Picul

History

The unit originated in China during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), where it was known as the shi (石 "stone"). During the Han dynasty, one stone was equal to 120 catties. Government officials were paid in grain, counted in stones, with top ranked ministers being paid 2000 stones.

As a unit of measurement, the word shi (石) can also be pronounced dan. To avoid confusion, the character is sometimes changed to 擔 (dàn), meaning "burden" or "load". Likewise, in Cantonese the word is pronounced sek (石) or daam (擔), and in Hakka it is pronounced tam (擔).

The word picul appeared as early as the mid 9th century in Javanese. In modern Malay, pikul is also a verb meaning 'to carry on the shoulder'.

In the early days of Hong Kong as a British colony, the stone (石, with a Cantonese pronunciation given as shik) was used as a measurement of weight equal to 120 catties or 160 pounds (72.6 kg), alongside the picul of 100 catties. It was made obsolete by subsequent overriding legislation in 1885, which included the picul but not the stone, to avoid confusion with European-origin measures that are similarly called stone.

Following Spanish, Portuguese, British and most especially the Dutch colonial maritime trade, the term picul was both a convenient unit, and a lingua franca unit that was widely understood and employed by other Austronesians (in modern Malaysia and the Philippines) and their centuries-old trading relations with Indians, Chinese and Arabs. It remained a convenient reference unit for many commercial trade journals in the 19th century. One example is Hunts Merchant Magazine of 1859 giving detailed tables of expected prices of various commodities, such as coffee, e.g. one picul of Javanese coffee could be expected to be bought from 8 to 8.50 Spanish dollars in Batavia and Singapore.