1549.—"Enrico Enriques, a Portuguese priest of our Society, a man of excellent virtue and good example, who is now in the Promontory of Comorin, writes and speaks the Malabar tongue very well indeed."—Letter of Xavier, in Coleridge's Life, ii. 73.
1680.—"Whereas it hath been hitherto accustomary at this place to make sales and alienations of houses in writing in the Portuguese, Gentue, and Mallabar languages, from which some inconveniences have arisen...."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Sept 9, in Notes and Extracts, No. iii. 33.
[1682.—"An order in English Portuguez Gentue & Mallabar for the preventing the transportation of this Countrey People and makeing them slaves in other Strange Countreys...."—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. i. 87.]
1718.—"This place (Tranquebar) is altogether inhabited by Malabarian Heathens."—Propn. of the Gospel in the East, Pt. i. (3rd ed.), p. 18.
" "Two distinct languages are necessarily required; one is the Damulian, commonly called Malabarick."—Ibid. Pt. iii. 33.
1734.—"Magnopere commendantes zelum, ac studium Missionariorum, qui libros sacram Ecclesiae Catholicae doctrinam, rerumque sacrarum monumenta continentes, pro Indorum Christi fidelium eruditione in linguam Malabaricam seu Tamulicam transtulere."—Brief of Pope Clement XII., in Norbert, ii. 432-3. These words are adopted from Card. Tournon's decree of 1704 (see ibid. i. 173).
c. 1760.—"Such was the ardent zeal of M. Ziegenbalg that in less than a year he attained a perfect knowledge of the Malabarian tongue.... He composed also a Malabarian dictionary of 20,000 words."—Grose, i. 261.
1782.—"Les habitans de la côte de Coromandel sont appellés Tamouls; les Européens les nomment improprement Malabars."—Sonnerat, i. 47.
1801.—"From Niliseram to the Chandergerry River no language is understood but the Malabars of the Coast."—Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 322.
In the following passage the word Malabars is misapplied still further, though by a writer usually most accurate and intelligent:
1810.—"The language spoken at Madras is the Talinga, here called Malabars."—Maria Graham, 128.
1860.—"The term 'Malabar' is used throughout the following pages in the comprehensive sense in which it is applied in the Singhalese Chronicles to the continental invaders of Ceylon; but it must be observed that the adventurers in these expeditions, who are styled in the Mahawanso 'damilos,' or Tamils, came not only from ... 'Malabar,' but also from all parts of the Peninsula as far north as Cuttack and Orissa."—Tennent's Ceylon, i. 353.
MALABAR-CREEPER, s. Argyreia malabarica, Choisy.
[MALABAR EARS, s. The seed vessels of a tree which Ives calls Codaga palli.
1773.—"From their shape they are called Malabar-Ears, on account of the resemblance they bear to the ears of the women of the Malabar coast, which from the large slit made in them and the great weight of ornamental rings put into them, are rendered very large, and so long that sometimes they touch the very shoulders."—Ives, 465.
MALABAR HILL, n.p. This favourite site of villas on Bombay Island is stated by Mr. Whitworth to have acquired its name from the fact that the Malabar pirates, who haunted this coast, used to lie behind it.
[1674.—"On the other side of the great Inlet, to the Sea, is a great Point abutting against Old Woman's Island, and is called Malabar-Hill ... the remains of a stupendous Pagod, near a Tank of Fresh Water, which the Malabars visited it mostly for."—Fryer, 68 seq.]
[MALABAR OIL, s. "The ambiguous term 'Malabar Oil' is applied to a mixture of the oil obtained from the livers of several kinds of fishes frequenting the Malabar Coast of India and the neighbourhood of Karachi."—Watt, Econ. Dict. v. 113.]
MALABAR RITES. This was a name given to certain heathen and superstitious practices which the Jesuits of the Madura, Carnatic, and Mysore Missions permitted to their converts, in spite of repeated prohibitions by the Popes. And though these practices were finally condemned by the Legate Cardinal de Tournon in 1704, they still subsist, more or less, among native Catholic Christians, and especially those belonging to the (so-called) Goa Churches. These practices are generally alleged to have arisen under Father de' Nobili ("Robertus de Nobilibus"), who came to Madura about 1606. There can be no doubt that the aim of this famous Jesuit was to present Christianity to the people under the form, as it were, of a Hindu translation!
