1764.—
"Thy temples shaded by the tremulous palm,
Or quick papaw, whose top is necklaced round
With numerous rows of particoloured fruit."
Grainger, Sugar Cane, iv.
[1773.—"Paw Paw. This tree rises to 20 feet, sometimes single, at other times it is divided into several bodies."—Ives, 480.]
1878.—"... the rank popeyas clustering beneath their coronal of stately leaves."—Ph. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 50.
PAPUA, n.p. This name, which is now applied generically to the chief race of the island of New Guinea and resembling tribes, and sometimes (improperly) to the great island itself, is a Malay word papuwah, or sometimes puwah-puwah, meaning 'frizzle-haired,' and was applied by the Malays to the people in question.
1528.—"And as the wind fell at night the vessel was carried in among the islands, where there are strong currents, and got into the Sea of the Strait of Magalhães,[[207]] where he encountered a great storm, so that but for God's mercy they had all been lost, and so they were driven on till they made the land of the Papuas, and then the east winds began to blow so that they could not sail to the Moluccas till May 1527. And with their stay in these lands much people got ill and many died, so that they came to Molucca much shattered."—Correa, iii. 173-174.
1553.—(Referring to the same history.) "Thence he went off to make the islands of a certain people called Papuas, whom many on account of this visit of Don Jorge (de Menezes) call the Islands of Don Jorge, which lie east of the Moluccas some 200 leagues...."—Barros, IV. i. 6.