Product Description

Antique Laos Triangular Betel Leaf Holder 9

Material: Silver
Style: Laos
Size: Height 10 cm, Width 7.5 cm
Order Number: MHSALTBLH9

The basic ingredients of a betel quid are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime containers, hinged cutters, similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

Betel leaf holders contained the already prepared betel quid, which was rolled in the leaf before being chewed.

In Laos and Northern Thailand silver betel leaf holders were normally triangular, usually decorated in repoussé, especially with concentric circles, floral motifs and whorls, but sometimes they were plain. They are in a flattened horn-like shape. The small base is usually a perforated, hexagonal base, often with a silver mark.

Early 20th century.

There are similar examples in Thai Silver and Nielloware, Paul Bromberg, River Books, 2019, page 84 and in Betel Chewing Traditions in South-East Asia, Dawn Rooney, Oxford University Press, 1993, page 62 and Betel and Miang, Vanishing Thai Habits, P.A. Reichart and H.P. Philipsen, White Lotus, 1996, page 98.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).