The nature of the practices of which we speak may be gathered from the following particulars of their prohibition. In 1623 Pope Gregory XV., by a constitution dated 31st January, condemned the following:—1. The investiture of Brahmans and certain other castes with the sacred thread, through the agency of Hindu priests, and with Hindu ceremonies. For these Christian ceremonies were to be substituted; and the thread was to be regarded as only a civil badge. 2. The ornamental use of sandalwood paste was permitted, but not its superstitious use, e.g., in mixture with cowdung ashes, &c., for ceremonial purification. 3. Bathing as a ceremonial purification. 4. The observance of caste, and the refusal of high-caste Christians to mix with low-caste Christians in the churches was disapproved.
The quarrels between Capuchins and Jesuits later in the 17th century again brought the Malabar Rites into notice, and Cardinal de Tournon was sent on his unlucky mission to determine these matters finally. His decree (June 23, 1704) prohibited:—1. A mutilated form of baptism, in which were omitted certain ceremonies offensive to Hindus, specifically the use of 'saliva, sal, et insufflatio.' 2. The use of Pagan names. 3. The Hinduizing of Christian terms by translation. 4. Deferring the baptism of children. 5. Infant marriages. 6. The use of the Hindu tali (see TALEE). 7. Hindu usages at marriages. 8. Augury at marriages, by means of a coco-nut. 9. The exclusion of women from churches during certain periods. 10. Ceremonies on a girl's attainment of puberty. 11. The making distinctions between Pariahs and others. 12. The assistance of Christian musicians at heathen ceremonies. 13. The use of ceremonial washings and bathings. 14. The use of cowdung-ashes. 15. The reading and use of Hindu books.
With regard to No. 11 it may be observed that in South India the distinction of castes still subsists, and the only Christian Mission in that quarter which has really succeeded in abolishing caste is that of the Basel Society.
MALABATHRUM, s. There can be very little doubt that this classical export from India was the dried leaf of various species of Cinnamomum, which leaf was known in Skt. as tamāla-pattra. Some who wrote soon after the Portuguese discoveries took, perhaps not unnaturally, the pān or betel-leaf for the malabathrum of the ancients; and this was maintained by Dean Vincent in his well-known work on the Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, justifying this in part by the Ar. name of the betel, tambūl, which is taken from Skt. tāmbūla, betel; tāmbūla-pattra, betel-leaf. The tamāla-pattra, however, the produce of certain wild spp. of Cinnamomum, obtained both in the hills of Eastern Bengal and in the forests of Southern India, is still valued in India as a medicine and aromatic, though in no such degree as in ancient times, and it is usually known in domestic economy as tejpāt, or corruptly tezpāt, i.e. 'pungent leaf.' The leaf was in the Arabic Materia Medica under the name of sādhaj or sādhajī Hindī, as was till recently in the English Pharmacopœia as Folium indicum, which will still be found in Italian drug-shops. The matter is treated, with his usual lucidity and abundance of local knowledge, in the Colloquios of Garcia de Orta, of which we give a short extract. This was evidently unknown to Dean Vincent, as he repeats the very errors which Garcia dissipates. Garcia also notes that confusion of Malabathrum and Folium indicum with spikenard, which is traceable in Pliny as well as among the Arab pharmacologists. The ancients did no doubt apply the name Malabathrum to some other substance, an unguent or solid extract. Rheede, we may notice, mentions that in his time in Malabar, oils in high medical estimation were made from both leaves and root of the "wild cinnamon" of that coast, and that from the root of the same tree a camphor was extracted, having several of the properties of real camphor and more fragrance. (See a note by one of the present writers in Cathay, &c., pp. cxlv.-xlvi.) The name Cinnamon is properly confined to the tree of Ceylon (C. Zeylanicum). The other Cinnamoma are properly Cassia barks. [See Watt. Econ. Dict. ii. 317 seqq.]
c. A.D. 60.—"Μαλάβαθρον ἔνιοι ὑπολάμβάνουσιν εἶναι τῆς Ἰνδικῆς νάρδου φύλλον, πλανώμενοι ὑπὸ τῆς κατὰ τὴν ὀσμὴν, ἐμφερειας, ... ἴδιον γαρ ἐστι γένος φυόμενον ἐν τοῖς Ἰνδικοῖς τέλμασι, φύλλον ὃν ἐπινηχόμενον ὕδατι."—Dioscorides, Mat. Med. i. 11.
c. A.D. 70.—"We are beholden to Syria for Malabathrum. This is a tree that beareth leaves rolled up round together, and seeming to the eie withered. Out of which there is drawn and pressed an Oile for perfumers to use.... And yet there commeth a better kind thereof from India.... The rellish thereof ought to resemble Nardus at the tongue end. The perfume or smell that ... the leafe yeeldeth when it is boiled in wine, passeth all others. It is straunge and monstrous which is observed in the price; for it hath risen from one denier to three hundred a pound."—Pliny, xii. 26, in Ph. Holland.
c. A.D. 90.—"... Getting rid of the fibrous parts, they take the leaves and double them up into little balls, which they stitch through with the fibres of the withes. And these they divide into three classes.... And thus originate the three qualities of Malabathrum, which the people who have prepared them carry to India for sale."—Periplus, near the end. [Also see Yule, Intro. Gill, River of Golden Sand, ed. 1883, p. 89.]
