Muted color tone? The copy I have has colors that seem bright and saturated to me. It's the edition with the purple multilingual borders and the single large dragonfly on the back. Is that the same one you have, or do you have a different edition? At any rate, I'm happy with what I have. It strikes me as a bright and cheerful deck.
I have more monkey business. I looked for some more opinions on the significance of the baboon. Gerd Zeigler, in his Thoth companion book "Tarot: Mirror of the Soul," also identifies the baboon as the companion to Thoth and says that he "illustrates that wisdom can never be regulated in set ways. Any external manifestation, for example through words, includes in it some illusion." Snuffin, in "The Thoth Companion," mentions that the Egyptian Book of the Dead refers to this baboon as the "highly intelligent companion of Thoth who assists him in the Weighing of the Heart in the Hall of Judgement."
Incidentally, I also looked further into whether or not the baboon is an ape. Some sources define "ape" as a large tailless simian. By that definition, a baboon is not an ape, since baboons have tails. Other sources define "ape" as a large simian with a short tail or no tail. By that definition, a baboon
is an ape. I've also read that "ape" may have originally referred specifically to baboons. So is a baboon an ape? Who knows. And who really cares. All that matters is that I was at work bored and looking to kill some time. Looking into this did a fine job of that
.
Alan