This name of Macau...

The name Macau must at first have been only that of the place where the Barra Pagoda is now situated and where, according to tradition, the Portuguese pioneers first landed.

As the population settled and grew, the name remained, used by the people, in spite of all the official designations, either Chinese or Portuguese.

The origin of this word is a complex matter. All elements seem to indicate the fact that it has a Chinese etymon, although it is not the name by which the Chinese designate the city, nor does it seem to have been the name of the peninsula before the arrival of the Portuguese.

The normally used name in Cantonese is Ou-Mun, a word used by everyone, from the man on the street to the erudite Chinese. In the Pekinese official language, the name is the same, although the pronounciation is different: Ao-Men.

In spite of being very old, this name seems to have started being used after the arrival of the Portuguese navigators. According to Luís G. Gomes, a distinguished sinologist and the author of many interesting works on Chinese history and legends, in his article 'Os diversos nomes de Macau' (1) ('The various names of Macau').

"O nome actualmente adoptado é Ou-Mun 澳門 que significa "Porta da Baía". Não consta, porém, que este nome tivesse sido empregado nos escritos chineses anteriores à dinastia Mêng 明 (1368-1628)." (2)

And also in 'A toponomástica chinesa de Macau' (3)(The Chinese Toponymy of Macau):

"Durante a dinastia Mêng (1368-1621), Macau era conhecida por Aói-Kèang-Ou 海鏡澳 (Baía do Espelho do Mar), ou simplesmente por Hói-Kèang, nome sugerido pelo aspecto com que se apresentava a brilhante superfície das águas que formavam, outrora, a encantadora angra da Praia Grande".

We can therefore conclude that the name Ou-Mun was introduced soon after the Mêng dinasty, ie., around the middle of our seventeenth century.

One of the many variants of Hói-Kèang was Hau-Ching-Ao (also written Hao-Quing), which is used in the official documents of the same epoch. (4)

From the above-mentioned articles we have taken some more (and more or less poetic) names which the Chinese used to designate the place: 'Hèong-Sán-Ou'香山澳 (The Bay of the Odorous Hill), 'Lin-Fá--Tou'蓮花岛(Island of Water-Lilies), 'Lin-Ièong' 蓮洋 (Ocean of Lotus-blooms) - and we could quote many more, for it seems that the fertile Chinese imagination was especially attracted by the singular beauty of this land, with its mirror-like bay and the soft ondulation of its hills.

However, all those names are probably literary designations which the Chinese people may have never used.

Anyway, none of them, not even Ou-Mun, Ao-Men, or Hao-Ching-Ao (Ao-Ching Bay) seem to be related to the word Macau, unless maybe there is some connection between them via the Ao element. But that will be discussed later.

What might the real name have been, which the Portuguese heard when they first started to use this harbour or possibly even earlier, when they traded along the China coast?

According to the very acceptable theory of José Maria Braga, a most conscientious researcher of the history of Macau, the Portuguese may have heard about Ho-Kiang (or Hói-Keàng) - which may have sounded like O-Keng or Ho-Keng in the dialect of the South China maritime populations-around the time of the first voyage made by Jorge Álvares, or maybe even before that.

The same author (5) quotes two passages from Tomé Pires's Suma Oriental, written in Malaca between 1512 and 1515, where the name oquem and its variant, it seems, foquem can be read. (6).

Both words refer to a harbour situated near Canton, at a three-day distance by land and one day and one night by sea. Through this description, which does fit both Macau and the travelling conditions of the time, and also because foquem may have been a copyst's mis-spelling of the word hoquem (which Tomé Pires would easily write with or without an h), José Maria Braga is of the opinion that Tomé Pires was, in both passages, refering to the harbour of Macau. (7)

However, if Tomé Pires had by any chance known the name Ho-Keng the dialect pronounciation (or maybe even the pronounciation of a Malayan interpreter) corresponding to the Cantonese Hói-Kèang, so must the founders of Macau have known it as well, especially under the Pekinese form of Hao-Qing, which would be the name used by the Chinese authorities with whom they would have to deal.

None of those forms have, however, become popular among our men; none, except, of course, the one which has lasted up to this day - Macau.

This word Macau has been an object of research both for foreigners who know the Chinese language and for Chinese historians.

To the Portuguese researchers who have been interested in the question (8) do we owe the meritous work of compiling the various existing versions of an etymology which will probably remain forever hypothetical.

