How did the Longfellows beat the summer heat without electricity and air conditioning? One way was to use hand fans, such as the one shown here.
Of a type originating in India, this type of fan is called a Tal-Patar Pakha or pankha, a name derived from the Hindi word for a bird’s wings. Used for cooling oneself off, they could also be used to fan the flames of cooking fires. Some fans were as tall as a person and would have been used by a servant to keep a wealthier individual cool. They also took on ceremonial significance, becoming part of weddings and religious rites.
The body of the fan is made from a single palm leaf, most commonly from the Asian palmyra palm tree, noticeable for its large fan-shaped leaves. First soaked in water, the palm leaf is then carved with a sharp knife to the desired shape before being bound with sliced branches to maintain the rounded form. This fan has been painted with floral images in red, yellow, blue, and green. Fans of this type are often adorned with colorful cloth, beads, ribbons, seashells, or other decorations.
Possibly collected by Charles Longfellow during his extended stay in India from 1868 to 1870, this type of palm frond fan was (and continues to be) especially popular in Bengal, a region covering parts of present-day northeast India and Bangladesh. Charles Longfellow visited many sites in Bengal, including Calcutta (Kolkata), and he might have acquired this piece during these travels. Although a fan of this type does not appear on a list of items brought back from India by Charles, his journals from the trip make mention of having purchased fans as souvenirs, and as having received them as gifts. This specific fan is known to have been in the Longfellow home at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge by early 1900, as it appears in a historic photograph from that year on the fireplace mantel in what was then the second-floor guest bedroom.