Hindu Tea Wisdom

A novel tea pot design patented in 1892. —Tea etymology: Many sources claim that “tea” got its name from what was printed on the crate which held the dried leaves which arrived from Portugal to England when Catherine of Braganza was to wed King Charles II. On the crate read the letters  T.E.A. These stood for Transportation of Aromatic Herbs. The name stuck with the dried leaves which produced the now popular beverage.  

TEA IS CALLED ONE MAINSTAY

Chandra Ghose, Hindu tea planter and a delegate to the recent Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa, on a visit to this country, pointed out that tea has been a "mainstay" in the lives of the Hindus and the Orientals for centuries.

"The Hindu is famous the world over for his calm and his patience," Chandra Ghose said. "A Hindu can sit down with a cup of tea and quietly and calmly meditate upon his problems or his affairs without ending up with a nervous breakdown or a family fight."

"The American housewife," Miss Louise Lane adds, "can learn a profitable lesson from this Indian custom. At the start of the day, a good cup of tea will go a long way toward giving her a pleasant beginning, and as the day wears on wit its distractions and its labors, an occasional pause, a quiet moment spent with a cup of tea, will do wonders for her peace of mind. 

The American housewife can learn another lesson from her sisters of India and see that tea is on the menu for the male members of the family. Its gentle stimulus will work a welcome change after a hard day's work, and it is even suggested that right in the middle of that next family squabble over the budget or who's going to have the car, everybody pause and have a cup of tea. Such a custom would smooth out a lot of domestic squabbles. — San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram, 1932

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

Curious Conjugal Etiquette

In parts of the Fiji Islands, a husband and wife, if they wished to meet, must meet in secret ; a similar secrecy is or was obligatory among the Circassians, and even among the Hottentots.
 Above – Samuel Daniell’s “Korah Hottentots,” or “Korah-Khoikhoi dismantling their huts, preparing to move to new pastures.” aquatint by Samuel Daniell, 1805 (public domain image)

Old Matrimonial Etiquette and Customs 

Among primitive tribes, some very strange rules of etiquette appeared to govern the matrimonial relationship. Convention prevented the Yoruba wife from either speaking to, or even seeing her husband, if it could be avoided, and the Aleutian islanders had the same regulation about speaking. In parts of the Fiji Islands, a husband and wife, if they wished to meet, must meet in secret ; a similar secrecy is or was obligatory among the Circassians, and even among the Hottentots. But the African Kingdom of Futa bears off the palm in these respects, if an old traveler is to be credited, who assured us that wives there were so bashful as never to let their husbands see them without a veil for three years after their marriage.


The same sort of feeling was manifested in other curious customs. Among the Esquimaux, even in cases where the course of true love ran its smoothest and accorded fully with parental settlements, certain old women had to be sent to drag the bride forcibly to her husband's hut, she being obliged under the penalty of an ill name to “make as if it went against the grain and as if she were much ruffled at it.” A Kamschatkan girl, however well disposed she may have been to her future spouse, made it a point of honor to pretend to refuse him, and the form of force on his side and of resistance on hers, was in any case to be regularly performed. And the wild tribe, the Hos of India, regarded it as the correct thing for a wife to run away from her husband and to tell her friends that she neither loved him nor would ever see him again, while he in his turn was expected to display great anxiety for his lass and when he had found his wife, after diligent search, carried her home again by main force. – Gentleman's Magazine, 1888

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