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Gypsies and the Tarot - Another Look?

In recent years, there has been a growing movement to deny that Gypsies hadanything to do with the introduction of the tarot into Europe. The idea has beenincreasingly ridculed since the start of the 20th century on basis that the cardswere used for divination prior to the arrival of these migrating people into Europe.

This claim is equally suspect on the grounds that there is no hard evidence toprove any other group or culture for that matter, were resposible for theintroduction of the tarot into the Western conciouessness. It is as if the tarot 'justarrived' from nowhere and manifested in Nothern Italy around seven hundred yearsago according to most historians.

Comparison between the traditional Hindu artistic representation of Kali, the goddess of

'Death and Renewal' (left) with the imagery of the Death card in a traditional tarot deck whichalso represents the same general concepts.

There has also been a drive to further popularise the notion of the Knights Templarhaving brought the tarot back from their invasions of the Holy Lands during thecrusades. This theory has mainly found favour as part and parcel of the KnightsTemplars taking on a fashionable cultural cache — due to the work of fiction writerssuch as Dan Brown. Again, there is no hard historical evidence to suggest that the



tarot was brought to Europe as some booty from the Islamic world. This alsothrows light on another flaw in the theory — that being the prohibition on gravenimages within Islam. It is almost impossible to conceive that the images of Major

Arcarna would of been accepted, let alone tolerate with the strict theologicalconfines of Muslim doctrine.

From my own research, and contrary to the currently accepted wisdom concerningthe origin of the tarot — I still feel the case for Gypsies bringing the tarot to Europestill remains most the credible. The historical archeology of much of the tarotstrongly suggests a possible Hindu origin brought into Europe via the Slavic world.One of the reasons for this backlash against the Gypsie origins of the tarot, is Ibelieve, the historical confusion concerning different branches of the 'Gypsie' racialgroups, and in particular, the confusing of the Roma Gypsies (the 'Romani' whospread into Western Europe in the 15th Century) and the Indo-European sub-groupof Gypsies called The Dom.

The Dom people have an oral tradition and express their culture and history

through music, poetry and dance. Recent studies of the Domari language suggestthe group departed from the Indian subcontinent in the 6th century. The worldwidename for Roma Gypsies to identify themselves was term 'Rrom' and this may bethe reason for assuming that there were no much earlier Gypsie migrations inEurope who called themselves “Dom”.

Several Dom tribes migrated across the Danube into Western Europe and werecalled Dom and much later became to be known as Rom, while the ones thatremained in Persia and Turkey were still called Dom. These migrations took placeseveral centuries before the accepted date of mass Romani migration into Europearound the 14th century. Hence the confusion and the mistaken belief that the tarot

(as an esoteric canon) predates the great Gypsie migration. The contemporaryhistorians who promote the fashionable Knight Templar theory are ignoring theprevious migration of the Dom — which to be fair is understandable. They aresimilar ethnic Gypsie group and these are the ones who brought the early versionof the tarot into Europe. The iconography of the Major Arcarna of the tarot reveals the Hindi influence insome of the cards. The Chariot (Arjuna), the Wheel of Fortune (Shiva) and inparticular, the Death card is far too closely connected in both style and allegory toKali, the Hindu god of death and renewal — to be merely consider a historicalaccident. The Death card in the tarot is absolutely Kali in my opinion. The only

historical link between India and Europe prior to the Middle Ages is the Dompeoples arriving in Hungary in the 6th Century.

Count de Gébelin, one of the more famous tarot historians pointed out that theHungarian Gypsies name for the cards 'tar' is similar to the Hindustani 'taru' ('tar-ot'). Another famous proponent of the Gypsie theory was Jean Alexandre Vaillant— who himself lived for several years with the Gypsies in order to gain insight intotheir esoteric practices and rituals. A fascinating individual, Vaillant was among the



first non Gypsies people to use the terms 'Romania' in the modern sense, after theterm had been in circulation for some time in Wallachia and among its citizens. Wealso have to bear in mind when considering the historical legacy of the Gypsiesand the tarot, that racial hatred of the Roma people in Europe plays a huge role inthe dimissing of their cultural legacy. Gypsies were sold as slaves in the Slavic

world as late as the 19th Century. Vaillant's theory on the origin of the tarot wasalso endorsed by the French writer Papus — who concurred that the tarot is arepository of ancient, profound knowledge by way of the Romany/Gypsies (i.e.'Bohemians') who arrive in Europe from India.

“The Gypsies posses a Bible. This card game is called the Tarot and it is the Bibleof Bibles. It is a marvelous book, as Count de Gébelin and especially Valliant haverealised. Under the names of Tarot, Thora and Rota, this game has formedsuccessively the basis of the synthetic teaching of ancient peoples. ...the absolutescience of the occult.”

- Clef absolue de la science occulte : Le Tarot des bohémiens, le plus ancient livre

du monde, á l'usage exclusif des initiés (1889).

Even one of the most staunch critics of the Gypsies origins of the tarot, De l' HosteRanking had to admit that the cards must have been introduced into Europe bypeople's originally speaking an Indian dialect by way of the Slavic world. He notedthat the imagery of the Pope card for instance, was Eastern Orthodox in dressstyle, as was the headdress of the Emperor card with the shape of the eagle on theshield being of Russian imperial origin. Then Ranking went on to assert (based onthe historical ignorance of the time concerning the previous migration of the Dombranch of Gypsies) that the cards could not of been brought into Europe from Indiavia the Slavic world due to the fact there was no (Roma) Gypsies community in

Europe prior to 1417.

