Chapter ORANG-OTANG to ORANKAY of O by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ORANG-OTANG to ORANKAY

ORANG-OTANG, ORANG-OUTAN, &c. s. The great man-like ape of Sumatra and Borneo; Simia Satyrus, L. This name was first used by Bontius (see below). It is Malay, orang-utan, ‘homo sylvaticus.’ The proper name of the animal in Borneo is mias. Crawfurd says that it is never called orang-utan by ‘the natives.’ But that excellent writer is often too positive—especially in his negatives! Even if it be not (as is probable) anywhere a recognised specific name, it is hardly possible that the name should not be sometimes applied popularly. We remember a tame hooluck belonging to a gentleman in E. Bengal, which was habitually known to the natives as jangli admi, literally=orang-utan. [There seems reason to believe that Crawfurd was right after all. Mr. Scott (Malayan Words in English, p. 87) writes: “But this particular application of orang utan to the ape does not appear to be, or ever to have been, familiar to the Malays generally; Crawfurd (1852) and Swettenham (1889) omit it, Pijnappel says it is ‘Low Malay,’ and Klinkert (1893) denies the use entirely. This uncertainty is explained by the limited area in which the animal exists within even native observation. Mr. Wallace could find no natives in Sumatra who ‘had ever heard of such an animal,’ and no ‘Dutch officials who knew anything about it.’ Then the name came to European knowledge more than 260 years ago; in which time probably more than one Malay name has faded out of general use or wholly disappeared, and many other things have happened.” Mr. Skeat writes: “I believe Crawfurd is absolutely right in saying that it is never called orang-utan by the natives. It is much more likely to have been a sailor’s mistake or joke than an error on the part of the Malays who know better. Throughout the Peninsula orang-utan is the name applied to the wild tribes, and though the mawas or mias is known to the Malays only by tradition, yet in tradition the two are never confused, and in those islands where the mawas does exist he is never called orang-utan, the word orang being reserved exclusively to describe the human species.”]

1631.—“Loqui vero eos easque posse Iavani aiunt, sed non velle, ne ad labores cogantur; ridicule mehercules. Nomen ei induunt Ourang Outang, quod ‘hominem silvae’ significat, eosque nasci affirmant e libidine mulierum Indarum, quae se Simiis et Cercopithecis detestanda libidine uniunt.”—Bontii, Hist. Nat. v. cap. 32, p. 85.

1668.—“Erat autem hic satyrus quadrupes: sed ab humanâ specie quam prae se fert, vocatur Indis Ourang-outang: sive homo silvestris.”—Licetus de Monstris, 338.

[1701.—“Orang-outang sive Homo Sylvestris: or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man.…”—Title of work by E. Tyson (Scott).]

1727.—“As there are many species of wild Animals in the Woods (of Java) there is one in particular called the Ouran-Outang.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 131; [ed. 1744, ii. 136].

1783.—“Were we to be driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to tell that it had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by any thing better than the ourang-outang or the tiger.”—Burke, Sp. on Fox’s E. India Bill, Works, ed. 1852, iii. 468.

1802.—“Man, therefore, in a state of nature, was, if not the ourang-outang of the forests and mountains of Asia and Africa at the present day, at least an animal of the same family, and very nearly resembling it.”—Ritson, Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, pp. 13–14.

1811.—“I have one slave more, who was given me in a present by the Sultan of Pontiana.…This gentleman is Lord Monboddo’s genuine Orang-outang, which in the Malay language signifies literally wild man.…Some people think seriously that the oran-outang was the original patriarch and progenitor of the whole Malay race.”—Lord Minto, Diary in India, 268–9.

1868.—“One of my chief objects…was to see the Orang-utan…in his native haunts.”—Wallace, Malay Archip. 39.

In the following passage the term is applied to a tribe of men:

1884.—“The Jacoons belong to one of the wild aboriginal tribes…they are often styled Orang Utan, or men of the forest.”—Cavenagh, Rem. of an Indian Official, 293.

ORANKAY, ARANGKAIO, &c. s. Malay Orang kaya. In the Archipelago, a person of distinction, a chief or noble, corresponding to the Indian omrah; literally ‘a rich man,’ analogous therefore to the use of riche-homme by Joinville and other old French authors. [Mr. Skeat notes that the terminal o in arangkaio represents a dialectical form used in Sumatra and Java. The Malay leader of the Pahang rising in 1891–2, who was supposed to bear a charmed life, was called by the title of Orang Kaya Pahlawan (see PULWAUN).] c. 1612.—“The Malay officers of state are classified as 1. Bandahara; 2. Ferdana Mantri; 3. Punghulu Bandari; 4. the chief Hulubalang or champion (see OOLOO-BALLONG); 5. the Paramantris; 6. Orang Kayas; 7. Chatriyas (Kshatriyas); 8. Seda Sidahs; 9. Bentaras or heralds; 10. Hulubalangs.”—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 246.

1613.—“The nobler Orancayas spend their time in pastimes and recreations,