kalabaw

[Waruno Mahdi]

Jean Paul, sorry, I had quoted Pigafetta from memory, and I'm
afraid my memory sometimes plays tricks on me. Anyway, I had to
see my copy at home first, before I could comment on the Pigafetta
quotation.
I have a copy of the facsimile reprint of the manuscript from the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, in
volume 2 of Skelton, R.A., 1969, Magellan's voyage: A Narrative of
the First Circumnavigation by Antoine Pigafetta. New Haven-London:
Yale Univ. Press. (vol. 1 has the English translation).

Your quotation is from chapter 21, on folio 36 recto and verso (but
as 36 recto is missing in my copy, I'll begin from the top of 36 verso)
of the manuscript, and goes (in 16th century French) like this (note that
it was still customary to write _u_ for modern _v_ and _i_ for modern _j_,
and that a preconsonantal _n_ was sometimes written as tilde over the
preceding vowel, which I'll indicate with _~_ after that vowel):

<<que toutes les nauires qui arriuent a son port ou pays payoye~t tribut.
  Et ny auoit pas quatre iours que une nauire appellee Iunco de Ciama
  chargee dor et desclaues luy auoit paye son tribut. Et pour veriffier
  ce quil disoit, leur monstra ung marchant dudit Ciama, qui estoit
  demourre la pour faire marchandise de lor et desclaues. Le truchement
  luy dist que ce capitaine par estre capitaine dun si grand roy co~me
  le sien ne vouloit point payer tribut a aulcun seigneur du monde,
  et que sil vouloit paix il auroit paix, et si guerre il vouloit, guerre
  il auroit.
  Alors le marcha~t dessusdit respondit au roy en son langaige,
  Cata raia chita. Cest adire, Regarde bien roy que tu feras. Car ...>>

 "... that all ships arriving in his port or country should pay tribute.
  And but four days before a ship called Iunco from Ciama loaded with
  gold and slaves had paid him her tribute. And to prove the truth of
  what he said, he showed them a merchant of the said Ciama, who had
  remained there to do trade in gold and slaves. The interpreter told
  him that the captain, as captain of a so great king as his, would
  not pay tribute to any lord in the world, and that if he desired
  peace he should have peace, and if he desired war, war he should
  have.
  Then the aforesaid merchant replied to the king in his own language,
  Cata raia chita, which is to say, Have good care. O king, what you
  do, for ..."

Note also, that _ci_ is read /si/, and _chi_ is read /ki/ (the function
of the _h_ is in this case like in Italian, not like in Spanish).

You are right about the interpreter (Enrique) speaking, but after
that the merchant speaks "in his own language", and says, in modern
spelling: _kata raja kita_, which is Malay for "our king says, that..."
(I am not aware of any other language in which it would otherwise
make sense and fitted here). As the king he spoke to was the King of
Zzubu (i.e. Sugbu = Cebu), whose language would have been Cebuano,
"his own language" must have referred to the own language of the
merchant. Pigafetta apparently only grasped the first few words
which the merchant spoke...
I had forgotten the details, and only seemed to remember that the
interpreter spoke, and that the merchant spoke, and that it had been
somehow in Malay. Sorry......

Apart from that, the name of the type of the ship from Siam is given
explicitly as _iunco_, i.e. a junk (Malay _jung_). Pigafetta was
rather accurate in reporting names of types of boats. Thus, other boat
types he mentions are _boloto_, _ballanghai_, _prao_. He also gives
a precise description of a _iunco_ (in chapter 32), noting a.o. that it
has two outriggers (very thick bamboo counterweights on each side),
which is impossible for either a Thai or a Khmer ship.

I think it's reasonable to assume that it was probably a Malay merchant
on a Malay ship sailing under the flag of the King of Siam.

Apologies to others that this got so long.

Regards,   Waruno