1563.—"R. I remember well that in speaking of betel you told me that it was not folium indu, a piece of information of great value to me; for the physicians who put themselves forward as having learned much from these parts, assert that they are the same; and what is more, the modern writers ... call betel in their works tembul, and say that the Moors give it this name....
"O. That the two things are different as I told you is clear, for Avicenna treats them in two different chapters, viz., in 259, which treats of folium indu, and in 707, which treats of tambul ... and the folium indu is called by the Indians Tamalapatra, which the Greeks and Latins corrupted into Malabathrum," &c.—Garcia, ff. 95v, 96.
c. 1690.—"Hoc Tembul seu Sirium, licet vulgatissimum in India sit folium, distinguendum est a Folio Indo seu Malabathro, Arabibus Cadegi Hindi, in Pharmacopoeis, et Indis, Tamala-patra et folio Indo dicto,... A nostra autem natione intellexi Malabathrum nihil aliud esse quam folium canellae, seu cinnamomi sylvestris."—Rumphius, v. 337.
c. 1760.—"... quand l'on considère que les Indiens appellent notre feuille Indienne tamalapatra on croit d'apercevoir que le mot Grec μαλάβατρον en a été anciennement dérivé."—(Diderot) Encyclopédie, xx. 846.
1837.—(Malatroon is given in Arabic works of Materia Medica as the Greek of Sādhaj, and tuj and tej-pat as the Hindi synonymes). "By the latter names may be obtained everywhere in the bazars of India, the leaves of Cinn. Tamala and of Cinn. albiflorum."—Royle, Essay on Antiq. of Hindoo Medicine, 85.
MALACCA, n.p. The city which gives its name to the Peninsula and the Straits of Malacca, and which was the seat of a considerable Malay monarchy till its capture by the Portuguese under D'Alboquerque in 1511. One naturally supposes some etymological connection between Malay and Malacca. And such a connection is put forward by De Barros and D'Alboquerque (see below, and also under MALAY). The latter also mentions an alternative suggestion for the origin of the name of the city, which evidently refers to the Ar. mulāḳāt, 'a meeting.' This last, though it appears also in the Sijara Malayu, may be totally rejected. Crawfurd is positive that the place was called from the word malaka, the Malay name of the Phyllanthus emblica, or emblic Myrobalan (q.v.), "a tree said to be abundant in that locality"; and this, it will be seen below, is given by Godinho de Eredia as the etymology. Malaka again seems to be a corruption of the Skt. amlaka, from amla, 'acid.' [Mr. Skeat writes: "There can be no doubt that Crawfurd is right, and that the place was named from the tree. The suggested connection between Malayu and Malaka appears impossible to me, and, I think, would do so to any one acquainted with the laws of the language. I have seen the Malaka tree myself and eaten its fruit. Ridley in his Botanical Lists has laka-laka and malaka which he identifies as Phyllanthus emblica, L. and P. pectinatus Hooker (Euphorbiaceae). The two species are hardly distinct, but the latter is the commoner form. The fact is that the place, as is so often the case among the Malays, must have taken its name from the Sungei Malaka, or Malaka River."]
1416.—"There was no King but only a chief, the country belonging to Siam.... In the year 1409, the imperial envoy Cheng Ho brought an order from the emperor and gave to the chief two silver seals, ... he erected a stone and raised the place to a city, after which the land was called the Kingdom of Malacca (Moa-la-ka).... Tin is found in the mountains ... it is cast into small blocks weighing 1 catti 8 taels ... ten pieces are bound together with rattan and form a small bundle, whilst 40 pieces make a large bundle. In all their trading ... they use these pieces of tin instead of money."—Chinese Annals, in Groenveldt, p. 123.
1498.—"Melequa ... is 40 days from Qualecut with a fair wind ... hence proceeds all the clove, and it is worth there 9 crusados for a bahar (q.v.), and likewise nutmeg other 9 crusados the bahar; and there is much porcelain and much silk, and much tin, of which they make money, but the money is of large size and little value, so that it takes 3 farazalas (see Frazala) of it to make a crusado. Here too are many large parrots all red like fire."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 110-111.
1510.—"When we had arrived at the city of Melacha, we were immediately presented to the Sultan, who is a Moor ... I believe that more ships arrive here than in any other place in the world...."—Varthema, 224.
