Gypsies and tarot

[Ligator]

I would like to know more about the way gypsies use tarot. Things that they traditionally and genuinely do. )

If any one of you happen to be a gypsy I would very much love to hear you tell us more about the gypsy way of divining with tarot.

Please post webbsites, books, etc for me to study too!

/Torbjörn

 

[Venus Moon]

From the many things I have read about divination and gypsies, for the most part they use normal playing cards to read or palmistry. Perhaps someone will come along who knows more about tarot and the gypsies!

 

[Inana]

Have to agree with Venus Moon. For what i know and have seen, gypsies related to fortunetelling here, use mostly palmistry. They usually do it on the streets, stopping the people to read their hands and sometimes they also offer some herbs (rosemary is common) that are supposed to give good luck, in exchange of money.
It was more usual to see it years ago though, and in the south.

Never have meet a gypsy that reads tarot, what i saw once was a woman using the spanish playing cards (not the french ones used for poker) and she was using the whole deck for the spread.

 

[Umbrae]

From everything I've encountered, the Roma readers used EITHER palms, or Cartomancy (playingcards).

But I could be wrong...

 

[Demon Goddess]

My Grandmother is a gypsy; but I believe that is her heritage, not her fortune telling. The two, I believe are separate -- sort of.

She uses ordinary playing cards, palmistry, pendulums and a crystal ball. She uses birthdates and numerology and I'm sure she reads auras and energies as well. She also trances when she's reading.

Truth be told, though, I'm not sure what is actual to being a gypsy and what is just my Grandmother doing what she does. IoW, she does what she does because she is a clairvoyant not because she is a Gypsy.

T

 

[Ligator]

I am asking because there are books about gypsies and the tarot (I have ordered two of them from Amazon...). There are gypsy-tarot cards and in the back of my head I have the impression that many people asociate gypsies with tarot at least here in Sweden!).

/T

 

[Bloudwedd]

Have to disagree with you Ligator - at least when I am speaking for myself....

I DONT associate gpsies with tarot and I dont think most swedes does either. However, I think they associate gypsies and their fortunetelling with CARDS (any card really) and that they really do not know the differenece between the tarot and normal playingcards. Hence the kind of wrong assoication with tarot and gypsies!

But it sounds like a interesting book, but be sure to check the references! ;-)

 

[Ange]

I gather from reading up on the history of tarot, that gypsies in the old days used to use playing cards, well before tarot was around, and that the tarot first came into being as more of a game.

The it changed tack a bit when the tarot was used by occultists, and that is when it got it's bad name.

But now the circle seems to have turned again, and more and more are seeing tarot in an innocent way.

But I've still not read anywhere of gypsies using them....

Ang x

 

[Grizabella]

One of my mothers-in-law was Gypsy and she used playing cards.

In Raymond Buckland's book on the Romani Tarot, he said his mother (or grandmother?) used a deck that was partly playing cards with a few she had painted herself. I believe I've remembered that right---don't have the book right here next to me, but that's always stood out in my mind.

 

[Thirteen]

I gather from reading up on the history of tarot, that gypsies in the old days used to use playing cards, well before tarot was around, and that the tarot first came into being as more of a game.

Well before Tarot was around? I don't think that's quite correct. Tarot appeared between 1410-1430. Modern playing cards about 20-30 years earlier (Tarot and the playing cards more or less come from the same game). And gypsies (as we know them) really started wandering about Europe around that same time (give or take).

Hence, all three (as we know them) appear more or less within the same 50 years. So it's unlikely that gypsies were using playing cards "well before tarot" was around. However, tarot cards were cards for much more wealthy and elite folk (78 cards as compared to 52 and 21 of those with elaborate, woodcut imagery). A card game for nobility. So no surprise if gypsies latched onto regular playing cards which were being used by the masses, rather than the much rarer and more expensive tarot decks. Playing cards, after all, are still dirt cheap and much more numerous as compared to Tarot decks and this is in the present, when there are more mass produced tarot decks than ever before.

And I agree that I've never seen any reference to gypsies using the tarot--outside of movies where tarot cards appear more than regular playing cards because they're more visually dramatic.