Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 224

184
DISPOSAL OF FOOD REMNANTS
is nothing astonishing in this excessive scrupulosity.
properly brought-up European would dream of expec-
torating on the floor of a room.
But with a Hindu it is
less from a due regard to cleanliness than from his ever-
recurring fear of bodily defilement.
The remains of food are never put aside and kept after
a meal, nor are they given to the servants. As has been
already stated, to be a servant is no degradation. A servant
generally eats with his master, and what he left could not
be offered to the poor, unless they were Pariahs, who take
anything. Food remnants, in fact, are thrown to the crows
and the dogs. Rice that is to be given away to the poor
of the same caste, or any other persons with whom it is
allowable to eat, is boiled separately.
Rice given to other
castes is always uncooked
and it is thus that a Brahmin
receives it from persons of an inferior caste, who make him
a present.
High- caste Hindus, and particularly Brahmins, rarely
use plates and dishes at their meals. Sometimes, but only
when quite alone in their own houses, they may use a
service of copper or other metal
but they are forbidden
to use earthenware or china.
Usually the rice and other
dishes are served on a banana leaf, or on the leaves of
some tree neatly sewn together in the form of a plate. To
offer a Brahmin food on a metal plate which some one had
already used, would be considered a deadly insult. Natur-
ally the use of spoons and forks is also forbidden.
Fingers
are used instead, and Hindus cannot at all understand how
we can use these implements a second time, after having
once put them to our mouths, and allowed them to be
touched with saliva. If Hindus should happen to eat dry
food or fruits between meals, they break off pieces and
there
No
;
;
throw them into their mouths, fearing if they put them
into their mouths with their fingers the latter might be
tainted with saliva \
A European once wrote a letter to
some friend of his, recommending a Brahmin acquaintance
of mine to his notice.
When he had finished his letter he
sealed it with a wafer, which he moistened by placing it
on the tip of his tongue. The Brahmin, who saw him do
1
This practice, like others, becomes mechanical.
a thought to them.
Ed.
Hindus never give