Chapter MOOCHY to MOONGA of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MOOCHY to MOONGA

MOOCHY, s. One who works in leather, either as shoemaker or saddler. It is the name of a low caste, Hind. mochi. The name and caste are also found in S. India, Telug. muchche. These, too, are workers in leather, but also are employed in painting, gilding, and upholsterer’s work, &c.

[1815.—“Cow-stealing … is also practised by … the Mootshee or Shoemaker cast.”—Tytler, Considerations, i. 103.]

MOOKTEAR, s. Properly Hind. from Ar. mukhtar, ‘chosen,’ but corruptly mukhtyar. An authorised agent; an attorney. Mukhtyar-nama, ‘a power of attorney.’ 1866.—“I wish he had been under the scaffolding when the roof of that new Cutcherry he is building fell in, and killed two mookhtars.”—The Dawk Bungalow (by G. O. Trevelyan), in Fraser’s Mag. lxxiii. p. 218.

1878.—“These were the mookhtyars, or Criminal Court attorneys, teaching the witnesses what to say in their respective cases, and suggesting answers to all possible questions, the whole thing having been previously rehearsed at the mookhtyar’s house.”—Life in the Mofussil, f. 90.

1885.—“The wily Bengali muktears, or attorneys, were the bane of the Hill Tracts, and I never relaxed in my efforts to banish them from the country.”—Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, p. 336.

MOOLLAH, s. Hind. mulla, corr. from Ar. maula, a der. from wila, ‘propinquity.’ This is the legal bond which still connects a former owner with his manumitted slave; and in virtue of this bond the patron and client are both called maula. The idea of patronage is in the other senses; and the word comes to m ean eventually ‘a learned man, a teacher, a doctor of the Law.’ In India it is used in these senses, and for a man who reads the Koran in a house for 40 days after a death. When oaths were administered on the Koran, the servitor who held the book was called Mulla Korani. Mulla is also in India the usual Mussulman term for ‘a schoolmaster.’

1616.—“Their Moolaas employ much of their time like Scriueners to doe businesse for others.”—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1476.

[1617.—“He had shewed it to his Mulaies.”—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 417.]

1638.—“While the Body is let down into the grave, the kindred mutter certain Prayers between their Teeth, and that done all the company returns to the house of the deceased, where the Mollas continue their Prayers for his Soul, for the space of two or three days. …”—Mandelslo, E.T. 63.

1673.—“At funerals, the Mullahs or Priests make Orations or Sermons, after a Lesson read out of the Alchoran.”—Fryer, 94.

1680.—“The old Mulla having been discharged for misconduct, another by name Cozzee (see CAZEE) Mahmud entertained on a salary of 5 Pagodas per mensem, his duties consisting of the business of writing letters, &c., in Persian, besides teaching the Persian language to such of the Company’s servants as shall desire to learn it.”—Ft. St. Geo. Consn. March 11. Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 12; [also see Pringle, Diary. Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. ii. 2, with note].

1763.—“The Mulla in Indostan superintends the practice, and punishes the breach of religious duties.”—Orme, reprint, i. 26.

1809.—“The British Government have, with their usual liberality, continued the allowance for the Moolahs to read the Koran.”—Ld. Valentia, i. 423.

[1842.—See the classical account of the Moollahs of Kabul in Elphinstone’s Caubul, ed. 1842, i. 281 seqq.]

1879.—“… struck down by a fanatical crowd impelled by a fierce Moola.”—Sat. Rev. No. 1251, p. 484.

MOOLVEE, s. Popular Hind. mulvi, Ar. maulavi, from same root as mulla (see MOOLLAH). A Judge, Doctor of the Law, &c. It is a usual prefix to the names of learned men and professors of law and literature. (See LAW-OFFICER.)

1784.—

“A Pundit in Bengal or Molavee
May daily see a carcase burn;
But you can’t furnish for the soul of ye
A dirge sans ashes and an urn.”

N. B. Halhed, see Calc. Review, xxvi. 79.

MOONAUL, s. Hind. munal or monal (it seems to be in no dictionary); [Platts gives “Munal (dialec.)]. The Lopophorus Impeyanus, most splendid perhaps of all game-birds, rivalling the brilliancy of hue,