1511.—"This Paremiçura gave the name of Malaca to the new colony, because in the language of Java, when a man of Palimbão flees away they call him Malayo.... Others say that it was called Malaca because of the number of people who came there from one part and the other in so short a space of time, for the word Malaca also signifies to meet.... Of these two opinions let each one accept that which he thinks to be the best, for this is the truth of the matter."—Commentaries of Alboquerque, E.T. by Birch, iii. 76-77.
1516.—"The said Kingdom of Ansyane (see Siam) throws out a great point of land into the sea, which makes there a cape, where the sea returns again towards China to the north; in this promontory is a small kingdom in which there is a large city called Malaca."—Barbosa, 191.
1553.—"A son of Paramisora called Xaquem Darxa, (i.e. Sikandar Shāh) ... to form the town of Malaca, to which he gave that name in memory of the banishment of his father, because in his vernacular tongue (Javanese) this was as much as to say 'banished,' and hence the people are called Malaios."—De Barros, II. vi. 1.
" "That which he (Alboquerque) regretted most of all that was lost on that vessel, was two lions cast in iron, a first-rate work, and most natural, which the King of China had sent to the King of Malaca, and which King Mahamed had kept, as an honourable possession, at the gate of his Palace, whence Affonso Alboquerque carried them off, as the principal item of his triumph on the capture of the city."—Ibid. II. vii. 1.
1572.—
"Nem tu menos fugir poderás deste
Postoque rica, e postoque assentada
Là no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste,
Opulenta Malaca nomeada!
Assettas venenosas, que fizeste,
Os crises, com que j'á te vejo armada,
Malaios namorados, Jaos valentes,
Todos farás ao Luso obedientes."
Camões, x. 44.
By Burton:
"Nor shalt thou 'scape the fate to fall his prize,
albeit so wealthy, and so strong thy site
there on Aurora's bosom, whence thy rise,
thou Home of Opulence, Malacca hight!
The poysoned arrows which thine art supplies,
the Krises thirsting, as I see, for fight,
th' enamoured Malay-men, the Javan braves,
all of the Lusian shall become the slaves."
1612.—"The Arabs call it Malakat, from collecting all merchants."—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 322.
1613.—"Malaca significa Mirabolanos, fructa de hua arvore, plantada ao longo de hum ribeiro chamado Aerlele."—Godinho de Eredia, f. 4.
MALADOO, s. Chicken maladoo is an article in the Anglo-Indian menu. It looks like a corruption from the French cuisine, but of what? [Maladoo or Manadoo, a lady informs me, is cold meat, such as chicken or mutton, cut into slices, or pounded up and re-cooked in batter. The Port. malhado, 'beaten-up,' has been suggested as a possible origin for the word.]
MALAY, n.p. This is in the Malay language an adjective, Malāyu; thus orang Malāyu, 'a Malay'; tāna [tānah] Malāyu, 'the Malay country'; bahāsa [bhāsa] Malāyu, 'the Malay language.'
In Javanese the word malāyu signifies 'to run away,' and the proper name has traditionally been derived from this, in reference to the alleged foundation of Malacca by Javanese fugitives; but we can hardly attach importance to this. It may be worthy at least of consideration whether the name was not of foreign, i.e. of S. Indian origin, and connected with the Malāya of the Peninsula (see under MALABAR). [Mr. Skeat writes: "The tradition given me by Javanese in the Malay States was that the name was applied to Javanese refugees, who peopled the S. of Sumatra. Whatever be the original meaning of the word, it is probable that it started its life-history as a river-name in the S. of Sumatra, and thence became applied to the district through which the river ran, and so to the people who lived there; after which it spread with the Malay dialect until it included not only many allied, but also many foreign, tribes; all Malay-speaking tribes being eventually called Malays without regard to racial origin. A most important passage in this connection is to be found in Leyden's Tr. of the 'Malay Annals' (1821), p. 20, in which direct reference to such a river is made: 'There is a country in the land of Andalás named Paralembang, which is at present denominated Palembang, the raja of which was denominated Damang Lebar Dawn (chieftain Broad-leaf), who derived his origin from Raja Sulan (Chulan?), whose great-grandson he was. The name of its river Muartatang, into which falls another river named Sungey Malayu, near the source of which is a mountain named the mountain Sagantang Maha Miru.' Here Palembang is the name of a well-known Sumatran State, often described as the original home of the Malay race. In standard Malay 'Damang Lebar Dawn' would be 'Dĕmang Lebar Daun.' Raja Chulan is probably some mythical Indian king, the story being evidently derived from Indian traditions. 'Muartatang' may be a mistake for Muar Tenang, which is a place one heard of in the Peninsula, though I do not know for certain where it is. 'Sungey Malayu' simply means 'River Malayu.' 'Sagantang Maha Miru' is, I think, a mistake for Sa-guntang Maha Miru, which is the name used in the Peninsula for the sacred central mountain of the world on which the episode related in the Annals occurred" (see Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 2).]
