So, we have set our 1825 table with fancy flow blue china from our last post and now we need to keep everything pristine. Enter the punkah. These are manually operated fans from India that were often installed over the dining table. They are not going to create much of a breeze, but they will keep flies from landing on your food.
“Manually operated” means a child, but more often an enslaved person, would be forced to pull the string to keep the fan swishing back and forth. There are not too many benefits to being the person forced to operate the fan for hours on end. However, there is one distinct bonus to being the punkah operator: you get to eavesdrop on all the dinner conversation.
These punkahs can be found at the Ximenez-Fatio house in St. Augustine, Florida. They are in perfect working order as demonstrated by our punkah operator, the tour guide.
