This Day in History: 1911-12-12

Colonel Leslie Shakespear reported that at the 1911 Royal Durbar in Delhi for King George V and Queen Mary an ignorant General, seeing the Queen’s Truncheon on parade, said ‘I wonder what that is?’. His eager (but misinformed) young Staff Captain said ‘That, Sir, is one of those fetish things some of the wild tribes we enlist are allowed to carry’.