It is a remarkable circumstance, which has been noted by Crawfurd, that a name which appears on Ptolemy's Tables as on the coast of the Golden Chersonese, and which must be located somewhere about Maulmain, is Μαλεοῦ Κῶλον, words which in Javanese (Malāyu-Kulon) would signify "Malays of the West." After this the next (possible) occurrence of the name in literature is in the Geography of Edrisi, who describes Malai as a great island in the eastern seas, or rather as occupying the position of the Lemuria of Mr. Sclater, for (in partial accommodation to the Ptolemaic theory of the Indian Sea) it stretched eastward nearly from the coast of Zinj, i.e. of Eastern Africa, to the vicinity of China. Thus it must be uncertain without further accounts whether it is an adumbration of the great Malay islands (as is on the whole probable) or of the Island of the Malagashes (Madagascar), if it is either. We then come to Marco Polo, and after him there is, we believe, no mention of the Malay name till the Portuguese entered the seas of the Archipelago.
[A.D. 690.—Mr. Skeat notes: "I Tsing speaks of the 'Molo-yu country,' i.e. the district W. or N.W. of Palembang in Sumatra."]
c. 1150.—"The Isle of Malai is very great.... The people devote themselves to very profitable trade; and there are found here elephants, rhinoceroses, and various aromatics and spices, such as clove, cinnamon, nard ... and nutmeg. In the mountains are mines of gold, of excellent quality ... the people also have windmills."—Edrisi, by Jaubert, i. 945.
c. 1273.—A Chinese notice records under this year that tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. "The Siamese had long been at war with the Maliyi, or Maliurh, but both nations laid aside their feud and submitted to China."—Notice by Sir T. Wade, in Bowring's Siam, i. 72.
c. 1292.—"You come to an Island which forms a kingdom, and is called Malaiur. The people have a king of their own, and a peculiar language. The city is a fine and noble one, and there is a great trade carried on there. All kinds of spicery are to be found there."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 8.
c. 1539.—"... as soon as he had delivered to him the letter, it was translated into the Portugal out of the Malayan tongue wherein it was written."—Pinto, E.T. p. 15.
1548.—"... having made a breach in the wall twelve fathom wide, he assaulted it with 10,000 strangers, Turks, Abyssins, Moors, Malauares, Achems, Jaos, and Malayos."—Ibid. p. 279.
1553.—"And so these Gentiles like the Moors who inhabit the sea-coasts of the Island (Sumatra), although they have each their peculiar language, almost all can speak the Malay of Malacca as being the most general language of those parts."—Barros, III. v. 1.
" "Everything with them is to be a gentleman; and this has such prevalence in those parts that you will never find a native Malay, however poor he may be, who will set his hand to lift a thing of his own or anybody else's; every service must be done by slaves."—Ibid. II. vi. 1.
1610.—"I cannot imagine what the Hollanders meane, to suffer these Malaysians, Chinesians, and Moores of these countries, and to assist them in their free trade thorow all the Indies, and forbid it their owne seruants, countrymen, and Brethern, upon paine of death and losse of goods."—Peter Williamson Floris, in Purchas, i. 321.
[Mr. Skeat writes: "The word Malaya is now often applied by English writers to the Peninsula as a whole, and from this the term Malaysia as a term of wider application (i.e. to the Archipelago) has been coined (see quotation of 1610 above). The former is very frequently miswritten by English writers as 'Malay,' a barbarism which has even found place on the title-page of a book—'Travel and Sport in Burma, Siam and Malay, by John Bradley, London, 1876.'"]
MALAYĀLAM. This is the name applied to one of the cultivated Dravidian languages, the closest in its relation to the Tamil. It is spoken along the Malabar coast, on the Western side of the Ghauts (or Malāya mountains), from the Chandragiri River on the North, near Mangalore (entering the sea in 12° 29′), beyond which the language is, for a limited distance, Tulu, and then Canarese, to Trevandrum on the South (lat. 8° 29′), where Tamil begins to supersede it. Tamil, however, also intertwines with Malayālam all along Malabar. The term Malayālam properly applies to territory, not language, and might be rendered "Mountain region" [See under MALABAR, and Logan, Man. of Malabar, i. 90.]
