slamaaier, noun
- Forms:
- Also slamaier, slameier.
- Origin:
- AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, blend of Islam and Maleier Malay.
1. obsolete. A member of the Cape Muslim community; cf. Slams noun.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 448Slamaier, (This word seems to have originated in a confusion of the two words Islam and Maleier.) A term applied to a Malay, a follower of Mahomet.
1934 A.J. Barnouw Lang. & Race Problems 29The Slameiers’ Carnival which they celebrate on January 2, has long remained the most picturesque survival of eighteenth century Capetown life.
2. In the Cape Muslim community: one who deals in the supernatural. Cf. doekum, Slams noun. See also goëlery, Malay magic (Malay noun sense 3).
1943 I. Frack S. Afr. Doctor 126The magic workers or Slamaaiers..had reduced quackery to the very finest of arts...I arrived at the farm in the early evening, in time to see the whole family gathered in a corner of the kraal, listening to a weird collection of incantations by the slamaaier.
1975 Het Suid-Western 30 JulyThe Port Elizabeth slamaaier whom the ‘ghost family’ consulted and who gave them several ‘jumats’, tiny parcels wrapped in silver paper and brown cotton, has now asked them to send him a black fowl to be slaughtered as a sacrifice.
A member of the Cape Muslim community;
one who deals in the supernatural.
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