Daimio (1811)

[Victor Steinbok]

A previously flagged volume also contained the following pair of
passages that offered an interdating of Daimio (OED has 1839 and 1874)

http://goo.gl/4OY7Y
Dollar Monthly Magazine. Volume 20(2). August 1864
Japanese View of the English. Editor's Table. p. 162/1-2
> The nobles (Daimios) buy their wives from the merchants, who train
> their daughters for that purpose. ... Their government bouse, where
> the Daimios meet to talk and sleep, is well built, and equal to a
> first-class tea house; the women are kept there in a cage.

In fact, there is a large number of hits for the second half of the 19th
century, and continuing to current literature.

Going back, there is not quite as much. GB has a handful of French and
Dutch sources, going back to 1729, but only one in English (two
different publications, the earlier one below).

http://goo.gl/ysDnm
A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and ...,
Volume 7. By John Pinkerton. 1811

Chapter 12. Of the Great Number of People Who Daily Travel on the Roads.
pp. 784-5
> The retinue of one of the chief /Daimios/, as they are called, is
> computed to amount to about 20,000 men, more or less ; that of Sjomio,
> to about 10,000 ; that of a governor of imperial cities and
> crown-lands, to one, or several hundreds, according to his or
> revenues. [sic]
> If two or more of the Princes and lords, with their numerous retinues,
> should chance to travel the same road at the same time, they would
> prove a great hindrance to one another, particularly if they should
> happen at once to come to the same siuku or village, forasmuch as
> often the whole great villages are scarce large enough to lodge the
> retinue of one single Daimio.
> ...
> But the account, which I propose to give, must not be understood of
> the retinue of the most powerful princes and petty kings, such as the
> lords of Satzuma, Cago, Owari, Kijnokuni, and Mito, but only of those
> of some other Daimios, several of which we met in our journey to
> court, the rather as they differ but little, excepting only the coats
> of arms, and particular pikes, some arbitrary order in the march, and
> the number of led-horses, fassanbacks, norimons, cangos, and their
> attendants.

Note also that the last sentence also shows a significant antedating of
"cango" (kago, 1857). Norimon has a listing that goes back another 200
years, but the rest of the Japanese terms are not in the OED (nor,
likely, should they be).

Please correct (and forgive) any possible errors in transcription.

     VS-)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org