1330.—"But as for the trees which produce flour, tis after this fashion.... And the result is the best pasta in the world, from which they make whatever they choose, cates of sorts, and excellent bread, of which I, Friar Odoric, have eaten."—Fr. Odoric, in Cathay, &c., 32.
1522.—"Their bread (in Tidore) they make of the wood of a certain tree like a palm-tree, and they make it in this way. They take a piece of this wood, and extract from it certain long black thorns which are situated there; then they pound it, and make bread of it which they call sagu. They make provision of this bread for their sea voyages."—Pigafetta, Hak. Soc. p. 136. This is a bad description, and seems to refer to the Sagwire, not the true sago-tree.
1552.—"There are also other trees which are called çagus, from the pith of which bread is made."—Castanheda, vi. 24.
1553.—"Generally, although they have some millet and rice, all the people of the Isles of Maluco eat a certain food which they call Sagum, which is the pith of a tree like a palm-tree, except that the leaf is softer and smoother, and the green of it is rather dark."—Barros, III. v. 5.
1579.—"... and a Kind of meale which they call Sago, made of the toppes of certaine trees, tasting in the Mouth like some curds, but melts away like sugar."—Drake's Voyage, Hak. Soc. p. 142.
" Also in a list of "Certaine Wordes of the Naturall Language of Iaua"; "Sagu, bread of the Countrey."—Hakl. iv. 246.
c. 1690.—"Primo Sagus genuina, Malaice Sagu, sive Lapia tuni, h.e. vera Sagu."—Rumphius, i. 75. (We cannot make out the language of lapia tuni.)
1727.—"And the inland people subsist mostly on Sagow, the Pith of a small Twig split and dried in the Sun."—A. Hamilton, ii. 93; [ed. 1744].
SAGWIRE, s. A name applied often in books, and, formerly at least, in the colloquial use of European settlers and traders, to the [Gomuti] palm or Arenga saccharifera, Labill., which abounds in the Ind. Archipelago, and is of great importance in its rural economy. The name is Port. sagueira (analogous to palmeira), in Span. of the Indies saguran, and no doubt is taken from sagu, as the tree, though not the [Sago]-palm of commerce, affords a sago of inferior kind. Its most important product, however, is the sap, which is used as [toddy] (q.v.), and which in former days also afforded almost all the sugar used by natives in the islands. An excellent cordage is made from a substance resembling black horse-hair, which is found between the trunk and the fronds, and this is the gomuti of the Malays, which furnished one of the old specific names (Borassus Gomutus, Loureiro). There is also found in a like position a fine cotton-like substance which makes excellent tinder, and strong stiff spines from which pens are made, as well as arrows for the blow-pipe, or Sumpitan (see [SARBATANE]). "The seeds have been made into a confection, whilst their pulpy envelope abounds in a poisonous juice—used in the barbarian wars of the natives—to which the Dutch gave the appropriate name of 'hell-water'" (Crawfurd, Desc. Dict. p. 145). The term sagwire is sometimes applied to the toddy or palm-wine, as will be seen below.
1515.—"They use no sustenance except the meal of certain trees, which trees they call Sagur, and of this they make bread."—Giov. da Empoli, 86.