Given the absence, in the Macau archives, of documents referring to the early days of the Portuguese settlement in China; given also our own almost complete ignorance of the Chinese language (not to speak of its written form) we cannot be very helpful as far as the solution of the problem is concerned; but we certainly can take note of the various etymologies which have been proposed and, to some extent, examine them in the light of the general laws which preside over the evolution of words.

Macau seems to be a word which is composed of two distinct elements - Ma and cau - and we shall have to consider them separately if we want to analyse the word.

The theories concerning the origin of the -cau element are various, but all of them agree in so far as to establish a connection between the Ma syllable and the name of the idol Má-Kók-Miu, known among the Portuguese as Pagode da Barra. That temple, which is thought to be prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, is situated in the place where, according to tradition, the Portuguese navigators landed for the first time.

A romantic Chinese legend turns A-Má into a goddess who protects sea-people. And her temple, still nowadays the most venerated in Macau, would probably be the most important reference in a scarcely inhabited land - it was used as a temporary shelter, as it still is today, by a large number of fishermen.

It is therefore natural that, during their trading visits to the nearby islands, and even before they came to Macau, our men had heard the goddess's name in connection with the anchoring-place where her temple was situated - the place we now call 'a Barra' (the bar), which is the entrance to the 'Porto Interior' (the Inner Harbour).

And if they really did know the harbour's official name, then it is also natural, them being sea-men, that they should prefer the popular name of the goddess who protected mariners, even in spite of the fact that she was a pagan deity.

The Chinese normally use a prefix, A- [a], which is simply prosthetic and has no meaning, before people's names. The idol we are referring to is called Má or A-Má, which may have generated the forms Amacau and Amagau, two forms which preceded the present form of Macau.

There are, however, some Chinese versions according to which the name of Macau would not be related to the name of the above-mentioned goddess, but, for some obscure reason, to another letter 'Má' (meaning horse).

One of those versions, which considers MÁ-KAU to be an 'adulteration of MÁ-KÓK', gives rise to some confusion in our mind - we therefore prefer to quote the words of Luís Gomes on that specific etymology:

"Quanto à palavra Má-Káu 馬蛟 (Coito do Cavalo), ela é derivada da adulteração de Má-Kók 馬角 (Chifre de Cavalo), isto é, a Barra, local este, em que, no Verão do ano 36 de Ká-Tcheng 嘉靖(1558), da dinastia Mêng, desembarcaram os primeiros Portugueses que vieram ao Oriente solicitar à China um lugar para ancorar os seus navios e edificar lojas ou armazéns, que foram primitivamente construídos em frente do templo que ainda existe neste sítio.

Não deixa de ser verosímil esta hipótese, além de que bem podia ter-se dado o facto de os nativos, ao terem sido interrogados sobre o nome desta cidade, pelos primeiros Portugueses, lhes tivessem respondido chamar-se Má-Kók, julgando assim satisfazer a curiosidade desses estrangeiros com o nome do sítio onde os mesmos desembarcaram e onde primitivamente se fixaram. Como Má-Kók se pronuncia má-tchiao em pequinense, dialecto official dos mandarins, talvez esses primeiros Portugueses tivessem adoptado esta última forma, para designar o sítio onde originalmente se estabeleceram e que, com o tempo, se foi generalizando para designar toda a península. Devia também ter-se dado o caso de os sons má-tchiao terem sido representados, em Português, por ma-chao, que, por erro, se passasse a pronunciar e a escrever Macau." (9)

This hypothesis, which Luís Gomes finds probable, seems to us to be very hard to accept.

It is quite probable that the Chinese might have used the word Má-Kók (horse horn - a strange meaning) to designate the same place (the 'Barra’) where the temple of Má-Kók, the goddess, is situated, for we know that the slightest variation in tone does generate, in the Chinese language, a totally different meaning.

But why should it have been changed to Má-Káu, insisting on the word 'horse'(Má)? Quoting the same Luís Borges, "não existiam tais animals em Macau, nos primeiros tempos da sua fundação nem tão pouco a configuração desta peninsulazinha se assemelha a qualquer espécie equina por melhor vontade e maior liberdade que se queira dar à imaginação." (10)

On the other hand, if the natives did in fact tell the Portuguese that the place was called Má-Kók, it is not very probable that it was the latter who changed it to Má-Kau, via the Pekinese pronounciation má-tchiao, as Luís Gomes suggests.

