1625.—Purchas has the word in many forms; Nokayday, Nahoda, Nohuda, &c.
1638.—"Their nockado or India Pilot was stab'd in the Groyne twice."—In Hakl. iv. 48.
1649.—"In addition to this a receipt must be exacted from the Nachodas."—Secret Instructions in Baldaeus (Germ.), p. 6.
1758.—"Our Chocarda[[187]] (?) assured us they were rogues; but our Knockaty or pilot told us he knew them."—Ives, 248. This word looks like confusion, in the manner of the poet of the "Snark," between nākhuda and (Hind.) arkātī, "a pilot," [so called because many came from [Arcot].]
[1822.—"The Knockada was very attentive to Thoughtless and his family...."—Wallace, Fifteen Years in India, 241.
[1831.—"The Roban (Ar. rubbān, 'the master of a ship') and Nockader being afraid to keep at sea all night ..."—Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself, ii. 303.]
1880.—"That a pamphlet should be printed, illustrated by diagrams, and widely circulated, commends itself to the Government of India ... copies being supplied to Nakhudas and tindals of native craft at small cost."—Resn. of Govt. of India as to Lights for Shipping, 28 Jan.
NAGA, n.p. The name applied to an extensive group of uncivilised clans of warlike and vindictive character in the eastern part of the hill country which divides Assam Proper (or the valley of the Brahmaputra) from Kachār and the basin of the Surma. A part of these hills was formed into a British district, now under Assam, in 1867, but a great body of the Nāga clans is still independent. The etymology of the name is disputed; some identifying it with the Nāga or Snake Aborigines, who are so prominent in the legends and sculptures of the Buddhists. But it is, perhaps, more probable that the word is used in the sense of 'naked' (Skt. nagna, Hind. nangā, Beng. nengṭā, &c.), which, curiously enough, is that which Ptolemy attributes to the name, and which the spelling of Shihābuddīn also indicates. [The word is also used for a class of ascetics of the Dādupanthī sect, whose head-quarters are at Jaypur.]
c. A.D. 50.—"Καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Μαιάνδρου, ... Ναγγα λόγαι ὃ σημαίνει γυμνῶν κόσμος."—Ptol. VII. ii. 18.
c. 1662.—"The Rájah had first intended to fly to the Nágá Hills, but from fear of our army the Nágás[[188]] would not afford him an asylum. 'The Nágás live in the southern mountains of Asám, have a light brown complexion, are well built, but treacherous. In number they equal the helpers of Yagog and Magog, and resemble in hardiness and physical strength the 'Ádis (an ancient Arabian tribe). They go about naked like beasts.... Some of their chiefs came to see the Nawáb. They wore dark hip-clothes (lung), ornamented with cowries, and round about their heads they wore a belt of boar's tusks, allowing their black hair to hang down their neck.'"—Shihábuddín Tálísh, tr. by Prof. Blochmann, in J. As. Soc. Beng., xli. Pt. i. p. 84. [See Plate xvi. of Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal; Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xxvi. 161 seqq.]