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L

I have been to Mongolia a few times and to China too and know their snuff customs quite well. Snuff is usually kept in a bottle which has a spoon- or shovel-like instrument attached to its stopper. Snuff is taken out of the bottle and either pinched from this instrument or placed on the back of the fist and sniffed from there. I have not seen anyone take their snuff directly from the spoon. I have however seen a number of asian instruments shaped as tiny spoons and marketed on ebay as snuff taking spoons. I asked a number of people in China and Mongolia, what these instruments were to be used for. The unanimous answer was rather odd: it seems, that these spoons are designed to clean ones ears and to remove earwax … I would recommend subjecting such implements to a very serious clean before using them for snuff. Can anyone out there provide historical evidence (illustrations, etchings, reports) on the use of spoons to take snuff directly? thanks and hope to hear of you Patrick B. Ludwig

C

@Ludwig_1954 I will check Mattoons, it focuses mostly on Western practices but there is a chance

J

You have a very good point here. The use of a spoon as a serving device to be kept clean for all to use once brought to the nose would be contaminated then further contaminating the snuff as it was put back in. It does appear likely spoons were used for sharing snuff without exposing it to pathogens.

B

ear cleaners. Yes I’ve seen these before and they do look like snuff spoons.

C

@Juxtaposer caring about pathogens and cleanliness is a relatively new concept, while the spoons may not have actually been used up the nose, it probably wasnt because of issues with “double-dipping”

B

though from my understanding the orginal snuff spoons were not snuff spoons but other spoons like salt or spice spoons. I could be wrong as I have been before.

F

The is no evidence on using snuff directly from the spoon in Asia. For both China and Mongolia the custom goes like Ludwig_1954 has said goes like this: “The merchants of Maimachen, who had called on M. Kotelnikov to transact some business, were now sitting very comfortably along the wall of the great room, smoking their pipes. One of them offered me his pipe, another his snuff bottle. The Chinese use a snuff, ground very fine, in lenticular bottles, of about an inch in their greatest diameter. In the cylindrical neck is screwed a stopper, to the under side of which is fixed a small spoon, which reaches into the interior of the bottle. With this spoon they put a little of the snuff on the thumb nail, and so carry it to the nose. These snuff-bottles are either cut out of hard stones, or made of green or ruby-coloured glass.” Travels in Siberia vol. II, Adolph Erman, 1850, p.193 “The Mongols also take snuff, using a stone bottle, with an ivory spoon attached to the stopper, after the Chinese fashion.” The Siberian overland route from Peking to Petersburg, Alexander Michie, 1864, p.187

F

But if the question was about other parts of the World than Asia…

X

That’s a big spoon! Must be using Ntsu!

F

The African tribes liked and like to take very very big pinches of snuff, so the the snuff spoon has to be big.