What is "punka"

Usage examples of "punka".

There was the punka, the blessed punka, but he could not start the punka going because it blew his dead mosquitoes away, and in the evening when the choking wind had died, the dust still hid the sun in a dreadful haze.

In the grasses, in the trees, deep in the calix of punka flower and magnolia bloom, the gnats, the caterpillars, the beetles, all the microscopic, multitudinous life of the daytime drowsed and dozed.

An exquisite mingling of many odours passed continually over the Mission, from the garden of the Seed ranch, meeting and blending with the aroma of its magnolia buds and punka blossoms.

Jeremiah, a barefoot Negro boy no more than eight years old, wearing a sleeveless bleached muslin shirt and pants, cinched at the waist with a rope, sat in a chair in the corner of the high-ceilinged room and pulled a rope attached to a punka overhead.

Idling for hours in the gallery shade, fanned by the overhead punka while flies buzzed and hounds panted and drooled puddles, filled her with a restless annoyance that made her feel explosive.

Suddenly the whoosh whoosh of the punka overhead sounded loud as a wind-storm.

Spalding whispered in the ear of the captain worked a change in his standing, however, and he was set to work during the meal hours pulling the punka rope which kept the big fans in motion, an occupation that he seemed to regard as being beneath his dignity, though his protests fell on deaf ears.

The constant motion of the punkas in the saloons, and an unlimited supply of ice-water was all that saved us.

We were fanned by great swinging punkas during the dinner hour, the meal being an excellent one, after which we went out to see the town, the Indian shops under the hotel coming in that night for the largest share of our attention.