, Niculešti, Dudulani, Tasmanari, Žapleš, Lajneš, Njamcurja under a common Kalderash identity.

[15] During the 18th and especially during the 19th centuries following the abolition of Slavery in Romania, Roma from the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia entered the Bulgarian territory in an event coined by certain ethnographers as the "Kalderash Invasion."

[17] During the late 19th century, large migrations of the former Kalderash slaves of Romania to the neighboring countries of Serbia and then Bosnia occurred.

Since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, many Serbian and Bosnian Kalderash have immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape the economic and social oppression that Balkan Roma face in their home countries.

The Kalderash migrated from the territory of the Romanian principalities and other parts of Southeast Europe to Russia and Ukraine between the end of the 19th and the first 30 years of the 20th century following the abolition of Slavery in Romania.

[12] They soon became a relatively numerous group in Russia and their traditional occupations of tinning and cauldron making led them to initial prosperity.

At the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, the state took on a policy of industrialization that aimed at bringing a settled way of life to the nomadic Kalderash Roma.

[22] Despite frequent contact with non-Roma throughout their daily lives and economic activity, the Kalderash have managed to keep a degree of invisibility within French society that allows them to practice their traditional culture without fear of assimilation.

Johan Taikon was a highly skilled copper and silversmith who would make elaborate metal craft at night in the makeshift workshops of the camps, primarily for use within the Swedish Roma community.

During communist times, many Balkan Kalderash were barred from attending the sacred pilgrimage of Kali Sara, known to them as santana, that occurs in Southern France each year during May.

She fulfills certain character forming activities based on Romani law and society such as visiting a person in order to ask for some water.

[36] The majority of Kalderash Roma follow Christianity, practicing the Eastern Orthodox,[37] Roman Catholic,[38] or Pentecostal[39] denominations.

Historically the Kalderash have followed the majority religion of their host country such as Eastern Orthodoxy in Romania and Roman Catholicism in Hungary.