Chapter CASIS to CASTE of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CASSAY, n.p. A name often given in former days to the people of Munneepore (Manipur), on the eastern frontier of Bengal. It is the Burmese name of this people, Kasé, or as the Burmese pronounce it, Kathé. It must not be confounded with Cathay (q.v.) with which it has nothing to do. [See SHAN.]

1759.—In Dàlrymple’s Orient. Repert. we find Cassay (i. 116).

1795.—“All the troopers in the King’s service are natives of Cassay, who are much better horsemen than the Burmans.”— Symes, p. 318.

CASSOWARY, s. The name of this great bird, of which the first species known (Casuarius galeatus) is found only in Ceram Island (Moluccas), is Malay kasavari or kasuari ; [according to Scott, the proper reading is kasuwari, and he remarks that no Malay Dict. records the word before 1863]. Other species have been observed in N. Guinea, N. Britain, and N. Australia.

[1611.—“St. James his Ginny Hens, the Cassawarway moreover.”—(Note by Coryat.) “An East Indian bird at St. James in the keeping of Mr. Walker, that will carry no coales, but eat them as whot you will.”— Peúcham, in Paneg. verses on Coryat’s Crudities, sig. 1. 3r. (1776) ; quoted by Scott.]

1631.—“De Emeu, vulgo Casoaris. In insula Ceram, aliisque Moluccensibus vicinis insulis, celebris haec avis reperitur.”— Jac. Bontii, lib. v. c. 18.

1659.—“This aforesaid bird Cossebàres also will swallow iron and lead, as we once learned by experience. For when our Connestabel once had been casting bullets on the Admiral’s Bastion, and then went to dinner, there came one of these Cossebàres on the bastion, and swallowed 50 of the bullets. And…next day I found that the bird after keeping them a while in his maw had regularly cast up again all the 50.”— J. J. Saar, 86.

1682.—“On the islands Sumatra (?) Banda, and the other adjoining islands of the Moluccas there is a certain bird, which by the natives is called Emeu or Eme, but otherwise is commonly named by us Kasuaris.”— Nieuhof, ii. 281.

1705.—“The Cassawaris is about the bigness of a large Virginia Turkey. His head is the same as a Turkey’s ; and he has a long stiff hairy Beard upon his Breast before, like a Turkey.…”— Funnel, in Dámpier, iv. 266.

CASTE, s. “The artificial divisions of society in India, first made known to us by the Portuguese, and described by them under their term caste, signifying ‘breed, race, kind,’ which has been retained in English under the supposition that it was the native name” (Wedgwood, s.v.). [See the extraordinary derivation of Hamilton below.] Mr. Elphinstone prefers to write “Cast.”

We do not find that the early Portuguese writer Barbosa (1516) applies the word casta to the divisions of Hindu society. He calls these divisions in Narsinga and Malabar so many leis de gentios, i.e. ‘laws’ of the heathen, in the sense of sectarian rules of life. But he uses the word casta in a less technical way, which shows how it should easily have passed into the technical sense. Thus, speaking of the King of Calicut : “This King keeps 1000 women, to whom he gives regular maintenance, and they always go to his court to act as the sweepers of his palaces…these are ladies, and of good family” (estas saom fidalgas e de boa casta.—In Coll. of Lisbon Academy, ii. 316). So also Castanheda : “There fled a knight who was called Fernão Lopez, homem de boa casta” (iii. 239). In the quotations from Barros, Correa, and Garcia de Orta, we have the word in what we may call the technical sense.

c. 1444.—“Whence I conclude that this race (casta) of men is the most agile and dexterous that there is in the world.”— Cadamosto, Navegação, i. 14.

1552.—“The Admiral…received these Naires with honour and joy, showing great contentment with the King for sending his message by such persons, saying that he expected this coming of theirs to prosper, as there did not enter into the business any man of the caste of the Moors.”— Barros, I. vi. 5.

1561.—“Some of them asserted that they were of the caste (casta) of the Christians.” — Correa, Lendas, i. 2, 685.

1563.—“One thing is to be noted…that no one changes from his father’s trade, and all those of the same caste (casta) of shoemakers are the same.”— Garcia, f. 213b.

1567.—“In some parts of this Province (of Goa) the Gentoos divide themselves into distinct races or castes (castas) of greater or less dignity, holding the Christians as of lower degree, and keep these so superstitiously that no one of a higher caste can eat or drink with those of a lower.…”— Decree 2nd of the Sacred Council of Goa, in Archiv. Port. Orient., fasc. 4.

1572.—

“Dous modos ha de gente ; porque a nobre
Nairos chamados são, e a menos dina
Poleas tem por nome, a quem obriga
A lei não misturar a castà antiga.”—