Etiquette In Early America

Depiction of Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony

At Plymouth Colony standards of deportment were established from readings of the poet Richard Braithwait's The English Gentleman and Description of a Good Wife, (1619). From the beginning, American society struggled with questions of identity, debating whether to create a uniquely American code of etiquette or merely to perpetuate the customs of the mother country. Eleazar Moody's School of Good Manners, (1715) did little to differentiate New Englander's manners from those of their cousins in Britain.

Depiction of a Mandan Feast 

A Mandan Feast ~ "The simple feast which was spread before us consisted of three dishes only, two of which were served in wooden bowls, and the third in an earthen vessel of their own manufacture, somewhat in shape of a bread-tray in our own country. This last contained a quantity of pem-I-can and marrow fat; and one of the former held a fine brace of buffalo ribs, delightfully roasted; and the other was filled with a kind of paste or pudding, made of the flour of the "pomme hlanche", as the French call it, a delicious turnip of the prairie, finely flavored with the buffalo berries, which are collected in great quantities in this country, and used with divers dishes in cooking, as we in civilized countries use dried currants, which they very much resemble." — From “Catlin's Letters and Notes”

Travelers and explorers sometimes encountered customs that, although different from their own, prompted admiration. While living alone among the Mandan, the US artist George Catlin, known for his depictions of Plains Indian life, remarked on the style of dining that allowed sitting cross-legged or reclining with the feet drawn close under the body. He noted that the Indian women gracefully served the diners and reseated themselves in a movement that allowed them modesty and poise at the same time that it left their hands free for lifting and maneuvering dishes. — From Mary Ellen Snodgrass‘s “Encyclopedia of Kitchen History”

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette and Sioux Hospitality

Native Americans took kindly to European cooking utensils and aids to comfort...

Sioux Etiquette in Frying-Pans 

"There is a very peculiar custom among the Sioux Indians," said Emanuel French of Bismarck, N. D., who was at the Lindell yesterday. "The Indians take kindly to European cooking utensils and aids to comfort, and it is quite common for an exploring or picnic party to trade off kettles, frying-pans and the like for skins or curiosities. 

A cooking utensil thus acquired becomes practically the common property of the tribe, on the general understanding, however, that whoever borrows it shall pay for the use by leaving in it a portion of the food cooked. As the Indians seldom waste any time in washing or cleaning eating or cooking vessels, this practice has some conveniences from a red man's point of view, and often a saucepan is returned with quite a large quantity of meat or potatoes clinging to the bottom, and perhaps covering up some of the remains of a preceding and entirely different preparation. 

It is not long since that an exploring party I was out with lost its kettle, which had evidently jolted out of the wagon on the bad road. After considerable hesitation one was borrowed from a friendly squaw, and, after water had been boiled in it three or four times and it had been well scoured out with sand, it answered its purpose admirably. 

When we were through with the kettle, we thoroughly cleaned it and returned it, and it was not until an Indian guide explained the custom that we understood the look of supreme contempt which came over the red lady's face when on looking into the inside of the kettle she saw that it contained no relic whatever of our evening feast." — St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1894

  🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia