In the 1950s there were still places safe enough to drink water from a stream in Washington, Oregon, California and all of the western states still. So, I was taught by my father (who once was taught by his father) and so on, to cup my hand so I could more easily drink water from a stream or brook where it was still safe to drink then. I find I still like to do this only now I do it with our reverse osmosis tippet on my kitchen sink often when I'm taking a medicine if I don't have a bottle of spring water nearby.
This is one of the many behaviors mostly lost to time here on earth of cupping your hand or hands to drink water from a brook or stream. Another behavior some preferred was simply to "Lay" on the ground near a stream and stick your whole face in the water and drink this way. But, most people preferred to "cup their hands" simply because you were usually going to get more dirty if you laid down on the ground and stuck your face into the water. IF you didn't care if you got dirty or not (this was more common further back in pioneer days by the way you might just "lay down" any time you wanted to drink from a stream. It all depended on the person.
Over time what has happened since the 1950s is many more cattle and animals and the testing of water more over time by professionals. When they did this they tested for things like Giardia and pesticides and herbicides and chemicals in streams. When there are more cattle nearby or upstream you are going to have more giardia, when there are more chemicals from farming you are going to have more pesticides and insecticides and chemical fertilizers. All these things are now why you usually don't drink direct from a stream without a filtering system or boiling the water or adding chemicals to water now worldwide.
When I traveled for 4 months through India and Nepal in 1985 and 1986 we never drank water from a tap anywhere and instead boiled it for at least 5 minutes and then let it cool first wherever we were. If we couldn't get bottled water we bought Orange Campos soda or boiled Tea and drank that for fluids as we were traveling then. It was a way to not get giardia or something worse as we travelled. Most people are thin in Asia by the way because of giardia in their systems from getting it from tap water in 3rd world countries all over the world. However, since they didn't die from it as children most people have adapted to it somewhat. As it was we still got giardia (4 out of the 5 of us) from giardia in the dust from feces in Katmandu because many roads were not paved then from the dust. Those years anyone we knew from the U.S. who went to Katmandu pretty much got giardia from the dust in the air during these times.
It was also common out in the country in Nepal then especially in the Himalayas for people to go to the bathroom in the rivers and streams as a way of it staying "Clean" where they were. Though to people in the western world this might seem "Counterproductive" if you have the tradition of doing this since time immemorial it is just a tradition that keeps on going then. Likewise sailors have always gone to the bathroom in the ocean since forever too. This is just the way things have been for thousands of years. But, it's also logical because where do you think fish and sharks and whales and dolphins go to the bathroom?
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