Native American Decks

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 11 Aug 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Strega	11 Aug 2002
Hi! Can anyone recommend some good NA Tarot decks? I am getting Vision Quest for my fiance`. The cards look truly insightful and beautiful! Any other decks I should consider getting? :) Thanks in advance...

Rhiannon	11 Aug 2002
The Ancestral Path has some NA influences in it. The suit of Pentacles has been changed to Sacred Circles and is devoted to Native American culture. There are a few other decks as well, but this is the only one I have... I like this deck so far. It's very pretty and I like the mixture of all the different cultures. Haven't done any readings yet though. R :)

Royal Cat	11 Aug 2002
The Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson are wonderful Native American inspired cards for anyone interested in animals. They are not at all a tarot deck though - 44 cards, no suits. I've had them for many years - long before I even had a clue as to what tarot is about - and the cards and book are very nicely done. I just recently saw that there is also a special workbook out now for the cards. Cat

Strega	11 Aug 2002
Thanks, Rhiannon and RoyalCat. I'll look those up now. :)

lunalafey	11 Aug 2002
The Medicine cards that Royal mention have been revised and expanded, there are 52 cards now. I use these for a daily one card draw. My very first deck 12 years ago was the Native American tarot by a husband and wife team along with Harry Sparrowhawk. It has been very faithful to me. These are not fancy artwork cards, some are turned off by this, the art work is simple. If you are familiar with the N/A culture you will find these quite interesting and easy to read. If you are just starting to learn about the N/A ways, these cards are a great educational tool. Lo Scarabeo has reciently published a divination deck of 33 cards, simply called Native American Cards. There is also a Medicine Woman deck out, a friend was telling me about a reading that was done for her with these cards. For every card there is a meditaion/excecise to over come the 'issue'. I have not seen the deck, so I could be off with the name.

raeanne	11 Aug 2002
Two native American tarot decks are: Native American Tarot and Vision Quest. Both are fairly good. There is also Quester which is a "New Interpretation of the Tarot". It has a major and minor arcana. The minor arcana has four suits and each suit has 14 cards. The major arcana has 23 cards but they do not match directly with a traditional tarot deck. If you want the Fool, Magician, High Priestess, etc., you won't get it with Quester. You will get the Brave, Heyokah (trickster), and Keeper which are similar to the tarot cards mentioned above. Quester comes with a very nice hardback book that explains the cards and the native American traditions. The artwork is wonderful! If you are willing to wander a bit from traditional tarot decks, Quester is a very good Native American deck. Another non-tarot deck is the Lakota Sweat Lodge Cards. This is a wonderful native American deck that deals with the spiritual teachings of the Sioux Indians. This deck has 50 cards and comes with a nice paperback book. The authors are members of the Sioux Nation. John Fire Lame Deer is a Lakota Sioux holy man and the son of a medicine man. This is a very good deck for anyone who is willing to spend the time with these cards! Be prepared for some very intense spiritual happenings! This deck will take you places you may not want to go but the journey WILL be worth it! The thing I like about both Quester and the Lakota Sweat Lodge Cards is that both decks put more emphasis on Native American beliefs rather than trying to superimpose a Native American artwork on a tarot skeleton. (Don't get me wrong, I still like Vision Quest and Native American Tarot! But I also like the freedom to break away from strict tarot guidelines when studying Native American culture.) I would also repeat the recomendation of Medicine Cards as mentioned by Royal Cat. This is a very good deck and well worth the time studying the book that comes with it. Good luck in your search for the deck you want to work with!

Rhiannon	11 Aug 2002
I forgot about the Medicine Cards! I had these and loved them. I let a friend borrow them and never got them back (but that's ok). I'll have to get a new deck soon. I miss being able to look up the animals when I think I've received a sign (see opposum). LOL R :)

Strega	11 Aug 2002
Thank you all for your suggestions. It is sincerely appreciated. :)

raeanne	12 Aug 2002
Strega, Please keep us posted on your experiences with Vision Quest and also any other deck you might decide to get!

Violet Gargoyle	12 Aug 2002
The medicine cards were the first non-tarot deck that I got that really clicked with me. I still use it to help me gage people and their feelings.

truthsayer	13 Aug 2002
jamie sams and david carson have another deck called the sacred path. these are primarily NA symbols. i lost mine during a move. it's probably somewhere. i liked using it in combination with my medicine cards. they really worked well together.

catlin	13 Aug 2002
Not to mention the wonderful Shaman Wisdom cards. They are no tarot deck but a divination deck with a nice artwork, combining plants, minerals animals, etc.

