Chapter TAMARIND-FISH to TANGA of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

piece called tanka is 2½ dinars in gold of Barbary.”—Ibn Batuta, iii. 426. (Here the gold tanga is spoken of.)

c. 1370.—“Sultán Fíroz issued several varieties of coins. There was the gold tanka, and the silver tanka.” &c.—Taríkh-i-Fíroz Sháhí, in Elliot, iii. 357.

1404.—“ … vna sua moneda de plata que llaman Tangaes.”—Clavijo, f. 46b.

1516.—“ … a round coin like ours, and with Moorish letters on both sides, and about the size of a fanon (see FANAM) of Calicut, … and its worth 55 maravedis; they call these tanga, and they are of very fine silver.”—Barbosa, 45.

[1519.—Rules regulating ferry-dues at Goa: “they may demand for this one tamgua only.”—Archiv. Port. Orient. fasc. 5, p. 18.]

c. 1541.—“Todar … fixed first a golden ashrafi (see ASHRAFEE) as the enormous remuneration for one stone, which induced the Ghakkars to flock to him in such numbers that afterwards a stone was paid with a rupee, and this pay gradually fell to 5 tankas, till the fortress (Rohtas) was completed.”—Táríkh-i-Khán-Jahán Lodí, in Elliot, v. 115. (These are the Bahluli or Sikandari tankas of copper, as are also those in the next quotation from Elliot.)

1559.—“The old Muscovite money is not round but oblong or egg-shaped, and is called denga. … 100 of these coins make a Hungarian gold-piece; 6 dengas make an altin; 20 a grifna; 100 a poltina; and 200 a ruble.”—Herberstein, in Ramusio, ii. f. 158v.

[1571.—“Gujarati tankchahs at 100 tankchahs to the rupee. At the present time the rupee is fixed at 40 dams.… As the current value of the tankchah of Pattan, etc., was less than that of Gujarat.”—Miral-i-Ahmadi, in Bayley, Gujarat, pp. 6, 11.

[1591.—“Dingoes.” See under RUBLE.]

1592–3.—“At the present time, namely, A.H. 1002, Hindustan contains 3200 towns, and upon each town are dependent 200, 500, 1000, or 1500 villages. The whole yields a revenue of 640 krors (see CRORE) murádí tankas.”—Tabakat-i-Akbari, in Elliot, v. 186.

1598.—“There is also a kinde of reckoning of money which is called Tangas, not that there is any such coined, but are so named onely in telling, five Tangas is one Pardaw (see PARDAO), or Xeraphin badde money, for you must understande that in telling they have two kinds of money, good and badde, for foure Tangas good money are as much as five Tangas badde money.”—Linschoten, ch. 35; [Hak. Soc. i. 241].

[c. 1610.—“The silver money of Goa is perdos, larins, Tangues, the last named worth 7 sols, 6 deniers a piece.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 69.]

1615.—“Their moneyes in Persia of silver, are the … the rest of copper, like the Tangas and Pisos (see PICE) of India.”—Richard Steele, in Purchas, i. 543.

[c. 1630.—“There he expended fifty thousand Crow (see CRORE) of tacks … sometimes twenty tack make one Roopee.”—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 64.]

1673.—“Tango.” See under REAS.

[1638.—“Their (at Surat) ordinary way of accompting is by lacs, each of which is worth 100,000 ropias (see RUPEE), and 100

lacs make a crou, or carroa (see CRORE), and 10 carroas make an Areb. A Theil (see TOLA, TAEL) of silver (? gold) makes 11, 12, or 13 ropias ready money. A massa (masha) and a half make a Thiel of silver, 10 whereof make a Thiel of gold. They call their brass and copper-money Tacques.”—Mandelslo, 107.]

c. 1750-60.—“Throughout Malabar and Goa, they use tangas, vintins, and Pardoo (see PARDAO) xeraphin.”—Grose, i. 283. The Goa tanga was worth 60 reis, that of Ormus 62 m 4/3 to 69 m 3/3 reis.

[1753.—In Khiva“ … Tongas, a small piece of copper, of which 1500 are equal to a ducat.”—Hanway, i. 351.]

1815.—“ … one tungah … a coin about the value of fivepence.”—Malcolm, H. of Persia, ii. 250.

[1876.—“ … it seemed strange to me to find that the Russian word for money, denga for dengi, in the form tenga, meant everywhere in Central Asia a coin of twenty kopeks.… ”—Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 153.]