Chapter ADIGAR to AG-GARI of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ADIGAR to AG-GARI

ADIGAR, s. Properly adhikar, from Skt. adhikarin, one possessing authority; Tam. adhikari, or -karen. The title was formerly in use in South India, and perhaps still in the native States of Malabar, for a rural headman. [See quot. from Logan below.] It was also in Ceylon (adikarama, adikar) the title of chief minister of the Candyan Kings. See PATEL.

1544.— “Fac te comem et humanum cum isti Genti praebeas, tum praesertim magistratibus eorum et Praefectis Pagorum, quos Adigares vocant.”—S. Fr. Xav. Epistt. 113.

1583.— “Mentre che noi erauamo in questa città, l’assalirono sù la mezza notte all’ improuiso, mettendoui il fuoco. Erano questi d’una città uicina, lontana da S. Thomè, doue stanno i Portoghesi, un miglio, sotto la scorta d’un loro Capitano, che risiede in detta città … et questo Capitano è da loro chiamato Adicario.”—Balbi, f. 87.

1681.—“There are two who are the greatest and highest officers in the land. They are called Adigars; I may term them Chief Judges.”—Knox, 48.

1726.—“Adigaar. This is as it were the second of the Dessave.”—Valentijn (Ceylon), Names of Officers, &c., 9.

1796.—“In Malabar esiste oggidi l’uffizio .…molti Káriakárer o ministri; molti Adhigári o ministri d’un distretto …”— Fra Paolino, 237.

1803.—“The highest officers of State are the Adigars or Prime Ministers. They are two in number.”—Percival’s Ceylon, 256.

[1810-17.—“Announcing in letters .… his determination to exercise the office of Serv Adikar.”—Wilks, Mysoor, i. 264.

1887.—“Each amsam or parish has now besides the Adhikari or man of authority, headman, an accountant.”—Logan, Man. of Malabar, i. 90.]

ADJUTANT, s. A bird so called (no doubt) from its comical resemblance to a human figure in a stiff dress pacing slowly on a parade-ground. It is the H. hargila, or gigantic crane, and popular scavenger of Bengal, the Leptoptilus argala of Linnæus. The H. name is by some dictionaries derived from a supposed Skt. word hadda-gila, ‘bone-swallower.’ The compound, however appropriate, is not to be found in Böhtlingk and Roth’s great Dictionary. The bird is very well described by Aelian, under the name of Khla, which is perhaps a relic of the still preserved vernacular one. It is described by another name, as one of the peculiarities of India, by Sultan Baber. See PELICAN.

“The feathers known as Marabou or Comercolly feathers, and sold in Calcutta, are the tail-coverts of this, and the Lept. Javanica, another and smaller species” (Jerdon). The name marabout (from the Ar. murabit, ‘quiet,’ and thence ‘a hermit,’ through the Port. marabuto) seems to have been given to the bird in Africa on like reason to that of adjutant in India. [Comercolly, properly Kumarkhali, is a town in the Nadiya District, Bengal. See Balfour, Cycl. i. 1082.]

c. A.D. 250.— “And I hear that there is in India a bird Kela, which is 3 times as big as a bustard; it has a mouth of a frightful size, and long legs, and it carries a huge crop which looks like a leather bag; it has a most dissonant voice, and whilst the rest of the plumage is ash-coloured, the tail-feathers are of a pale (or greenish) colour.”— Aelian, de Nat. Anim. xvi. 4.

c. 1530.— “One of these (fowls) is the ding, which is a large bird. Each of its wi ngs is the length of a man; on its head and neck there is no hair. Something like a bag hangs from its neck; its back is black, its breast white; it frequently visits Kabul. One year they caught and brought me a ding, which became very tame. The flesh which they threw it, it never failed to catch in its beak, and swallowed without ceremony. On one occasion it swallowed a shoe well shod with iron; on another occasion it swallowed a good-sized fowl right down, with its wings and feathers.”—Baber, 321.

1754.—“In the evening excursions .… we had often observed an extraordinary species of birds, called by the natives Argill or Hargill, a native of Bengal. They would majestically stalk along before us, and at first we took them for Indians naked.… The following are the exact marks and dimensions.… The wings extended 14 feet and 10 inches. From the tip of the bill to the extremity of the claw it measured 7 feet 6 inches. … In the craw was a Terapin or land-tortoise, 10 inches long; and a large black male cat was found entire in its stomach.”—Ives, 183-4.

1798.—“The next is the great Heron, the Argali or Adjutant, or Gigantic Crane of Latham.… It is found also in Guinea.” —Pennant’s View of Hindostan, ii. 156.

1810.—“Every bird saving the vulture, the Adjutant (or argeelah) and kite, retires to some shady spot.”—Williamson, V. M. ii. 3.

[1880.—Ball (Jungle Life, 82) describes the “snake-stone” said to be found in the head of the bird.]

AFGHÁN, n.p.P.—H—Afghan. The most general name of the predominant portion of the congeries of tribes beyond the N.W. frontier of India, whose country is called from them Afghanistan. In England one often hears the country called Afguníst-un, which is a mispronunciation painful to an Anglo-Indian