Chapter PANDY to PANGOLIN of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

PANDY to PANGOLIN

PANDY, s. The most current colloquial name for the Sepoy mutineer during 1857–58. The surname Pande [Skt. Pandita] was a very common one among the high-caste Sepoys of the Bengal army, being the title of a Jto [got, gotra] or subdivisional branch of the Brahmins of the Upper Provinces, which furnished many men to the ranks. “The first two men hung” (for mutiny) “at Barrackpore were Pandies by caste, hence all sepoys were Pandies, and ever will be so called” (Bourchier, as below). “In the Bengal army before the Mutiny, there was a person employed in the quarter-guard to strike the gong, who was known as the gunta Pandy” (M.-G. Keatinge). Ghanta, ‘a gong or bell.’

1857.—“As long as I feel the entire confidence I do, that we shall triumph over this iniquitous combination, I cannot feel gloom. I leave this feeling to the Pandies, who have sacrificed honour and existence to the ghost of a delusion.”—H. Greathed, Letters during the Siege of Delhi, 99.

„ “We had not long to wait before the line of guns, howitzers, and mortar carts, chiefly drawn by elephants, soon hove in sight. … Poor Pandy, what a pounding was in store for you! …”—Bourchier, Eight Months’ Campaign against the Bengal Sepoy Army, 47.

PANGARA, PANGAIA, s. From the quotations, a kind of boat used on the E. coast of Africa. [Pyrard de Laval (i. 53, Hak. Soc.) speaks of a “kind of raft called a panguaye,” on which Mr. Gray comments: “As Rivara points out, Pyrard mistakes the use of the word panguaye, or, as the Portuguese write it, pangaio, which was a small sailing canoe. … Rivara says the word is still used in Portuguese India and Africa for a two-masted barge with lateen sails. It is mentioned in Lancaster’s Voyages (Hak. Soc. pp. 5, 6, and 26), where it is described as being like a barge with one mat sail of coco-nut leaves. ‘The barge is sowed together with the rindes of trees and pinned with wooden pinnes.’ See also Alb. Comm. Hak. Soc. iii. p. 60, note; and Dr. Burnell’s note to Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. p. 32, where it appears that the word is used as early as 1505, in Dom Manoel’s letter.”]

[1513.—Pandejada and Panguagada are used for a sort of boat near Malacca in D’Andrade’s Letter to Alboquerque of 22 Feby.; and we have “a Pandejada laden with supplies and arms” in India Office MS., Corpo Chronologico, vol. i.]

1591.—“… divers Pangaras or boates, which are pinned with wooden pinnes, and sowed together with Palmito cordes.”—Barker, in Hakluyt, ii. 588.

1598.—“In this fortresse of Sofala the Captaine of Mossambique hath a Factor, and twice or thrice every yere he sendeth certaine boats called Pangaios, which saile along the shore to fetch gold, and bring it to Mossambique. These Pangaios are made of light planks, and sowed together with cords, without any nailes.”—Linschoten, ch. 4; [Hak. Soc. i. 32].

1616.—“Each of these bars, of Quilimane, Cumama, and Luabo, allows of the entrance of vessels of 100 tons, viz., galeots and pangaios, loaded with cloth and provisions; and when they enter the river they discharge cargo into other light and very long boats called almadias. …”—Bocarro, Decada, 534.

[1766.—“Their larger boats, called panguays, are raised some feet from the sides with reeds and branches of trees, well bound together with small-cord, and afterwards made water-proof, with a kind of bitumen, or resinous substance.”—Grose, 2nd ed. ii. 13.]

PANGOLIN, s. This book-name for the Manis is Malay Pangulang, ‘the creature that rolls itself up.’ [Scott says: “The Malay word is peng-goling, transcribed also pengguling; Katingan pengiling. It means ‘roller,’ or, more literally, ‘roll up.’ The word is formed from goling, ‘roll, wrap,’ with the denominative prefix pe-, which takes before g the form peng.” Mr. Skeat remarks that the modern Malay form is teng-giling or senggiling, but the latter seems to be used, not for the Manis, but for a kind of centipede which rolls itself up. “The word pangolin, to judge by its form, should be derived from guling, which means to ‘roll over and over.’ The word pangguling or pengguling in the required sense of Manis, does not exist in standard Malay. The word was either derived from some out-of-the-way dialect, or was due to some misunderstanding on the part of the Europeans who first adopted it.” Its use in English begins with Pennant (Synopsis of Quadrupeds, 1771, p. 329). Adam Burt gives a dissection of the animal in Asiat. Res. ii. 353 seqq.] It is the Manis pentedactyla of Linn.; called in Hind. bajrkit (i.e. Skt. vajrakita ‘adamant reptile’). We have sometimes thought that the Manis might have been the creature which was shown as a gold-digging ant (see Busbeck below); was not this also the creature that Bertrandon de la Brocquière met with in the desert of Gaza? When pursued, “it began to cry like a cat at the approach of a dog. Pierre de la Vaudrei struck it on the back with the point of his sword, but it did no harm, from