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JULY, 1926 1
THE NAME COCHIN CHINA
135
chyna e quachymchyna, syam, llequios " i.e., "merchandise coming from China, from Cochin China, Siam, the islands Lieou-K'ieou. ..." The second mention occurs on page 137, where the writer speaks of "junks from China or from Cochin China" in the phrase '08 junquos da chyna e quamchymchyna." The name of Cochin China is easily identifiable under the spelling Quachymchyna and Quamchymchyna.
"I may here mention that the writer of the letter, in including this name among those of countries like Pegu, China, Siam, etc., certainly intends to specify a particular kingdom. This kingdom unquestionably was Annam, subordinate at that date to the Lê dynasty, with its capital at Trung dô phu, which extended from Lang-so'n to Qui-nho'n.
"4. In August 1516 Ferndo Perez enters the "gulf of Concamchina " i.e., the Bay of Tonkin.
"5. Duarte Coelho, who sailed the first time along the Annamite coast between 1516 and 1518, was sent during the year 1523 to eastern Indo-China by Jorge de Albuquerque, to obtain detailed information about the country named Cochin China and the bay of that name. A letter from Jorge de Albuquerque to the Portuguese King, dated January 1st, 1524, runs as follows: "Mamdey duarte coelho a descobrir cauchimchya." Barros, writing about 1550, gives the following account of this occurrence : " Vindo este Perduca Raja no fim de Abril de quinhentos e vinte e tres com estas quarenta lancharas, em se recolhendo pera dentro do rio de Muar quasi sobre a noite, houve vista delles Duarte Coelho, o qual hia em hum navio sen des cubrir a enscada de Cochinchina per mandado d'El Rey D. Manuel, por ter sabido ser aquella enscada cousa de que sahiam mercadorias ricas. A qual terra os Chijs chamam Reyno de Cacho, e os Siames, e Malayos Cochinchina, á differença do Cochij do Malabar ...."
"There can be no doubt that this mention in 1523-24 of the country and gulf of Cauchimchyna (Cochin China) is meant to denote the Annamite Kingdom of that epoch and more particularly the Tonkinese delta.
“6. The chart of Diego Ribeiro, published in 1529, includes the name Cauchechina, to denote the Tonkinese and Annamite districts of the peninsula, and therefore the whole country of Annam from the opening of the sixteenth century.
" 7. Numerous references of later date-1535, 1543, 1549, 1550, 1572, 1588, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1603, 1604, 1606, 1613-all prove that the word Cochin China,---under a variety of spellings, Cauchenchina, Cauchijchina, Cauchjichina, Cachenchina, Cauchimchina, Cauchichina, Coccincina, etc.- signified in every case the whole of the kingdom of Annam.
"8. One has to turn to the year 1618 to find the name of Cochin China used in its secondary sense ; namely to signify quite clearly the particular principality ruled by the Nguyen. The word appears for the first time with this meaning in the Relatione della nuova misfione delli P. P. della Compagnia di Giesu al regno della Cocincina, compiled by the Milanese Jesuit Christopher Borri. The translation of the pertinent passages is as follows:
"Cochin China, so called by the Portuguese, is styled in the native tongue Anam,
a word signifying " western," as this kingdom lies in the west relatively to China. For the same reason the Japanese call it Coci, which has the same meaning in their language as Anam in the Cochinchinese tongue. But the Portuguese, introduced into Anam for trade through the agency of the Japanese, formed from this Japanese word Coci and the other word Cina a third name Cocincina, which they attached to this kingdom, calling it, so to speak, Cocin of China, in order to distinguish it
from Cochin in India, which they also visited. "If Cochin China appears as a rule in maps and atlases under the name of Caucincina or Cauchina or some similar form, that is merely due either to the corruption of the real name or to the fact that the mapmakers wished to indicate that this kingdom was on the borders of China.
