BANTAM FOWLS, s. According to Crawfurd, the dwarf poultry which we call by this name were imported from Japan, and received the name "not from the place that produced them, but from that where our voyagers first found them."—(Desc. Dict. s.v. Bantam). The following evidently in Pegu describes Bantams:
1586.—"They also eat certain cocks and hens called lorine, which are the size of a turtle-dove, and have feathered feet; but so pretty, that I never saw so pretty a bird. I brought a cock and hen with me as far as Chaul, and then, suspecting they might be taken from me, I gave them to the Capuchin fathers belonging to the Madre de Dios."—Balbi, f. 125v, 126.
1673.—"From Siam are brought hither little Champore Cocks with ruffled Feet, well armed with Spurs, which have a strutting Gate with them, the truest mettled in the World."—Fryer, 116.
[1703.—"Wilde cocks and hens ... much like the small sort called Champores, severall of which we have had brought us from Camboja."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cccxxxiii.
This looks as if they came from [Champa] (q.v.).
(1) BANYAN, s. a. A Hindu trader, and especially of the Province of Guzerat, many of which class have for ages been settled in Arabian ports and known by this name; but the term is often applied by early travellers in Western India to persons of the Hindu religion generally. b. In Calcutta also it is (or perhaps rather was) specifically applied to the native brokers attached to houses of business, or to persons in the employment of a private gentleman doing analogous duties (now usually called [sircar]).
The word was adopted from Vāṇiya, a man of the trading caste (in Gujarāti vāṇiyo), and that comes from Skt. vaṇij, 'a merchant.' The terminal nasal may be a Portuguese addition (as in palanquin, mandarin, Bassein), or it may be taken from the plural form vāṇiyān. It is probable, however, that the Portuguese found the word already in use by the Arab traders. Sidi 'Ali, the Turkish Admiral, uses it in precisely the same form, applying it to the Hindus generally; and in the poem of Sassui and Panhu, the Sindian Romeo and Juliet, as given by Burton in his Sindh (p. 101), we have the form Wāniyān. P. F. Vincenzo Maria, who is quoted below absurdly alleges that the Portuguese called these Hindus of Guzerat Bagnani, because they were always washing themselves "... chiamati da Portughesi Bagnani, per la frequenza e superstitione, con quale si lauano piu volte il giorno" (251). See also Luillier below. The men of this class profess an extravagant respect for animal life; but after Stanley brought home Dr. Livingstone's letters they became notorious as chief promoters of slave-trade in Eastern Africa. A. K. Forbes speaks of the mediæval Wānias at the Court of Anhilwāra as "equally gallant in the field (with Rajputs), and wiser in council ... already in profession puritans of peace, but not yet drained enough of their fiery Kshatri blood."—(Rās Māla, i. 240; [ed. 1878, 184].)
Bunya is the form in which vāṇiya appears in the Anglo-Indian use of Bengal, with a different shade of meaning, and generally indicating a grain-dealer.
1516.—"There are three qualities of these Gentiles, that is to say, some are called Razbuts ... others are called Banians, and are merchants and traders."—Barbosa, 51.
1552.—"... Among whom came certain men who are called Baneanes of the same heathen of the Kingdom of Cambaia ... coming on board the ship of Vasco da Gama, and seeing in his cabin a pictorial image of Our Lady, to which our people did reverence, they also made adoration with much more fervency...."—Barros, Dec., I. liv. iv. cap. 6.