Má-Kók might in fact have been a popular name, but the probabilities of it being used in the official Mandarin dialect are not many. And even if it were - and even if its pronounciation really was má-tchiao- we do not suppose that the tchi sound might have generated the [K] sound as used in Macau by the process described by Luís Gomes.

Yet another Chinese version which does not consider the name of the goddess A-Má supports that the word Macau is an alteration of either 'P'ák-Hau' 泊口(the mouth of the anchorage) or 'P'ák-Ou'泊澳 (the bay of the anchorage), a name which might have been used in 1535 by a commanding-officer of the Tch'in-Sán detachment (a place near Macau) to send word to his superior that foreign ships had started to call at the port.

This piece of information can be found in a Geography of Macau Ou-Mun Tei-Lei 澳門地理 published in 1946 in Canton by the Kuong-Tong Provincial College of Arts and Sciences. (11)

However, we do not know whether or not that is a reliable source: if it were correct, it would even be the key to the question of the date when the Portuguese began to call at the harbour of Macau.

But let us go back to the name P'ak-Hau: if it really was used and if the Portuguese or the Chinese really did change it to Ma-cau or to Ama-cau, it certainly happened by the influence of the goddess's name, or the alteration would not be justified.

There is yet another theory which seems more acceptable under a phonetic point of view: the word may have come from the name of Má-Káu-Séak, a'famous rock' which used to exist near the old beach of Areia Preta.

According to Luís Gomes:

"Quanto ao nome propriamente dito de Macau, aventam uns que ele procede do nome duns escolhos conhecidos por Má-Káu-Séak que existiam outrora na Praia da Areia Preta e que foram destruídos, há umas dezenas de anos, quando se iniciaram as obras de aterro do novo porto.

T'ien-Tse-Chang, na sua obra "Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644" diz a pgs. 86-87 que Má-Káu-Séak significa "Rochedo do Cavalo no Coito", sendo tal interpretação reproduzida pelo Rev. Manuel Teixeira, a pgs. 77 do seu "Macau e a sua Diocese".

Esta interpretação é errónea e de-certo devida ao facto de se julgar que Má-Káu-Seak se escreve馬交石 O verdadeiro significado é, porém, "Escolhos do Dragão-Cavalo", visto que os caracteres sínicos correspondentes são 馬蛟石，como podem ser verificados no "Ou-Mun Kei-Lèok"澳門記略(Monografia de Macau), a obra mais antiga em chinês, que existe publicada, sobre esta colónia." (12)

It apparently seems that there is no hesitation concerning that etymon. However, it does not explain some of the old Portuguese versions which include the Ama- element; and, what is more, it is hard to believe that the name of a mere rock, noteworthy only for its curious shape (similar to a horse, anyway) and not so big as not to have disappeared completely, may have amplified to comprehend the whole peninsula.

The Chinese themselves feel that, semantically, this etymology is not satisfactory; well, we would not even have to try and find other explanations.

Let us have a look at what the Chinese writer Dr. T'ien-Tse-Cheng, so often quoted by the historians of Macau, has to say upon this matter:

"Curiously enough, the name Macao, so widely known in the non-Chinese-speaking world, is not a proper Chinese name for that port. A traveller is sometimes told by its inhabitants that it is but the name of a famous rock called Ma-chiao or Ma-kao in Cantonese. [馬交石 meaning "Rock of mating-horse", apparently from its shape.] Formerly this rock stood some distance from the peninsula, but recently some new land has been reclaimed from the sea in that part of the bay, and as a result, the rock has been annexed to the mainland and buried under ground. It was either due to misunderstanding or for the sake of convenience that the small peninsula was called after the rock. It is more generally believed, however, that Macao is but an abbreviation of A-ma-ao[阿媽澳]or A-ma-ngao (with ng strongly nasalized) in Cantonese, i.e., the Bay of A--ma, a navigators' goddess to whom there was a temple at Macao. As A-ma-ngao was a familiar name used by Cantonese sailors to designate the port and as a is merely a prefix that may be omitted, it is more than probable that the Portuguese learned it from them.

