a bit of information that might be new to some here: mongolia has a still very active snuff-taking tradition. i spend the (chinese lunar year) new year at a mongolian friends house (by he way, mongolian food can be great) and had a pack of gletscherprise with me. i expected this to be new and exciting, but instead it turned out theat nasasl snuff-taking was something everyone (about 15 mongolian friends of my friend) knew about. all tried my snuff and all told me that this (the gletscherprise) was very unlike any mongolian snuff. it seems that mongolian snuff is usually not mentholated, but still all seemed to enjoy the gletscherprise. i was told that mongolian snuff is usually imported from india. it is stored in bottles and taken with spoons (maybe the chinese tradition ist still alive in mongolia). the good qualities are very pricey (about a months wage for a bottle, i was told) it is offered mutually when visiting someones house. (at least older people still seem to practise this tradition) needless to say i left the gletscherprise as a present. so, dont forget your snuff if you happen to go to mongolia ^^ cheers, felix
yes Felix china imports highest quantity of indian snuff.indian snuff in big quantity is exported to Mongolia from DELHI our capital by local exporters.
I love those snuff bottles. Especially tibet ones. I am lurking on eBay thinking of buying a one. Really nice stuff.
Yeah I’ve seen the tibetian snuff bottles several places on line for what seem decent prices.
Oh yes. The prices are really low, what makes me think it would be quite a nice bargain. Have someone any experience with them?
namrata, interesting. i wonder who is using the imported snuff, as all my chinese friendshave never heard about snuff (biyan, ) before and told me that this is not used anymore. ome or two guys told me that it was still in use with “minorities”, very likely in the western parts of china. all my chinese books on tobacco (well… 2 books only in total) do also mention snuff-taking as a bygone era. whar kind of snuff does china import? and where and by whom is it used? btw i was referring to outer mongolia, that is the state of mongolia. not inner mongolia, which is a part of china. very interesting, thank you
Here is a good pick of a tibetan snuff horn with a nice description. Tibetan Snuff Horn
Here is a cheap powder/snuff horn if someone is interested in something like that. Powder/Snuff Horn
Never thought of useing a powder horn for snuff. It does have the convient strap. God if I did use a powder horn for snuff I’d have to use it at the flintlock range to confuse the two or three people shooting the their flint locks (yes there is a specfic range for them here and no I don’t know if it’s the law or just more practical)
Its probably still sitting at that antique store snuffgrinder!!
it’s probably almost 20 years old now.
In this documentary you can see snufftaking in three separate scenes. Although it’s long it’s worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJaPUFefKx4
It looks like the monk uses a device to snuff out of then hands it off to the other guy, but towards the end of the program they use a snuff bottle to pass around and sniff from the finger tips