This photo of Saint Sarah the Black was sent me by a French woman whose time working and living in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujerat, north-west India,  overlapped with mine.

 

 

Saint Sarah in the crypt of  Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

 

 

When my acquaintance returned to France, she went south to the Camargue close to the entry of the River Rhône into the Mediterranean.

She stopped at a little town called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

There, she visited a Romanesque fortress chapel by the same name.

 

This statue of Saint Sarah is in the crypt of this church.  The church itself is dedicated to three Marys who are believed to be:

Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary of Clopas (possibly Mary of Jacob).

 

 

 

Mary Magdalene, 1877, oil on canvas

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British, 1828-1882 Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE

 

 

What is said about the three Marys

 

They are believed to be the first three people to witness the empty tomb of Jesus; and the resurrection of Christ. 

 

Escaping persecution, they are said to have made their way to Alexandria, Egypt.  Taking ship they were cast adrift or sailed near what is now Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. 

 

They were accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea and the tradition is that the four were agents for the first implantation of Christianity in France. 

 

The relics of the Three Marys are held in this church and are the object of pilgrimage in the final week of May. 

 

They were not canonized by act of the Roman Catholic Church but are venerated as saints by tradition and inclusion in the liturgical calendar.

 

 

What is said about St. Sarah

 

Some believe that Sarah was a dark-skinned Egyptian woman who was a servant of the Three Marys.

Others that she was a local woman, high-born, who welcomed the Three Marys and helped them.

 

The statue of the saint is taken down to the sea the day after the relics of the the Three Marys in late May every year.  All are carried into the waters.

 

St. Sarah is not recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

 

What has been established about the Roma (Romani)

 

The Roma peoples – speaking an Indo-Aryan language – are known to have originated in north-west India and to have been on the move out of India in waves since c.1000 ACE. 

 

Reaching the Balkans in the 13th century, they are believed to have reached southern France in the 15th century. 

 

Anthropological and linguistic studies have traced the origins of St. Sarah to the Indian Kali, a form of the great goddess, Parvati, the consort of Shiva. 

 

Kali is a powerful representation of a part of the divine feminine.  She is the goddess of time, change, destruction, death.

 

The name Sara is an appellation of Durga, an equally powerful representation of the divine feminine, distinct, but very closely related to Kali. 

 

 

 

Bhadra Kali, Destroyer of the Universe, from the Tantric Devi series; opaque watercolour, gold, silver and beetlewing cases on paper.

Himachal Pradesh, Basholi, c. 1660-1670. Metropolitan Museum, NY

 

 

Kali means black in Sanskrit and in Romani.  

 

 

Kali, 1965, enamel and metallic papers on plywood

Bhupen Kharkhar, 1934-2003, Indian. MOMA, NY

The name ‘Ram’ is written in Hindi in blue.

 

 

Ahmedabad, the biggest of  Gujerat’s cities, has been under the protection of Bhadra Kali since the re-imposition of Hindu rule when the Mughals surrendered there in 1758.

 

 

 

Bastion of the Mughal Badhra Fort, 1411, old city, Ahmedabad.  

A temple of Bhadra Kali is on the ground floor of the fort.  Photography of the temple is not allowed.

 

The plaza in front of the Badhra Fort, old city, Ahmedabad looking towards the Triple Gate, built 1415 by the Mughals. 

Ahmedabad, Gujerat

 

Bhadra Kali is the fierce form of Kali: she who protects good from evil and brings her devotees good fortune and prosperity.

 

 

An image of Bhadra Kali on a wall in the old city, Ahmedabad

 

Stippled prayers to Bhadra Kali on the Triple Gate, Ahmedabad, Gujerat

 

 

The Roma do not speak of Saint Sarah as Kali.  They share the derivation ascribed to her by the French Christians who have harbored her for many centuries.

 

However, syncretism is characterized as an adaptive survival tool of the displaced, the travelers, the migrants, the homeless. They would not highlight their religious differences in the lands of their immigration.

 

The Roma, now spread to 30 countries on 3 continents have been, in the 1000 years of their wandering, among the most persecuted of all human groups.

 

 

Saint Sarah in the crypt of  Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Photo from the net

 

 

To have, long since, a safe haven in Christian France, created to commemorate three women close to the teachings of Jesus;

 

and a fourth: a symbol of human, female service

 

which shrouds a  conceptualization of the fiercely protective divine feminine

embodied in a black woman;

 

through whose histories and attributes the Roma draw strength for their own continuance.