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France - Make your dream come true.
Pilgrimage - Saintes Maries de la Mer - May 2005
Each year on the 24th of May gypsies from all over the world come to Ste Maries de la Mer. Their pilgrimage is to pay respect to Sara-la-Kali, or Sara the Black. The town welcomes them to the 9th century fortified Romanesque church and the crypt of St. Sara.
The origins of the Gypsies of Europe - They left India as a group of nomads around 900AD, reached Persia in 950, and were in Egypt by 1230. By 1370 the gypsies, or Gitans, as they are called in France, were enslaved in Romania.
They first "Gitanes" came to Ste Maries de la Mer in 1438. Many of the families still speak a mixture of Romanian and Sanskrit.
There is a Carmargue tradition which says that Sara was the housemaid for Mary-Jacobe, Mary-Salome and Lazarus in Palestine. They left Palestine around 40 AD to avoid further persecution.
Another tradition says that Sara was a Gitane, (Egyptian) woman living on the banks of the Provencal River and that she rescued the Saintes Maries from a storm at sea.
Another qstory handed down says that Sara was an Egyptian, the abbess of a convent
The 9th century church in Saintes maries de la Mer was built for pilgrims visiting the shrine at the site where the Marys were buried. Recent excavations of the crypt indicate that some of the bones are those of an Egyptian woman from about the 1st century.
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