"Chingaree, a class of Multani Thugs, sometimes called Naiks, of the Mussulman faith. They proceed on their expeditions in the character of Brinjaras, with cows and bullocks laden with merchandize, which they expose for sale at their encampments, and thereby attract their victims. They use the rope of their bullocks instead of the roomal in strangling. They are an ancient tribe of Thugs, and take their wives and children on their expeditions."
[These are the Chāngars of whom Mr. Ibbetson (Panjab Ethnog. 308) gives an account. A full description of them has been given by Dr. G. W. Leitner (A Sketch of the Changars and of their Dialect, Lahore, 1880), in which he shows reason to doubt any connection between them and the Zingari.] De Goeje (Contributions to the Hist. of the Gypsies) regards that people as the Indian Zoṭṭ (i.e. Jatt of Sind). He suggests as possible origins of the name first shikārī (see [SHIKAREE]), and then Pers. changī, 'harper,' from which a plural changān actually occurs in Lane's Arabian Nights, iii. 730, note 22. [These are the Al-Jink, male dancers (see Burton, Ar. Nights, viii. 18).]
If the name is to be derived from India, the term in Sleeman's Vocabulary seems a more probable origin than the others mentioned here. But is it not more likely that zingari, like Gipsy and Bohemian, would be a name given ab extra on their appearing in the West, and not carried with them from Asia?
ZIRBAD, n.p. Pers. zīr-bād, 'below the wind,' i.e. leeward. This is a phrase derived from nautical use, and applied to the countries eastward of India. It appears to be adopted with reference to the S.W. Monsoon. Thus by the extracts from the Mohit or 'Ocean' of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān (1554), translated by Joseph V. Hammer in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, we find that one chapter (unfortunately not given) treats "Of the Indian Islands above and below the wind." The islands "above the wind" were probably Ceylon, the Maldives, Socotra, &c., but we find no extract with precise indication of them. We find however indicated as the "tracts situated below the wind" Malacca, Sumatra, Tenasserim, Bengal, Martaban, Pegu. The phrase is one which naturally acquires a specific meaning among sea-faring folk, of which we have an instance in the Windward and Leeward Islands of the W. Indies. But probably it was adopted from the Malays, who make use of the same nomenclature, as the quotations show.
1442.—"The inhabitants of the sea coasts arrive here (at Ormuz) from the countries of Tchin, Java, Bengal, the cities of Zirbad."—Abdurrazzāk, in India in the XVth Cent. 6.
1553.—"... Before the foundation of Malaca, in this Cingapura ... met all the navigators of the seas to the West of India and of those to the East of it, which last embrace the regions of Siam, China, Choampa, Camboja, and the many thousand islands that lie in that Orient. And these two quarters the natives of the land distinguish as Dybananguim (di-bāwa-angīn) and Ataz Anguim (ātas-angīn) which are as much as to say 'below the winds' and 'above the winds,' below being West and above East."—Barros, Dec. II. Liv. vi. cap. i. In this passage De Barros goes unusually astray, for the use of the Malay expressions which he quotes, bawa-angin (or di-bawah) 'below the wind,' and ātas (or di-ātas) angīn, 'above the wind,' is just the reverse of his explanation, the former meaning the east, and the latter the west (see below).
c. 1590.—"Kalanbak (see [CALAMBAK]) is the wood of a tree brought from Zírbád (?)"—Āīn, i. 81. A mistaken explanation is given in the foot-note from a native authority, but this is corrected by Prof. Blochmann at p. 616.
1726.—"The Malayers are also commonly called Orang di Bawah Angin, or 'people beneath the wind,' otherwise Easterlings, as those of the West, and particularly the Arabs, are called Orang Atas Angin, or 'people above the wind,' and known as Westerlings."—Valentijn, v. 310.
" "The land of the Peninsula, &c., was called by the geographers Zierbaad, meaning in Persian 'beneath the wind.'"—Ibid. 317.
1856.—"There is a peculiar idiom of the Malay language, connected with the monsoons.... The Malays call all countries west of their own 'countries above the wind,' and their own and all countries east of it 'countries below the wind.'... The origin of the phrase admits of no explanation, unless it have reference to the most important of the two monsoons, the western, that which brought to the Malayan countries the traders of India."—Crawfurd's Desc. Dict. 288.