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MY : The royal spittoon of Malaya

Forums Life Jokes & Humour MY : The royal spittoon of Malaya

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  • found here. the term cuspidor (used for a spittoon) is still encountered in American english..

    Toreador-
    oh don’t spit on the floor
    Use the cuspidor
    That’s what it’s for!

    Hobson-Jobson (Open Library)

    [1900.—”The royal cuspadore” is mentioned among the regalia at Selangor, and a ” cuspadore ” (l-etor) is part of the marriage appliances.

    Skeat, Malay Magic, 26, 374.]

    it would have been given to the newly crowned King (or Yang Di Pertuan Agong) when he was married, as it is not acceptable behaviour for a King to spit on the floor in front of his wife (even if such behaviour was common in many Asian nations until the early 21st century).

    Nowadays the chaps who become Yang di Pertuan Agong (they actually get elected a bit like our House of Lords and can be a variety of ages) have already been married before they get to be King.

    One old boy has managed to get elected twice within 40 years. I am unsure what has become of the spittoon, whether the British or the Japanese nicked it, or whether it is still in some museum somewhere – members of the royal family everywhere are not supposed to be gobbing into spittoons, even Prince Philip would not be permitted to do this. I am actually tempted to telephone the Ministry of Culture in KL and ask them….

    Selangor is a suburb outside KL, my mum grew up there.

    Update : Just checked the Ministry of Culture website, the Museums website is shut down, and the other National Archives website is mostly in Malay (even if you select English) which I don’t understand a damned word of. My mum does, but both her and all the culture ministry staff will be in bed now anyway.

    I won’t get a chance to investigate this further till Friday, and then half of the govt staff will be on leave for the prayers (the Chinese will be left to do the work but they are mostly Hokkien and thus wouldn’t have used a Malay cuspadore, they had different ones.)

    616. Baba-Nonya or Straits Chinese Spittoons, Malaysia

    These are now in a private collection, though it wouldn’t surprise me if the Chinese have bought them back.

    The young Prince didn’t get a choice of whether he wanted to be married or not, that was one of the conditions of becoming King. His parents sorted this out, and he was married to any convenient princess who came from a family of the right social class/religion and hopefully wasn’t too closely related. (they did this in Blighty too until fairly recently, at least until 1981 😉 ) – and him and the new Queen were expected to produce babies fairly quickly.

    In those circumstances I would certainly want to spit, so the cuspadore (NL : kwispedoor) was at least a bit of a consolation.

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Forums Life Jokes & Humour MY : The royal spittoon of Malaya