Barbara Walker, Tarot book

Moon mind said:

Well, you know I am no historian or scholar or anything like that. but it does make sense-in some way, that Gypsies brought sacred knowledge w/ them - and not just gypsies but people of all west and central Europe(known as Celts) as they originate from the Indo-Europeans nation.
For example, in language of Slavic nations, I noticed numerous times that words have Indian-east-origins and exist in today’s modern speech.

If-yes-or-not Gypsies as we know them today brought anything to Europe is hard to find out, but The ancient gypsies and other nations defiantly brought Eastern mind of worshipping with them to Europe.

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I agree that migrating peoples will bring sacred knowledge with them wherever they go, regardless of what the precise content might be. I just think Walker's equation is a little reductionist and essentialist.

It's interesting that you bring up Indo-European languages, as much of the data used to theorize about Roma origins comes from linguistics. According to most Roma scholars today, the Roma emigrated from India in waves during the 8th-10th centuries CE, probably fusing different castes (due to warfare? slavery? who knows?) to form the unique cultures of who we know now as the Roma, Romani, Sinti, and Gypsies. My problem with saying that Goddess-oriented Tarot came from the Gypsies, based on Walker's reasoning, is that sure, maybe coming from India the Roma worshipped a goddess or few, and maybe Tarot is an expression of Goddess symbols, but we don't know enough about the early Roma to know this for sure. It's definitely a possibility, but so much knowledge about the Roma is fragmentary, especially about their religions because they often posed as Christians in order to gain sanctuary in 14th and 15th century European towns... but many Roma today are Christian, or Muslim, or some combination or religions while maintaining earlier beliefs of theirs, so all we have to go on is some fragmentary data from medieval sources, plus a lot of projections and speculations from writers fascinated with the Roma, plus current ethnographic information about syncretic, fusional, and diverse beliefs and ways of life.

So to say "Tarot comes from Goddess-worshipping Gypsies" sounds overly simplistic to me, though I agree that the Roma probably did carry some interesting esoteric beliefs with them when they traveled, which may or may not have been related to goddesses and/or Tarot.

Sorry to go into a rant, but I think historical perspectives add a crucial dimension to Tarot studies--as do linguistic perspectives, as you pointed out.