latter word in Barbosa, almost exactly kirich. Perhaps Turki kilich is the original. [Platts gives Skt.
kriti, a sort of knife or dagger.] If Reinaud is right in his translation of the Arab Relations of the 9th
and 10th centuries, in correcting a reading, otherwise unintelligible, to khri, we shall have a very early
adoption of this word by Western travellers. It occurs, however, in a passage relating to Ceylon.
c. 910.Formerly it was common enough to see in this island a man of the country walk into the market
grasping in his hand a khri, i.e. a dagger peculiar to the country, of admirable make, and sharpened to
the finest edge. The man would lay hands on the wealthiest of the merchants that he found, take him
by the throat, brandish his dagger before his eyes, and finally drag him outside of the town.
Relation,
&c., par Reinaud, p. 156; and see Arabic text, p. 120, near bottom.
It is curious to find the cris adopted
by Alboquerque as a piece of state costume. When he received the ambassadors of Sheikh Ismael, i.e.
the Shah of Persia, Ismael Sufi, at Ormuz, we read: 1515.For their reception there was prepared a
dais of three steps
which was covered with carpets, and the Governor seated thereon in a decorated
chair, arrayed in a tunic and surcoat of black damask, with his collar, and his golden cris, as I described
before, and with his big, long snow-white beard; and at the back of the dais the captains and gentlemen,
handsomely attired, with their swords girt, and behind them their pages with lances and targets, and all
uncovered.Correa, ii. 423.
The portrait of Alboquerque in the 1st vol. of Mr. Birchs Translation of the
Commentaries, realises the snow-white beard, tunic, and black surcoat, but the cris is missing. [The
Malay Creese is referred to in iii. 85.]
1516.They are girt with belts, and carry daggers in their waists,
wrought with rich inlaid work, these they call querix.Barbosa, 193.
1552.And the quartermaster
ran up to the top, and thence beheld the son of Timuta raja to be standing over the Captain Major with a
cris half drawn.Castanheda, ii. 363.
1572.
assentada Lá no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste, Opulenta Malaca nomeada! As settas venenosas que
fizeste! Os crises, com que já te vejo armáda.
Camõoes, x. 44.
By Burton:
so strong thy site there on Auroras bosom, whence they rise, thou Home of Opulence, Malacca hight! The
poysoned arrows which thine art supplies, the krises thirsting, as I see, for fight.
1580.A vocabulary of Wordes of the naturall language of Iaua in the voyage of Sir Fr. Drake, has
Cricke, a dagger.Hakl. iv. 246.
[1584.Crise. See quotation under A MUCK.]
1586-88.The custom
is that whenever the King (of Java) doth die
the wives of the said King
every one with a dagger in her
hand (which dagger they call a crese, and is as sharp as a razor) stab themselves to the heart.Cavendish,
in Hakl. iv. 337.
1591.Furthermore I enjoin and order in the name of our said Lord
that
no servant go armed whether it be with staves or daggers, or crisses.Procl. of Viceroy Mathias d
Alboquerque in Archiv. Port. Oriental, fasc. 3, p. 325.
1598.In the Western part of the Island (Sumatra)
is Manancabo where they make Poinyards, which in India are called Cryses, which are very well
accounted and esteemed of.Linschoten, 33; [with some slight differences of reading, Hak. Soc. i.
110].
1602.
Chinesische Dolchen, so sie Cris nennen.Hulsius, i. 33.
c. 1610.Ceux-là ont dordinaire à
leur costé vn poignard ondé qui sapelle cris, et qui vient dAchen en Sumatra, de Iaua, et de la Chine.Pyrard
de Laval, i. 121; [Hak. Soc. i. 164]; also see ii. 101; [ii. 162, 170].
1634.Malayos crises, Arabes
alfanges.Malaca Conquistada, ix. 32.
1686.The Cresset is a small thing like a Baggonet which
they always wear in War or Peace, at Work or Play, from the greatest of them to the poorest or meanest
person.Dampier, i. 337.
1690.And as the Japanners
rip up their Bowels with a Cric.
Ovington,
173.
1727.A Page of twelve Years of Age
(said) that he would shew him the Way to die, and with that
he took a Cress, and ran himself through the body.A. Hamilton, ii. 99; [ed. 1744, ii. 98].
1770.The
people never go without a poniard which they call cris.Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 97.
c. 1850-60.They
(the English) chew hashish, cut themselves with poisoned creases
taste every poison, buy every secret.Emerson,
English Traits [ed. 1866, ii. 59]. The Portuguese also formed a word crisada, a blow with a
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