A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and adjacent countries

A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and adjacent countries
John Crawfurd
London
1856
Abaca. This is the Musa textilis of Botanists, a species of banana, a native of the Philippine and of some of the more northerly of the Molucca Islands. On account of its filaments it is extensively cultivated in the first of these, particularly in the provinces of Camarines, and Albay in the great island of Luzon, and in several of the Bisaya Islands, or range lying south and east of it. The name abaca belongs to the Tagala and Bisaya tongues, but is not the generic name of the banana in either of them. By the Spaniards of the Philippines the plant is known under the name of arbol de canamo, or the hemp tree, from which, no doubt, is derived our own commercial one for the filament “Manilla hemp” The abaca, like other bananas, is propagated easily by the suckers which spring up at the roots of the old plant when it dies. A measure of 5000 square yards of land will grow 1000 abaca plants. It grows to the height of 13 or 14 feet exclusive of the leaves. The fruit is small, of disagreeable taste, and nor edible.

Абака. Ботаническое название Musa textilis, разновидность банана, Её родина Филиппины и те из Молуккских островов, которые расположены севернее. Ради волокон её широко культивируют на первых, особенно в Камаринских областях и в провинции Албай на большом острове Лусон и на некоторых из Бисайских островов, то есть к югу и к востоку от него. Название абака происходит из тагальского и себуанского языков, но не является родовым названием банана ни в одном из них. Испанцам на Филиппинах растение известно под названием arbol de cáñamo, или конопля, от которого, без сомнения, произошло наше собственное коммерческое название для этих волокон «манильская конопля» [не имеет отношения к истинной конопле.См. "abaca." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Deluxe Edition. (2010).]. Абака, подобно другим бананам, легко размножается отростками, которые появляются на корнях старого растения, когда оно умирает. Пять тысяч квадратных ярдов земли дают 1000 растений абаки. Оно достигает высоты 13 или 14 футов, не считая листьев. Плод маленький, неприятного вкуса и несъедобен.

BIRD OF PARADISE, the Burung-dewata and Manuk-dewata of the Indian islanders. Burung is "a bird or fowl" in Malay; and manuk, a word that has had a wider dissemination, the same thing in Javanese. Dewata is the Sanscrit for the gods of the Hindus. The word, of course, signifies "bird of the gods," of which the European name is, no doubt, a paraphrase. These appellations were given, not by the people of the countries in which the birds of Paradise are indigenous, but by the Malay and Javanese traders who conducted the commercial intercourse between the eastern and western parts of the Archipelago before the arrival of Europeans. In one of the many languages of New Guinea, the chief country of the birds of Paradise, they, or more likely the best known species of the family, we are informed by the naturalist Lesson, is called Mambefore.
Five different species of birds of Paradise have been described by naturalists, who, instead of ascribing any divine attributes to them, place them in the rather obscene family of crows. All these Species are prepared for the market by the natives of the racing countries, who are chiefly the negroes of New Guinea and the islands near it. Birds of Paradise most have been found by the Portuguese on their conquest of Malacca in 1511, brought to that emporium by the Malay and Javanese merchants for the markets of China. At all events, they must have seen them on their arrival in the Moluccas in the same year, or the beginning of the following. But the earliest account we have of them is that given by Pigafetta, who was at the Moluccas ten years after the Portuguese had reached them. His description, taken from the publication of the original manuscript published in 1800, is as follows : "They gave us also for the king of Spain, two moat beautiful dead birds. These birds are about the size of thrushes. They have a small head and a long bill; legs fine as a writing quill, a palm long. They have no wings, but in their stead, long feathers of various colours like great plumes. The tail resembles that of the thrush. All the feathers, except those of the wings, are of a dark colour (scuro). They never fly, except when the wind blows. They told us that these birds came from the terrestrial paradise, and they called them bolondinata (burung-diwata), that is, ' birds of God.' It is probable, from this account, that the birds of Paradise sent by the king of Tidor, one of the five Moluccas, to Charles she Fifth, was not the great emerald bird with which we are most familiar, but one of those which are natives of the Moluccas. At present, the principal emporium for these birds to the East is the A roe Islands; and to the west. Batavia and Singapore, being brought to the two last by the praus of the Bugis of Celebes.