Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/448

 440

NOTES AND QUERIES. rii s. xn. DEC. 4, 1915.

SERMONS ON THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. I extract the following from the reprints in Berrow's Worcester Journal from The Worcester Postman of 4 Feb., 1715. It seems well worth chronicling. The italics are mine :

" London, February 1. Yesterday, being the anni- versary of the martyrdom of King Charles I. of blessed memory, the Rev. Dr. Newton, Principal of Hart Hall, Oxford, preached before the King in his Chappel Royal at St. James's, as did the Rev. Dr. Sacheverel at St. Andrew's, Holbourn, upon the 23rd of St. Matthew, v. 33, 34, 35 and 36 : ' Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell ? ' We hear there was some disturbance in the place"

W. H. QUARREL!,.

(gwrtas.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct*

METHODS OF WAKING A SLEEPER. In Cox's ' An Introduction to Folk-Lore,' 1895, it is said :

" Many persons have a superstitious objection to waking a sleeper suddenly ; savages are forbidden to do so, lest the soul just then might be wander- ing, and not have time to return to the body, and then the sleeper would be a dead man."

For examples of this primitive belief see Tylor's ' Primitive Culture,' 2nd ed. chap, xi.; Frazer, ' The Golden Bough,' 1890, vol. i. p. 127 ; ' Hints to Travellers,' Royal Geo- graphical Society, London, 1889, p. 389. It appears to have long survived among much advanced peoples in their especial methods of rousing a sleeping nobleman. Thus, from the ' Sogo Oozoshi,' written in the sixteenth century, it appears that the Japanese had then a particular mode of arousing the Shogun from his slumber by imitating at a distance three times the cock's crow and then the sparrow's prattles con- tinuedly till he awoke.

I-Tsing's Chinese translation- of the ' Mula- sarvasti - vada - nikaya - vinaya - samyukta- vastu,' torn, xxvii., tells us that, in his escape from his evil-hearted stepfather to the old home of his real father, Prince Bahvan- napana was sleeping under a tree, tormented with hunger and thirst, when the officers of the country, who looked for a virtuous man fit to succeed the just deceased king, dis- covered him to be the very one wanted. So they waked him by touching, and were asked by him why they did so. They replied, " In order to proclaim him king." He

asked again, " Is such a manner to rouse a sleeping king ? " They asked him then r " How then ought we to do so properly ? " The prince answered, " Play a fine music so- as to let him be gradually awakened"* They concluded thence that he was of a very noble^ birth, and, finding on inquiry that he was the true nephew of the last king, they rejoicingly conducted him into the capital and pro- claimed him as king there.

Are there such peculiar modes of waking a noble sleeper recorded from any other countries than Japan and India ?

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

" POPINJAY," "PAPAGEI.'' I am working at a dictionary of Timne, and should be glad of the opinion of readers of ' N. & Q.' or any facts they might be able to bring forward relative to this word.

" Papagei " is the German word for parrot,, and according to the ' N.E.D.,' " popinjay " is from the same word, which is assumed, without any clear evidence, to be Arabic^ The words can be traced back at least to the twelfth or thirteenth century, I believe.

In a recent tour in Sierra Leone I noted that in Timne, Limba, and Loko the word for parrot is pampakei. It seems indisput- able that the European word is connected with it, and as, unlike the pineapple (ananas}' and tomato (tambatis), which also have names homonymous with European languages r the parrot is certainly indigenous, we can hardly draw any conclusion save that parrots, and the word, were brought from the West Coast eight or nine hundred years ago at least. If, however, this was done, the question is whether the word adopted was taken from one of the three tribes men- tioned above ; for the Loko and Limba are inland peoples, though the Loko were formerly on the Port Loko Creek. The Timne were also undoubtedly an inland tribe ; but in the last fifty years they have reached the coast known as the Bullom shore, and at least one hundred and thirty years ago were in possession of land on the coast at Freetown.

On the other hand, the Nalu tribe, on the coast near the Bissagos Islands much further north, use the form mabaka for parrot, and though this is not obviously

1906, pp. 131-2, the words "by touching" do not occur, and instead of " Play a fine music," &c., is- given the sentence, "He ought to be awakened with song and cymbals and beat of drum." After these the Chinese version would seem to be morft to the point.
 * In Schiefner's ' Tibetan Tales,' trans. Ralston,.