Saint Sarah
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Saint Sarah is a patron saint venerated by the Roma (Gypsy) people. She is also known as Sara-la-Kali (Sara the black) (See McDowell, 1970, p.p. 38-57 for general information on Sarah, Roma and the Carmague). The center of her cult is Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a place of pilgrimage for Roma in the Camargue, in southern France, where legend identifies her as the servant of the three saints Mary (Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacobe) commemorated in the town. One alternative legend has her as a pagan of noble birth and being converted to the faith of Abraham.
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[edit] Tradition
In the traditional account, Saint Sarah was a native of Upper Egypt; after the Crucifixion of Jesus, Mary Salome, Mary Jacobe, and Mary Magdalene were cast adrift in a boat that arrived off the coast of what is now France "a sort of fortress named Oppdium-Râ", and the location was known as Notre-Dam-de-Ratis (Râ becoming Ratis, or boat)(Droit, 1961, 19); the name being changed to Notre-Dame-del-la-Mer, and then Le Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in 1838. Some say that the boat arrived in AD 42, and they were accompanied by Saint Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail. Sarah was the black Egyptian servant of Mary Salome and Mary Jacobe according to some, servant to Mary Magdalene according to others. Saint Sarah's feast day is August 19. In France the official day of her pilgrimage is May 24. Her statue is carried down to the sea on this day to reenact her arrival in France.
[edit] History
Though the tradition of the Marys and company coming to France is quite old (it appears in the 13th century Golden Legend, for instance), Sarah first appears in The Legend of the Saintes-Maries (1521) by Vincent Philippon. Records of her veneration are not found before the 19th century. Accounts of her vary; in some, she is tied with the Maries as an Egyptian servant; in others, with the Roma. She is called Sarah-la-Kali (Black Sarah), a name that brings together two strands of this tradition. When the Maries' boat arrived at the shore where the village now stands, she taunted the three saints in the boat, and one of the Maries climbed out of the boat and stood on the rough waters, inviting Sarah to walk out to her. Sarah attempted this but floundered and nearly drowned. One of the Maries lifted her up and carried her to safety.
Droit explains that Sarah and the two Maries stayed to found a Christian community, building an altar to the Virgin themselves, which was excavated in 1448 on the orders of King René of Provence. (Droit, 1961, 19)
[edit] Possible influences
It is interesting to note that Sarah-la-Kali (Black Sarah) is identified with the Indian goddess Kali (aka Bhadrakali, Uma, Durga, and Syama") (Fonseca, 1995, 106-107). Though it was traditionally believed that the Roma came from Egypt, it is now believed that they came from India around the 9th century. According to Lee:
If we compare the ceremonies with those performed in France at the shrine of Sainte Sara (called Sara e Kali in Romani), we become aware that the worship of Kali/Durga/Sara has been transferred to a Christian figure... in France, to a non-existent "sainte" called Sara, who is actually part of the Kali/Durga/Sara worship among certain groups in India. (Lee, 2001, 210)
That is, Saint Sarah is a local and Christianized manifestation of Kali. Weyrauch notes that:
The ceremony in Saintes-Maries closely parallels the annual processions in India, the country in which the Romani originated, when statues of the Indian goddess Durga, also named Kali, are immersed into water. Durga, the consort of Shiva, usually represented with a black face, is the goddess of creation, sickness and death. (Weyrauch, 2001, 262)
According to Franz de Ville (Tziganes, Brussels 1956), Sarah was Roma:
One of our people who received the first Revelation was Sara the Kali. She was of noble birth and was chief of her tribe on the banks of the Rhône. She knew the secrets that had been transmitted to her....The Rom at that period practiced a polytheistic religion, and once a year they took out on their shoulders the statue of Ishtari (Astarte) and went into the sea to receive benediction there. One day Sara had visions which informed her that the Saints who had been present at the death of Jesus would come, and that she must help them. Sara saw them arrive in a boat. The sea was rough, and the boat threatened to founder. Mary Salome threw her cloak on the waves and, using it as a raft, Sarah floated towards the Saints and helped them reach land by praying.
According to tradition, among the people on the boat were Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee and mother of the Apostles John and James; Mary Jacobe and her maid Sarah; Lazarus and his sisters Mary Magdalene and Martha; Saint Maximin.
[edit] In Literature and Film
In their book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln suggest that Sarah was the daughter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. They further suggest that the Holy Grail legend, which describes a cup or vessel containing Jesus' blood, was actually a reference to Mary Magdalene, who continued Jesus' bloodline through Sarah. Travelling to France after the Crucifixion, the family married into the ancestors of the Merovingian dynasty. These ideas were used in Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.
The statue of Saint Sarah makes an appearance in Tony Gatlif's 1993 film Latcho Drom (Safe Journey) where it is carried to the sea, and her landing is re-enacted.
[edit] References
- Droit, Michel. (1963). Carmague. Ernest and Adair Heimann (trans.). London: George Allen and Unwin
- Fonseca, Isabel. (1996). Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey. New York: Knopf.
- Kinsley, David R. (1988). Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition.' Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Lee, Ronald. (2001). "The Rom-Vlach Gypsies and the Kris-Romani." In Walter O. Weyrauch (ed.) Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- McDowell, Bart. (1970). Gypsies: Wanderers of the World.' Washington: National Geographic Society.
- Weyrauch, Walter. (2001). "Oral Legal Traditions of Gypsies." In Walter O. Weyrauch (ed.) Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
