Chapter PATTAMAR to PAWL of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

PATTAMAR to PAWL

PATTAMAR, PATIMAR, &c. This word has two senses:

a. A foot-runner, a courier. In this use the word occurs only in the older writers, especially Portuguese.

b. A kind of lateen-rigged ship, with one, two, or three masts, common on the west coast. This sense seems to be comparatively modern. In both senses the word is perhaps the Konkani path-mar, ‘a courier.’ C. P. Brown, however, says that patta- mar, applied to a vessel, is Malayal. signifying “goose-wing.” Molesworth’s Mahr. Dict. gives both patemari and phatemari for “a sort of swift-sailing vessel, a pattymar,” with the etym. “tidings-bringer.” Patta is ‘tidings,’ but the second part of the word so derived is not clear. Sir. J. M. Campbell, who is very accurate, in the Bo. Gazetteer writes of the vessel as patimar, though identifying, as we have done, both uses with pathmar, ‘courier.’ The Moslem, he says, write phatemari quasi fathh-mar, ‘snake of victory’ (?). [The Madras Gloss. gives Mal. pattamari, Tam. pattimar, from patar, Hind. ‘tidings’ (not in Platts), mari, Mahr. ‘carrier.’] According to a note in Notes and Extracts, No. 1 (Madras, 1871), p. 27, under a Ft. St. Geo. Consultation of July 4, 1673; Pattamar is therein used “for a native vessel on the Coromandel Coast, though now confined to the Western Coast.” We suspect a misapprehension. For in the following entry we have no doubt that the parenthetical gloss is wrong, and that couriers are meant:

“A letter sent to the President and Councell at Surratt by a Pair of Pattamars (native craft) express.…”—Op. cit. No. ii. p. 8. [On this word see further Sir H. Yule’s note on Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 165.]


a.— 1552.—“…But Lorenço de Brito, seeing things come to such a pass that certain Captains of the King (of Cananor) with troops chased him to the gates, he wrote to the Viceroy of the position in which he was by Patamares, who are men that make great journeys by land.”—De Barros, II. i. 5.

The word occurs repeatedly in Correa, Lendas, e.g. III. i. 108, 149, &c.

1598.—“…There are others that are called Patamares, which serue onlie for Messengers or Posts, to carie letters from place to place by land in winter-time when men cannot travaile by sea.”—Linschoten, 78; [Hak. Soc. i. 260, and see ii. 165].

1606.—“The eight and twentieth, a Pattemar told that the Governor was a friend to us only in shew, wishing the Portugalls in our roome; for we did no good in the Country, but brought Wares which they were forced to buy.…”—Roger Hawes, in Purchas, i. 605.

[1616.—“The Patamar (for so in this country they call poor footmen that are letter-bearers).…”—Foster, Letters, iv. 227.]

1666.—“Tranquebar, qui est eloigné de Saint Thomé de cinq journées d’un Courier à pié, qu’on appelle Patamar.”—Thevenot, v. 275.

1673.—“After a month’s Stay here a Patamar (a Foot Post) from Fort St. George made us sensible of the Dutch being gone from thence to Ceylon.”—Fryer, 36.

[1684.—“The Pattamars that went to Codaloor by reason of the deepness of the Rivers were forced to Return.…”—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 133.]

1689.—“A Pattamar, i.e. a Foot Messenger, is generally employ’d to carry them (letters) to the remotest Bounds of the Empire.”—Ovington, 251.

1705.—“Un Patemare qui est un homme du Pais; c’est ce que nous appellons un exprès.…”—Luillier, 43.

1758.—“Yesterday returned a Pattamar or express to our Jew merchant from Aleppo, by the way of the Desert.…”—Ives, 297.

c. 1760.—“Between Bombay and Surat there is a constant intercourse preserved, not only by sea…but by Pattamars, or foot-messengers overland.”—Grose, i. 119. This is the last instance we have met of the word in this sense, which is now quite unknown to Englishmen.

b.—

1600.—“…Escrevia que hum barco pequeno, dos que chamam patamares, se meteria.…”—Lucena, Vida do P. F. Xavier, 185.

[1822.—“About 12 o’clock on the same night they embarked in Paddimars for Cochin.”—Wallace, Fifteen Years, 206.]

1834.—A description of the Patamárs, with a plate, is given in Mr. John Edye’s paper on Indian coasting vessels, in vol. i. of the R. As. Soc. Journal.

1860.—“Among the vessels at anchor lie the dows (see DHOW) of the Arabs, the petamares of Malabar, and the dhoneys (see DONEY) of Coromandel.”—Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 103.

PATTELLO, PATELLEE, s. A large flat-bottomed boat on the Ganges; Hind. patela. [Mr. Grierson gives among the Behar boats “the pateli or pataili, also called in Saran katra, on which the boards forming the sides overlap and are not joined edge to edge,” with an illustration (Bihar Peasant Life, 42).]

[1680.—“The Patella; the boats that come down from Pattana with Saltpeeter or other goods, built of an Exceeding Strength and are very flatt and burthensome.”—Yule, Hedges’ Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. 15.]

1685.—“We came to a great Godowne, where…this Nabob’s Son has laid in a vast quantity of Salt, here we found