"The Teuila Fortune Cards" (The Puritan, Nov. 1899)
Book details
- Title
- "The Teuila Fortune Cards" (The Puritan, Nov. 1899)
- Author
- Frank A Munsey The
- Publication year listed
- 1899
- Format
- Public domain eBook
- Reading access
- Free online reader; no registration required
- Source record
- View on Archive.org
About this book
"The Teuila Fortune Cards" (The Puritan, Nov. 1899)
Author: Isobel Strong (née Osbourne)
Year: 1899
Isobel Strong's 11-page article "The Teuila Fortune Cards" first appeared in the November 1899 issue of The Puritan , an American periodical published by Frank A. Munsey. The text describes the use of a unique 35-card fortune-telling deck which Isobel had created while she and her family were touring the Pacific islands. The deck's title derives from Isobel's Samoan name, Teuila , which comes from a combination of two Samoan words: teu (v. "to adorn, to decorate") and ila (n. "spot, bithmark, blemish") which can roughly be translated together as "beautifying the ugly." Isobel was given this name by the native Samoans due to her habit of decorating people and places with flowers, ribbons, and other trinkets. The Samoans also gave the name teuila to the red ginger plant Alpinia purpurata after Isobel introduced it to the islands from Hawaii. The plant has since gone on to become Samoa's national flower and a major symbol of Samoan culture. Isobel's article includes images of all of the cards, minus the blank card which signifies the person having their fortune told. The reader is instructed to cut them out and paste them onto calling cards. In February 1906, Isobel's article was repr