Chapter MAMLUTDAR to MANDARIN of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MAMLUTDAR to MANDARIN

MAMLUTDAR, s. P.—H. mu’amalatdar (from Ar. mu’amala, ‘affairs, business’), and in Mahr. mamlatdar. Chiefly used in Western India. Formerly it was the designation, under various native governments, of the chief civil officer of a district, and is now in the Bombay Presidency the title of a native civil officer in charge of a Talook, corresponding nearly to the Tahseeldar of a pergunna in the Bengal Presidency, but of a status somewhat more important.

[1826.—“I now proceeded to the Maamulut-dar, or farmer of the district.…”— Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 42.]

MAMOOL, s.; MAMOOLEE, adj. Custom, Customary. Ar.—H. ma’mul. The literal meaning is ‘practised,’ and then ‘established, customary.’ Ma’mul is, in short, ‘precedent,’ by which all Orientals set as much store as English lawyers, e.g. “And Laban said, It must not so be done in our country (lit. It is not so done in our place) to give the younger before the firstborn.”—Genesis xxix. 26.

MAMOOTY, MAMOTY, MOMATTY, s. A digging tool of the form usual all over India, i.e. not in the shape of a spade, but in that of a hoe, with the helve at an acute angle with the blade. [See FOWRA.] The word is of S. Indian origin, Tamil manvetti, ‘earth-cutter’; and its vernacular use is confined to the Tamil regions, but it has long been an established term in the list of ordnance stores all over India, and thus has a certain prevalence in Anglo-Indian use beyond these limits.

[1782.—“He marched … with two battalions of sepoys … who were ordered to make a show of entrenching themselves with mamuties.…”—Letter of Ld. Macartney, in Forrest, Selections, iii. 855.]

[1852.—“… by means of a mometty or hatchet, which he ran and borrowed from a husbandman … this fellow dug … a reservoir.…”—Neale, Narrative of Residence in Siam, 138.]

MANCHUA, s. A large cargo boat, with a single mast and a square sail, much used on the Malabar coast. This is the Portuguese form; the original Malayalam word is manji, [manchi, Skt. mancha, ‘a cot,’ so called apparently from its raised platform for cargo,] and nowadays a nearer approach to this, manjee, &c., is usual.

c. 1512.—“So he made ready two manchuas, and one night got into the house of the King, and stole from him the most beautiful woman that he had, and, along with her, jewels and a quantity of money.” —Correa, i. 281.

1525.—“Quatro lancharas (q.v.) grandes e seis qualaluzes (see CALALUZ) e manchuas que se remam muyto.”—Lembrança das Cousas de India, p. 8.

1552.—“Manchuas que sam navios de remo.”—Castanheda, ii. 362.

c. 1610.—“Il a vne petite Galiote, qu’ils appellent Manchouës, fort bien couverte … et faut huit ou neuf hommes seulement pour la mener.”—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 26; [Hak. Soc. ii. 42].

[1623.—“… boats which they call Maneive, going with 20 or 24 Oars.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 211; Mancina in ii. 217.

[1679.—“I commanded the shibbars and manchuas to keepe a little ahead of me.”— Yule, Hedges’ Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. clxxxiv.]

1682.—“Ex hujusmodi arboribus excavatis naviculas Indi conficiunt, quas Mansjoas appellant, quarum nonullae longitudine 80, latitudine 9 pedum mensuram superant.”— Rheede, Hort. Malabar, iii. 27.

[1736.—“All ships and vessels … as well as the munchuas appertaining to the Company’s officers.”—Treaty, in Logan, Malabar, ii. 31.

MANDADORE, s. Port. mandador, ‘one who commands.’

1673.—“Each of which Tribes have a Mandadore or Superintendent.”—Fryer, 67.

MANDALAY, MANDALÉ, n.p. The capital of the King of Burmah, founded in 1860, 7 miles north of the preceding capital Amarapura, and between 2 and 3 miles from the left bank of the Irawadi. The name was taken from that of a conical isolated hill, rising high above the alluvial plain of the Irawadi, and crowned by a gilt pagoda. The name of the hill (and now of the city at its base) probably represents Mandara, the sacred mountain which in Hindu mythology served the gods as a churning-staff at the churning of the sea. The hill appears as Mandiye-taung in Major Grant Allan’s Map of the Environs of Amarapura (1855), published in the Narrative of Major Phayre’s Mission, but the name does not occur in the Narrative itself. [1860.—See the account of Mandelay in Mason, Burmah, 14 seqq.]

1861.—“Next morning the