1516.—"Having passed these islands of Maluco ... at a distance of 130 leagues, there are other islands to the west, from which sometimes there come white people, naked from the waist upwards.... These people eat human flesh, and if the King of Maluco has any person to execute, they beg for him to eat him, just as one would ask for a pig, and the islands from which they come are called Celebe."—Barbosa, 202-3.
c. 1544.—"In this street (of Pegu) there were six and thirty thousand strangers of two and forty different Nations, namely ... Papuaas, Selebres, Mindanaos ... and many others whose names I know not."—F. M. Pinto, in Cogan's tr., p. 200.
1552.—"In the previous November (1529) arrived at Ternate D. Jorge de Castro who came from Malaca by way of Borneo in a junk ... and going astray passed along the Isle of Macaçar...."—Barros, Dec. IV. i. 18.
" "The first thing that the Samarao did in this was to make Tristão de Taide believe that in the Isles of the Celebes, and of the Macaçares and in that of Mindinão there was much gold."—Ibid. vi. 25.
1579.—"The 16 Day (December) wee had sight of the Iland Celebes or Silebis."—Drake, World Encompassed (Hak. Soc.), p. 150.
1610.—"At the same time there were at Ternate certain ambassadors from the Isles of the Macaçás (which are to the west of those of Maluco—the nearest of them about 60 leagues).... These islands are many, and joined together, and appear in the sea-charts thrown into one very big island, extending, as the sailors say, North and South, and having near 100 leagues of compass. And this island imitates the shape of a big locust, the head of which (stretching to the south to 5½ degrees) is formed by the Cellebes (são os Cellebes), which have a King over them.... These islands are ruled by many Kings, differing in language, in laws, and customs...."—Couto, Dec. V. vii. 2.
CENTIPEDE, s. This word was perhaps borrowed directly from the Portuguese in India (centopèa). [The N.E.D. refers it to Sp.]
1662.—"There is a kind of worm which the Portuguese call un centopè, and the Dutch also 'thousand-legs' (tausend-bein)."—T. Saal, 68.
CERAM, n.p. A large island in the Molucca Sea, the Serang of the Malays. [Klinkert gives the name Seran, which Mr. Skeat thinks more likely to be correct.]
CERAME, CARAME, &c., s. The Malayālim śrāmbi, a gatehouse with a room over the gate, and generally fortified. This is a feature of temples, &c., as well as of private houses, in Malabar [see Logan, i. 82]. The word is also applied to a chamber raised on four posts. [The word, as Mr. Skeat notes, has come into Malay as sarambi or serambi, 'a house veranda.']