president, Lynda Yracébûrû (Romani Gypsy) is of Romani Chovani descent.
This makes about as much sense as if I claimed I was a deutsche German - or rather: a deutsche Kraut.
'Chovani' does not seem to be one of the tribal units. Attempts to find the term in a Romanes dictionary yield funny results - the term is not known, also not in the spelling of ?ovani or ?hovani. However, the dictionary offers various words instead, like:
?ovexani - ?ovaxanî - ?oha?i - ?oxani
Although the meaning differs in various dialects, the general notion is:
witch, sorcerer, magician, spectre, vampire.
Witches, sorcerers etc are not seen in a positive way by R&S. The translation 'healer' never came up, BTW.
Hi I am Lynda Yraceburu, Choppie Romani Chovani Traditional Gypsy Healer
If "choppie" did indeed come from Romanes, Ms Lynda uses a form so corrupted the dictionary cannot find any results which come even close to this spelling, and this does not get any better when the "ch" is replaced by ? or ?h.
Back in 1999 she said she was a "transpersonal escort".
https://web.archive.org/web/19990222105837/http://home.earthlink.net/~earthwisdom/Wakizu.html
And nothing there about any Roma descent. So Ms Lynda has only been a 'traditional healer' for less than 15 years as of yet - very convincing....