Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.12892

c10.12892

**SAGWIRE**, s. A name applied often in books, and, formerly at least, in the colloquial use of European settlers and traders, to the **Gomuti** palm or *Arenga saccharifera*, Labill., which abounds in the Ind. Archipelago, and is of great importance in its rural economy. The name is Port. *sagueira* (analogous to *palmeira*), in Span. of the Indies *saguran*, and no doubt is taken from *sagu*, as the tree, though not the *Sago*-palm of commerce, affords a sago of inferior kind. Its most important product, however, is the sap, which is used as **toddy** (q.v.), and which in former days also afforded almost all the sugar used by natives in the islands. An excellent cordage is made from a substance resembling black horse-hair, which is found between the trunk and the fronds, and this is the *gomuti* of the Malays, which furnished one of the old specific names (*Borassus Gomutus*, Loureiro). There is also found in a like position a fine cotton-like substance which makes excellent tinder, and strong stiff spines from which pens are made, as well as arrows for the blow-pipe, or *Sumpitan* (see **SARBATANE**). "The seeds have been made into a confection, whilst their pulpy envelope abounds in a poisonous juice—used in the barbarian wars of the natives—to which the Dutch gave the appropriate name of 'hell-water'" (*Crawfurd, Desc. Dict.* p. 145). The term *sagwire* is sometimes applied to the toddy or palm-wine, as will be seen below.