Chapter JACKAL to JADE of J by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

JACKAL to JADE

JACKAL, s. The Canis aureus, L., seldom seen in the daytime, unless it be fighting with the vultures for carrion, but in shrieking multitudes, or rather what seem multitudes from the noise they make, entering the precincts of villages, towns, of Calcutta itself, after dark, and startling the newcomer with their hideous yells. Our word is not apparently Anglo-Indian, being taken from the Turkish chakal. But the Pers. shaghal is close, and Skt. srigala, ‘the howler,’ is probably the first form. The common Hind. word is gidar, [‘the greedy one,’ Skt. gridh]. The jackal takes the place of the fox as the object of hunting ‘meets’ in India; the indigenous fox being too small for sport.

1554.—“Non procul inde audio magnum clamorem et velut hominum irridentium insultantiumque voces. Interrogo quid sit; … narrant mihi ululatum esse bestiarum, quas Turcae Ciacales vocant.…”—Busbeq. Epist. i. p. 78.

1615.—“The inhabitants do nightly house their goates and sheepe for feare of Iaccals (in my opinion no other than Foxes), whereof an infinite number do lurke in the obscure vaults.”—Sandys, Relation, &c., 205.

1616.—“… those jackalls seem to be wild Doggs, who in great companies run up and down in the silent night, much disquieting the peace thereof, by their most hideous noyse.”—Terry, ed. 1665, p. 371.

1653.—“Le schekal est vn espèce de chien sauvage, lequel demeure tout le jour en terre, et sort la nuit criant trois ou quatre fois à certaines heures.”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 254.

1672:—“There is yet another kind of beast which they call Jackhalz; they are horribly greedy of man’s flesh, so the inhabitants beset the graves of their dead with heavy stones.”—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 422.

1673.—“An Hellish concert of Jackals (a kind of Fox).”—Fryer, 53.

1681.—“For here are many Jackalls, which catch their Henes, some Tigres that destroy their Cattle; but the greatest of all is the King; whose endeavour is to keep them poor and in want.”—Knox, Ceylon, 87. On p. 20 he writes Jacols.

1711.—“Jackcalls are remarkable for Howling in the Night; one alone making as much noise as three or four Cur Dogs, and in different Notes, as if there were half a Dozen of them got together.”—Lockyer, 382.

1810.—Colebrooke (Essays, ii. 109, [Life, 155]) spells shakal. But Jackal was already English.

c. 1816.—

“The jackal’s troop, in gather’d cry,
Bayed from afar, complainingly.”

Siege of Corinth, xxxiii.

1880.—“The mention of Jackal-hunting in one of the letters (of Lord Minto) may remind some Anglo- Indians still living, of the days when the Calcutta hounds used to throw off at gun-fire.”—Sat. Rev. Feb. 14.

JACK-SNIPE of English sportsmen is Gallinago gallinula, Linn., smaller than the common snipe, G. scolopacinus, Bonap.

JACKASS COPAL. This is a trade name, and is a capital specimen of Hobson-Jobson. It is, according to Sir R. Burton, [Zanzibar, i. 357], a corruption of chakazi. There are three qualities of copal in the Zanzibar market. 1. Sandarusi m’ti, or ‘Tree Copal,’ gathered directly from the tree which exudes it (Trachylobium Mossambicense). 2. Chakazi or chakazzi, dug from the soil, but seeming of recent origin, and priced on a par with No. 1. 3. The genuine Sandarusi, or true Copal (the Animé of the English market), which is also fossil, but of ancient production, and bears more than twice the price of 1 and 2 (see Sir J. Kirk in J. Linn. Soc. (Botany) for 1871). Of the meaning of chakazi we have no authentic information. But considering that a pitch made of copal and oil is used in Kutch, and that the cheaper copal would naturally be used for such a purpose, we may suggest as probable that the word is a corr. of jahazi, and =‘ship-copal.’

JACQUETE, Town and Cape, n.p. The name, properly Jakad, formerly attached to a place at the extreme west horn of the Kathiawar Peninsula, where stands the temple of Dwarka (q.v.). Also applied by the Portuguese to the Gulf of Cutch. (See quotation from Camoens under DIUL-SIND.) The last important map which gives this name, so far as we are aware, is Aaron Arrow-smith’s great Map of India, 1816, in which Dwarka appears under the name of Juggut.

1525.—(Melequyaz) “holds the revenue of Crystna, which is in a town called Zaguete where there is a place of Pilgrimage of gentoos which is called Crysna.…”—Lembrança das Cousas da India,