Facts and Speculation on the Origin and History of playing cards

Pages 41-61 quoted from the above book...

Facts and Speculation on the history of Playing Cards

by William Andrew Chatto

I shall now present the reader with a description of another pack of Hindostanee cards, and of the game played with them: it forms an article entitled ‘Hindostanee Cards' in the second volume of the Calcutta Magazine, 1815; and is accompanied with two plates, facsimiles of which are here given.

 The words Gunjeefu and Tas are used in Hindostanee to denote either the game, or a pack of cards. I have in vain searched the Asiatic Researches, Asiatic Annual Register, Sir William Ouseley’s ‘Oriental Collections' and the ‘Oriental Repertory' by Dairy triple, for some account or description of the mode of playing the cards in use among the natives of Hindostan; and further, from the total silence of the Trench and English Encyclopaedias, conclude that they have never engaged the attention of any inquirer. A description of the Gunjeefu, or cards, used by the Moslems, may therefore be acceptable to our readers. 

In the ‘Dictionary, Hindostanee and English' edited by the late Dr. Hunter, the names of the eight suits are to be found under the word Taj, the name of the first suit. 

The pack is composed of ninety-six cards, divided into eight suits. In each suit are two court cards, the King, and the Wuzeer. The common cards, like those of Europe, bear the spots from which the suits are named, and are ten in number. 

Four suits are named superior, and four the inferior suits.

Plate I represents the [honours of the] four superior suits, called Beshbur; and 

Plate II, the inferior, Kumbur. 

The kings are easily distinguished, and are here numbered from 1 to 8. 

In the superior suits, the ten follows next in value to the king and wuzeer; and the ace is the lowest card. In the inferior suits, the ace has precedence immediately after the wuzeer, then the deuce, and others in succession, the ten being of least value. 

The game is played by three or six persons : when six play, three take the superior, and three the inferior suits. 

The pack being divided into parcels after the cards are well mixed, the players cut for the deal; and he who cuts the highest card deals. When three play, the cards are dealt by fours. In the first and last round the cards are exposed, and thus eight cards of each person’s hand are known to the adversaries. The cards are dealt from right to left, the reverse of the European mode. 

“The Lead. When the game is played by day, he who holds the red king, (Soorkli, the sun,) must lead that and any small card. Should he play the king alone, it is seized by the next player. The adversaries throw down each two common cards, and the trick is taken up. When the game is played by night, the white king, (/Soofed, the moon,) is led in like manner. The cards are then played out at the option of him who leads, the adversaries throwing away their small cards, and no attention is paid to the following suit, unless when one of the adversaries, having a superior card of the suit led, chooses to play it to gain the trick. 

In order to guard a second rate card which may enable you hereafter to recover the lead, it is customary to throw down a small one of that suit, and call the card you are desirous to have played. With this call the adversaries must comply. As in Whist, when the person who has the lead holds none but winning cards, they are thrown down. 

After the cards have been all played, the parties shuffle their tricks, and the last winner, drawing a card, challenges one of his adversaries to draw out any card from the heap before him, naming it the fourth or fifth, and from the top or bottom. The winner of this trick in like manner challenges his right hand adversary. The number of cards in the possession of each party is then counted, and those who have fewest are obliged to purchase from an adversary to make up their deficiency of complement. The greatest winner at the end of four rounds has the game. 

The following terms used in the game may be acceptable to those who desire to understand it when played by natives : I think they unequivocally prove that Gunjeefu is of Persian or Arabian origin.