THE ORIGIN OF THE MOSQUITO NET
Before you start thinking now about Dutch in the tropics, you know the ones with the milk white legs, beige shorts, socks in solid sandals, red burned forehead, a ‘handy hip pocket for you never know who you will meet in the jungle’ and completely covered with red spots from the mosquito bites in only the last hour, we will first take you into the history of our product. The origin of the mosquito net.
- The Germans call it Moskitonetz.
- The Dutch call it Klamboe.
- The Spanish Mosquitero.
- The Italians Zanzareria.
- The English Mosquito net.
The origin of the Dutch word Klamboe comes from the Indonesian word Kelambu, that was literally a net above your bed. Even though some Indonesians said that the word comes from the Dutch language, that is not the case, we fully owe it to the Indonesian people.
In fact, as you might already have discovered on our site, our mosquito nets are manufactured by a fantastic company on Bali. First there was just the word, now we work together on a beautiful product!
Model Sanggah
Song about mosquito nets
There was a famous poet and songwriter from India, who in the 15th century already wrote a song about mosquito nets. His name was Annamayya and the language spoken in the southern parts of India -where he came from- was called Telugu. One of the first parts of the song starts like this: “Oh Lord, it is time to lift the mosquito net from the snake”.
All right. Not knowing the background of this poem, you could think that Annamayya was on some sort of funny drugs, thinking that you had to put mosquito nets on snakes. Maybe he was anyway, but what he meant was this: let’s start the day, let’s take away the mosquito net from my wooden bed decorated with serpentine hoods.
That makes sense.
Mosquito net meaning
Like in Latin they had the word Canopeum, which also meant literally a bed covered by nets. From there the French took their word Canopé and the English Canopy.
What a small world, isn’t it? We could say that we are all united by one big mosquito net.
As once they were lying there, those big Roman guys, heroes of the world, eating grapes and goose, at the same time being the perfect victims for our little stinging friends. So, they created themselves a net around them to eat & discuss in peace.
Did you know that even Cleopatra slept under a mosquito net? Wow, we didn’t!
Model Agung
Mosquitoes will always find you
As we told you in our previous blog post, mosquitoes are as old as dinosaurs. Mosquito nets aren’t. But they exist since there is human civilization on our planet. And the wonderful thing is, that in the beginning they were made of 100% cotton.
Just like we make them. Sustainable and organic mosquito nets, something that mankind already understood when they built pyramids or constructed the Suez Canal. The human urge of protecting itself against this tiny, nasty enemy.
No matter which country you come from in this world, mosquitoes will always find you, they make no difference in race or background, language or religion, they easily cross any border and land on every skin they want.
So, whether you call it Moskitonetz, Klamboe, Zanzareria or Mosquito net, you better get one before you end up like a Dutchy on sandals with red spots!
Thank you for visiting!
Good night. And sleep safe.
Bambulah.