MALDIVES, MALDIVE ISLDS., n.p. The proper form of this name appears to be Male-dīva; not, as the estimable Garcia de Orta says, Nale-dīva; whilst the etymology which he gives is certainly wrong, hard as it may be to say what is the right one. The people of the islands formerly designated themselves and their country by a form of the word for 'island' which we have in the Skt. dvīpa and the Pali dīpo. We find this reflected in the Divi of Ammianus, and in the Dīva and Dība-jāt (Pers. plural) of old Arab geographers, whilst it survives in letters of the 18th century addressed to the Ceylon Government (Dutch) by the Sultan of the Isles, who calls his kingdom Divehi Rajjé, and his people Divehe mīhun. Something like the modern form first appears in Ibn Batuta. He, it will be seen, in his admirable account of these islands, calls them, as it were, Mahal-dives, and says they were so called from the chief group Mahal, which was the residence of the Sultan, indicating a connection with Mahal, 'a palace.' This form of the name looks like a foreign 'striving after meaning.' But Pyrard de Laval, the author of the most complete account in existence, also says that the name of the islands was taken from Malé, that on which the King resided. Bishop Caldwell has suggested that these islands were the dives, or islands, of Malé, as Malebār (see MALABAR) was the coast-tract or continent, of Malé. It is, however, not impossible that the true etymology was from mālā, 'a garland or necklace,' of which their configuration is highly suggestive. [The Madras Gloss. gives Malayāl. māl, 'black,' and dvīpa, 'island,' from the dark soil. For a full account of early notices of the Maldives, see Mr. Gray's note on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 423 seqq.] Milburn (Or. Commmerce, i. 335) says: "This island was (these islands were) discovered by the Portuguese in 1507." Let us see!
A.D. 362.—"Legationes undique solito ocius concurrebant; hinc Transtigritanis pacem obsecrantibus et Armeniis, inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum donis optimates mittentibus ante tempus, ab usque Divis et Serendivis."—Ammian. Marcellinus, xxii. 3.
c. 545.—"And round about it (Sielediba or Taprobane, i.e. Ceylon) there are a number of small islands, in all of which you find fresh water and coco-nuts. And these are almost all set close to one another."—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c., clxxvii.
851.—"Between this Sea (of Horkand) and the Sea called Lāravi there is a great number of isles; their number, indeed, it is said, amounts to 1,900; ... the distance from island to island is 2, 3, or 4 parasangs. They are all inhabited, and all produce coco-palms.... The last of these islands is Serendīb, in the Sea of Horkand; it is the chief of all; they give the islands the name of Dībajāt" (i.e. Dības).—Relation, &c., tr. by Reinaud, i. 4-5.
c. 1030.—"The special name of Dīva is given to islands which are formed in the sea, and which appear above water in the form of accumulations of sand; these sands continually augment, spread, and unite, till they present a firm aspect ... these islands are divided into two classes, according to the nature of their staple product. Those of one class are called Dīva-Kūzah (or the Cowry Divahs), because of the cowries which are gathered from coco-branches planted in the sea. The others are called Dīva-Kanbar, from the word kanbar (see COIR), which is the name of the twine made from coco-fibres, with which vessels are stitched."—Al-Birūnī, in Reinaud, Fragmens, 124.
1150.—See also Edrisi, in Jaubert's Transl. i. 68. But the translator prints a bad reading, Raibiḥāt, for Dībajāt.
c. 1343.—"Ten days after embarking at Calecut we arrived at the Islands called Dhībat-al-Mahal.... These islands are reckoned among the wonders of the World; there are some 2000 of them. Groups of a hundred, or not quite so many, of these islands are found clustered into a ring, and each cluster has an entrance like a harbour-mouth, and it is only there that ships can enter.... Most of the trees that grow on these islands are coco-palms.... They are divided into regions or groups ... among which are distinguished ... 3o Mahal, the group which gives a name to the whole, and which is the residence of the Sultans."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 110 seqq.
1442.—Abdurrazzak also calls them "the isles of Dīva-Mahal."—In Not. et Exts. xiv. 429.
1503.—"But Dom Vasco ... said that things must go on as they were to India, and there he would inquire into the truth. And so arriving in the Gulf (golfão) where the storm befel them, all were separated, and that vessel which steered badly, parted company with the fleet, and found itself at one of the first islands of Maldiva, at which they stopped some days enjoying themselves. For the island abounded in provisions, and the men indulged to excess in eating cocos, and fish, and in drinking bad stagnant water, and in disorders with women; so that many died."—Correa, i. 347.
[1512.—"Mafamede Maçay with two ships put into the Maldive islands (ilhas de Maldiva)."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 30.]