WolfSpirit	13 Aug 2002
There's also the Wolf Song Cards, on every card there's a native American animal and it also has a native american look, but I don't really know that much about it (anybody ?) For my personally, a deck with animals can never be ugly :)

purplelady	15 Aug 2002
The Medicine Woman set by Carol Bridges. It was one of the first decks I ever owned. I'm not sure it would be exactly classified as a native american deck. I would call it that though. It is different, and depicts mainly women in positions of power and men learning to get in touch with their emotions! The court cards are different and have native american names. The book has A Lot of information. I really like this deck but haven't used it in a long time due to all my other deck collecting! It is definitely worth checking out though.

DarkElectric	15 Aug 2002
Another non-tarot deck is the Lakota Sweat Lodge Cards. This is a wonderful native American deck that deals with the spiritual teachings of the Sioux Indians. This deck has 50 cards and comes with a nice paperback book. The authors are members of the Sioux Nation. John Fire Lame Deer is a Lakota Sioux holy man and the son of a medicine man. This is a very good deck for anyone who is willing to spend the time with these cards! Be prepared for some very intense spiritual happenings! This deck will take you places you may not want to go but the journey WILL be worth it! RaeAnne! Where can I get these cards? Do you remember how you got them?

Strega	16 Aug 2002
Thanks everyone. :) I'll check them all out.

Rusty Neon	07 Feb 2004
An article (complete with card scans) by Joan Cole on the genre of Native American tarot decks and oracle decks: http://www.lelandra.com/comptarot/tarotindian.htm There aren't too many articles around, so I thought I'd post it here for completeness.

punchinella	07 Feb 2004
Well I scanned that article (didn't read the whole thing) & I have to say--the writer sure seems to hate Native American-themed decks . . . I think most people who use something like Vision Quest (e.g. myself) know that it's not 'authentic' & probably would not have meaning for someone trained &/ brought up in a specific Native American tradition . . . but for outsiders like myself who function in 'European'--i.e., tarotistic--ways, but still feel or want to feel connected to the land in which we are living (well, for those of us in North America that is . . . ) --Where's the harm? --So, genuine shamans laugh at us. Okay. I can live with that. From a perspective of respect . . . at least we're INTERESTED . . . many people aren't, &, you know, we don't all have access to the 'real thing', nor can we go out & acquire sociology degrees overnight . . . P. Oh, & one more thing: the writer seemed to imply that tarot was illegitimate from a true Native American spirituality position, because it benefits the individual who uses it only, rather than the group or society as a whole. But this simply is not true. Who tarot benefits depends on the way in which it is used. I suspect that the writer of this article doesn't, in fact, know much about tarot--or about the people who use it.

Lee	08 Feb 2004
I had read that article about a year ago. I was upset with it when I read it, but I finally came to the conclusion that no matter what we do in life, there will be some people who don't like the fact that we're doing it, and will be eager to tell us so. Our job is to decide what we do and don't do based on our own judgment, not based on what other people think about it. -- Lee

SongDeva	08 Feb 2004
Sacred Path cards are wonderful and in fact designed (by their mutual author) to be used with the medicine cards. The sacred path book is an invaluable spiritual resource. I have the Vision Quest as well, and my native guide uses the Father of Earth the communicate himself to me. It can't be *that* inauthentic. LOL Anyway, it's a lovely deck and seems pretty true to ancient life to me. Lara

crystal cove	08 Feb 2004
The only one I have is Vision Quest and I really like it. It's a very simple deck, and I enjoy that about it. It's based on RW meanings, so if you use those type of decks, you won't have a problem with it at all. You'll be able to jump right in.

punchinella	08 Feb 2004
Oh, I see Vision Quest as being based more on Thoth than RW. But I LOVE VQ, & feel--well, ambivalent at best--about Thoth . . . VQ is a lovely, lovely deck, & works well for me as a companion to Ancestral Path. I never pull out one anymore without the other. VQ comes with the best LWB I've ever read. It's a REALLY GOOD LWB. In fact, it makes the deck. :) P.

Red Emma	08 Feb 2004
Tarot of the Southwest Sacred Tribes is one of my favorite decks. I'd hate to be very long without it. It's a full fledged tarot deck, based on the Rider-Wait characters -- by that I mean, king, queen, etc. with all the major arcana intact. Spectacular artwork featuring symbols of all the Southwest tribes, and placed in the Southwest desert scenery.

The Native American Decks thread was originally posted on 11 Aug 2002 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.