The Baraja is a deck of playing cards associated with Spain, it is usually called Baraja Española (literally Spanish Deck). It has four suits and is usually made up of 40 cards. It has a quite high resemblance to the Latin deck, and somewhat less to the Anglo-American-French deck.

Description

The traditional 40-card Spanish baraja is an ancient deck that existed in Spain since between the 14th-16th century. The suits closely resemble those of Italian cards and Latin suited Tarot decks. In fact, the Baraja, like the tarot, are used for both game playing and cartomancy

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...

. The Baraja have been widely considered to be part of the occult in many Latin-American countries, yet they continue to be used widely for card games and gambling, especially in Spain. Among other places, the Baraja have appeared in One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...

and other Spanish and Latin American literature

Latin American literature

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...

 (e.g., Viaje a la Alcarria by Camilo José Cela

Camilo José Cela

Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquis of Iria Flavia was a Spanish novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature "for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability".-Biography:Cela published his...

). The Baraja is widely used in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America and almost every Spanish family has at least one Baraja.

Baraja in the Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 can refer to any type of card deck.

Cards and Suits

A traditional Spanish deck consists of four suits of ten numbered cards (1-7, and 10-12, with 10,11 and 12 being picture cards). Very rarely the eights and nines are added to create a 48-card deck. Jokers

Joker (playing card)

Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...

 are not used, except in the rare 50 (that is, 48 plus 2) cards deck (where they are called comodines). The four suits are bastos (clubs), oros (literally "golds", that is, golden coins), copas (cups) and espadas (swords).

The four suits are thought to represent the four social classes of the Middle Ages. The suit of coins represents the merchants, the clubs represents the peasants, the cups represent the church and the swords represent the military.

The last three cards of each suit have pictures similar to the jack, queen, and king in an Anglo-French deck, and rank identically. They are the sota, which is similar to the jack and generally depicts a page or prince, the caballo (knight, literally "horse"), and the rey (king) respectively.

There are instances of ancient decks having both caballo and reina (queen), being the caballo of lower value than queen. These decks have no numbers in the figure values, not even letters like in the Anglo-American-French deck. They have been not common for playing in Spain, but some German decks retain the four different figures, albeit lacking most of the numbered cards.

It is also possible to find 52-card Anglo-American-French decks with Spanish pictures.

Games that use the Baraja

The Baraja is used to play several games. Examples are:

• el mus
  Mus (card game)
  Mus is a popular Spanish card game, allegedly the most played card game in Spain. It is a trick-taking card game, with vying aspects, originating from the Navarre and Basque regions in Spain. From there it spread all over the country, where it is now the most played card game, spawning countless...
  
  (a very popular and highly regarded vying game of Basque
  Basque Country (historical territory)
  The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....
  
   origin)
• la brisca
  Briscola
  Briscola , one of Italy's most popular games together with Scopa and Tressette, and a little-changed descendant of Brusquembille, the ancestor of Briscan and...
  
  (a trick-taking game of Italian origin, very popular in Spain, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic.)
• el tute
  Tute
  Tute is an Italian trick-taking card game for two to four players. During the XIX century, the game spread in Spain, becoming one of the most popular card games in the country. The name of the game was later modified by Spanish speakers, that started calling the game Tute...
  
  (with many variations)
• el guiñote
• la escoba
  Escoba
  Escoba is a variant of the Italian fishing card game Scopa, which means "broom", a name that refers to the situation in the game where you "sweep" all of the cards from the board in one turn. The game is usually played with a deck of traditional Spanish playing cards, called naipes.-Rules:The...
  
   del quince (a trick-taking game)
• el julepe
  Julepe
  Julepe , , is a South American trick-taking gambling card game of Spanish origin, similar to the English five-card Loo, and best for six players. It spread rapidly across the Spanish-American countries during the 19th century....
  
  
• el cinquillo
• las siete y media
  Sette e mezzo
  Sette e mezzo is an Italian card game similar to blackjack. It is traditionally played in Italy during Christmas holidays.-Overview:...
  
  (very similar to black jack)
• la mona
• el truc (or truco
  Truco
  Truco is a variant of Truc and a popular trick-taking card game originary from Valencia and Balearic Islands and played in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Italy , Uruguay, southern Chile and Venezuela...
  
  )
• el cuajo (a matching game from the Philippines)
• las cuarenta
  Cuarenta
  Cuarenta is the national card game of Ecuador. It is a fishing game played with a Baraja, a pack of 40 Spanish playing cards. The game can also be played with the standard 52 card pack of Anglo-American playing cards, but all 10s, 9s and 8s are omitted .This card game is almost exclusively played...
  
  (a fishing game, the national card game of Ecuador
  Ecuador
  Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
  
  )
• el rabino (two decks of 52 cards plus jokers are needed)

Latin-suited cards in Portugal

Latin-suited cards (with cups, swords, coins and sticks like in Spain) were also used in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 and Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 periods, until roughly 1800. However, at some point, these cards were changed for the Anglo-French deck. Popular games like Arrenegada (Portuguese name for Hombre

Hombre

Hombre, the Spanish word for "man" and sometimes used informally in English, may refer to:* Hombre , a 1961 novel by Elmore Leonard* Hombre , a 1967 motion picture based on the novel starring Paul Newman, directed by Martin Ritt...

), Bisca

Bisca

Bisca is a Portuguese word used in card games. It may refer to:* the Portuguese variation of the Italian game Briscola* the name of the playing card 7 in certain Portuguese games like Bisca or Sueca...

(Portuguese name for briscola

Briscola

Briscola , one of Italy's most popular games together with Scopa and Tressette, and a little-changed descendant of Brusquembille, the ancestor of Briscan and...

) and Sueca

Sueca (game)

Sueca is a 4 player-partnership point trick-taking card game. The game is most popular in Portugal, Brazil and Angola. Its closest known relative is the very similar German game Einwerfen.-Players & deck:...

, which were played with Latin-suited cards, had to be adapted to the new French-suited cards. Thus:

• the old suit names were attributed to the new suits - this is the reason why Portuguese names for suits don't match the suit drawings. In Portuguese
  Portuguese language
  Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
  
  , the Hearts suit is called Copas ("cups"), the Spades suit is called Espadas ("swords"), the Diamonds suit is called Ouros ("gold coins"), and the Clubs suit is called Paus ("clubs" or "sticks").
• the new face cards (King, Queen, Jack) had also to match the old ones (King, Knight, Knave). The King match was an obvious one, but the Queen was held for the lower court card because the old Portuguese sotas were female, and so it was matched with the Knave. The Jack was thought to be the Knight (Cavalier). Thus, in traditional Portuguese games, the cards usually rank King-Jack-Queen.

Morocco

Baraja cards are also prevalent in Morocco

Culture of Morocco

Morocco is a country of multi-ethnic groups with a rich culture, civilization, and etiquette. Through Moroccan history, Morocco hosted many people in addition to the indigenous Berbers, coming from both East , South and North . All of which have had an impact on the social structure of Morocco...

, where Spanish card games such as Tute or Ronda were introduced by Moors fleeing the persecutions

Morisco

Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...

 following the Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

. Spanish words are still in use: shbada (espada), tromfo (triunfo), copas, rey etc..

External links

History of playing cards and playing card collection at playing-cards.us.

Play Briscas Online playbriscas.com.