1563.—"R. Though it be somewhat to interrupt the business in hand,—why is that chain of islands called 'Islands of Maldiva'?
"O. In this matter of the nomenclature of lands and seas and kingdoms, many of our people make gerat mistakes even in regard to our own lands; how then can you expect that one can give you the rationale of etymologies of names in foreign tongues? But, nevertheless, I will tell you what I have heard say. And that is that the right name is not Maldiva, but Nalediva; for nale in Malabar means 'four,' and diva 'island,' so that in the Malabar tongue the name is as much as to say 'Four Isles.'... And in the same way we call a certain island that is 12 leagues from Goa Angediva (see ANCHEDIVA), because there are five in the group, and so the name in Malabar means 'Five Isles,' for ange is 'five.' But these derivations rest on common report, I don't detail them to you as demonstrable facts."—Garcia, Colloquios, f. 11.
1572.—"Nas ilhas de Maldiva." (See COCO-DE-MER.)
c. 1610.—"Ce Royaume en leur langage s'appelle Malé-ragué, Royaume de Malé, et des autres peuples de l'Inde il s'appelle Malé-divar, et les peuples diues ... L'Isle principale, comme j'ay dit, s'appelle Malé, qui donne le nom à tout le reste des autres; car le mot Diues signifie vn nombre de petites isles amassées."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 63, 68, ed. 1679. [Hak. Soc. i. 83, 177.]
1683.—"Mr. Beard sent up his Couries, which he had received from ye Mauldivas, to be put off and passed by Mr. Charnock at Cassumbazar."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 122].
MALUM, s. In a ship with English officers and native crew, the mate is called mālum sāhib. The word is Ar. mu'allim, literally 'the Instructor,' and is properly applied to the pilot or sailing-master. The word may be compared, thus used, with our 'master' in the Navy. In regard to the first quotation we may observe that Nākhuda (see NACODA) is, rather than Mu'allim, 'the captain'; though its proper meaning is the owner of the ship; the two capacities of owner and skipper being doubtless often combined. The distinction of Mu'allim from Nākhuda accounts for the former title being assigned to the mate.
1497.—"And he sent 20 cruzados in gold, and 20 testoons in silver for the Malemos, who were the pilots, for of these coins he would give each month whatever he (the Sheikh) should direct."—Correa, i. 38 (E.T. by Ld. Stanley of Alderley, 88). On this passage the Translator says: "The word is perhaps the Arabic for an instructor, a word in general use all over Africa." It is curious that his varied experience should have failed to recognise the habitual marine use of the term.
1541.—"Meanwhile he sent three caturs (q.v.) to the Port of the Malems (Porto dos Malemos) in order to get some pilot.... In this Port of the Bandel of the Malems the ships of the Moors take pilots when they enter the Straits, and when they return they leave them here again."[159]—Correa, iv. 168.
1553.—"... among whom (at Melinda) came a Moor, a Guzarate by nation, called Malem Cana, who, as much for the satisfaction he had in conversing with our people, as to please the King, who was inquiring for a pilot to give them, agreed to accompany them."—Barros, I. iv. 6.
c. 1590.—"Mu'allim or Captain. He must be acquainted with the depths and shallow places of the Ocean, and must know astronomy. It is he who guides the ship to her destination, and prevents her falling into dangers."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 280.
[1887.—"The second class, or Malumis, are sailors."—Logan, Malabar, ii. ccxcv.]
MAMIRAN, MAMIRA, s. A medicine from old times of much repute in the East, especially for eye-diseases, and imported from Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan regions. It is a popular native drug in the Punjab bazars, where it is still known as mamīra, also as pīlīārī. It seems probable that the name is applied to bitter roots of kindred properties but of more than one specific origin. Hanbury and Flückiger describe it as the rhizome of Coptis Teeta, Wallich, tīta being the name of the drug in the Mishmi country at the head of the Assam Valley, from which it is imported into Bengal. But Stewart states explicitly that the mamīra of the Punjab bazars is now "known to be" mostly, if not entirely, derived from Thalictrum foliosum D.C., a tall plant which is common throughout the temperate Himālaya (5000 to 8000 feet) and on the Kasia Hills, and is exported from Kumaun under the name of Momiri. [See Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iv. 42 seq.] "The Mamira of the old Arab writers was identified with Χελιδόνιον μέγα, by which, however, Löw (Aram. Pflanzennamen, p. 220) says they understood curcuma longa." W.R.S.
c. A.D. 600-700.—"Μαμιράς, οἷον ῥιζίον τι πόας ἐστὶν ἔχον ὥσπερ κονδύλους πυκνοὺς, ὄπος οὐλας τε καὶ λευκώματα λεπτύνειν πεπιστεύεται, δηλονότι ῥυπτικῆς ὑπάρχον δυνάμεως."—Pauli Aeginetae Medici, Libri vii., Basileae 1538. Lib. vii. cap. iii. sect. 12 (p. 246).
c. 1020.—"Memirem quid est? Est lignum sicut nodi declinans ad nigredinem ... mundificat albuginem in oculis, et acuit visum: quum ex eo fit collyrium et abstergit humiditatem grossam...." &c.—Avicennae Opera, Venet. 1564, p. 345 (lib. ii. tractat. ii.).
