The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-28
WIVESOF THE WORLD.
How the Women of Different
Nations do HOusewOrk.
SOME VERY CURIOUS KITCHENS.
A Samoan Cooking Stove and the Boiling
Baskets of Alaska-The Divided
Skirt of Siam.

WASHINGTON, Sept. "a, 1S9O..-TSpecial
correspondence of The HERALD. i have
spent this week among the housewives of
the world. The National Museum has
cooking utensils of every nation and every
tribe, and you may see within it how
women wash and iron, boil and bake, stew
and steam all the world over A picture of
a Samoan kitchen has just been received.
and there are complete outfits of japanese
and Chinese houses, with models of the
women working away within them. The
Samoan range is a hole in the ground and
the cooking is done with red hot stones.
When the people want q feast they dig
hole as big as a cider barrel, fill it with
wood and cover it with stones. They light
the wood and when the stones are red hot
they pull them to one side and clean out
the hole. They then put layer of the hot
stones in the bottom of it, and upon this
layer bananas, chickens and vegetables.
wrapped in leaves, are laid. Another LAYER
of red hot stones is put on top and on this
is another layer OF eatables, and so on till
the hole Is filled. Upon the top fire is
built and the whole steams and cooks away
until the lightly dressed Samoan lady pro
nounces the dinner cooked. 1t is said to be
feast for king.
HOW THE ALAsKANs COOK.
The Alaskans also cook with stones. and
there are boiling and baking baskets in the
museum brought from the EsQuimaux The
boiling baskets are of course waterproof.
and the writer is ne ated by dropping red hot
stones into them. They are of about the
size of peck measure and are as beautiful
rs any fancy work basket lou viii find in
the United States. The baking baskets are
g little larger. The food is nut into them
and Is roasted by hot stones being rolled
around over them. The shaking of the bas
ket keeps 1t from burning and the people
get fat upon such food. Among some of the
tribes a small cast iron stove has been
lately introduced. 1t stands in the centre
OF the room and the fuel is often made of
seal OIL. The chief food IS fish and the
klndllng Is grass The women are the
wood-cutters of the family, but they are the
washwomen only so far as their own clothes
are concerned. Every man in Alaska washes
his own clothes and ironing is practically
unknown.
THE wAsHERwoMEN OF THE WORLD.
Every nation washes its dirty clothes
differently from every other nation. The
hardest worked washerwomen of the world
are the Koreans. They have to wash about
dozen dresses for their husbands. and in
Rsmuch as every man wears pantaloons or
drawers so baggy that they could come up
TO his neck like those of clown, they have
plenty TO do. The washing is usually done
in cold water. and often in running streams.
and there Is here In the museum q Korean
ironing board and irons. The board is
nothing but block of wood and the irons
are two paddles. The clothes are laid on
the wood and are pounded with these pad
dies until they shine like shirt bosom fresh
a { nfst- ih.ah !
people OF Korea are the men. They wear
the most delicate colored gowns of cotton
and silk, of red, light blue, pink
and green, and it takes a woman half
her time TO 90 the washing. You hear this
pounding going on day and night ia any
Korean town, and 1t Is one of the queerest
characteristics OF the Korean people The
Japanese rip their chothes apart for every
washing, and they iron their clothes by
spreading them out on a fiat board and
leaning this against the house to dry. The
sun takes the wrinkles out of the clothes.
and some of them have quite a lustre
The Japanese woman does her washing
out Of doors. Her washtub is not more
than six inches high and is about as big
around as the average dishpan. She has
never heard Of a wasnboard, and she gets
the dirt out OF the clothes by rubbing them
10 and from between her hands She some
lines uses japanese soap, which is full of
grease, anu sne WORKS away In her bare
teet If the weather is warm she will pull
Ter clothes down 10 her waist, and will feel
10 shame, though the street be full of PEG
pie. No blueing is used, and as for boiling
UT the dirt in tin boiler this is
unknown. The Chinese girls do their
washing in much the same way save that
there is not so much publicity about it. and
the pretty short-haired beauties of Siam
wear their gowns on them into the big
river and wash them while taking their
bath. When they get through they trot
up the steps of their floating houses and
wrapping clean sheet around their bodies
they slip off the wet clothes from under it
and wiring them out to dry. Many of the
Indian girls battle in the s.me way in the
Gauges and the washing in Egypt is usu-
ally done by the men. The Egyptian
washerman stands naked on the banks of
the Nile and slaps the wet clothes with
noise ike the shot of pistol on the
smooth stones at the edge Of the running
water. and such fellow women as wash