Also 6 tattou, 8 tattu, 9 tatoo, tattoo. [Native name in Tupi. So F. tatou, Sp. tato, Pg. tatu.] An armadillo.
1568. trans. Thevet’s New Found Worlde, 84. There are founde great number of Tattous, that are beasts armed.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 842. The Tatu or Armadilla, which digs as much as many men with mattocks.
1766. E. Bancroft, Guiana, ii. (1769), 145. The Tattu, or Armadillo, of Guiana, is the largest of that species of animals.
1805. T. Lindley, Voy. Brasil, 134. He was waiting for tatoos, or armadilloes, which seldom appear before dusk.
1894. Outing (U.S.), XXIV. 176/2. In Brazil, where he is called the ‘tattoo,’ his flesh is much prized.
b. In combination with defining words, applied (in Tupi and Guarani) to various species, as tatouay (tatou-áiba), the wounded armadillo; tatouete (tatuete), [-ete true] Tatusia verdadeira; tatouhou, tatou-peba, = PEBA; tatou-poyou, = POYOU: see quots.
[1648. Marcgrave, Hist. Nat. Brasil, VI. viii. 231. Tatv & Tatv-peba Brasiliensibus, Armadillo Hispanis, Encuberto Lusitanis. Ibid. Tatv-ete Brasiliensibus,… priori est minor.
1693. Ray, Quadrupeds, 233. Tatuete Brasiliensibus, Armadilli secunda species.]
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Tatuete,… a species of tatu, or armadillo, smaller than the common one.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. iv. 132. The third [kind of Armadillo] is the Tatuette, furnished with eight bands.
1834. Penny Cycl., II. 352/1. The peba (D[asypus] peba), called by the Guaranis tatouhou, or black tatu, is extremely common in Paraguay. Ibid., 352/2. The peba, or, as it is commonly called in Brazil, tatu-peba, has thirty-two teeth. Ibid., 353/2. The poyou … or yellow-footed armadillo (for thus Azara interprets the name)…. The tatu-poyou is easily distinguished … by the unusual flatness and broadness of its body. Ibid., 354/2. The Tatouay (D. Tatouay, Desmarest), or wounded armadillo, is so called by the Indians in allusion to its tail, which is naked, or as it were rudely deprived of the crust or bony tube which covers this organ in all the other species.
