Destiny’s Drum Glossary

Stories from the Golden Age reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.

Banda Sea: the sea of the south Moluccas (a group of about one hundred and fifty islands) in Indonesia, technically part of the Pacific Ocean but separated from it by the islands.

bandolier: a broad belt worn over the shoulder by soldiers and having a number of small loops or pockets for holding cartridges.

beard: boldly confront or challenge (someone formidable).

blackbirded: engaged in the slave trade, especially in the Pacific.

bob: shilling; a coin used in the United Kingdom worth one-twentieth of a pound.

bolo: a kind of machete, used particularly in the jungles.

carpet, pulling you on the: variation of “to call on the carpet”; censure severely or angrily.

casque: a piece of defensive or ornamental armor for the head and neck.

chain gang: a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging labor.

Cosmoline: a substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as Vaseline, but of heavy grade. Used as a protective coating for firearms, metals, etc.

datto: Malay tribal chieftain.

drill: a strong, twilled cotton fabric.

governador: (Portuguese) governor.

Gulliver in Lilliput: refers to a satire, Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift in 1726. Lemuel Gulliver, an Englishman, travels to exotic lands, including Lilliput (where the people are six inches tall), Brobdingnag (where the people are seventy feet tall), and the land of the Houyhnhnms (where horses are the intelligent beings, and humans, called Yahoos, are mute brutes of labor).

hepped: greatly interested.

Java Sea: a shallow sea, formed as sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age, that lies between the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Java.

Lee-Enfield: a standard bolt-action magazine-fed repeating rifle; the British Army’s standard rifle for over sixty years from 1895 until 1956, although it remained in British service well into the early 1960s and is still found in service in the armed forces of some Commonwealth nations.

light out: to leave quickly; depart hurriedly.

line, the: the equator.

Luger: a German semiautomatic pistol introduced before World War I and named after German firearms expert George Luger (1849–1923).

Malay States: the nine states of Peninsular Malaysia (now Malaysia) that have hereditary rulers. In practice, these rulers are figureheads and follow the principles of constitutional monarchy. The nine rulers of the Malay states elect the king of Malaysia from among their number.

Mannlicher: a type of rifle equipped with a manually operated sliding bolt for loading cartridges for firing, as opposed to the more common rotating bolt of other rifles. Mannlicher rifles were considered reasonably strong and accurate.

pannikin: a small metal drinking cup.

pipe-clayed: clean and smart; pipe clay is a fine white clay used in whitening leather. It was at one time largely used by soldiers for making their gloves, accouterments and clothes look clean and smart.

pith helmet: a lightweight hat made from dried pith, the soft spongelike tissue in the stems of most flowering plants. Pith helmets are worn in tropical countries for protection from the sun.

Polynesian: a native or inhabitant of Polynesia, a large grouping of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean.

por Dios: (Spanish) for God’s sake.

Princess Pat manual: a rifle drill associated with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry regiment (named after a member of the British Royal Family, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria). A manual is a prescribed series of movements made with a rifle or other military item, as during a drill or as part of a ceremony.

pull a boner: make a blunder.

punk wood: wood that is decayed.

ragtag and bobtail: the lowest social class; the rabble.

Route Army, Nineteenth: a type of military organization, in the Chinese Republic, that consisted of two or more corps, or a large number of divisions or independent brigades. The Nineteenth Route Army defended Shanghai during a short war (January 18, 1932 to March 3, 1932) between the armies of the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan.

run-over: of boots, where the heel is so unevenly worn on the outside that the back of the boot starts to lean to one side and does not sit straight above the heel.

schooner: a fast sailing ship with at least two masts and with sails set lengthwise.

senhor: (Portuguese) a title of courtesy equivalent to Mr. or sir.

senhorita: (Portuguese) a title of address equivalent to miss; used alone or with the name of a girl or unmarried woman.

Shanghai: city of eastern China at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and the largest city in the country. Shanghai was opened to foreign trade by treaty in 1842 and quickly prospered. France, Great Britain and the United States all held large concessions (rights to use land granted by a government) in the city until the early twentieth century.

singlet: a sleeveless undershirt.

Solomons: Solomon Islands; a group of islands northeast of Australia. They form a double chain of six large islands, about twenty medium-sized ones and numerous smaller islets and reefs.

stringers: narrow veins or irregular threads of minerals.

Taku: site of forts built in the 1500s to defend Tientsin against foreign invasion. The forts are located by the Hai River, 37 miles (60 km) southeast of Tientsin.

Timor: an island at the south end of a cluster of islands located between mainland southeastern Asia and Australia. The island has been politically divided in two parts for centuries: West Timor, which was known as Dutch Timor from the 1800s until 1949 when it became Indonesian Timor; and East Timor, which was known as Portuguese Timor from 1596 until 1975.

Timor Laut: a group of about thirty islands in the Maluku (Spice Islands) province of Indonesia.

trail, at: trail arms; to hold a rifle in the right hand at an oblique angle, with the muzzle forward and the butt a few inches off the ground.

weather eye: alertness and watchfulness, especially an alertness to change.

wire gold: gold ore that looks like its description: fine, short pieces of wire, or a tangled wirelike mass. It is found mostly in pockets or veins.

witch doctor: a person who is believed to heal through magical powers.

ye: you.