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Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards. William Andrew Chatto
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isbn 4064066249779
Автор произведения William Andrew Chatto
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
With regard to the game described in the preceding account, it appears to bear some resemblance to that which the French call "l'Ombre à trois,"—three-handed Ombre. [58] In both games the suits appear to be considered as ranged in two divisions: in the Hindostanee game, as the Red and the White; and in the European, as the Red and the Black. In the Hindostanee game there are eight suits, and six or three players; and when three play, the cards are dealt by fours. In the European game of four suits and forty cards—the tens, nines, and eights being omitted—there are three players, and the cards are dealt by threes. A person who can play at Ombre will scarcely fail to perceive several other points of similarity between the two games. From the terms used in the game of Ombre—Spadillo, Basto, Matador, Punto, &c.—there can scarcely be a doubt that the other nations of Western Europe derived their knowledge of it from the Spaniards. The Hon. Daines Barrington, in his 'Observations on the Antiquity of Card Playing in England,' derives the names of the game from the Spanish, "hombre," a man; and there is reason to believe that it was one of the oldest games at cards played at in Europe. If the game of cards were introduced into Europe by the Arabs, it is in Spain that we might first expect to find them. Pietro della Valle, in his Travels in the East, between 1614 and 1626, speaks of the people playing at cards, though differing from ours in the figures and number of suits; and Niebuhr, in his Travels, also speaks of the Arabians playing at cards, and says that the game is called Lab-el-Kammer. [59] It is, however, to be observed, that the game of cards is not once mentioned in the Arabian Nights; and from this silence it may be concluded that at the time when those tales were compiled card-playing was not a popular pastime in Arabia. The compilation, it is believed, is not earlier than about the end of the fifteenth century, though many of the tales are of a much higher antiquity.
Leaving out of consideration the pack of ten suits, with the emblems of the ten incarnations of Vichnou, as being of a mythological character, and probably not in common use for the purposes of gaming, it is evident from the other three packs, of eight suits each, that the cards known in Hindostan are not uniform in the marks of the different suits, though it is obvious that any game—depending on sequences and the conventional value of the several cards—which can be played with one of the packs, may be also played with either of the other two. The difference in the marks is, indeed, much less than is to be observed in old French, Spanish, and German cards, which present so many differences as to render it impossible to derive them from one original type. The mere mark or emblem, whatever it might originally signify, appears to have had no specific meaning or value, beyond what might be assigned to it by the conventional rules of the game; whether it were a sword or a chalice, a club or a piece of money, a heart or a diamond, a green leaf or a hawk's bell, in playing and counting the game, it was a "pip," and nothing more.
Whether the two packs of eight suits each, in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society, are considered by the natives of Hindostan as consisting of two divisions of four suits each, as in the pack described in the extract from the 'Calcutta Magazine,' I have not been able to ascertain. In all the three packs the sword is to be found as the mark of one of the suits; and the soofed and soorkh of the one pack—silver coin and gold coin, figuratively the moon and the sun—I consider to be represented by the circular marks in the other two; and the oval in these is not unlike the mark of the suit named Quimash—merchandise—in the former. The mark of the suit Burat, see Plate II, No. 7—which is said to mean a royal diploma or assignment, corresponds very nearly with a parallelogram containing dots, as if meant for writing, in the pack formerly belonging to Capt. D. Cromline Smith; but though a parallelogram—crossed by two lines, and with the longest side vertical—also occurs in the other pack, its agreement with the Burat is by no means so apparent. The marks of the suits Taj, a Crown, and Chung, a Harp. [60] (see Plate I, fig. 1, and Plate II, fig. 5,) I am unable to recognise, either by name or figure, in the other two packs; though I am inclined to think that, in one of them, the place of the Taj is supplied by a kind of fruit, and in the other by a flower. It will be observed that, in the plate, the mark of the suit called Chung, a harp, is a bird. In the other two packs, the suits which I consider to be the substitutes of the Chung have a mark which I have not been able to make out; but in one of them the Vizier, as in the Chung, is mounted on a single-humped camel. In the suit called Gholam, a slave—Plate I, fig. 4—I cannot make out what is intended for the mark—whether the Mahut, who appears guiding the elephant, or the kind of mace carried by the Vizier; whatever may be the mark, I consider the suit to be represented by that with a white ground in Capt. D. C. Smith's cards, the mark of which is a grotesque head, as in both suits the Vizier is mounted on a bull. The corresponding suit in the other pack I conceive to be the one which has for its mark a man's head.
With respect to the marks of the several suits, in the different packs of Hindostanee cards, previously described—what objects they graphically represent, what they might have been intended to signify by the person who devised them, and what allegorical meanings may have assigned to them by others—much might be said; and a writer of quick imagination, and hieroglyphic wit, like Court de Gebelin, might readily find in them not only a summary of all the knowledge of the Hindoos—theological, moral, political, and scientific—but also a great deal more than they either knew or dreamt of. As I feel my inability to perform such a task, or rather to enjoy such pleasures of imagination; and as the present work does not afford space for so wide a discursus, I shall confine my observations to such marks as appear to have, both in their form and meaning, the greatest affinity with the marks to be found on early European cards. The marks in the pack consisting of ten suits, representing the incarnations of Vichnou, I shall only incidentally refer to, as I am of opinion that those cards are not such as either are or were generally used for the purposes of gaming, but are to be classed with those emblematic cards which have, at different periods, been devised in Europe for the purpose of insinuating knowledge into the minds of ingenious youth by way of pastime.
In referring to any of the marks to be found in the three eight-suit packs of Hindostanee cards, which appear to be intended for the purposes of play only, it seems unnecessary to specify the particular pack to which they belong, as my object is merely to call attention to the apparent agreement between some of the marks of Hindostanee cards, and those which are either known to have been the marks of the earliest European cards, or are to be found on such old cards as are still preserved in public libraries, or in the collections of individuals.
In the early European cards, which have cups, swords, pieces of money, and clubs or maces for the marks of the four suits, [61] the sword and piece of money of the Hindostanee cards are readily identified; and if we are to suppose that in these cards certain emblems of Vichnou were formerly represented—but which are not to be found either on the ordinary Playing Cards, or on those displaying the ten incarnations of Vichnou—it would not be difficult to account for the cups, and clubs or maces; for, according to Dr. Frederick Creutzer, [62] the mace or war club is frequently to be seen in one of the hands of Vichnou; and Count von Hammer-Purgstal remarks, that "the sword, the club, and the cup, are frequent emblems in the Eastern Ritual." [63] As the marks in European suits, cups, or chalices, swords, money, and clubs, have been supposed to represent the four principal classes of men in a European state, to wit, Churchmen; Swordmen, or feudal nobility; Monied men, merchants or traders; and Club-men, workmen, or labourers—it is just as easy to run a parallel in the four superior suits of one of the packs of Hindostanee cards, given in Plate I; there may be found Taj, a crown, royalty; Soofed, silver money, merchants; Shumsher, a sword, fighting men, seapoys; and Gholam, a slave, the coolies both of hill and plain. It may not be unnecessary here to observe that the four great historical castes of the Hindoos are, 1, Bramins, priests; 2, Chetryas, soldiers; 3, Vaisyas, tradesmen and artificers; and 4, Sudras, slaves, and the lowest class