Chapter BABOON to BADJOE of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

16th century. This word first occurs in the letters of St. Francis Xavier (1544), whose Parava converts on the Tinnevelly Coast were much oppressed by these people. The Badega language of Lucena, and other writers regarding that time, is the Telegu. The Badaga s of St. Fr. Xavier’s time were in fact the emissaries of the Nayaka rulers of Madura, using violence to exact tribute for those rulers, whilst the Portuguese had conferred on the Paravas “the somewhat dangerous privilege of being Portuguese subjects.”—See Caldwell, H. of Tinnevelly, 69 seqq.

1544.—“Ego ad Comorinum Promontorium contendo eòque naviculas deduco xx. cibariis onustas, ut miseris illis subveniam Neophytis, qui Bagadarum (read Badagarum) acerrimorum Christiani nominis hostium terrore perculsi, relictis vicis, in desertas insulas se abdiderunt.”—S. F. Xav. Epistt. I. vi., ed. 1677.

1572.—“Gens est in regno Bisnagae quos Badagas vocant.”—E. Acosta, 4 b.

1737.—“In eâ parte missionis Carnatensis in quâ Telougou, ut aiunt, lingua viget, seu inter Badagos, quinque annos versatus sum; neque quamdiu viguerunt vires ab illâ dilectissimâ et sanctissimâ Missione Pudecherium veni.”—In Norbert, iii. 230.

1875.—“Mr C. P. Brown informs me that the early French missionaries in the Guntur country wrote a vocabulary ‘de la langue Talenga, dite vulgairement le Badega.”—Bp. Caldwell, Dravidian Grammar, Intr. p. 33.

b. To one of the races occupying the Nilgiri Hills, speaking an old Canarese dialect, and being apparently a Canarese colony, long separated from the parent stock.—(See Bp. Caldwell’s Grammar, 2nd ed., pp. 34, 125, &c.) [The best recent account of this people is that by Mr Thurston in Bulletin of the Madras Museum, vol. ii. No. 1.] The name of these people is usually in English corrupted to Burghers.

BADGEER, s. P. bad-gir, ‘wind-catch.’ An arrangement acting as a windsail to bring the wind down into a house; it is common in Persia and in Sind. [It is the Badhanj of Arabia, and the Malkaf of Egypt (Burton, Ar. Nights, i. 237; Lane, Mod. Egypt, i. 23.]

1298.—“The heat is tremendous (at Hormus), and on that account the houses are built with ventilators (ventiers) to catch the wind. These ventilators are placed on the side from which the wind comes, and they bring the wind down into the house to cool it.”—Marco Polo, ii. 450.

[1598.—A similar arrangement at the same place is described by Linschoten, i. 51, Hak. Soc.]

1682.—At Gamron (Gombroon) “most of the houses have a square tower which stands up far above the roof, and which in the upper part towards the four winds has ports and openings to admit air and catch the wind, which plays through these, and ventilates the whole house. In the heat of summer people lie at night at the bottom of these towers, so as to get good rest.”—Nieuhof, Zee en Lant-Reize, ii. 79.

[1798.—“The air in it was continually refreshed and renewed by a cool-sail, made like a funnel, in the manner of M. du Hamel.”—Stavorinus, Voyage, ii. 104.]

1817.

“The wind-tower on the Emir’s dome
Can scarcely win a breath from heaven.”

Moore, Fire-worshippers.

1872.—“…. Badgirs or windcatchers. You see on every roof these diminutive screens of wattle and dab, forming acute angles with the hatches over which they project. Some are moveable, so as to be turned to the S.W. between March and the end of July, when the monsoon sets in from that quarter.”—Burton’s Sind Revisited, 254.

1881.—“A number of square turrets stick up all over the town; these are badgirs or ventilators, open sometimes to all the winds, sometimes only to one or two, and divided inside like the flues of a great chimney, either to catch the draught, or to carry it to the several rooms below.”—Pioneer Mail, March 8th.

BADJOE, BAJOO, s. The Malay jacket (Mal. baju) [of which many varieties are described by Dennys (Disc. Dict. p. 107)].

[c. 1610.—“The women (Portuguese) take their ease in their smocks or Bajus, which are more transparent and fine than the most delicate crape of those parts.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 112.]

1784.—“Over this they wear the badjoo, which resembles a morning gown, open at the neck, but fastened close at the wrist, and half-way up the arm.”—Marsden, H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed. 44.

1878.—“The general Malay