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Apache cards by Tonto Naipero

Published July 10, 2015 Updated December 30, 2023

Apache rawhide playing cards by ‘Tonto Naipero’, c.1871.

1871 USA Tonto Naipero Amerindian Ethnic & Indigenous Rawhide

Apaches and Chiricahuas began making their own playing cards from rawhide when paper cards made in Spain or Mexico were not available, such as during periods of hostilities or when trade was stifled. Spanish designs were imitated in traditional Apache style to create a unique folk-art genre that to Western eyes may appear somewhat bizarre. It is not known when the Apaches first started making their own cards, but the earliest surviving packs date from the 1860s after they were collected by U.S. military officers or obtained from Apache scouts or prisoners.


Apache rawhide playing cards by ‘Tonto Naipero’, c.1871

Above: Apache rawhide playing cards attributed to the ‘Tonto Naipero’, c.1871. 40 cards. ‘Tonto Naipero’ is the assumed author of several rawhide packs displaying stylistic similarities and attributes of which this is one example. Images courtesy of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. [Cat. no. 11079]. Photographs by Harold Wayland.

It is believed that some Apaches, perhaps prompted by sales of packs that had been made for their own use, began to make rawhide cards specifically to sell to travellers or anthropologists.

REFERENCES

Ferg, Alan, Wayland, Harold & Virginia: Recognizing a Nineteenth Century Apache Playing Card Artist: the Tonto Naipero, in ‘The Playing-card’, Journal of the IPCS, Vol.36 No.2, Oct-Dec 2007.

Wayland, Harold & Virginia, Ferg, Alan: Playing Cards of the Apaches, a study in cultural adaptation, Screenfold Press, 2006

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By Simon Wintle

Member since February 01, 1996

Founder and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.


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