Who's for giving "the Gypsies" their due?

hello Fulgor,

I am following this interesting thread also because I have a love for history...

15th centruy Italy is the defacto origin rule these days
for Tarot cards, with playing cards a hundred years or
so prior to that... yeah right sure, tell me about it!

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in that aspect Fulgot there is also some historical proof for it...there is proof that the Tarot arrived to Italy some time before that and it became more popular in the 15th century, the famous Visconti tarot, you can see the original in Italy, Milano, if I am not mistaken.

It's not coincidence that it happened in that time frame, the Renaissance...the Church had lost it's very tight grip for a while.

And it's a fact that The Tarot has been around for a long long time in Italy.
Now I would not say it originated in Italy, I don't think that's accurate, there are some theories that trace it back to Egyptians times etc...what most likely happened, like with many things in human history, is that it originated in some place lost in time( ex. Egypt) and then it was taken out and spread through Europe, also with the help of nomad populations as the Gypsies, and also with the slaves the Romans brought back to Rome.
If you look back at the history and evolutions of those specific populations there were uncountable invasions, migrations, contact and fusion with so many other cutures that it get all very muddy.

just my little contribution...

blessings to you

Ivy Rhiannon said:

I personally believe that the gypsies neither invented nor were the first to read cards. However I do beleive they are the reason tarot is wide spread and as popular as it is today.

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I think de Gebelin, Etteilla, Levi, Papus, Wirth, Mathers, Waite/Smith, Crowley/Harris probably have something to do with it too, and those occultists and gentleman historians who popularised the Gypsy histories/myths [take your pick].

I am still sceptic about the "Gypsy tale" origin of tarot. Sounds too much based on the ppl dating of "finding the blue flower" era.

I am more taken on the idea that divination with cards either comes from China or from India as a kind of distraction for court ppl (because only they had enough leasure time to do it).

BTW do we have a kind of exact date when the Rom and Sinti first showed up in Europe?

All information that I have read is about 1000 AD.~Rosanne

http://www.xmission.com/~dderhak/monte/gypsies.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people


I've met Roma ppl many times in my life-and,yes,they often used divination...But much more often they compose music and sing or do business I'm sorry I haven't read everything in this thread but it's already 10 pages long

Yes,Roma PPl use Tarot cards and playing cards,too...But it doesn't mean they invented it.

Here is a link to the German cutural center of Sinti and Rom, I did not know I had that nearly in front of my door: http://www.sintiundroma.de/content/index.php?sID=2&navID=0&tID=0&aID=0

When I will go to Heidelberg the next time I will try to find out there some information about Rom and card reading.

Hello amhimsa666! Thanks for the links!
The first one:
"My Friends, The Gypsies" by Lawrence Bohme
http://www.xmission.com/~dderhak/monte/gypsies.htm
has a wonderful quote:
Recently, a village friend asked scornfully me why
I liked the gypsies so much. I answered, defiantly,
"Because they help me to have fun."

*

Did the Gypsies invent Tarot? Impossible to say! But imagine~
a person may go to Ireland today ~ but will the Irish there be
the same people you might meet in the year ...1250 or 1550...
This is true of almost everyplace on Earth~people do change!

When people think of the Gypsies now, there are many opinions,
but just like people everywhere~ their lives are private to them.

"Tarot" brings reactions when you mention it ==to people too!
Who do we accept now as the authority on Tarot...or Gypsies?
So I'm allowing myself to be right or wrong today as I see it now.
And I get nervous when the "experts" all nod along in agreement.

Fulgour ~ a nice Irish boy (Scottish and German too)

A small price to pay

magpie9 said:

It seems to me that it was unlikely that the Gypsies invented Tarot Cards, since the traveling life is unsuited to the kind of ongoing creativity and leisure-time that would require. It's a hard life, and more often than not, sustenance-level is about the best you can do. When you add in the suspicion and prejudice of the settled people around you, and all that means on a practical level, I just don't see inventing Tarot in their copious spare time as likely.

I base this on my experience of traveling with circuses and carnivals for 2 years as part of a knife-throwing act. Even with modern conveniences like Coleman stoves and access to laundromats it's a hard, busy life without much time for anything beyond work-eat-sleep.

I do absolutely believe that the Gypsies carried and spread the Tarot deck all over Europe. A branch of Gypsies did go down into the near-east and Egypt, but there were not tarot cards there, which points to it being an European invention.

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'Lo all,

This makes so much sense. Sigh . . .

How was paper made ? Well, cotton rags were ground into a pulp to separate out the strands of cellulose. Then this pulp mess was floated in vats of water, which allowed the fibers to bind floating on top of the water. A wire-mesh screen -- a mold -- was then lifted through the water capturing the sheet of fibers. Then was dried on felt and pressed or hammered to finish the sheet of paper.

This is difficult to do on the back of a wagon, especially when on the move. Well, maybe they could have been painted on thin sheets of wood, but they would have been sort'a hard to shuffle. Then there's the question of pigments. I won't bore you with all that involved.

But think of the romance. Mysterious inheritances and tall dark strangers and all that neat stuff.

"History changes all the time. It is constantly being re-examined and re-evaluated, otherwise how would we be able to keep historians occupied ? We can't possibly allow people with their sort of minds to walk around with time on their hands." -- Terry Pratchett

~ Talisman

Howdy Stranger

Talisman said:

This is difficult to do on the back of a wagon,
especially when on the move.

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Hi Talisman! I'm new in town (just passing through)
and I wondered if you'd like to make a trade for some
of that paper I see you have there... no, no~ no dye,
we have our own, do lots of patterened fabric y'know.

Nice paper you got, too! Laying all around here in piles
so nice and handy. You must sell a lot? Wanna trade?

We're having a party tonight, just outside of town!