Chapter GOMUTÍ to GOOMTEE of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

GOMUTÍ to GOOMTEE

GOMUTÍ, s. Malay gumuti [Scott gives gamuti]. A substance resembling horsehair, and forming excellent cordage (the cabos negros of the Portuguese—Marre, Kata-Kata Malayou, p. 92), sometimes improperly called coir (q.v.), which is produced by a palm growing in the Archipelago, Arenga saccharifera, Labill. (Borassus Gomutus, Lour.). The tree also furnishes kalams or reed-pens for writing, and the material for the poisoned arrows used with the blow-tube. The name of the palm itself in Malay is anau. (See SAGWIRE.) There is a very interesting account of this palm in Rumphius, Herb. Amb., i. pl. xiii. Dampier speaks of the fibre thus:

1686.—“…There is another sort of Coire cables…that are black, and more strong and lasting, and are made of Strings that grow like Horse-hair at the Heads of certain Trees, almost like the Coco-trees. This sort comes mostly from the Island of Timor.”—i. 295.

GONG, s. This word appears to be Malay (or, according to Crawfurd, originally Javanese), gong or agong. [“The word gong is often said to be Chinese. Clifford and Swettenham so mark it; but no one seems to be able to point out the Chinese original” (Scott, Malayan Words in English, 53).] Its well- known application is to a disk of thin bell-metal, which when struck with a mallet, yields musical notes, and is used in the further east as a substitute for a bell. [“The name gong, agong, is considered to be imitative or suggestive of the sound which the instrument produces” (Scott, loc. cit. 51).] Marcel Devic says that the word exists in all the languages of the Archipelago; [for the variants see Scott, loc. cit.]. He defines it as meaning “instrument de musique aussi appele tam-tam”; but see under TOM-TOM. The great drum, to which Dampier applies the name, was used like the metallic gong for striking the hour. Systems of gongs variously arranged form harmonious musical instruments among the Burmese, and still more elaborately among the Javanese.

The word is commonly applied by Anglo-Indians also to the H. ghanta (ganta, Dec.) or ghari, a thicker metal disc, not musical, used in India for striking the hour (see GHURRY). The gong being used to strike the hour, we find the word applied by Fryer (like gurry) to the hour itself, or interval denoted.

c. 1590.—“In the morning before day the Generall did strike his Gongo, which is an instrument of War that soundeth like a Bell.”—(This was in Africa, near Benguela). Advent. of Andrew Battel, in Purchas, ii. 970.

1673.—“They have no Watches nor Hour-Glasses, but measure Time by the dropping of Water out of a Brass Bason, which holds a Ghong, or less than half an Hour; when they strike once distinctly, to tell them it’s the First Ghong, which is renewed at the Second Ghong for Two, and so Three at the End of it till they come to Eight; when they strike on the Brass Vessel at their liberty to give notice the Pore (see PUHUR) is out, and at last strike One leisurely to tell them it is the First Pore.”—Fryer, 186.

1686.—“In the Sultan’s Mosque (at Mindanao) there is a great Drum with but one Head, called a Gong; which is instead of a Clock. This Gong is beaten at 12 a Clock, at 3, 6, and 9.”—Dampier, i. 333.

1726.—“These gongs (gongen) are beaten very gently at the time when the Prince is going to make his appearance.”—Valentijn, iv. 58.

1750-52.—“Besides these (m China) they have little drums, great and small kettle drums, gungungs or round brass basons like frying pans.”—Olof Toreen, 248.

1817.—

“War music bursting out from time to time
With gong and tymbalon’s tremendous chime.”

—Lalla Rookh, Mokanna.

Tremendous sham poetry!

1878.—“…le nom plébéien…sonna dans les salons.…Comme un coup de cymbale, un de ces gongs qui sur les théâtres de féerie annoncent les apparitions fantastiques.”—Alph. Daudet, Le Nabab, ch. 4.

GOODRY, s. A quilt; H. gudri. [The gudri, as distinguished from the razai (see ROZYE), is the bundle of rags on which Fakirs and the very poorest people sleep.] 1598.—“They make also faire couerlits, which they call Godoriins [or] Colchas, which are very faire and pleasant to the eye, stitched with silke; and also of cotton of all colours and stitchinges.”—Linschoten, ch. 9; [Hak. Soc. i. 61].

c. 1610.—“Les matelats et les couvertures sont de soye ou de toille de coton façonnée à toutes sortes de figures et couleur. Ils appellent cela Gouldrins.”—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 3; [Hak. Soc. ii. 4].

1653.—“Goudrin est vn terme