Chapter MANGROVE to MARAMUT of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MANGROVE to MARAMUT

MANGROVE, s. The sea-loving genera Rhizophora and Avicennia derive this name, which applies to both, from some happy accident, but from which of two sources may be doubtful. For while the former genus is, according to Crawfurd, called by the Malays manggi-manggi, a term which he supposes to be the origin of the English name, we see from Oviedo that one or other was called mangle in S. America, and in this, which is certainly the origin of the French manglier, we should be disposed also to seek the derivation of the English word. Both genera are universal in the tropical tidal estuaries of both Old World and New. Prof. Sayce, by an amusing slip, or oversight probably of somebody else’s slip, quotes from Humboldt that “maize, mangle, hammock, canoe, tobacco, are all derived through the medium of the Spanish from the Haytian mahiz, mangle, hamaca, canoa, and tabaco.” It is, of course, the French and not the English mangle that is here in question. [Mr. Skeat observes: “I believe the old English as well as French form was mangle, in which case Prof. Sayce would be perfectly right. Mangrove is probably mangle-grove. The Malay manggi-manggi is given by Klinkert, and is certainly on account of the reduplication, native. But I never heard it in the Peninsula, where mangrove is always called bakau.”] The mangrove abounds on nearly all the coasts of further India, and also on the sea margin of the Ganges Delta, in the backwaters of S. Malabar, and less luxuriantly on the Indus mouths.

1535.—“Of the Tree called Mangle.… These trees grow in places of mire, and on the shores of the sea, and of the rivers, and streams, and torrents that run into the sea. They are trees very strange to see … they grow together in vast numbers, and many of their branches seem to turn down and change into roots … and these plant themselves in the ground like stems, so that the tree looks as if it had many legs joining one to the other.”—Oriedo, in Ramusio, iii. f. 145c.

„ “So coming to the coast, embarked in a great Canoa with some 30 Indians, and 5 Christians, whom he took with him, and coasted along amid solitary places and islets, passing sometimes into the sea itself for 4 or 5 leagues,—among certain trees, lofty, dense and green, which grow in the very sea-water, and which they call mangle.”— Ibid. f. 224.

1553.—“.… by advice of a Moorish pilot, who promised to take the people by night to a place where water could be got … and either because the Moor desired to land many times on the shore by which he was conducting them, seeking to get away from the hands of those whom he was conducting, or because he was really perplext by its being night, and in the middle of a great growth of mangrove (mangues) he never succeeded in finding the wells of which he spoke.”—Barros, I. iv. 4.

c. 1830.—“ ‘Smite my timbers, do the trees bear shellfish?’ The tide in the Gulf of Mexico does not ebb and flow above two feet except in the springs, and the ends of the drooping branches of the mangrove trees that here cover the shore, are clustered, within the wash of the water, with a small well-flavoured oyster.”—Tom Cringle, ed. 1863, 119.

MANILLA-MAN, s. This term is applied to natives of the Philippines, who are often employed on shipboard, and especially furnish the quarter-masters (Seacunny, q.v.) in Lascar crews on the China voyage. But Manilla-man seems also, from Wilson, to be used in S. India as a hybrid from Telug. manela vadu, ‘an itinerant dealer in coral and gems’; perhaps in this sense, as he says, from Skt. mani, ‘a jewel,’ but with some blending also of the Port. manilha, ‘a bracelet.’ (Compare COBRA-MANILLA.)

MANJEE, s. The master, or steersman, of a boat or any native river-craft; Hind. manjhi, Beng. maji and majhi, [all from Skt. madhya, ‘one who stands in the middle’]. The word is also a title borne by the head men among the Paharis or Hill-people of Rajmahal (Wilson), [and as equivalent for Majhwar, the name of an important Dravidian tribe on the borders of the N.W. Provinces and Chota Nagpur].

1683.—“We were forced to track our boat till 4 in the Afternoon, when we saw a great black cloud arise out of ye North with much lightning and thunder, which made our Mangee or Steerman advise us to fasten our boat in some Creeke.”—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 88.

[1706.—“Manjee.” See under HARRY.]

1781.—“This is to give notice that the principal Gaut Mangies of Calcutta have entered into engagements at the Police Office to supply all Persons that apply there with Boats and Budgerows, and to give security for the Dandies.”—India Gazette, Feb. 17.

1784.—“Mr. Austin and his head bearer, who were both in the room of the budgerow, are the only persons known to be drowned. The manjee and dandees have not appeared.”—In Seton-Karr, i. 25.

1810.—“Their manjies will not fail to take every advantage of whatever distress, or difficulty, the passenger may labour under.”—Williamson, V.M. i. 148.

For the Pahari