Chapter ANANAS of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ses admirables qualitez.”—P. Du Tertre, Hist. Gén. des Antilles Habitées par les François, ii. 127.

1668.—“Standing by his Majesty at dinner in the Presence, there was of that rare fruit call’d the King-pine, grown in the Barbadoes and the West indies, the first of them I have ever seene. His Majesty having cut it up was pleas’d to give me a piece off his owne plate to taste of, but in my opinion it falls short of those ravishing varieties of deliciousness describ’d in Capt. Ligon’s history and others.”—Evelyn, July 19.

1673.—“The fruit the English call Pine-Apple (the Moors Ananas) because of the Resemblance.”—Fryer, 182.

1716.—“I had more reason to wonder that night at the King’s table” (at Hanover) “to see a present from a gentleman of this country.… what I thought, worth all the rest, two ripe Ananasses, which to my taste are a fruit perfectly delicious. You know they are naturally the growth of the Brazil, and I could not imagine how they came here but by enchantment.”—Lady M. W. Montagu, Letter XIX.

1727.—

“Oft in humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp;
Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride
Of vegetable life, beyond whate’er
The poets imaged in the golden age.”

Thomson, Summer.

The poet here gives the word an unusual form and accent.

c. 1730.—“They (the Portuguese) cultivate the skirts of the hills, and grow the best products, such as sugar-cane, pine-apples, and rice.”—Khafi Khan, in Elliot, vii. 345.

A curious question has been raised regarding the ananas, similar to that discussed under CUSTARD-APPLE, as in the existence of the pine-apple to the Old World, before the days of Columbus.

In Prof. Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies (i. 578), it is stated in reference to ancient Assyria: “Fruits .… were highly prized; amongst those of most repute were pomegranates, grapes, citrons, and apparently pine-apples.” A foot-note adds: “The representation is so exact that I can hardly doubt the pine-apple being intended. Mr Layard expresses himself on this point with some hesitation (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 338).” The cut given is something like the conventional figure of a pine-apple, though it seems to us by no means very exact as such. Again, in Winter Jones’s tr. of Conti (c. 1430) in India in the 15th Century, the traveller, speaking of a place called Panconia (read Pauconia apparently Pegu) is made to say: “they have pine-apples, oranges, chestnuts, melons, but small and green, white sandal-wood and camphor.”

We cannot believe that in either place the object intended was the Ananas, which has carried that American name with it round the world. Whatever the Assyrian representation was intended for, Conti seems to have stated, in the words pinus habent (as it runs in Poggio’s Latin) merely that they had pine-trees. We do not understand on what ground the translator introduced pine-apples. If indeed any fruit was meant, it might have been that of the screw-pine, which though not eaten might perhaps have been seen in the bazars of Pegu, as it is used for some economical purposes. But pinus does not mean a fruit at all. ‘Pine-cones’ even would have been expressed by pineas or the like. [A reference to Mr L. W. King was thus answered: “The identity of the tree with the date-palm is, I believe, acknowledged by all naturalists who have studied the trees on the Assyrian monuments, and the ‘cones’ held by the winged figures have obviously some connection with the trees. I think it was Prof. Tylor of Oxford (see Academy, June 8, 1886, p. 283) who first identified the ceremony with the fertilization of the palm, and there is much to be said for his suggestion. The date-palm was of very great use to the Babylonians and Assyrians, for it furnished them with food, drink, and building materials, and this fact would explain the frequent repetition on the Assyrian monuments of the ceremony of fertilisation. On the other hand, there is no evidence, so far as I know, that the pine-apple was extensively grown in Assyria.” Also see Maspero, Dawn of Civ. 556 seq.; on the use of the pine-cone in Greece, Fraser, Pausanias, iii. 65.]