Chapter KITTYSOL to KLING of K by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

KITTYSOL to KLING

KITTYSOL, KITSOL, s. This word survived till lately in the Indian Tariff, but it is otherwise long obsolete. It was formerly in common use for ‘an umbrella,’ and especially for the kind, made of bamboo and paper, imported from China, such as the English fashion of to-day has adopted to screen fire-places in summer. The word is Portuguese, quita - sol, ‘bar - sun.’ Also tirasole occurs in Scot’s Discourse of Java, quoted below from Purchas. See also Hulsius, Coll. of Voyages, in German, 1602, i. 27. [Mr. Skeat points out that in Howison’s Malay Dict. (1801) we have, s.v. Payong: “A kittasol, sombrera,” which is nearer to the Port. original than any of the examples given since 1611. This may be due to the strong Portuguese influence at Malacca.]

1588.—“The present was fortie peeces of silke … a litter chaire and guilt, and two quitasoles of silke.”—Parkes’s Mendoza, ii. 105.

1605.—“… Before the shewes came, the King was brought out vpon a man’s shoulders, bestriding his necke, and the man holding his legs before him, and had many rich tyrasoles carried ouer and round about him.”—E. Scot, in Purchas, i. 181.

1611.—“Of Kittasoles of State for to shaddow him, there bee twentie” (in the Treasury of Akbar).—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 215.

[1614.—“Quitta solls (or sombreros).”—Foster, Letters, ii. 207.]

1615.—“The China Capt., Andrea Dittis, retorned from Langasaque and brought me a present from his brother, viz., I faire Kitesoll. …”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 28.

1648.—“… above his head was borne two Kippe-soles, or Sun-skreens, made of Paper.”—Van Twist, 51.

1673.—“Little but rich Kitsolls (which are the names of several Countries for Umbrelloes).”—Fryer, 160.

1687.—“They (the Aldermen of Madras) may be allowed to have Kettysols over them.”—Letter of Court of Directors, in Wheeler, i. 200.

1690.—“nomen … vulgo effertur Peritsol … aliquando paulo aliter scribitur … et utrumque rectius pronuntiandum est Paresol vel potius Parasol cujus significatio Appellativa est, i. q. Quittesol seu une Ombrelle, quâ in calidioribus regionibus utuntur homines ad caput a sole tuendum.”—Hyde’s Preface to Travels of Abraham Peritsol, p. vii., in Syntag. Dissertt. i.

“No Man in India, no not the Mogul’s Son, is permitted the Priviledge of wearing a Kittisal or Umbrella. … The use of the Umbrella is sacred to the Prince, appropriated only to his use.”—Ovington, 315.

1755.—“He carries a Roundell, or Quit de Soleil over your head.”—Ives, 50.

1759.—In Expenses of Nawab’s entertainment at Calcutta, we find: “A China Kitysol … Rs. 3 ½.”—Long, 194.

1761.—A chart of Chittagong, by Barth. Plaisted, marks on S. side of Chittagong R., an umbrella-like tree, called “Kittysoll Tree.”

[1785.—“To finish the whole, a Kittesaw (a kind of umbrella) is suspended not infrequently over the lady’s head.”—Diary, in Busteed, Echoes, 3rd ed. 112.]

1792.—“In those days the Ketesal, which is now sported by our very Cooks and Boat-swains, was prohibited, as I have heard, d’you see, to any one below the rank of field officer.”—Letter, in Madras Courier, May 3.

1813.—In the table of exports from Macao, we find:—

“Kittisolls, large, 2,000 to 3,000, do. small, 8,000 to 10,000,” Milburn, ii. 464.

1875.—“Umbrellas, Chinese, of paper, or Kettysolls.”—Indian Tariff.

In another table of the same year “Chinese paper Kettisols, valuation Rs. 30 for a box of 110, duty 5 per cent.” (See CHATTA, ROUNDEL, UMBRELLA.)

KITTYSOL-BOY, s. A servant who carried an umbrella over his master. See Milburn, ii. 62. (See examples under ROUNDEL.)

KLING, n.p. This is the name (Kaling) applied in the Malay countries, including our Straits Settlements, to the people of Continental India who trade thither, or are settled in those regions, and to the descendants of those settlers. [Mr. Skeat remarks: “The standard Malay form is not Kaling, which is the Sumatran form, but Keling (K’ling or Kling). The Malay use of the word is, as a rule, restricted to Tamils, but it is very rarely used in a wider sense.”]

The name is a form of Kalinga, a very ancient name for the region known as the “Northern Circars,” (q.v.), i.e. the Telugu coast of the Bay of Bengal, or, to express it otherwise in general terms, for that coast which extends from the Kistna to the Mahanadi. “The Kalingas” also appear frequently, after the Pauranic fashion, as an ethnic name in the old Sanskrit lists of races. Kalinga ap pears in the earliest of Ind ian inscriptions, viz. in the edicts of Asoka, and specifically in that famous edict (XIII.) remaining in fragments at Girnar and Kapurdi-giri, and more completely at Khalsi, which preserves the link, almost unique from the Indian side, connecting the histories of India and of the Greeks, by recording the names of Antiochus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, and Alexander.

Kalinga is a kingdom constantly mentioned in the Buddhist and historical legends of Ceylon; and we find commemoration of the kingdom of Kalinga and of the capital city of Kalinganagara (e.g. in Ind. Antiq. iii. 152, x. 243). It was from a daughter of a King of Kalinga that sprang, according to the Mahawanso, the famous