The commonest Chinese name for Macao is Ao-men, i.e., the Portal of the Bay. [澳門]. The most correct name for Macao is, however, Hao-ching-ao or the Bay of Hao-ching. [濠鏡澳]." (13)

The etymon A-ma-ao, or A-ma-ngau, was, with slight variations, the one implicitely suggested by several sixteenth and seventeenth century missionaries. Among those was Father Mateus Ricci, who, in 1609, wrote the following on the Portuguese settlement:"... dove era venerata uma pagoda, che chiamamo Ama. Per. questo chiamavam quel luogo Amacao che vuol dire in nostra lingua Seno di Ama." (14)

We now get to the question of the -cau syllable. Starting with the Cantonese form A-ma-ngao, which the Portuguese might have understood A-ma-gau, we would have: A-ma-gau A-ma-cau Macau. However, this would not have been a natural evolution, for voiced occlusive consonants do not tend to become unvoiced. The normal change would be the opposite, i.e., unvoiced k into voiced g. That being the case, the Portuguese would have easily changed Amacau into Amagau, but the reverse process would not very likey have happened.

It does seem more probable that the Portuguese navigators might have heard the name of A-Ma Bay, which is a popular denomination, in a different dialect (neither Cantonese nor Pekinese).

There are several southern dialects in China and only with a deep knowledge of Chinese history and dialectology would one be able to determine which was the one first heard by the Portuguese and also what thier exact forms were four hundred years ago. Those are problems which, as far as we know, have not yet been solved - and may perhaps never be.

However, it seems certain that, at the time, the small population of the peninsula mainly consisted of Fukien fishermen, and that it was them who had built the above-mentioned Templo da Barra and who established the cult of A-Ma.

One of the greatest specialists in Chinese among us, António Ferreira Batalha, has suggested that, instead of A-Má Bay, they might have called the place The Mouth of A-Má, thence the word Hau, as used still nowadays to designate other anchorages in the area.

The name would then be A-Ma-Hau, with the strong aspirate h of the Fukienese pronounciation which could easily have become A-Má-K'au, the h being followed by an aspiration, as it still sounds in the English pronounciation of Hong-Kong. The word Amacau could correspond in Portuguese to any of those forms.

One last etymology, which can only be found in the work of Luís Gomes and which is referred to as the 'most generally accepted' Chinese version, is Má-Kóng媽港or A-Má-Kóng阿媽港which also means 'The Bay or The Anchorage of A-Ma'.

That etymon, which Father Manuel Teixeira chooses to ignore, is only superficially referred to by Luís Gomes. However, if we compare it with the older forms of the word Macau (and they have never been given due consideration), it may be the most acceptable.

We do not possess sufficient elements for a serious research in this area, for there is half-a-world between us and the archives we would need to examine. Our aim is only to raise the question, hoping that someone with an easier access to the relevant information can eventually say something else about the matter.

Some of the many variants of the word Macau used in several sixteenth century writings (15) do have a nasal sound. It is, however, impossible to determine whether that nasalization springs from a mistake, or whether it does in fact correspond to a genuine nasal form.

We are, of course, referring to Amaquam, Macoam and a third one which we have found only in a transcription made by Father Manuel Teixeira -- Amagão. (16)

Let us consider the first two - Amaquam and Machoam, which are said to be the earliest recorded forms in Portuguese. The first would have been written by Fernão Mendes Pinto in his famous letter of the 20th November 1555 which is generally described as the first Portuguese document where the name of Macau is used. In the edition we were able to examine, we only found forms varying between Maquao, Ama cuao and Amaquá; we do not possess other information about two copies of the letter which are kept in the Lisbon archives and where, it seems, the form Amaquam can be found.

Machoam is used in the date of one of the copies of another famous letter (17) - a letter written by Father Belchior Barreto in Macau on the 23th November 1555.

"From this Machoam port in China, on the 23th November 1555", the letter would read. Other copies, however, only refer: "From this port in China..."using neither the word Machoam, nor any other reference to Macau.

It is evident that both forms are far from being 'beyond suspicion', for it is questionable whether their writers may have been to Macau at all.

Nonetheless, even if they are but subsequent additions, those forms do deserve some credit, if one admits that the fact that someone wrote them means that he would have heard them before.

Mo Kok Miu (Barra Temple or A-Ma Temple)cc. 1833 William Prinsep, pupil of George Chinnery - oil, 50,8 X 76,2

And, in fact, it seems to be possible to find a confirmation of that pronounciation (Amaquam) in several Spanish documents written in Manila in King Filipe's (II of Spain, I of Portugal) time and concerning the provisions made by the governor of the Phillipines for the acceptance of the Spanish rule in Macau.

