c. 1596.—"White sugar candy (ḳandī safed) ... 5½ dams per ser."—Āīn, i. 63.
1627.—"Sugar Candie, or Stone Sugar."—Minshew, 2nd ed. s.v.
1727.—"The Trade they have to China is divided between them and Surat ... the Gross of their own Cargo, which consists in Sugar, Sugar-candy, Allom, and some Drugs ... are all for the Surat Market."—A. Hamilton, i. 371.
CANGUE, s. A square board, or portable pillory of wood, used in China as a punishment, or rather, as Dr. Wells Williams says, as a kind of censure, carrying no disgrace; strange as that seems to us, with whom the essence of the pillory is disgrace. The frame weighs up to 30 lbs., a weight limited by law. It is made to rest on the shoulders without chafing the neck, but so broad as to prevent the wearer from feeding himself. It is generally taken off at night (Giles, [and see Gray, China, i. 55 seqq.]).
The Cangue was introduced into China by the Tartar dynasty of Wei in the 5th century, and is first mentioned under A.D. 481. In the Kwang-yun (a Chin. Dict. published A.D. 1009) it is called kanggiai (modern mandarin hiang-hiai), i.e. 'Neck-fetter.' From this old form probably the Anamites have derived their word for it, gong, and the Cantonese k'ang-ka, 'to wear the Cangue,' a survival (as frequently happens in Chinese vernaculars) of an ancient term with a new orthography. It is probable that the Portuguese took the word from one of these latter forms, and associated it with their own canga, 'an ox-yoke,' or 'porter's yoke for carrying burdens.' [This view is rejected by the N.E.D. on the authority of Prof. Legge, and the word is regarded as derived from the Port. form given above. In reply to an enquiry, Prof. Giles writes: "I am entirely of opinion that the word is from the Port., and not from any Chinese term.">[ The thing is alluded to by F. M. Pinto and other early writers on China, who do not give it a name.
Something of this kind was in use in countries of Western Asia, called in P. doshāka (bilignum). And this word is applied to the Chinese cangue in one of our quotations. Doshāka, however, is explained in the lexicon Burhān-i-Ḳāṭi as 'a piece of timber with two branches placed on the neck of a criminal' (Quatremère, in Not. et Extr. xiv. 172, 173).
1420.—"... made the ambassadors come forward side by side with certain prisoners.... Some of these had a doshāka on their necks."—Shah Rukh's Mission to China, in Cathay, p. cciv.
[1525.—Castanheda (Bk. VI. ch. 71, p. 154) speaks of women who had come from Portugal in the ships without leave, being tied up in a caga and whipped.]
c. 1540.—"... Ordered us to be put in a horrid prison with fetters on our feet, manacles on our hands, and collars on our necks...."—F. M. Pinto, (orig.) ch. lxxxiv.
1585.—"Also they doo lay on them a certaine covering of timber, wherein remaineth no more space of hollownesse than their bodies doth make: thus they are vsed that are condemned to death."—Mendoza (tr. by Parke, 1599), Hak. Soc. i. 117-118.