PLAYING CARDS FROM JAPAN. 



BY 



Mrs. J. King van Rensselaer. 

 (With plate xxxii.) 



The history of playing cards, their introduction into Europe from the 

 East by the gypsies or by the home-returning crusaders, the change 

 and development they underwent, while being adapted, from the cards 

 of the Orient and altered into those that are familiar to our eyes, 

 has been dwelt upon by numbers of writers ; but the cards used in 

 Japan have not been mentioned in any of the best known histories, 

 although they are more distinctly original than any others, and they 

 show no marks of the common origin which the Italian, Spanish, Ger- 

 man, French, Hindoo, and Chinese cards display. 



The Japanese cards are oblong, and are made of pasteboard ; the 

 backs are painted black, with none of the checkered dotted marks 

 which usually decorate European cards. The designs seem to be sten- 

 ciled, and are brightly and appropriately colored, and then covered 

 with an enamel or varnish, which makes them quite as slippery as our 

 own. They are very much smaller than our cards, being a little more 

 than 2 inches long by 1 inch broad. 



Forty-nine in number, they are divided into twelve suits of four 

 cards in each suit. One card is a trifle smaller than the rest of the 

 pack, and has a plain white face not embellished with any distinctive 

 emblem, and this one is used as a "joker." The other cards are cov- 

 eredwith designs that represent that twelve flowers or other things ap- 

 propriate to the weeks of the year. Each card is distinct and diflerent 

 from its fellows, even if bearing the same emblem, and they can be 

 easily distinguished and classified, not only by the symbolic flowers they 

 bear, but also by a character or letter that marks nearly every card, 

 and which seems to denote the vegetable that represents the month. 

 The only month that has no floral emblem is August, and that suit is 

 marked by mountains and warm-looking skies. 



January is represented by pine trees, that, on two of the cards, are 

 shown against a lurid sky.; the third one has a grayish background, 

 that throws the trees into strong relief, and the fourth has a setting 

 sun flecked with light clouds, the pines barely indicated in front of it, 

 and the greater part of the card covered with the figure of a huge 

 white bodied, red-eyed, stork. 



Proceedings National Museum Vol. XIII.— No. 836. 



381 