The form used to designate Macau in those documents is Macan. That form, if learnt through the contact with the Portuguese in Macau, is a strong argument for the Portuguese pronounciation [amakao]; if it was taken by Chinese emigrants from the province of Fukien (18), it does not fail to confirm the A-Má-Kóng etymology mentioned earlier. The nasalization of the ending sound must have had its origin somewhere, for it surely did not occur by mere chance.

C. R. Boxer's words in The Great Ship from Amacon (Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, Lisbon, 1959, p. 13.) deserve our attention: "Of the shipping used in the Macao-Japan trade, by far the most celebrated was the annual carrack, or "Great Ship from Amacon", as the contemporary English termed her."

As the ending consonants in Chinese words are very weak, the ending - Kóng might easily have become [-kom] in Portuguese and then [-ka] and [-kao].

As one knows, it was exactly during the sixteenth century that the fusion of the two endings -om and -am into -ão was effected.

As for the -qu- group in Amaquam, which is reproduced with slight modifications in Ama-cuao, and the -ch- in Machoam, they are but orthographic details which were quite usual at the time and must correspond to the [k] pronounciation.

The archaic and popular tendencies to substitute qu by c [k] (as it happens nowadays in popular speech with the substitution of quarenta by corenta, quanto by canto, etc.) explains why the sixteenth century literary influence upon orthography not only brought the u's back to where they belonged, but also put them where there was no place for them.

We can, therefore, find spellings like coroniquas, embarquação, requado, etc. where the u was probably not pronounced.

We must now look at the loss of nasal resonance in the change to Amaquao, Maquao and Macau.

That loss may have occurred for euphonic reasons. The pronounciation Macã or Macão would certainly suggest the displeasing association with the word cão, which is also pronounced cã, as it can still be heard in Macau.

On the other hand, it is possible that the Portuguese may have heard the Chinese use both names: A-Má-Kóng and A-Má-K'au, which suggests that the two forms (Amaquam and Amaquao) may have been coexistent, the latter having quickly prevailed over the former.

To conclude:

The name Macau must at first have been only that of the place where the Barra Pagoda is now situated and where, according to tradition, the Portuguese pioneers first landed.

As the population settled and grew, the name remained, used by the people, in spite of all the official designations, either Chinese or Portuguese.

Povoação or Porto do Nome de Deus (the Village or the Port of the Name of God) was the Christian name given by the Portuguese authorities, a name which, in 1585, was changed into Cidade do Nome de Deus (the City of the Name of God).

This is the name inscribed by King João IV upon the frontispiece of the Leal Senado building (the city's Council House):"Cidade do nome de Deus, não há outra mais leal" (the city of the name of God, no other is more loyal).

That same name is used during all of the seventeenth century in the dates of all the minutes, records and other Council documents of the Leal Senado Archives, which I have personally checked.

However, in those documents, in spite of the fact that their dates include the official denomination of 'Cidade do Nome de Deus' or 'Cidade do Nome de Deus na China', the word Macau is constantly used, sometimes also in the dates: "desta Nobre Cidade do Nome de Deus de Macau.". And in 1685 we find simply "Nobre Cidade de Macau"concurrent with the correct official denomination.

That goes to show how the popular name has always had more vitality, having been adopted even by the learned classes who had, at first, repudiated it. Simultaneously, it developed as a general reference for the whole peninsula as the city gradually came close to the Portas do Cerco, a limit which coincides exactly with its isthmus.•

SUPPLEMENT

The present article is an up-to-date revision of another article with the same title that has been published in the Bulletin of Philology - Centre of Philological Studies - Volume XVI (1956-1957) Lisbon 1958 pp. 353--363, and also published in separatum from the same bulletin which went completely out of print many years ago.

After a year of this publication, it was edited in Leiden (Holland) by the magazine T'Oung Pao, Vol. XLVII Livr. 1-2, 1959, an informative article on the same subject "A note on the origin of the Name of Macau" by Prof. SØren Egerod of the University of Copenhagen (Østasiatike Institut).

Having received a copy of the respective separatum through the courtesy of the author, we were pleased to verify it, that this copy without the cognizance of our article already on the subject, suggested precisely as "the right etymology" of the cantonese word Ma-Kong, port of Ma or A-ma.

Prof. Egerod, a well-known expert of the Portuguese and Chinese languages has, like us, reckoned not only with the old portuguese versions like Amaquão, Amacao, but also in the nasal sound, which reflects in the Spanish form as Macan, as in some of the words in Latin, Italian and English.

