Chapter PINE-APPLE. to PISANG of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

fits and other diseases, especially in women.”—F. Buchanan’s Mysore, iii. 17.

1816.—“Whirlwinds … at the end of March, and beginning of April, carry dust and light things along with them, and are called by the natives peshashes or devils.”—Asiatic Journal, ii. 367.

1819.—“These demons or peisaches are the usual attendants of Shiva.”—Erskine on Elephanta, in Bo. Lit. Soc. Trans. i. 219.

1827.—“As a little girl was playing round me one day with her white frock over her head, I laughingly called her Pisashee, the name which the Indians give to their white devil. The child was delighted with so fine a name, and ran about the house crying out to every one she met, I am the Pisashee, I am the Pisashee. Would she have done so, had she been wrapt in black, and called witch or devil instead? No: for, as usual, the reality was nothing, the sound and colour everything.”—J. C. Hare, in Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1st Series, ed. 1838, p. 7.

PISANG, s. This is the Malay word for plantain or banana (q.q.v.). It is never used by English people, but is the usual word among the Dutch, and common also among the Germans, [Norwegians and Swedes, who probably got it through the Dutch.]

1651.—“Les Cottewaniens vendent des fruits, come du Pisang, &c.”—A. Roger, La Porte Ouverte, p. 11.

c. 1785.—“Nous arrivâmes au grand village de Colla, où nous vîmes de belles allées de bananiers ou pisang. …”—Haafner, ii. 85

[1875.—“Of the pisang or plantain … there are over thirty kinds, of which, the Pisang-mas, or golden plantain, so named from its colour, though one of the smallest, is nevertheless most deservedly prized.”—Thomson, The Straits of Malacca, 8.]