Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 220, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1917 — Real Meaning of “Maru.” [ARTICLE]

Real Meaning of “Maru.”

The word “Maru,” attached to the name of every Japanese merchant ship and commonly accepted as meaning “ship,” has no especial meaning, according to Captain Takeshima of the Japanese steamship Hudson Maru, recently captured and released by a German raider in the South Atlantic. Captain Takeshima said that the word is the survival of a Japanese custom centuries old. He explained the origin as follows: “There are two opinions as to how the custom originated. One of the stories, which I believe is the "correct one, is that in ancient times the Japanese attached ‘maru’ to the name of anything precious or highly prized, as a sword or a baby. It was first applied to a ship’s name about 2,-000-years ago, when the Empress Jingo sent an expoditiori to Korea. She added the word to the name of the ship that transported the troops to Korea. Ever since then ‘Maru’ has been part of the name of every steamship or sailing vessel. It is never used with the name of a warship.”