The author even belives that the same Cantonese word Kong is found probably in Lampacau which has also the following forms: "Lampacan, Lampacão, Lampacham, Lampachão, Lampachau, Lampazau, Langpihtsaou, Lampatao, etc."

NOTES

(1) In Lendas chinesas de Macau. Col. "Notícias de Macau". Macau, 1951, p. 1.

(2) More commonly known as the Ming dynasty.

(The name which is nowadays used is Ou-Mun, which means 'the door of the bay'. However, nothing seems to indicate that the name had been used in Chinese writings prior to the Mêng dynasty (1368-1628).)

(3) In Lendas chinesas de Macau, p.10.

(4) (During the Mêng dynasty (1368-1621) Macau was known by the name of Hói-Keang-Ou- sea-mirror bay - or simply Hói-Kèang, a name suggested by the shiny aspect of the water surface of the old lovely bay of Praia Grande.)

(5) Cf. Braga, J. M., The Western Pioneers and their Discovery of Macao. Macau, 1949, p. 104.

(6) Braga, J. M., Op. Cit., pp. 102-104. Also by the same author, China Landfall, 1513. Macau, 1955, pp. 44-46.

(7) The passages referred to are:

"Alem do porto de quantom esta outro porto que se chama oquem he andadura p^o terra de tres dias E por mãr huu dia e huuã noite este he o porto dos lequjos he Dout^as naçoees..." (...) "Os lequeos chamanse guores por quallr destes nomes (...) tratã na china e em malaq^a E as vezes em companhia dos chijs as vezes por si tratam no porto de foquem he na terra da Chijna Junto De quamtom nauegaçam De huũ dia e huuã noyte..."

- Apud Braga, J. M., idem, ibidem.

(8) We do not know of any work on the subject done in Portugal. We have mainly used the works written in Macau by Luís Gomes and Monsignor Manuel Teixeira.

(9) Gomes, Luís, 'Os diversos nomes de Macau', in op. cit., p. 5. (As for the word Má-Kau 馬蛟(horse coitus), it derives from the adulteration of Má-Kók 馬角 (horse horn), which is the 'Barra' the landing-place of the first Portuguese to come to the East (in the Summer of the 36th year of Ká-Tcheng嘉靖 (1558) of the Mêng dynasty) to obtain from China a place where to anchor their ships and build shops and stores. Those were built opposite the temple which can still be seen in the place.

The theory is certainly probable - it may have happened that, on being asked by the Portuguese what the name of the place was, the natives had answered that it was called Má-Kók, thinking that it would satisfy their curiosity, as it was the name of the place where they had landed and originally settled. Seing that Má-Kók is pronounced má-tchiao in Pekinese, the official mandarin dialect, maybe those first Portuguese adopted the latter to designate the place where they had originally settled and which, as time went by, tended to be used as a designation for the whole peninsula. It may well have also happened that the sound má-tchiao was represented ma-chao in Portuguese and that, by mistake, it began to be pronounced and written as Macau.

(10) (Such animals did not exist in Macau in the early days of its foundation, nor does the shape of this small peninsula even resemble any equine species, however freely one may try to imagine or visualize it.)

(11) Gomes, Luís, 'A toponomástica chinesa de Macau', in op. cit., p. 13.

(12) Id., ib., p. 12-13.

(13) T'ien-Tse-Chang, Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644. Leiden, 1934, p. 86-87.

(14) Fonti Ricciane (Roma, 1942), Vol. I, p. 151-1, according to Father Manuel Teixeira, Macau no séc. XVI. Macau, 1981, p. 4.

(15) J. M. Braga, in The Western Pioneers... p. 105. quotes the following: 'Amaqua, Amacao, Amacuao, Amaquam, Machoam, Maquao and eventually Macao."

(16) "Cardim, falando de Macau, diz que esta cidade havia acabado de nascer. Foi em 1554 que os Portugueses abordaram pela primeira vez ao lugar chamado Amagão..." Father Manuel Teixeira, op. cit. p. 38.

(Speaking of Macau, Cardim says that the town had just been born. It was in 1554 that the Portuguese first arrived at the place called Amagão...)

Other variants can also be found in the book, but their authenticity is doubtful.

(17) Codex da Ajuda, 49-IV-50-f. 241. By information kindly imparted by Mr José Maria Braga.

(18) Also another piece of information by Mr José Maria Braga.