The glossary of Arabic terms by Andreas de Alpago of Belluno, attached to various early editions of Avicenna, gives the following interpretation: "Memirem est radix nodosa, non multum grossa, citrini coloris, sicut curcuma; minor tamen est et subtilior, et asportatur ex Indiâ, et apud physicos orientales est valde nota, et usitatur in passionibus oculi."
c. 1100.—"Memiram Arabibus, χελιδόνιον μέγα Graecis," &c.—Io. Serapionis de Simpl. Medicam. Historia, Lib. iv. cap. lxxvi. (ed. Ven. 1552, f. 106).
c. 1200.—"Some maintain that this plant ('urūk al-ṣábaghīn) is the small kurkum (turmeric), and others that it is mamīrān.... The kurkum is brought to us from India.... The mamīrān is imported from China, and has the same properties as kurkum."—Ibn Baithar, ii. 186-188.
c. 1550.—"But they have a much greater appreciation of another little root which grows in the mountains of Succuir (i.e. Suchau in Shensi), where the rhubarb grows, and which they call Mambroni-Chini (i.e. Mamīrān-i-Chīnī). This is extremely dear, and is used in most of their ailments, but especially when the eyes are affected. They grind it on a stone with rose water, and anoint the eyes with it. The result is wonderfully beneficial."—Hajji Mahommed's Account of Cathay, in Ramusio, ii. f. 15v.
c. 1573.—(At Aleppo). "Mamiranitchini, good for eyes as they say."—Rauwolff, in Ray's 2nd ed. p. 114.
Also the following we borrow from Dozy's Suppl. aux Dictt. Arabes:—
1582.—"Mehr haben ihre Krämer kleine würtzelein zu verkaufen mamirani tchini genennet, in gebresten der Augen, wie sie fürgeben ganz dienslich; diese seind gelblecht wie die Curcuma umb ein zimlichs lenger, auch dünner und knopffet das solche unseren weisz wurtzlen sehr ehnlich, und wol für das rechte mamiran mögen gehalten werden, dessen sonderlich Rhases an mehr orten gedencket."—Rauwolff, Aigentliehe Beschreibung der Raisz, 126.
c. 1665.—"These caravans brought back Musk, China-wood, Rubarb, and Mamiron, which last is a small root exceeding good for ill eyes."—Bernier, E.T. 136; [ed. Constable, 426].
1862.—"Imports from Yarkand and Changthan, through Leh to the Punjab ... Mamiran-i-Chini (a yellow root, medicine for the eyes) ..."—Punjaub Trade Report, App. xxiv. p. ccxxxiii.
MAMLUTDAR, s. P.—H. mu'āmalatdār (from Ar. mu'āmala, 'affairs, business'), and in Mahr. māmlatdār. Chiefly used in Western India. Formerly it was the designation, under various native governments, of the chief civil officer of a district, and is now in the Bombay Presidency the title of a native civil officer in charge of a Talook, corresponding nearly to the Tahseeldar of a pergunna in the Bengal Presidency, but of a status somewhat more important.
[1826.—"I now proceeded to the Maamulut-dar, or farmer of the district...."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 42.]
MAMOOL, s.; MAMOOLEE, adj. Custom, Customary. Ar.—H. ma'mūl. The literal meaning is 'practised,' and then 'established, customary.' Ma'mūl is, in short, 'precedent,' by which all Orientals set as much store as English lawyers, e.g. "And Laban said, It must not so be done in our country (lit. It is not so done in our place) to give the younger before the firstborn."—Genesis xxix. 26.
MAMOOTY, MAMOTY, MOMATTY, s. A digging tool of the form usual all over India, i.e. not in the shape of a spade, but in that of a hoe, with the helve at an acute angle with the blade. [See FOWRA.] The word is of S. Indian origin, Tamil manvĕtti, 'earth-cutter'; and its vernacular use is confined to the Tamil regions, but it has long been an established term in the list of ordnance stores all over India, and thus has a certain prevalence in Anglo-Indian use beyond these limits.