Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!oddjob!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Digression (cards)
Message-ID: <11059@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 14 Apr 88 05:37:10 GMT
References: <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1221@uop.edu> <794@actnyc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 39

>In article <11010@mimsy.UUCP> I wrote:
>}Ah, but where did the *cards* come from?
>}In fact the origin is not racist but classist.
[I deleted the various details]

In article <794@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>This is not what my book* on the Tarot deck says.  It says clubs
>derive from wands, and spades from swords.  The former represent
>creative power, the latter force of any kind.
>*One of Waite's.

I made a number of errors in <11010@mimsy.UUCP>, although the origin of
the modern playing card (i.e., the reason we have the precise suits
that we do) is indeed classist.  The older symbolism may not have been
so, but that which survives in the standard English decks is.  (I
had carefully refrained from mentioning Tarot cards to avoid digressing
within the digression :-) .)

I am not sure about the clubs-from-wands bit, but the spades-from-
swords is rather likely.  (If anyone cares, a bit more information
can be found in _The_Straight_Dope_ by Cecil Adams.  It may be in
the `humour' section of your local bookstore, although it only
halfway belongs there.  A fun book, if not very deep.  I may post
the few paragraphs he has on the cards later.)

>Those who are enthused about the Tarot deck generally attribute its
>origins to a period long before the late middle ages ....

Some claim the early Egyptians had them, although there is no real
evidence for this, as far as I know.  I would not trust any of Arthur
Waite's claims without other corroboration; he was often more
enthusiastic than accurate (somewhat like me :-) ).  Various of his
proclamations seem to contradict each other.  What we do know is that
the modern cards evolved from Tarot decks sometime around the 1500s
and were more or less fixed by the 1800s (one can speculate here on the
effect of widely available printing presses and leisure time in the
expanding bourgeoise).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris