Sinhalese Folklore Notes, Ceylon

by Arthur A. Perera

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Belief and Practice.

Chapter.								PAGES
1.	[The Earth and the Sky]							1
2.	[The Vegetable World]							4
3.	[The Animal World]							6
4.	[Human Beings]							11
5.	[Things made by man]							13
6.	[The Soul and another Life]							14
7.	[Superhuman Beings]							15
8.	[Omens and Divination]							21
9.	[The Magic Art]							23
10.	[Disease and Leech-craft]							25

Customs.

11.	[Social and Political Institutions]							26
12.	[Rites of Individual Life]							32
13.	[Occupations and Industries]							36
14.	[Festivals]							40
15.	[Games, Sports and Pastimes]							43

Stories, Songs and Sayings.

16.	[Stories]							47
17.	[Songs and Ballads]							51
18.	[Proverbs, Riddles and Local Sayings]							54

Appendix.

[Glossary of Sinhalese Folk terms from the Service Tenure Register (1872)].

SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARTH AND THE SKY.

Various beliefs are held by the peasantry about the hills, rocks, boulders and crags scattered about the island.

Samanala Kanda (Adam’s Peak) which contains the sacred foot print of the Buddha was in prehistoric times sacred to the god Saman who still presides over the mountain. Pilgrims to the Peak invoke his aid in song for a safe journey; and when they reach the top, cover the foot print with four yards of white cloth, pay obeisance to it, recite the articles of the Buddhist Faith, and make a silver offering at the shrine of the Saman Deviyo, which is close by. When worship is over the pilgrims greet each other and sound a bell ringing as many peals as they have visited the Peak.

No lizard is heard chirping within the shadow of Hunasgiriya Peak in Pata Dumbara for when the Buddha, on his aerial visit to Ceylon, wished to alight on this mountain a lizard chirped and he passed on to Adam’s Peak.

Ritigal Kanda (Sanskrit Arishta) in the Nuvara Kalâviya district, S.E. of Anuradhapura and Rummas Kanda (modern Buona Vista) in the Galle district are associated with the Hanuman tradition. It was from Ritigal Kanda that Hanuman jumped across to India to carry the joyful message that he had discovered Sita in Ceylon, and when Lakshman was wounded and a medicinal herb was required for his cure, Hanuman was sent to the Himalayas to fetch it; on the way the name and nature of the plant dropped from his memory; whereupon he snapped a portion of the Himalayas and brought it twisted in his tail and asked Rama to seek for the herb himself. Buona Vista is that portion of the mountain and valuable medicinal herbs are still to be found there.

Râvanâ Kotte,—the stronghold of Râvanâ (king of the Rakshas)—was off Kirinda in the Hambantota District and is now submerged. The Great Basses are what is left of this city; the golden twilight seen there of an evening is the reflection of the brazen roofs of the submerged city.

Dehi Kanda opposite the Dambulla rock caves in the Matale district is the petrified husk of the rice eaten by the giants who made the caves.

Near Sinigama in Wellaboda pattu of the Galle district is shewn a crag as the petrified craft in which Wêragoda Deviyo came to Ceylon from South India.

When a severe drought visited the island, an elephant, a tortoise, a beetle, an eel, a goat and a she elephant went in search of water to the tank Wenêru Veva near Kurunegala. A woman who saw this kept a lump of salt before the foremost of them, the elephant; while he was licking it she raised a screen of leaves to conceal the tank from the intruders’ view and began to pray; and the gods answered by petrifying the animals, the screen and the lump of salt, all of which are still visible round Kurunegala.

“Panduvasa, the seventh king of Ceylon, was visited by the tiger disease, a complicated malady of cough, asthma, fever and diabetes in consequence of Wijeya, the first king, having killed his old benefactor and discarded mistress, Kuvêni, when, in the shape of a tiger, she endeavoured to revenge her slighted charms. The gods taking pity on Panduvasa, consulted by what means he might be restored to health, and found that it could not be effected without the aid of one not born of a woman. The difficulty was to find such a person. Rahu being sent on the service, discovered Malaya Rajâ, king of Malva Dêsa, the son of Vishnu, sprung from a flower. Rahu changing himself into an immense boar, laid waste the royal gardens to the great consternation of the gardeners, who fled to the palace and told what was passing. The king, who was a keen sportsman, hastened to the spot with his huntsmen, whom he ordered to drive the boar towards him. The boar, when pressed, at one bound flew over the head of the king, who shot an arrow through him in passing, but without effect, the animal continuing his flight. The king, irritated, instantly gave pursuit with his attendants in the direction the beast had taken, and landed in Ceylon at Urâtota (Hog ferry) near Jaffna; the boar alighted near Attapitiya. A piece of sweet potato that he brought from the garden in his mouth and which he here dropt was immediately changed, it is said into a rock, that still preserves its original form, and is still called Batalagala or sweet potato rock. The king came up with the beast on the hill Hantana near Kandy, instantly attacked him sword in hand, and with the first blow inflicted a deep gash. On receiving this wound, the boar became transformed into a rock which is now called Uragala, is very like a hog, and is said to retain the mark of the wound. The king, whilst surprised and unable to comprehend the meaning of the marvels he had just witnessed, received a visit from Sakra, Vishnu and other gods who explained the mystery that perplexed him, and the object in view in drawing him to Ceylon—he alone, not being born of woman, having it in his power to break the charm under which Panduvasa laboured. Malaya Rajâ complying with the wishes of the gods, ordered the Kohomba Yakku dance to be performed which, it is said, drove the sickness out of the king into a rock to the northward of Kandy, which is still called the rock of the Tiger sickness.”[1]

“The spirit of Kuvêni is still supposed to haunt the country and inflict misfortune on the race of the conqueror by whom she was betrayed. Kuvenigala is a bare mountain of rock on which are two stones, one slightly resembling a human figure in a standing attitude, the other looking like a seat. It is on this that traditions assert, the Yakinni sometimes appears and casts the withering glance of malignant power over the fair fields and fertile Valley of Asgiriya—a sequestered and most romantic spot in the Matale District.”[2]

Rocks with mystic marks indicate the spot where treasures are concealed and lights are seen at night in such places.

When the owner of a treasure wanted to keep it safe, it is said that he dug two holes in some lonely jungle and at night proceeded to the spot with a servant carrying the treasure; after the treasure was deposited in one hole, the master cut his servant’s throat and buried him in the other to make him a guardian of his treasure in the form of a snake or demon.

The earth goddess (Mihi Ket) supports the world on one of her thumbs and when weary shifts it on to the other causing an earthquake.

The four cardinal points are presided over by four guardian deities (Hataravaran Deviyô).

Sea waves are three in number which follow each other in regular succession. The first and the largest is the brother who fell in love with his sister and who, to conquer his unholy passion, committed suicide by jumping into the sea. The next is his mother who jumped after her son, and the last and the smallest is the daughter herself.

The sky in the olden times was very close to the earth, and the stars served as lamps to the people; a woman who was sweeping her compound was so much troubled by the clouds touching her back when she stooped to sweep that she gave the sky a blow with her ikle broom saying ‘get away’ (pala). The sky in shame immediately flew out of the reach of man.

The rainbow is the god Sakra’s bow (Devidunne) and portends fair weather; when any calamity is approaching Budures (Buddha’s rays) appear in the sky—“a luminous phenomenon consisting of horizontal bands of light which cross the sky while the sun is in the ascendant.” The twilight seen on hill tops is the sunshine in which the female Rakshis dry their paddy.

Lightning strikes the graves of cruel men; thunder induces conception in female crocodiles and bursts open the peahen’s eggs.

Children sing out to the moon “Handahamy apatat bat kande ran tetiyak diyo.”—(Mr. Moon do give us a golden plate in which to eat our rice).

When the new moon is first observed it is lucky to immediately after look on rice, milk or kiss a kind and well to do relative.

The spots in the moon represent a hare to signify to the world the self-sacrifice of Buddha in a previous existence.

In each year the twelve days (Sankranti) on which the sun moves from one sign of the zodiac to another, are considered unlucky. There are twenty seven constellations (neket) which reach the zenith at midnight on particular days in particular months; and their position is ascertained from an astrologer before any work of importance is begun.

The sun, moon, and Rahu were three sons of a widowed mother whom they left at home one day to attend a wedding. When they returned she inquired what they had brought with them; the eldest angrily replied that he had brought nothing, the second threw at her the torch which had lighted them on the way, but the third asked for his mother’s rice pot and put into it a few grains of rice, which he had brought concealed under his nails and which miraculously filled the vessel. The mother’s blessing made the youngest son the pleasant and cool moon, while her curses made the second the burning sun and the eldest the demon Rahu who tries to destroy his brothers by swallowing them and causing an Eclipse.

---

[1] An account of the Interior of Ceylon (1821) Page 119 Davy. [↑]

[2] Eleven Years in Ceylon (1841), Vol. II, p. 81 Forbes. [↑]

CHAPTER II.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

Trees which grow to a large size like the Nuga (ficus altissima), Bo (ficus religiosa), Erabadu (erythrina indica), Divul (feroma elephantum) are the abodes of spirits and villagers erect leafy altars under them where they light lamps, offer flowers and burn incense. Before a wood-cutter fells a large tree he visits to it three or four days previously and asks the spirit residing there to take its abode elsewhere; otherwise evil will befall him.

On the way to Adam’s Peak there are to be found sacred orchards where a person may enter and eat any quantity of fruit but will not be able to find his way out if he tries to bring any with him.

The Bo tree is sacred to Buddha and is never cut down; its leaves shiver in remembrance of the great enlightenment which took place under it. His three predecessors in the Buddha hood—Kassapa, Konâgama, Kakusanda—attained enlightenment under the nuga, dimbul and the sirisa.

The margosa tree is sacred to Pattini and the telambu tree to Navaratna Wâlli. Each lunar asterism is associated with a particular tree.

Homage is paid to an overlord by presenting him with a roll of 40 betel leaves with the stalk ends towards the receiver. Before the betel is chewed, its apex and a piece of the petiole of the base are broken off as a cobra brought the leaf from the lower world holding both ends in its mouth. It is also considered beneath one’s dignity to eat the base of the petiole.

The flowering of a tala tree (corypha umbraculifera) is inauspicious to the village. A cocoanut only falls on a person who has incurred divine displeasure; it is lucky to own a cocoanut tree with a double stem.

A king cocoanut tree near the house brings bad luck to the owner’s sons. When a person dies or a child is born a cocoanut blossom is hung over him.

The person who plants an arekanut tree becomes subject to nervousness. The woman who chews the scarred slice of an arekanut becomes a widow. If a married woman eats a plantain which is attached to another, she gets twins.

An astrologer once told a king that a particular day and hour were so auspicious that anything planted then would become a useful tree. The king directed the astrologer’s head to be severed and planted and this grew into the crooked cocoanut tree. Pleased with the result he got his own head severed and planted and it grew into the straight areka tree.

Red flowers (rat mal) are sacred to malignant spirits and white flowers (sudu mal) to beneficient spirits. Turmeric water is used for charming and sticks from bitter plants are used as magic wands. The Nâga darana root (martynia diandra) protects a man from snake bite.

It is auspicious to have growing near houses the following:—nâ (ironwood), palu (mimusops hexandra), mûnamal (mimusops elengi), sapu (champak), delum (pomegranate), kohomba (margosa), areka, cocoanut, palmyra, jak, shoeflower, idda (wrightia zeylanica), sadikka (nutmeg) and midi (vitis vinifera) while the following are inauspicious:—imbul (cotton), ruk (myristica tursfieldia), mango, beli (aegle marmelos), ehela (cassia fistula), tamarind, satinwood, ratkihiri (accacia catechu), etteriya (murraya exotica) and penala (soap berry plant).

Persons taken for execution were formerly made to wear wadamal (hibiscus).

The dumella (Trichosanthes cucumerina) and the kekiri (zhenaria umbellata) are rendered bitter, if named before eating. Alocasia yams (habarale) cause a rasping sensation in the throat when they are named within the eater’s hearing.

When a person is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves are rubbed on the injured place with the words “tôra kola visa netâ kahambaliyâ visa eta.” (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle). Cassia indicates the fertility of the soil; where diyataliya (mexitixia tetrandra) and kumbuk (terminalia tomentosa) flourish a copious supply of water can be obtained.

The bark of the bo tree and of the Bômbu (symplocos spicata) prevent the contagion of sore eyes when tied on the arms.

In the beginning the only food used by man was an edible fungus like boiled milk which grew spontaneously upon the earth. As man fell from his primitive simplicity this substance disappeared and rice without the husk took its place. But when man became depraved the rice developed a covering and ceased to grow spontaneously forcing men to work.

A poor widow had a daughter who married a rich man. One day she went to her daughter’s and asked for a little rice to eat. Though the pot of rice was on the fire, the daughter said she had none to give and the mother went away. The daughter found the rice in the pot had turned into blood and she threw it away. The god Sakraya in revenge reduced the daughter to beggary and the mother and daughter on the god’s advice dug where the pot of rice had been emptied and found the batala yam (bata rice and lê-blood). Thereafter the batala (Edulis batatas) became the food of the poor.

That the jak fruit may be eaten by the people, the god Sakrayâ came to earth as a Brahmin, plucked a fruit and asked a woman to cook it without tasting. The smell was so tempting that she stealthily ate a little of it and was called a thievish woman (hera, thief; and liya woman.) The fruit is consequently called heraliya.

A king once directed a jeweller to work in gold a design similar to the club moss; the goldsmith found this so hard that he went mad and the moss is called the jeweller’s curse (badal vanassa).

The butterfly orchid inflames one’s passion and is called the “yam that killed the younger sister” (nagâ meru ale) as a sister once accidentally tasted it and made amorous gestures to her brother who killed her.

If a person approaches the mythical Damba tree without a charm he will be killed. The celestial Kapruka gives everything one wishes for. The unknown Visakumbha is an antidote for poison and is eaten by the mungoose after its fight with the cobra. Kusa grass (sevendrâ) exists both on earth and in heaven.

The imaginary Kalu nika twig floats against the current, cuts in two the strongest metal; when eaten rejuvenates the old; and to obtain it the young of the etikukulâ (jungle fowl) should be tied by a metal chain when the parents will fetch the twig to release their young.

CHAPTER III.

THE ANIMAL WORLD.

The presence of bats in a house indicates that it will be soon deserted. Medicinal virtues are ascribed to the flesh of monkeys. To look at a slender loris (una hapuluva) brings ill luck and its eyes are used for a love potion. The lion’s fat corrodes any vessel except one of gold; its roar which makes one deaf is raised three times—first when it starts from its den, next when it is well on its way, and last when it springs on its victim. It kills elephants but eats only their brain. The unicorn (kangavêna) has a horn on its forehead with which it pierces the rocks that impede its progress.

If a dog howls or scratches away the earth before a house it presages illness or death; if it walks on the roof, the house will be deserted, if it sleeps under a bed it is a sign of the occupant’s speedy death.

A bear throws sand on the eyes of its victim before pouncing on him, and it does not attack persons carrying rockbine (Galpahura).

When a person is bitten by a mouse, the wound is burnt with a heated piece of gold. A mouse after drinking toddy boasts that it can break up the cat into seven pieces. A kick from a wild rat (valmiyâ) produces paralysis.

The porcupine (ittêvâ) shoots its quills to keep off its antagonists and hunts the pengolin (kebellevâ) out of its home and occupies it himself.

A cheetah likes the warmth of a blaze and comes near the cultivator’s watch fire in the field, calls him by name and devours him; it frequents where peacocks abound; it does not eat the victim that falls with the right side uppermost. Small pox patients are carried away by this animal which is attracted by the offensive smell they emanate; when the cheetah gets a sore mouth by eating the wild herb mîmanadandu, it swallows lumps of clay to allay its hunger; its skin and claws are used as amulets; the female cheetah gives birth only once and has no subsequent intercourse with her mate owing to the severe travail; the cheetah was taught by the cat to climb up a tree but not to climb down; in revenge it always kills its tutor but is reverent enough not to make a meal of the body which it places on an elevated spot and worships. One in a thousand cheetahs has the jaya-revula (lucky side whiskers) which never fails to bring good fortune if worn as an amulet.

The cheetah, the lizard and the crocodile were three brothers, herdsmen, skilled in necromancy; as the animals they were looking after refused to yield milk, the eldest transformed himself into a cheetah, and the evil nature of the beast asserting itself he began to destroy the flock and attack the brothers; the youngest took refuge on a tree transforming himself into a lizard and the other who had the magical books turned himself into a crocodile and jumped into a river; these three have ever since lived in friendship and a person who escapes the crocodile is killed if a lizard urinates on him when sleeping; a crocodile’s victim can free himself by tickling its stomach and trying to take away the books concealed there.

A cat becomes excited by eating the root of the acolypha indica (kuppamêniya) and its bite makes one lean; its caterwauling is unlucky. The grey mungoose bites as an antidote a plant not identified called visakumbha before and after its fight with the cobra; when it finds difficulty in fighting the cobra, it retires to the jungle and brings on its back the king of the tribe, a white animal, by whom or in whose presence the cobra is easily killed.

The hare gives birth to its young on full moon days, one of them has a crescent on its forehead and dies the first day it sees the moon or invariably becomes a prey to the rat snake.

When a tooth drops, its owner throws it on to the roof saying squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty one in return (lenô lenô me data aran venin datak diyô).

Goblins are afraid of cattle with crumpled horns; a stick of the leea sambucina (burulla) is not used to drive cattle as it makes them lean; the saliva from the mouth of a tired bull is rubbed on its body to relieve its fatigue, and bezoar stones (gôrôchana) found in cattle are prescribed for small pox. In the olden time the ox had no horns but had teeth in both its jaws, while the horse had horns but had no teeth in its upper jaw; each coveted the other’s possessions and effected an exchange; the ox taking the horns and giving the horse its upper row of teeth; cart bulls are driven with the words ‘jah,’ ‘pita,’ ‘mak,’ ‘hov’.—move, to the right, to the left, halt.

Wild buffaloes are susceptible to charms.

Deer’s musk prolongs a dying man’s life.

An elephant shakes a palm leaf before eating it as bloodsuckers may be lurking there to creep inside its trunk. A dead elephant is never found for when death approaches the elephant goes to a secluded spot and lays itself down to die. Children who are made to pass under an elephant’s body become strong and are free from illness.

When the keeper says ‘hari hari,’ the elephant moves; ‘ho ho’ it stops, ‘dhana’ it kneels; ‘hinda’, it lies down; ‘daha’, it gets up; ‘bila’ it lifts the fore foot; ‘hayi,’ it lifts its trunk and trumpets.

A shower during sunshine denotes the jackal’s wedding day; a jackal always joins the cry of its friends, otherwise its hair will drop off one by one; a jackal’s horn (narianga) is very rare and it gives the possessor everything he wishes for and when buried in a threshing floor increases the crop, a hundred fold. The jackals assisted by the denizens of the woods once waged war against the wild fowls (welikukulô) who called to their aid a party of men one of whom seized the king of the jackals and dashed him on a rock and broke his jaw; as the king received the blow he raised the cry, apoi mage hakka (Oh my jaw), which could still be heard in the jackal’s howl. The wild fowls are still the enemies of the jackals. The jackals and the crabs have also a feud between them; a jackal once deceived a crocodile on the promise of getting the latter a wife and got himself ferried across the river for several days till he had consumed the carcase of the elephant on the other bank. A crab undertook to assist the crocodile to take revenge, invited the jackal to a feast and suggested to him to go to the riverside for a drink of water. The jackal consented but on seeing his enemy lying in wait killed the crab for his treachery.

Dark plumaged birds like the owl, the magpie robin and the black bird bring ill luck and are chased away from the vicinity of houses. The cry of the night heron (kana-koka) as it flies over a house presages illness and that of the devil bird (ulamâ) death. The devil bird was in a previous birth a wife whose fidelity her husband suspected and in revenge killed their child, made a curry of its flesh and gave it to the mother; as she was eating she found the finger of the infant and in grief she fled into the forest, killed herself, and was born the devil bird.

Crows are divided into two castes which do not mate, the hooded crows and the jungle crows; they faint three times at night through hunger and their insatiate appetite can only be temporarily appeased by making them swallow rags dipped in ghee; they hatch their eggs in time to take their young to the Ehela festival held in honour of the godlings during July and August. A crow seldom dies a natural death, and once in a hundred years a feather drops. As no one eats its flesh it sorrowfully cries kâtka (I eat every body). The king crow was once a barber and it now pecks its dishonest debtor, the crow.

The presence of sparrows in a house indicates that a male child will be born and when they play in the sand that there will be rain. Once upon a time a house, where a pair of sparrows had built their nest caught fire; the hen sparrow flew away but the male bird tried to save their young and scorched his throat; this scar can still be seen on the cock sparrow.

A house will be temporarily abandoned if a spotted dove (aḷukobeyiyâ) flies through it; this bird was once a woman who put out to dry some mî flowers (bassia longifolia) and asked her little son to watch them; when they were parched they got stuck to the ground and could not be seen; the mother thought the child had been negligent and killed him in anger; a shower of rain which fell just then showed to her the lost herbs and in remorse she killed herself and was born the spotted dove, who still laments. “I got back my mî flowers but not my son, Oh my child, my child” (mimal latin daru no latin pubbaru putê pû pû).

Parrots are proverbially ungrateful; sunbirds boast after a copious draught of toddy that they can overthrow Maha Meru with their tiny beaks.

The great difficulty of the horn-bill (kendetta) to drink water is due to its refusal to give water to a thirsty person in a previous existence. The common babbler hops as he was once a fettered prisoner. The red tailed fly catcher was a fire thief, and the white tailed one a cloth thief.

A white cock brings luck and prevents a garden from being destroyed by black beetles. When a hen has hatched the shells are not thrown away but threaded together and kept in a loft over the fireplace till the chickens can look after of themselves. Ceylon jungle fowls become blind by eating strobilanthes seed when they may be knocked down with a stick.

The cuckoo searches for its young, ejected from the crow’s nest, crying koho (where) and its cry at night portends dry weather.

The plover (kiralâ) sleeps with her legs in the air to prevent the sky falling down and crushing her young; her eggs, when eaten, induce watchfulness.

Peacocks dance in the morning to pay obeisance to the Sun God, and they are not kept as pets in houses as the girls will not find suitors. Peahens conceive at the noise of thunder and hence their love for rain. Some say that the peacock once fell in love with the swan king’s daughter and when going to solicit her hand borrowed the pitta’s beautiful tail which he refused to return after winning his bride; the peahen pecks at the male bird’s train during the mating season, angry at the deception practised on her while the pittâ goes about crying “avichchi” (I shall complain when the Maitri Buddun comes.) Others say that the peacock stole the garments while pittâ was bathing.

The cry of the pittâ (avichchya) presages rain; and it is thought to be a sorrow stricken prince mourning for his beautiful bride Ayittâ and hence his cry.

Leeches are engaged in measuring the ground. Snails were persons who in a previous birth used to spit at others; their slime when rubbed on one’s body makes one strong. Worms attack flowers in November and are influenced by charms.

Retribution visits one who ruthlessly destroys the clay nest of the mason wasp (kumbalâ); a ran kumbalâ builds a nest with lime when a boy is to be born in the house and a metikumbalâ with clay when a girl.

Winged termites issue in swarms in the rainy season and prognosticate a large catch of fish. Spiders were fishermen in a previous existence and the mantis religiosa (dara kettiyâ) a fire-wood thief.

Bugs infest a house when misfortune is impending and crickets (reheyyô) stridulate till they burst.

It is lucky to have ants carrying their eggs about a house, but it is unlucky for the head of the house when large black ants enter it.

When a person is in a bad temper it is sarcastically said that a large sized red ant has broken wind on him.

The small red myriapod (kanvêyâ) causes death by entering the ear.

Every new born child has a louse on its head which is not killed but thrown away or put on another’s head.

As the finger is taken round the bimûrâ (a burrowing insect,) it dances to the couplet “bim ûrâ bim ûrâ tôt natâpiya, mât nattanan.” (Bimûrâ bimûrâ, you better dance and I too shall dance.)

Butterflies go on a pilgrimage from November to February to Adam’s Peak against which they dash themselves and die in sacrifice.

Centipedes run away when their name is mentioned; they are as much affected as the man they bite.

The black beetle is the messenger of death to find out how many persons there are in a house; if it comes down on three taps from an ikle broom its intentions are evil; it is seldom killed, but wrapt in a piece of white cloth and thrown away or kept in a corner.

The presence of fire flies in a house indicate that it will be broken into or deserted; if one alights on a person, some loss will ensue; if it is picked up, anything then wished for will be fulfilled; the fireflies had refused to give light to one in need of it in a previous existence; their bite requires “the mud of the deep sea and the stars of the sky for a cure”—a cryptic way of saying “salt from the sea and gum from the eye.”

A crocodile makes lumps of clay to while away the time; it throws up its prey as it carries it away and catches it with its mouth; its female becomes pregnant at the sound of thunder without any cohabitation; at certain times of the year the crocodile’s mouth is shut fast; whenever its mouth opens, its eyes close.

The flesh of the iguana is nutritious and never disagrees. The kabaragoya is requisitioned to make a deadly and leprosy-begetting poison which is injected into the veins of a betel leaf and given to an enemy to chew; three of these reptiles are tied to the three stones in a fireplace facing each other with a fourth suspended over them; a pot is placed in the centre into which they pour out their venom as they get heated.

The blood-sucker indicates by the upward motion of its head that girls should be unearthed, and by the downward motion that its inveterate tormentors the boys should be buried. Chameleons embody the spirits of women who have died in parturition.

The cry of frogs is a sign that rain is impending and the fluid they eject is poisonous; if frogs that infest a house be removed to any distance, they always come back; a person becomes lean if a tree-frog jumps on him.

A python swallows a deer whole and then goes between the trunks of two trees growing near each other to crush the bones of its prey; its oil cures any bad cut or wound.

Venomous reptiles are hung up after they are killed or are burnt.

The cobra is held sacred and rarely killed; when caught it is enclosed in a mat bag with some boiled rice and floated on a river or stream; a person killing a cobra dies or suffers some misfortune within seven days. Some cobras have a gem in their throats which they keep out to entice insects; they kill themselves if this be taken from them which can be done by getting on to a tree and throwing cowdung over the gem. Cobras are fond of sandal wood and the sweet smelling flowers of the screw pine, and are attracted by music. Their bite is fatal on Sundays. Martynia diandra (nâgadarana) protects a man from the bite of the cobra.

There are seven varieties of vipers; of these the bite of the nidi polangâ causes a deep sleep, and of the le polangâ a discharge of blood. When her skin is distended with offspring, the female viper expires and the young make their escape out of the decomposing body.

Cobras and vipers keep up an ancient feud; during a certain hot season a child was playing inside a vessel full of water and a thirsty cobra drank of it without hurting the child; a thirsty viper met the cobra and was told where water was to be found on the viper’s promise that it will not injure the child; as the viper was drinking the water, the child playfully struck it and the viper bit him to death; the cobra who had followed the viper killed it for breaking its promise.

The green whip snake (ehetullâ) attacks the eyes of those who approach it and the shadow of the brown whip snake (hena kandaya) makes one lame or paralytic.

A rat snake seldom bites, but if it does, the wound ends fatally only if cowdung is trampled on.

The aharakukkâ (tropidonoms stolichus) lives in groups of seven and when one is killed the others come in search of it.

A mapila (dipsas forstenii) reaches its victim on the floor by several of them linking together and hanging from the roof.

The legendary kobô snake loses a joint of its tail every time it expends its poison, till one joint is left, when it assumes wings and the head of a toad; with the last bite both the victim and the snake die.

CHAPTER IV.

HUMAN BEINGS.

It is considered unlucky to lie down when the sun is setting; to sleep with the head towards the west or with the hands between the thighs; to clasp one’s hands across the head or to eat with the head resting on a hand; to strike the plate with the fingers after taking a meal; to give to another’s hand worthless things like chunam or charcoal without keeping them on something, and for a female to have a hairy person.

It is thought auspicious to eat facing eastwards, to gaze at the full moon and then at the face of a kind relative or a wealthy friend; to have a girl as the eldest in the family; to have a cavity between the upper front teeth: and if a male to have a hairy body.

If a person yawns loud the crop of seven of his fields will be destroyed; a child’s yawn indicates that it is becoming capable of taking a larger quantity of food.

If a person bathes on a Friday it is bad for his sons, if on a Tuesday for himself; if he laughs immoderately he will soon have an occasion to cry; if he allows another’s leg to be taken over him he will be stunted in his growth; if he passes under another’s arm he will cause the latter to get a boil under the armpit, which can be averted by his returning the same way.

If a person eats standing, or tramples a jak fruit with one foot only he will get elephantiasis; if he eats walking about he will have to beg his bread; if he gazes at the moon and finds its reflection round his own shadow his end is near.

If the second toe of a female be longer than the big toe she will master her husband; if the left eye of a male throbs, it portends grief, the right pleasure—of a female it is the reverse.

If the eyebrows of a woman meet she will outlive her husband; if of a man he will be a widower; if a male eats burnt rice his beard will grow on one side only; if the tongue frequently touches where a tooth has fallen the new tooth will come out projecting; if an eye tooth be extracted it will cause blindness.

A sneeze from the right nostril signifies that good is being spoken of the person, from the left ill; when an infant sneezes a stander by says “ayi-bôvan” (long life to you).

If a child cuts its upper front teeth first, it portends evil to its parents; a child sucks its toe when it has drunk seven pots of milk.

An infant whimpers in its sleep when spirits say that its father is dead as it had never seen him, but smiles when they say its mother is dead as it knows she has nursed it only a little while before. Mothers hush crying children by calling on the kidnapping goblin Billâ or Gurubâliyâ.

A person who dangles his legs when seated digs his mother’s grave. As one with a hairy whorl on his back will meet with a watery death, he avoids seas and rivers.

Everyone’s future is stamped on his head; flowers on the nails signify illness and the itching sensation in one’s palm that he will get money.

It is bad to raise one’s forefinger as he takes his handful of rice to his mouth as he thereby chides the rice.

No one takes his meal in the presence of a stranger without giving him a share as it will disagree with him. If any envious person speaks of the number of children in another’s family or praises them the party affected spits out loud to counteract the evil.

Two people who are the first born of parents are never allowed to marry as their children rarely live. The dead body of a first male child of parents who are themselves the first born of their parents is regarded as having magical powers and sorcerers try to obtain it; if this be done the mother will not bear any more children; to prevent this it is buried near the house. When a mother’s pregnancy desires are not satisfied the child’s ears fester.

Pollution caused by a death lasts three months, by child birth one month, by a maid attaining puberty fourteen days, and by the monthly turn of a woman till she bathes.

Every person has in a more or less degree on certain days an evil eye and a malevolent mouth; to avoid the evil eye black pots with chunam marks and hideous figures are placed before houses; children are marked between the eyes with a black streak, chanks are tied round the forehead of cattle, branches of fruit are concealed with a covering made of palm leaves and festive processions are preceded by mummeries. Serious consequences befall a person who recites ironically laudatory verses written by a person with a malevolent mouth. Assumption of high office and marriage ceremonies are fraught with ill to the persons concerned owing to the evil eye and malevolent mouth.

The kalawa (principle of life,) in man rises with the new moon from the left toe and travels during the lunar month up to the head and down again to the right foot. Any injury however slight to the spot where it resides causes death. Its movements are reversed in a woman, in whom it travels up from the right toe and comes down on the left side. The course it takes is (1) big toe of foot; (2) sole of foot; (3) calf; (4) knee cap; (5) lingam; (6) side of stomach; (7) pap; (8) armpit; (9) side of neck; (10) side of throat; (11) side of lip; (12) side of cheek; (13) eye; (14) side of head; (15) other side of head; (16) eye; (17) side of cheek; and so on till the big toe of the other foot is reached.

CHAPTER V.

THINGS MADE BY MAN.

Houses are not built with a frontage towards the South-East for fear of destruction by fire as it is known as the fire quarter (ginikona).

A lucky position of the constellations (neket) is ascertained before the first pillar of a house is erected, before a door frame of a new house is set or a new house is tiled, before a new house is entered or a fire kindled or furniture taken in or before a tree is planted or a well dug.

When several deaths take place in a dwelling house, it is deserted. Whole villages are sometimes deserted in case of an epidemic.

The fire that is first kindled in a new house is arranged in the main room and over it is placed a new pot full of milk resting on three stones or three green sticks placed like a tripod. As the milk begins to boil, pounded rice is put into it.

The goddess of fortune is said to leave a dwelling house which is not swept and kept clean.

As a newly married couple crosses the threshold a husked cocoanut is cut in two.

To avoid the evil eye black pots with white chunam marks and hideous figures are placed before houses and in orchards.

When a child is born, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the hut to the other, if a girl an ikle broom.

All the personal belongings of a dead man are given away in charity. Paddy is not pounded in a house where a person has died as the spirit will be attracted by the noise.

When the daily supply of rice is being given out, if the winnowing fan or the measure drops, it denotes that extra mouths will have to be fed. If a person talks while the grain is being put into the pot, it will not be well boiled.

In the field things are not called by their proper names, no sad news is broken and a shade over the head is not permitted.

In drawing toddy from the kitul tree, (caryota urens) a knife which has already been used is preferred to another.

If a grave be dug and then closed up to dig a second, or if a coffin be too large for the corpse, or if the burial be on a Friday there will soon be another death in the family.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SOUL AND ANOTHER LIFE.

When a person dies everything is done to prevent the disembodied spirit being attracted to its old home or disturbed. Even paddy is not pounded in the house as the sound may attract it.

The day after burial the dead man’s belongings are given away in charity and an almsgiving of kenda (rice gruel) to priests or beggars takes place. A little of the kenda in a gotuwa (leaf cup) is kept on a tree or at a meeting of roads and if a crow or any other bird eats it, it is a sign that the deceased is happy; otherwise it indicates that it has become a perturbed spirit. Seven days after, there is an almsgiving of rice when a gotuwa of rice is similarly made use of for a further sign. Three months after is the last almsgiving which is done on a large scale; relatives are invited for a feast and all signs of sorrow are banished from that day.

The object of this last almsgiving is to make the disembodied spirit cease to long for the things he has left behind and if this be not done the spirit of the dead person approaches the boundary fence of the garden; if the omission be not made good after six months it takes its stand near the well; when nine months have elapsed it comes near the doorway, and after twelve months it enters the house and makes its presence felt by emitting offensive smells and contaminating food as a Peretayâ or by destroying the pots and plates of the house and pelting stones as a gevalayâ or by apparitions as an avatâré or by creating strange sounds as a holmana; it is afraid of iron and lime and when over boisterous a kattadiya rids it from the house by nailing it to a tree, or enclosing it in a small receptacle and throwing it into the sea where it is so confined till some one unwittingly sets it free when it recommences its tricks with double force. A woman who dies in parturition and is buried with the child becomes a bodirima; she is short and fat, rolls like a cask, kills men whenever she can; if a lamp and some betel leaves be kept where she haunts she will be seen heating a leaf and warming her side; the women chase her away with threats of beating her with an ikle broom; if shot at she turns into a chameleon (yak katussâ). If a person dreams of a dead relative he gives food to a beggar the next morning.

CHAPTER VII.

SUPERHUMAN BEINGS.

The three sources of superhuman influence from which the Singhalese peasantry expect good or ill are (1) the spirits of disease and poverty; (2) tutelary spirits of various grades and (3) the planetary spirits.

There are several important spirits of disease such as Maha Sohona, Riri Yakâ, Kalu Kumâra Yakâ, Sanni Yakâ.

Maha Sohona is 122 feet high, has the head of a bear with a pike in his left hand and in his right an elephant, whose blood he squeezes out to drink; he inflicts cholera and dysentery and presides over graveyards and where three roads meet and rides on a pig. In ancient times two giants Jayasena and Gotimbara met in single combat; the latter knocked off the head of Jayasena when the god Senasurâ tore off the head of a bear and placed it on Jayasena’s body who rose up alive as the demon Maha Sohona.

Riri Yakâ has a monkey face, carries in one hand a cock and a club in the other with a corpse in his mouth, is present at every death bed, haunts fields and causes fever flux of blood and loss of appetite, and has a crown of fire on his head. He came into the world from the womb of his mother by tearing himself through her heart.

Kalu Kumâra Yakâ is a young devil of a dark complexion who is seen embracing a woman; he prevents conception, delays childbirth and causes puerperal madness. He was a Buddhist arhat with the supernatural power of going through the air. In one of his aerial travels, he saw a beautiful princess and falling in love with her lost at once his superhuman powers and dropped down dead and became the demon Kalu Kumâra Yakâ.

Sanni Yakâ has cobras twisting round his body with a pot of fire near him, holds a rosary in his hand, causes different forms of coma, rides on a horse or lion, has 18 incarnations and forms a trinity with Oddi Yakâ and Huniam Yakâ. He was the son of a queen put to death by her husband who suspected she was unfaithful to his bed. As the queen who was pregnant was being executed, she said that if the charge was false the child in her womb will become a demon and destroy the King and his city. Her corpse gave birth to the Sanni Yakâ who inflicted a mortal disease on his father and depopulated the country.

When any of these demons has afflicted a person the prescribed form of exorcism is a devil dance. In the patient’s garden, a space of about 30 square feet is marked out (atamagala) and bounded with lemon sticks. Within the enclosure, raised about 3 feet from the ground, is erected an altar (samema) for the offerings (pidenitatu). The shape of the altar depends on the afflicting demon—triangular for Riri Yakâ, rectangular for Sanni Yakâ, semicircular for Kalu Kumâra Yakâ and square for Maha Sohona.

The offerings consist of boiled rice, a roasted egg, seven kinds of curries, five kinds of roasted seed, nine kinds of flowers, betel leaves, fried grain, powdered resin and a thread spun by a virgin. There are the usual tom tom beaters; and the exorcist and his assistants are dressed in white and red jackets, with crown shaped head ornaments, and bell attached leglets and armlets, and carrying torches and incense pans.

The ceremony consists of a series of brisk dances by the exorcist, and his men, at times masked, in the presence of the patient to the accompaniment of a chant (kavi) giving the life history of the devil, with a whirling of the blazing torches. This lasts from evening till dawn when the exorcist lies on his back and calls on the devil to cure the patient (yâdinna); incantations follow (mantra), and the sacrifices are offered. For the Riri Yakâ a cock which had been placed under the altar or tied to the foot of the patient is killed and thrown into the jungle; for the Kalu Yakâ an earthen pot which had been placed on the altar is broken; for the Sanni Yakâ the offerings are conveyed in a large bag to a stream or river and thrown into the water; for the Maha Sohona the exorcist feigns himself dead to deceive the devil and is carried with mock lamentations to a burial ground.

The spirits of poverty—Garâ Yakku—are twelve in number viz., (1) Molan Garavva; (2) Dala Râkshayâ, (3) Yama Râkshayâ; (4) Pûranikâ; (5) Ratnakûtayâ; (6) Nîla Giri; (7) Nanda Giri; (8) Chandra Kâvâ; (9) Mârakâ; (10) Asuraya; (11) Nâtagiri; (12) Pelmadullâ. They haunt every nook and corner of a house, destroy crops, make trees barren, new houses inauspicious, send pests of flies and insects, reduce families to abject poverty, and are propitiated by a dance called Garâ Yakuma. A shed (maduva) is put up for it and round it is a narrow altar, with a platform in front (wesatte). On the altar are placed four kinds of flowers, betel leaves, some cotton, a spindle, a cotton cleaner, a shuttle, a comb, a little hair, a looking glass, a bundle of gurulla leaves, two burning torches and a few cents. Men of the Oli caste dressed in white and red and at times masked dance from evening till morning within the shed and on the platform. Late at night an oblation is made in leaf-cups of seven different vegetables cooked in one utensil, boiled rice, cakes and plantains. At day break the dancers stretch themselves on the ground and receive nine pecuniary offerings; they then rise up and conclude the ceremony by striking the roof of the shed with a rice pounder.

The tutelary deities are of three grades viz., (1) Gods; (2) Godlings and (3) Divine Mothers. The Gods are Maha Deviyô; Natha Deviyô; Saman Deviyô; Kateragama Deviyô; and the Goddess Pattini.

Maha Deviyô is identified with Vishnu, and is the guardian deity of the island, and is a candidate for the Buddhahood; a miniature weapon in gold or silver is placed at his shrine as a votive offering.

Natha Deviyô is the future Maitri Buddha and is now biding his time in the Tusita heaven; Kandyan sovereigns at their coronation girt their swords and adopted their kingly title before his shrine.

Saman Deviyô is the deified half brother of Rama, who conquered Ceylon in prehistoric times, and is the guardian spirit of Adam’s Peak; pilgrims while climbing the sacred hill to worship Buddha’s foot-print, call on him to aid their ascent. A miniature elephant in gold or silver is the usual votive offering to him.

Kateragama Deviyô is the most popular of the gods; a prehistoric deity, to whom a miniature peacock in gold or silver is the customary, votive offering. He is said to be the six faced and twelve handed god Kandaswamy who on his homeward return to Kailâsa after defeating the Asuras halted at Kataragama in South Ceylon; here he met his consort Valli Ammâ whom he wooed in the guise of a mendicant; when his advances were scornfully rejected, his brother assuming the head of a man and the body of an elephant appeared on the scene and the terrified maiden rushed into her suitor’s arms for safety; the god then revealed himself and she became his bride. The god Ayiyanâr invoked in the forests of Ceylon is said to be his half brother.

Pattini is the goddess of chastity.

The three eyed Pândi Raja of Madura had subjugated the gods and was getting them to dig a pond near his royal city when, at Sakraya’s request, Pattini who resided in Avaragiri Parvata became conceived in a mango fruit. After it was severed from the tree by an arrow of Sakraya, it remain suspended in the air and on Pândi Râja looking up to observe the wonder, a drop of juice fell on the third eye in the middle of his forehead by which he lost his power and the gods were liberated. Pattini was found inside the mango as an infant of exquisite beauty sucking her thumb. When she grew up she performed wonders and ultimately disappeared within a Kohomba tree (margosa). An armlet or a miniature mango fruit in gold or silver is placed at her devala as a votive offering.

These deities are worshipped in separate devâla which are in charge of Kapurâlas who have to bathe daily and anoint themselves with lime juice, avoid drinking spirits and eating flesh, eggs, turtle or eel and keep away from houses where a birth or death has taken place. A dewala consists of two rooms, one being the sanctum for the insignia of the god—a spear, bill hook or arrow—and the other being the ante room for the musicians; attached to the devala is the multengê (kitchen). On Wednesdays and Saturdays the doors of the dewala are opened; the Multengê Kapurâla cooks the food for the deity; the Tevâva Kapuralâ offers it at the shrine on a plantain leaf enclosed with areka-flower-strips, and purified with saffron water, sandal paste and incense. Before and after the meal is offered, drums are beaten in the ante room. In return for offerings made by votaries the Anumetirâla invokes the god to give relief from any ailment, a plentiful harvest, thriving cattle, success in litigation, and children to sterile mothers. Punishment to a faithless wife, curses on a forsworn enemy and vengeance on a thief are invoked by getting the Kapurâla to break a pûnâ kale—a pot with mystic designs,—or to throw into the sea or a river a charmed mixture of powdered condiments. Once a year, when the agricultural season begins, between July and August, the in-signia of the gods are carried on elephants in procession through the streets accompanied by musicians, dancers, temple tenants and custodians of the shrine. The festival begins on a new moon day and lasts till the full moon when the procession proceeds to a neighbouring river or stream where the Kapurâla cuts the water with a sword and removes a potful of it and keeps it in the dewala till it is emptied into the same stream the following year and another potful taken.

The well-known godlings are (1) Wahala Bandâra Deviyô alias Dêvatâ Bandâra; (2) Wirâmunda Deviyô; (3) Wanniya Bandâra; (4) Kirti Bandâra; (5) Menik Bandâra; (6) Mangala Deviyô; (7) Kumâra Deviyô; (8) Irugal Bandâra; (9) Kalu Veddâ alias Kalu Bandâra; (10) Gangê Bandâra; (11) Devol Deviyô; (12) Ilandâri Deviyô; (13) Sundara Bandâra; (14) Monarâvila Alut Deviyô; (15) Galê Deviyô; (16) Ayiyanar Deviyô.

The godlings are local; those which are worshipped in one country district are not sometimes known in another. Their insignia together with a few peacock feathers are sometimes kept in small detached buildings called kovil with representations of the godlings rudely drawn on the walls. A priest called a Yakdessa is in charge of a kovil and when people fall ill “they send for the Yakdessa to their house, and give him a red cock chicken, which he takes up in his hand, and holds an arrow with it, and dedicates it to the god, by telling him, that if he restore the party to his health, that cock is given to him, and shall be dressed and sacrificed to him in his kovil. They then let the cock go among the rest of the poultry, and keep it afterwards, it may be, a year or two; and then they carry it to the temple, or the priest comes for it: for sometimes he will go round about, and fetch a great many cocks together that have been dedicated, telling the owners that he must make a sacrifice to the god; though, it may be, when he hath them, he will go to some other place and convert them into money for his own use, as I myself can witness; we could buy three of them for four-pence half penny. When the people are minded to inquire any thing of their gods, the priests take up some of the arms and instruments of the gods, that are in the temples upon his shoulder; and then he either feigns himself to be mad, or really is so, which the people call pissuvetichchi; and then the spirit of the gods is in him, and whatsoever he pronounceth is looked upon as spoken by God himself, and the people will speak to him as if it were the very person of God.”[1]

Galê Deviyô or Galê Bandâra, also called Malala Bandâra is the god of the rock and is propitiated in parts of the Eastern Province, Uva and the Kurunegalle district, to avert sickness, bad luck and drought. “In these districts, in all cases, the dance, which is a very important part of the proceedings, and indispensable in the complete ceremony, takes place on a high projecting crag near the top of a prominent hill or on the summit of the hill, if it is a single bare rock. On this wild and often extremely dangerous platform, on some hills a mere pinnacle usually hundreds of feet above the plain below, the Anumetirâla performs his strange dance, like that of all so called devil dancers. He chants no song in honour of the ancient deity but postures in silence with bent knees and waving arms, holding up the bill hooks—the god himself for the time being. When he begins to feel exhausted the performer brings the dance to an end, but sometimes his excitement makes it necessary for his assistant to seize him and forcibly compel him to stop. He then descends from his dizzy post, assisted by his henchmen, and returns to the devâla with the tom toms and the crowd.”[2]

The spirits of the forest, invoked by pilgrims and hunters are Wanniyâ Bandâra, Mangala Deviyô, Ilandâri Deviyô and Kalu Bandâra alias Kalu Veddâ. Kaluwedda is a demon supposed to possess power over the animal race. “When a person, more commonly a public hunter, shoots an animal, whether small or large, he, without uttering a single word, takes on the spot three drops of blood from the wound, and smearing them on three leaves makes them into the shape of a cup, and offers them on the branches of a tree, clapping his hands, and expressing words to this effect, “Friend Kaluwedda, give ear to my words: come upon the branches, and receive the offering I give to thee!” The effect of this superstition is supposed to be, that the hunter will seldom or never miss his game.[3]”

Manik Bandâra is the spirit of gem pits and Gange Bandâra is the spirit of streams and rivers.

“The malignant spirit called Gange Bandâra, Oya Bandâra, Oya Yakka, etc. is properly an object of terror, not of worship; and under very many different appellations the identity is easily perceived: he is the representative or personification of those severe fevers, to which, from some occult causes, the banks of all Ceylon rivers are peculiarly liable. The manner of making offerings to the Gange Bandâra is by forming a miniature double canoe, ornamented with cocoanut leaves so as to form a canopy: under this are placed betel, rice, flowers, and such like articles of small value to the donor, as he flatters himself may be acceptable to the fiend, and induce him to spare those who acknowledge his power. After performing certain ceremonies, this propitiatory float is launched upon the nearest river, in a sickly season. I have seen many of these delicate arks whirling down the streams, or aground on the sand banks and fords of the Ambanganga (Matale East).”[4]

Ayiyannar Deviyô is the god of tanks and he is propitiated under a tree by the bund of a tank, by throwing up in the air boiled milk in a hot state. Sundara Bandâra extends his protection to those who invoke him before sleeping.

Wîramunda Deviyô is a spirit of agriculture and rice cakes made of the new paddy is offered to the godling on a platform on which are placed husked cocoanuts, flowers, plantains, a lighted lamp, a pestle and a mortar. Gopalla is a pastoral godling who torments cattle at night and afflicts them with murrain. Devol Deviyô is a South Indian deity who came to Ceylon in spite of the attempts to stop him by Pattini who placed blazing fires in his way. Masked dances of a special kind involving walking over fire take place in his honour. Kirti Bandara, and Monaravila Alut Deviyô are two lately deified chieftains, the former lived in the reign of king Kirti Siri (1747–1780), the latter is Keppitipola who was beheaded by the British in 1818.

Wahala Bandara Deviyô alias Devatâ Bandara is a minister of Vishnu and is invoked when demon-possessed patients cannot be cured by the ordinary devil dance. At his devâla in Alut Nuwera, 11 miles from Kandy, the Kapurâla beats the patient with canes till the devil is exorcised. With him is associated Malwatte Bandâra, another minister of Vishnu.

The peace of the home is impersonated in seven divine mothers who are said to be manifestations of the goddess Pattini. Their names vary according to the different localities. They are known in some places as:—(1) Miriyabedde Kiri Amma or Beddê Mehelli; (2) Pudmarâga Kiri Amma (3) Unâpâna Kiri Amma; (4) Kosgama Kiri Amma; (5) Bâla Kiri Amma; (6) Bôvalagedere Kiri Amma; (7) Indigolleve Kiri Amma.

Navaratna Valli is the patroness of the Rodiyas and is said to have been born from the Telambu tree. Henakanda Bisô Bandâra was born of a wood apple and is invoked as the wife of Devatâ Bandâra.

A thank offering is made to the divine mothers when children are fretful, when a family recovers from chicken pox or some kindred disease, when a mother has had an easy confinement. Seven married women are invited to represent them and are offered a meal of rice, rice cakes, milk, fruits and vegetables; before eating they purify themselves with turmeric water and margosa leaves; a lamp with seven wicks in honour of the seven divine mothers are kept where they are served; after the repast they severally blow out a wick by clapping their hands and take away what is left of the repast. Before a house is newly occupied the seven divine mothers are invoked by ceremoniously boiling rice in milk; a fire is made in the main room and over it is kept a new pot full of milk resting on three green sticks placed like a tripod. As the milk begins to boil pounded rice is put into it. The person superintending the cooking wears a white cloth over his mouth. Seven married women are first served with the cooked milk-rice on plantain leaves, and afterwards the others present.

The mystery of the jungle is impersonated in the Beddê Mehelli.

After a successful harvest or to avert an epidemic from the village a ceremonial dance (gammadu) for which the peasantry subscribe takes place for seven days in honour of the gods, godlings and divine mothers. A temporary building, open on all sides, and decorated with flowers and fruits is erected on the village green, and a branch of the Jak tree is cut ceremonially by the celebrant and carried into the building and placed on the east side as a dedicatory post with a little boiled rice, a cocoanut flower, two cocoanuts and a lamp. Altars are erected for the various deities and on these the celebrant places with music, chant and dance their respective insignia, all present making obeisance. Water mixed with saffron is sprinkled on the floor, resin is burnt and a series of dances and mimetic representations of the life history of the deities take place every night. On the last day there is a ceremonial boiling of rice in milk and a general feast.

Planetary spirits influence the life of a person according to their position in the heavens at the time of his birth, and an astrologer for a handful of betel and a small fee will draw a diagram of 12 squares, indicating the twelve signs of the Zodiac and from the position of the 9 planets in the different squares will recommend the afflicted person a planetary ceremony of a particular form to counteract the malignant influence. Representations (bali) of the nine planetary spirits, of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 27 lunar asterisms, the 8 cardinal points, the 7 intervals of time, and the 14 age periods are made of clay and are placed erect on a large platform of split bamboo measuring about 12 square feet—the arrangement varying according to the advice of the astrologer;—and on the floor is drawn an eight-sided or twelve-sided figure where the celebrant dances and chants propitiatory verses in honour of the planets. The afflicted person sits the whole time during the music, dance and chanting before the images holding in his right hand a lime connected by a thread with the chief idol, and near him are 2 cocoanut flowers, boiled rice, a hopper, 7 vegetable curries, limes, cajunuts, betel, raw rice, white sandalwood and hiressa leaves. At intervals a stander-by throws portions of an areka flower into a koraha of water with cries of ‘ayibôvan’ (long life).

The Sun (Iru) rides on a horse entwined with cotton leaves (imbul) with an emblem of good luck (Sirivasa) in hand and propitiated by the Sânti Mangala Baliya; sacred to him is the ruby (manikya).

Mercury (Budahu) rides on an ox with a chank in hand, entwined with margosa leaves (Kohomba) and propitiated by the Sarva Rupa Baliya; the emerald (nîla) is sacred to this planet.

Mars (Angaharuva) rides on a peacock with an elephant goad (unkusa) in hand, entwined with gamboge leaves (kolon) and propitiated by the Kali Murta Baliya; the coral (pravala) is sacred to this planet.

Rahu rides on an ass with a fish in hand entwined with screw pine leaves (vetakeyiyâ) and is propitiated by the Asura Giri Baliya; the zircon (gomada) is sacred to Rahu.

Kehetu rides on a swan with a rosary in hand, entwined with plantain leaves (kehel) and is propitiated by the Krishna Râksha Baliya; the chrysoberyl (vaidurya) is sacred to Kehetu.

Saturn (Senasurâ) rides on a crow; with a fan in hand entwined with banyan leaves (nuga) and is propitiated by the Dasa Krôdha Baliya; the sapphire (indranîla) is sacred to this planet.

Venus (Sikurâ) rides on a buffalo with a whisk (châmara) in hand, entwined with karanda leaves (galidupa arborea) and is propitiated by the Giri Mangala Baliya; the diamond (vajra) is sacred to this planet.

Jupiter (Brahaspati) rides on a lion with a pot of flowers in hand, entwined with bo leaves and is propitiated by the Abhaya Kalyâna Baliya; the topaz (pusparâga) is sacred to Jupiter.

The moon rides on an elephant with a ribbon in hand entwined with wood apple leaves (diwul) and propitiated by the Sôma Mangala Baliya; pearls (mutu) are sacred to the moon.

---

[1] An Historical Relation of Ceylon 1681 Page 75 (Knox) [↑]

[2] Ancient Ceylon (1909) pp. 191, 196 (Parker) [↑]

[3] The Friend (Old Series) Vol. IV. (1840–1841) p. 189. (David de Silva.) [↑]

[4] Eleven years in Ceylon (1841) Vol. II, page 104 (Major Forbes.) [↑]

CHAPTER VIII.

OMENS AND DIVINATION.

One will not start on a journey, if he meets as he gets out a beggar, a Buddhist priest, a person carrying firewood or his implements of labour, if a lizard chirps, a dog sneezes or flaps his ears. Nor will he turn back after once setting out; if he has forgotten anything it is sent after him, he never returns for it. That the object of his journey may be prosperous he starts with the right foot foremost at an auspicious moment, generally at dawn, when the cock crows; his hopes are at their highest if he sees on the way a milch cow, cattle, a pregnant woman or a person carrying a pitcher full of water, flowers or fruits.

Thieves will not get out when there is the handa madala (ring round the moon) as they will be arrested.

The day’s luck or ill-luck depends on what one sees the first thing in the morning; if anything unlucky be done on a Monday, it will continue the whole week.

If a crow caws near one’s house in the morning, it forebodes sickness or death, at noon pleasure or the arrival of a friend, and in the evening profit; if it drops its excrement on the head, shoulders or on the back of a person it signifies happiness but on the knee or in step a speedy death.

A lizard warns by its chirp; if it chirps from the East pleasant news can be expected, from the South news of sickness or death, from the North profit and from the West the arrival of a friend. If a lizard or a skink (hikenellâ) falls on the right side of a person, he will gain riches, if on the left he will meet with ill luck.

A snake doctor finds out what kind of reptile had bitten a person by a queer method; if the person who comes to fetch him touches his breast with the right hand it is a viper; if the head it is a mapila; if the stomach a frog; if the right shoulder with the left hand a karavalâ, (bungarus coerulus); if he be excited a skink; and if the messenger be a weeping female carrying a child it is a cobra.

Something similar to crystal gazing is attempted by means of a betel leaf smeared with a magical oil; a female deity (Anjanan Devi) appears on the leaf and reveals what the gazer seeks.

A professional fortune teller (guru) when a client comes to consult him, measures the client’s shadow, divides it into three equal parts and after some calculations informs him whether a lost article will be found, a sick person will recover or any enterprise will fail or succeed.

Dreams that prognosticate a good future are kept secret, but bad ones are published. When a bad dream is dreamt it is advisable to go to a lime tree early in the morning, mention the dream and ask the tree to take to itself all the bad effects. Dreams at the first watch of the night will be accomplished in a year, at the second watch in eight months, at the third watch in five months, and at the dawn of day in ten days.

If a person dreams of riding on a bull or an elephant, ascending the summit of a mountain, entering a palace, or smearing himself with excrement he will obtain an increase of wealth.

If a person dreams that his right hand was bitten by a white serpent he will obtain riches at the end of ten days.

If a person dreams of a crane, a domestic fowl, an eagle or crows, he will get an indulgent wife.

If a person dreams of the sun or moon, he will be restored from sickness.

If the teeth of an individual in his dream fall out or shake his wealth will be ruined or he will lose a child or parent but if his hands be chained or bound together he will have a son or obtain a favour.

If a female clothed in black embraces a man in his dream it foretells death.

If a person dreams of an extensive field ripe for the sickle, he will obtain rice paddy within ten days.

If a person dreams of an owl, a beast in rut or being burnt he will lose his habitation.

If a person dreams of nymphs dancing, laughing, running or clapping their hands, he will have to leave his native land.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAGIC ART.

Words of Power called Mantra are committed to memory and used for various purposes. Jugglers utter them to raise a magic veil over the eyes of the spectators, and sorcerers to detect thefts, to induce love, to remove spells to cure possession and to inflict disease or death.

Mantra are uttered to keep away animals. Elephants are frightened by “Om sri jâtâ hârê bhâvatu arahan situ.” A dog takes to its heels when the following is muttered thrice over the hand and stretched towards it “Om namô budungê pâvâdê bat kâpu ballâ kikki kukkâ nam tô situ. Om buddha namas saka situ.”

As a preventive against harmful influences, a thread spun by a virgin, and rubbed with turmeric is charmed over charcoal and resin-smoke and tied round one’s arm, waist or neck, having as many knots as the number of the times the charm has been repeated.

Amulets (yantra) made of five kinds of metal (gold, silver, copper, brass, iron) are similarly worn for avoiding evil and these are either pentacle shaped, crescent shaped or cylindrical enclosing a charmed ola leaf, charmed oil or charmed pills.

To win a girl’s affections the lover has only to rub a charmed vegetable paste over his face and show himself to the girl, or give her to eat a charmed preparation of peacock’s liver, honey and herbs or make her chew a charmed betel leaf, or sprinkle on her some charmed oil, or wear a charmed thread taken from her dress.

To detect a theft, a cocoanut is charmed, attached to a stick and placed where a thief has made his escape, and while the operator holds it he is led along to the thief’s house. Persons suspected of theft are made to stand with bared backs round an ash plantain tree and as it is struck with a charmed creeper, the culprit gets an ashy streak on his back. They are also asked to touch a charmed fowl in turn and the fowl begins to crow as soon as the thief touches its body. The names of the suspected persons are sometimes written on slips of paper and placed on the ground with a cowrie shell opposite each slip, and as soon as the mantra is uttered the shell opposite the thief’s name begins to move.

Charmed branches are hung up by hunters and wayfarers near dangerous spots. If charmed slaked lime be secretly rubbed on the lintel of a man’s house before he starts out shooting, he will not kill any bird, and if rubbed on the threshold he will not kill any fourfooted animal.

A person under the influence of a charm is taken to a banyan tree with his hair wrapped round the head of a cock; the hair is cut off with a mantra, the bird nailed to the tree and the patient cured.

The charm known as Pilli is used to inflict immediate death; the sorcerer procures a dead body of a child, animal, bird, reptile or insect and goes at dawn, noon or midnight to a lonely spot where three roads meet or to a grave yard and lying on his back utters a mantra; the dead body becomes animated and it is given the name of the intended victim with directions to inflict on him a fatal wound: to stab, strangle, bite or sting him.

The charm called Angama causes the victim to throw up blood and it affects within seven hours; the sorcerer takes some article that the intended victim had worn or touched, goes to a lonely spot, charms it and touches the victim, or fans him with it or stretches it towards him, or keeps it in the hand and looks at his face or blows so that the breath may light on him or leaves it in some accessible place that it may be picked up by him.

The charm known as the Huniama is frequently practised and it takes effect within intervals varying from a day to several years; the sorcerer makes an image to represent the intended victim; nails made of five kinds of metal are fixed at each joint, and the victim’s name written on a leaf, or a lock of his hair, or a nail paring, or a thread from his dress inserted in its body; the image is charmed and buried where the victim has to pass and if he does so, he falls ill with swelling, with stiffness of joints, with a burning sensation in his body or with paralysis.

A Pilli or Angama charm can be warded off if the victim himself be a sorcerer when by a counter charm he can direct the operator himself to be killed or injured.

A Huniama charm can be nullified by getting a sorcerer either to cut some charmed lime fruits which have come in contact with the patient or to slit with an arekanut cutter a charmed coil of creepers placed round the patient’s neck, shoulders and anklets or to keep a charmed pumpkin gourd on the sorcerer’s chest while lying on his back and making the patient cut it in two with a bill hook, the parts being thrown into the sea or a stream; or to break up a charmed waxen figure and throw the pieces into boiling oil.

CHAPTER X.

DISEASE AND LEECHCRAFT.

Serious maladies are inflicted by spirits or induced by the vitiation of the triple force (vâta, pita, sema) which pervades the human body. In the former case they are cured by devil dances and in the latter by drugs. There are, however, numerous minor complaints where folk-remedies are employed.

A cure for boils is to procure without speaking from a smithy water in which the red hot iron has been cooled and apply it to the affected parts.

For whooping cough is given gruel made of seven grains of rice collected in a chunam receptacle (killôtê) without uttering a word from seven houses on a Sunday morning.

To cure a sprain a mother who has had twins is asked to trample the injured place, without informing any one else, every evening for a couple of days.

A touch with a cat’s tail removes a sty, and a toothache is cured by biting a balsam plant (kûdalu) uprooted with the right hand, the face averted.

When one is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves (tôra) are rubbed on the injured place with the words “tôra kola visa neṭa kahambiliyâva visa, etc.” (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle).

A firefly’s bite requires “the mud of the sea and the stars of the sky” to effect a cure—a cryptic way of saying salt and the gum of the eye.

Ill effects of the evil mouth and evil eye are dispelled by various means:—either a packet made of some sand trodden by the offender is taken three times round the head and thrown into a pot of live coals; or a receptacle containing cocoanut shell ashes, burnt incense, and a few clods of earth from a neighbouring garden is buried in the compound.

Patients suffering with small pox or a kindred disease are kept in a separate hut, cloth dyed in turmeric and margosa leaves are used in the room; and after recovery an infusion of margosa leaves is rubbed on their heads before they are bathed.

A string of coral shows by the fading of its colour that the wearer is ill; to prevent pimples and eruptions a chank is rubbed on the face, when washing it.

When there is a difficult child-birth the cupboards and the doors in the house are unlocked. For infantile convulsions, a piece of the navel cord is tied round the child’s body.

If one has warts on his body, stones equal in number to them are tied to a piece of rag and thrown where three roads meet; the person who picks up the packet and unties it gets the warts and the other becomes free of them.

When a person gets a hiccough, he gets rid of it by holding up his breath and repeating seven times “ikkayi mâyi Gâlugiya, ikka, hitalâ man âvâ” (Hiccough and I went to Galle; he stayed back and I returned).

Extreme exhaustion will ensue if the perspiration from one’s body is scraped off; the cure is to swallow the collected sweat.

CHAPTER XI.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

A village community occupy a well defined settlement (wasama) within which are the hamlets (gan), and in each hamlet live a few families who have their separate homesteads (mulgedera) with proprietary interests in the arable land and communal rights in the forest, waste and pasture land. A group of such settlements comprise a country district (rata, kôrale, pattu).

There are two types of village settlements, in one there are the free peasant proprietors cultivating their private holdings without any interference, and in the other the people occupy the lands subject to an overlord, and paying him rent in service, food or money or in all three.

All communities whether free or servile had, in ancient times to perform râjakariya for 15 to 30 days a year; in time of war to guard the passes and serve as soldiers, and ordinarily to construct or repair canals, tanks, bridges and roads. These public duties were exacted from all males who could throw a stone over their huts; the military services were, in later times, claimed only from a special class of the king’s tenants.

The people had also to contribute to the Revenue three times a year, at the New Year festival, (April) at the alutsâl festival (January) and the maha or kâtti festival (November) in arrack, oil, paddy, honey, wax, cloth, iron, elephant’s tusks, tobacco, and money collected by the headmen from the various country districts. The quantity of paddy (kathhâl) supplied by each family depended on the size of the private holding; but no contribution was levied on the lands of persons slain in war or on lands dedicated to priests. When a man of property died, 5 measures of paddy, a bull, a cow with calf, and a male and female buffalo were collected as death dues (marral.)

The people are divided into various castes and there is reason to believe that these had a tribal basis. The lower castes formed tribes of a prehistoric Dravidian race (the Rakshas of tradition) who drove into the interior the still earlier Australoid Veddahs (the Yakkhas of tradition). The higher castes of North Indian origin followed, and frequent intercourse with the Dekkan in later historical times led to the introduction of new colonists who now form the artisan castes.

A caste consists of a group of clans, and each clan claims descent from a common ancestor and calls itself either after his name, or the office he held, or if a settler, the village from which he came. The clan name was dropped when a person became a chief and a surname which became hereditary assumed. The clan name was however, not forgotten as the ancestral status of the family was ascertained from it. The early converts to Christianity during the Portuguese ascendancy in Ceylon adopted European surnames which their descendants still use.

The various castes can be divided socially into five groups. The first comprising the numerically predominating Ratêettô who cultivate fields, herd cattle and serve as headmen.

The second group consists of the Naides who work as smiths, carpenters, toddy drawers, elephant keepers, potters, pack bullock drivers, tailors, cinnamon peelers, fish curers and the like.

The Ratêetto and the Naide groups wear alike, and the second group are given to eat by the first group on a rice table of metal or plaited palm leaf about a foot high, water to drink in a pot and a block of wood as a seat; they have the right to leave behind the remains of their meals.

The third group are the Dureyâs who work as labourers besides attending to their special caste duties—a kandê dureyâ makes molasses, a batgam dureyâ carries palanquins, a hunu dureyâ burns coral rock in circular pits to make lime for building; a valli dureyâ weaves cloth and a panna dureyâ brings fodder for elephants and cattle.

The fourth group consists of professional dancers, barbers and washers. Of the professional dancers, the Neketto dance and beat drums at all public functions and at devil and planetary ceremonies, while the inferior Oli do so only at the Gara Yakum dance. The washers are of different grades; Radav wash for the Rate Ettô, Hinnevo for the Naides, Paliyo for the Dureyâs, barbers and Nekettô, and Gangâvo for the Oli.

The Dureyâs and the group below them were not allowed to wear a cloth that reached below their knees and their women except the Radav females were not entitled to throw a cloth over their shoulders.

The Dureyâs were given to eat on the ground on a plaited palm leaf; water to drink was poured onto their hands and they had to take away the remains of their meal. The fourth group had to take away with them the food offered.

The fifth group consists of the outcastes; the Kinnaru and the Rodi who contest between themselves the pride of place. The Kinnaru are fibre mat weavers who were forbidden to grow their hair beyond their necks, and their females from wearing above their waist anything more than a narrow strip of cloth to cover their breasts. The Rodi are hideworkers and professional beggars; the females were prohibited from using any covering above their waists.

A guest of equal social status is received at the entrance by the host and is led inside by the hand; on a wedding day the bridegroom’s feet are washed by the bride’s younger brother before he enters the house. Kissing is the usual form of salutation among females and near relatives and among friends the salutation is by bringing the palms together.

When inferiors meet a superior they bend very low with the palms joined in front of the face or prostrate themselves on the ground; when they offer a present it is placed on a bundle of 40 betel leaves and handed with the stalks towards the receiver.

A guest always sends in advance a box of eatables as a present; when the repast is ready for him he is supplied with water to wash his face, feet and mouth; and the host serves him with rice and curry, skins the plantains for him, and makes his chew of betel. The males always eat first and the females afterwards; and they drink water by pouring it into their mouths from a spouted vessel (kotale).

At the guest’s departure, the host accompanies him some distance—at least as far as the end of the garden. When a person of distinction, a Buddhist priest or a chief visits a house, the rooms are limed and the seats are spread with white cloth.

An inferior never sits in the presence of a superior, and whenever they meet, the former removes the shade over his head, gets out of the way and makes a very low obeisance.

Seven generations of recognised family descent is the test of respectability, and each ancestor has a name of his own: appa, âtâ, muttâ, nattâ, panattâ, kittâ, kirikittâ (father, grand father, great grand father, etc.)

The system of kinship amongst the Sinhalese is of the classificatory kind where the kin of the same generation are grouped under one general term.

The next of kin to a father or mother and brother or sister are the fathers’ brothers and the mothers’ sisters, and the mothers’ brothers and the fathers’ sisters; of these the first pair has a parental rank and is called father (appa) or mother (amma) qualified by the words big, intermediate or little, according as he or she is older or younger than the speaker’s parents; their children are brothers (sahodarya) and sisters (sahodari) to the speaker and fathers and mothers to the speaker’s children.

The second pair becomes uncle (mamâ) and aunt (nenda) to the speaker qualified as before; their children are male cousins (massina) and female cousins (nêna) to the speaker, and uncles and aunts to the speaker’s children.

Those who are related as brothers and sisters rarely marry, and a husband’s relations of the parental class are to his wife, uncles, aunts and cousins of the other class and vice versâ.

These terms are also used as expressions of friendship or endowment and also to denote other forms of kinship. The term ‘father’ is applied to a mother’s sister’s husband, or a step father; ‘mother’ to a father’s brother’s wife or a step mother; ‘uncle’ to a father’s sister’s husband or a father-in-law. ‘Aunt’ to a mother’s brother’s wife or mother-in-law. ‘Brother’ to a wife’s or husband’s brother-in-law or a maternal cousin’s husband; ‘Sister’ to a wife’s or husband’s sister-in-law or a maternal cousin’s wife, “male cousin” to a brother-in-law or a paternal cousin’s husband; “female cousin” to a sister-in-law or a paternal cousin’s wife.

The terms son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson, grand daughter, great grandson and great grand daughter include many kinsfolk of the same generation. A son is one’s own son, or the son of a brother (male speaking), or the son of a sister (female speaking); a daughter is one’s own daughter, the daughter of a brother (M. S.) or the daughter of a sister (F. S.); a nephew is a son-in-law, the son of a sister (M. S.) or the son of a brother (F. S.); a niece is a daughter-in-law, the daughter of a sister (M. S.) or the daughter of a brother (F. S.); a grandson and grand daughter are a ‘son’s’ or ‘daughter’s’ or a ‘nephew’s’ or ‘niece’s’ children, and their sons and daughters are great grand sons and great grand daughters.

Land disputes and the petty offences of a village were settled by the elders in an assembly held at the ambalama or under a tree. The serious difficulties were referred by them in case of a freehold community to the district chief, and in the case of a subject community to the overlord. A manorial overlord was invariably the chief of the district as well.

The paternal ancestral holding of a field, garden and chena devolves on all the sons, but not on sons who were ordained as Buddhist Priests before the father’s demise, nor on daughters who have married and left for their husbands’ homes.

A daughter, however, who lived with her husband at her father’s house has all the rights and privileges of a son, but the husband has no claim whatsoever to his wife’s property, and such a husband is advised to have constantly with him a walking stick, a talipot shade and a torch, as he may be ordered by his wife to quit her house at any time and in any state of the weather.

A daughter who lives in her husband’s home can claim a share in the mother’s property only if the father has left an estate for the sons to inherit; she has, however, a full right with her brothers to any inheritance collaterally derived.

She will not forfeit her share in her father’s inheritance if she returns to her father’s house, or if she leaves a child in her father’s house to be brought up or if she keeps up a close connection with her father’s house.

After her husband’s death she has a life interest on his acquired property, and a right to maintenance from his inherited property. Failing issue, she is the heir to a husband’s acquired property, but the husband’s inherited property goes to the source from whence it came.

A child who has been ungrateful to his parents or has brought disgrace on the family is disinherited; in olden times the father in the presence of witnesses declared his child disinherited, struck a hatchet against a tree or rock and gave his next heir an ola mentioning the fact of disherision.

There is no prescribed form for the adoption of a child who gets all the rights of a natural child, but it is necessary that he is of the same caste as the adopted father, and that he is publicly acknowledged as son and heir.

Illegitimate children share equally with the legitimate their fathers’ acquired property, but not his inherited property which goes exclusively to the legitimate children.

Polyandry was a well established institution in Ceylon; the associated husbands are invariably brothers or cousins. Polyandry was practised to prevent a sub-division of the ancestral property and also owing to the exigencies of the râjakâriya (feudal service); when the brothers on a farm were called out for their fifteen days’ labour, custom allowed one of them to be left behind as a companion to the female at home.

Divorces are obtained by mutual consent; a husband forcibly removing the switch of hair off his wife’s head was considered a sufficient reason for a separation. If a woman left her husband without his consent it was thought illegal for her to marry till the husband married again.

Contracts were made orally or in writing in the presence of witnesses, sanctioned by the imprecation that the one who broke faith will be born a dog, a crow or in one of the hells, and the contract was expected to last till the sun and moon endure. Representations of a dog, a crow, sun and moon are to be found on stones commemorating a royal gift. If a man contracts by giving a stone in the king’s name it is binding and actionable.

A creditor forced the payment of his debt by going to the debtor’s house and threatening to poison himself with the leaves of the niyangalâ (gloriosa superba) or by threatening to jump down a steep place or to hang himself; on which event the debtor would be forced to pay to the authorities a ransom for the loss of the creditor’s life.

The creditor at times sent a servant to the debtor’s house to live there and make constant demands till payment was made; and at times tethered an unserviceable bull, cow or buffalo in the debtor’s garden, who was obliged to maintain it, be responsible for its trespass on other gardens, and to give another head of cattle, if it died or was lost in his keeping.

When a man died indebted, it was customary for a relative to tie round his neck a piece of rag with a coin attached and beg about the country till the requisite sum was collected.

When a debt remained in the debtor’s hands for two years it doubled itself and no further interest could be charged. A creditor had the right to seize, on a permit from a chief, the debtor’s chattels and cattle or make the debtor and his children slaves. A wife, however, could only be seized if she was a creditor and came with her husband to borrow the money, and the creditor could sell the debtor’s children only after the debtor’s death. A man could pawn or sell himself or his children. Children born to a bond woman by a free man were slaves, while children born to a free woman by a bond man were free. If seed paddy is borrowed, it is repaid with 50 percent. interest at the harvest; if the harvest fails, it is repaid at the next successful harvest, but no further interest is charged.

If cattle be borrowed for ploughing, the owner of the cattle is given at the harvest paddy equal to the amount sown on the field ploughed.

The King alone inquired into murder, treason, sacrilege, conspiracy and rebellion; he alone had the right to order capital punishment or the dismemberment of limbs; his attention was drawn to a miscarriage of justice by the representation of a courtier, by the aggrieved persons taking refuge in a sanctuary like the Daladâ Mâligâva, by prostrating in front of the King’s palace and attracting his attention by making their children cry, or by ascending a tree near the palace and proclaiming their grievances.

The petitioners were sometimes beaten and put in chains for troubling the King.

For capital offences, as murder and treason, the nobility was decapitated with the sword; the lower classes were paraded through the streets with a chaplet of shoe flowers on their heads, bones of oxen round their necks, and their bodies whitened with lime, and then impaled, quartered and hanged on trees, or pierced with spear while prostrate on the ground, or trampled on by elephants and torn with their tusks. Whole families sometimes suffered for the offences of individuals.

Outcaste criminals like the Rodiyas were shot from a distance as it was pollution to touch them. Female offenders were made to pound their children and then drowned.

The punishments for robbing the treasury, for killing cattle, for removing a sequestration, and for striking a priest or chief consisted of cutting off the offender’s hair, pulling off his flesh with iron pincers dismembering his limbs and parading him through the streets with the hands about the neck.

Corporal punishment was summarily inflicted with whips or rods while the offender was bound to a tree or was held down with his face to the ground; he was then paraded through the streets with his hands tied behind him, preceded by a tom tom beater and made to declare his offence.

Prisoners were sent away to malarial districts or kept in chains or stocks in the common jail or in the custody of a chief, or quartered in villages. The inhabitants had to supply the prisoners with victuals, the families doing so by turns, or the prisoners went about with a keeper begging or they procured the expenses by selling their handiwork in way-side shops built near the prison. The prisoners had to sweep the streets and were deprived of their headdress which they could resume only when they were discharged.

Thieves had to restore the stolen property or pay a sevenfold fine (wandia); till the fine was paid, the culprit was placed under restraint (velekma): a circle was drawn round him on the ground, and he was not allowed to step beyond it, and had to stay there deprived of his head covering exposed to the sun, sometimes holding a heavy stone on his shoulder, sometimes having a sprig of thorns drawn between his naked legs.

A whole village was fined if there was a suicide of a sound person, if a corpse was found unburied or unburnt, or if there was an undetected murder. In case of the breach of any sumptuary law, the inhabitants of the offender’s village were tabooed and their neighbours prohibited from dealing or eating with them.

Oaths were either mere asseverations on one’s eyes or on one’s mother or imprecations by touching the ground or by throwing up handful of sand or by raising the hand towards the sun, or by touching a pebble, or appeals to the insignia of some deity, or to the Buddhist scriptures or to Buddha’s mandorla. The forsworn person was punished in this world itself except in the last mentioned two instances when the perjurer would suffer in his next birth.

There were five forms of ordeal, resorted to in land disputes and the villagers were summoned to the place of trial by messengers showing them a cloth tied with 3 knots.

The ordeal of hot oil required the adversaries to put their middle fingers in boiling oil and water mixed with cow dung; if both parties got burnt the land in dispute was equally divided; otherwise the uninjured party got the whole land.

The other four modes consisted of the disputants partaking of some rice boiled from the paddy of the field in dispute, breaking an earthen vessel and eating of a cocoanut that was placed on the portion of the land in question, removing rushes laid along the boundary line in dispute, or striking each other with the mud of the disputed field; and the claim was decided against the person to whom some misfortune fell within 7 to 14 days.

There were two other forms which had fallen into disuse even in ancient times owing to the severity of the tests viz. carrying a red hot iron in hand seven paces without being burnt, and picking some coins out of a vessel containing a cobra without being bitten.

CHAPTER XII.

RITES OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

When a mother is pregnant she avoids looking at deformed persons, or ugly images and pictures, fearing the impression she gets from them may influence the appearance of her offspring; during this delicate period she generally pounds rice with a pestle, as the exertion is supposed to assist delivery, and for the same purpose a few hours before the birth of the child all the cupboards in the house are unlocked. For her to cling to, when the pains of child-birth are unbearable, a rope tied to the roof hangs by the mat or bedside.

The water that the child is washed in after birth is poured on to the foot of a young tree, and the latter is remembered and pointed out to commemorate the event; a little while after the infant is ushered into the world a rite takes place, when a drop of human milk obtained from some one other than the mother mixed with a little gold is given to the babe (rankiri kata gânavâ), and the little child’s ability to learn and pronounce well is assured.

When the sex of the child is known, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the house to the other; if a girl, an ikle broom; those who are not in the room pretend to find out whether it is a she or a he by its first cry, believing it is louder in the case of the former than of the latter. The cries of the babe are drowned by those of the nurse, lest the spirits of the forest become aware of its presence and inflict injury on it.

At the birth of the first born cocoanut shells are pounded in a mortar.

The mother is never kept alone in the room, a light is kept burning in it night and day, and the oil of the margosa is much used in the room for protection; care is taken that the navel cord is not buried and a little of it is given to the mother with betel if she fall severely ill. Visitors to the lying-in-room give presents to the midwife when the child is handed to them, especially if it is the first-born one.

A month after birth, the babe, nicely dressed and with tiny garlands of acorus calamus (wadakaha) and allium sativum (sudu lûnu) tied round its wrists and lamp-black applied under the eye-brows, is for the first time brought out to see the light of day (doṭṭavadanavâ); and it is made to look at a lamp placed in the centre of a mat or table, with cakes (kevum) made of rice-flour, jaggery, and cocoanut oil, plantains, rice boiled with cocoanut milk (kiribat), and other eatables placed around it. The midwife then hands round the little child to the relatives and gets some presents for herself.

The rite of eating rice (indul katagânavâ or bat kavanavâ) is gone through when the child is seven months old; the same eatables are spread on a plantain-leaf with different kinds of coins, and the child placed among them; what it first touches is carefully observed, and if it be kiribat it is considered very auspicious. The father or grandfather places a few grains of rice in the child’s mouth, and the name that is used at home (bat nama) is given on that day. The astrologer, who has already cast the infant’s horoscope and has informed the parents of its future, is consulted for a lucky day and hour for the performance of the above observances.

The children are allowed to run in complete nudity till about five years and their heads are fully shaved when young; a little of the hair first cut is carefully preserved. From an early age a boy is sent every morning to the pansala, where the village priest keeps his little school, till a certain course of reading is completed and he is old enough to assist the father in the fields. The first day he is taught the alphabet a rite is celebrated (at pot tiyanava), when a platform is erected, and on it are placed sandal-wood, a light, resin, kiribat, kevum, and other forms of rice cakes as an offering to Ganêsâ, the god of wisdom, and the remover of all obstacles and difficulties. At a lucky hour the pupil washes the feet of his future guru, offers him betel, worships him, and receives the book, which he has to learn, at his hands, and, as the first letters of the alphabet are repeated by him after his master, a husked cocoanut is cut in two as an invocation to Ganêsâ. A girl is less favoured and has to depend for her literary education on her mother or an elder sister; more attention, however, is paid to teach her the domestic requirements of cooking, weaving and knitting, which will make her a good wife.

On the attainment of the years of puberty by a girl she is confined to a room, no male being allowed to see her or be seen by her. After two weeks she is taken out with her face covered and bathed at the back of the house by the female inmates, except little girls and widows, with the assistance of the family laundress, who takes all the jewellry on the maiden’s person. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the jak tree. On her return from her purification, her head and face, still covered, she goes three times round a mat having on it kiribat, plantains, seven kinds of curries, rice, cocoanuts, and, in the centre, a lamp With seven lighted wicks; and as she does she pounds with a pestle some paddy scattered round the provisions. Next, she removes the covering, throws it on to the dhôbî (washerwoman) and, after making obeisance to the lamp and, putting out its wicks by clapping her hands, presents the laundress with money placed on a betel leaf. She is then greeted by her relatives, who are usually invited to a feast, and is presented by them with valuable trinkets. Everything that was made use of for the ceremony is given to the washerwoman. In some cases, till the period of purification is over, the maiden is kept in a separate hut which is afterwards burnt down. Girls who have arrived at the age of puberty are not allowed to remain alone, as devils may possess them and drive them mad; and till three months have elapsed no fried food of any sort is given to them.

The ‘shaving of the beard’ is the rite the young man has to go through, it is performed at a lucky hour and usually takes place a few days before marriage; the barber here plays the important part the laundress did in the other. The shavings are put into a cup, and the person operated on, as well as his relatives who have been invited, put money into it; this is taken by the barber; and the former are thrown on to a roof that they may not be trampled upon.

Marriages are arranged between two families by a relative or a trusted servant of one of them, who, if successful, is handsomely rewarded by both parties. The chances of success depend on the state of the horoscopes of the two intended partners, their respectability which forms a very important factor in the match, the dowry which used to consist of agricultural implements, a few head of cattle, and domestic requisites, together with a small sum of money to set the couple going, and, if connected, the distance of relationship. Two sisters’ or brothers’ children are rarely allowed to marry, but the solicitation of a mother’s brother’s or father’s sister’s son is always preferred to that of any other.

A few days before the marriage, the two families, in their respective hamlets, send a messenger from house to house to ask, by presenting betel, the fellow-villagers of their own caste for a breakfast; and the guests bring with them presents in money. Only few, however, are invited to the wedding; and the party of the bridegroom, consisting of two groomsmen, an attendant carrying a talipot shade over him, musicians, pingo-bearers, relatives and friends, arrives in the evening at the bride’s village and halts at a distance from her house. A messenger is then sent in advance with a few pingo-loads of plantains, and with betel-leaves equal in number to the guests, to inform of their arrival; and when permission is received to proceed, generally by the firing of a jingal, they advance, and are received with all marks of honour; white cloth is spread all the way by the washerwoman, and at the entrance a younger brother of the bride washes the bridegroom’s feet and receives a ring as a present. A sum of money is paid to the dhôbi (washerwoman) as a recompense for her services. They are then entertained with music, food and betel till the small hours of the morning, when the marriage ceremony commences. The bride and bridegroom are raised by two of their maternal uncles on to a dais covered with white cloth, and having on it a heap of raw rice, cocoanuts, betel leaves and coins. A white jacket and a cloth to wear are presented by the bridegroom to the bride; betel and balls of boiled rice are exchanged; their thumbs are tied together by a thread, and, while water is poured on their hands from a spouted vessel by the bride’s father, certain benedictory verses are recited. Last of all, a web of white cloth is presented by the bridegroom to the bride’s mother; and it is divided among her relatives.

In connection with this presentation it is said that if the mother-in-law be dead, the web should be left in a thicket hard by to appease her spirit.

On the day after the wedding the married couple return to their future home with great rejoicing, and on their entering the house a husked cocoanut is cut in two on the threshold.

The tokens of virginity are observed by the bridegroom’s mother, and the visit of the parents and relatives of the bride a few days after completes the round of ceremonies.

There is a peculiar custom fast disappearing, and almost totally extinct, called Kula Kanavâ, that is, making one respectable by eating with him. If a member of a family makes a mésalliance he is cast out of his clan, and should he want his children and himself to be recognized and taken back by the relatives, the latter are induced to attend and partake of a feast given by him at his house. The ‘making up’ takes place when very many years have elapsed, and only if the wife who was the cause of the breach is dead. The difference due to marriage with another caste or nationality is never healed up.

Even in the presence of death, ceremonies are not wanting; if the dying patient is known to have been fond of his earthly belongings, and seems to delay in quitting this life, a few pieces of his furniture are washed and a little drop of the water given to him. A lamp is kept burning near the corpse, the body is washed before burial and a piece of cotton or a betel-leaf is put into its mouth. All the time the body is in the house nothing is cooked, and the inmates eat the food supplied by their neighbours (adukku).

No one of the same village is told of the death, but all are expected to attend the funeral; the outlying villages, however, are informed by a relative who goes from house to house conveying the sad news.

The visitors are given seats covered with white cloth; and the betel for them to chew are offered with the backs of the leaves upwards as an indication of sorrow. Some times only the relatives come, while friends leave betel at a distance from the house and go away fearing pollution. It may be observed that, according to the Sinhalese belief, pollution is caused by the attaining of puberty by a maiden which lasts fourteen days; by the monthly flow of a woman which lasts till she bathes; by child-birth which lasts one month; and by death which lasts three months.

Friends and relatives salute the body with their hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, and only the members of the family kiss it. The route along which the funeral proceeds is previously strewn with white sand, and the coffin is carried by the closest relatives, with the cloth to be given to the priests for celebrating the service thrown on it, over white foot-cloth spread by the dhôbi, and preceded by the tom-tom beaters with muffled drums. Lights are carried by the coffin and a shade is held over the head of it.

The service commences with the intoning of the three Refugees of Buddhism and the Five Vows of abstinence by one of the priests, and they are repeated after by those present, all squatting on the ground. The cloth, referred to, is then given to be touched by the bystanders in order to partake of the merits of the almsgiving; one end of it is placed on the coffin, and the other is held by the priests. They recite three times the Pali verse that all organic and inorganic matter are impermanent, that their nature is to be born and die, and that cessation of existence is happiness; and while water is poured from a spouted vessel into a cup or basin, they chant the lines that the fruits of charity reach the departed even as swollen rivers fill the ocean and the rain-water that falls on hill-tops descends to the plain. A short ex tempore speech by a priest on the virtues of the deceased completes the service.

If it be a burial, the grave is by the roadside of the garden with a thatched covering over it. Two lights are lit at the head and the foot of the mound, the bier in which the coffin was carried is placed over it, and a young tree planted to mark its site.

In a cremation, the coffin is first carried with music three times round the pyre, and the latter is set fire to by the sons or nephews with their faces turned away from it. Those assembled leave when the pyre is half burnt; and, on the following day, or a few days after, the ashes are collected and buried in the garden of the deceased, over which a column is erected, or they are thrown into the nearest stream.

The party bathe before returning to the house, and are supplied by the dhôbi with newly-washed clothes; during their absence the house is well cleansed and purified by the sprinkling of water mixed with cow-dung; and the visitors before leaving partake of a meal either brought from some neighbour’s or cooked after the body had been removed.

CHAPTER XIII.

OCCUPATIONS AND INDUSTRIES.

In the olden time, people were occupied according to their caste, but now they pursue any vocation they choose, carefully avoiding the inauspicious hours.

One man works at his field or goes hunting and honey gathering; a second fishes at the village stream with a rod made of the midrib of the kitul leaf; a third slings his basket of garden produce at the ends of a kitul shaft and carries them on his shoulders to towns or village fairs; a fourth climbs the palm trees with his ankles encircled by a ring of cocoanut leaf and picks the fruit with his hand; a fifth taps for toddy the blossoms of several cocoanut trees by coupling their crowns with stout ropes to walk upon and the straight boughs with smaller ropes to support himself; a sixth brings for sale from the county straw and firewood in single or double bullock carts and a seventh transports cocoanuts, salt, and dried fish to centres of trade by pack bullocks or in flat bottomed boats.

The women either make molasses from the unfermented toddy; or plait mats of dyed rushes in mazy patterns; or earn a pittance by selling on a small stand by the roadside the requisites for a chew of betel; or hawk about fruits and vegetables in baskets carried on their heads; or keep for sale, on a platform in the verandah, sweetmeats and other eatables protected from the crows which infest the place by a net; or make coir by beating out the fibre from soaked cocoanut husks; or attend to their domestic duties with a child astride their hips; or seated lull their infant child to sleep on their outstretched legs.

Various ceremonies are performed in the sylvan occupations of hunting and honey gathering.

“Hunting parties of the Kandian Sinhalese of the North Central Province perform a ceremony which is very similar to that of the Wanniyas[1] and Veddahs[2] when about to leave their village on one of their expeditions in the forest. Under a large shady tree they prepare a maessa, or small covered shrine, which is raised about three feet off the ground, and is open only in front; it is supported on four sticks set in the ground. In this they offer the following articles if available, or as many as possible of them:—one hundred betel leaves, one hundred arekanuts, limes, oranges, pine apples, sugar cane, a head of plantains, a cocoanut, two quarts of rice boiled specially at the site of the offering, and silver and gold. Also the flowers of the arekanut tree, the cocoanut, and ratmal tree. All are purified by lustration and incense, as usual, and dedicated. They then light a small lamp at the front of the offering, and remain there watching it until it expires, differing in this respect from the practice of the Wanniyas, who must never see the light go out. Before the light expires they perform obeisance towards the offering, and utter aloud the following prayer for the favour and protection of the forest deities, which must also be repeated every morning during the expedition, after their millet cake, gini-pûva, has been eaten, before starting for the day’s hunting:—

This is for the favour of the God Ayiyanâr; for the favour of the Kiri Amma, for the favour of the Kataragama God (Skanda) for the favour of Kalu Dêvatâ; for the favour of Kambili Unnæhæ; for the favour of Ilandâri Dêvatâ Unnæhæ; for the favour of Kadavara Dêvatâ Unnæhæ; for the favour of Galê Bandâra; for the favour of the Hat Rajjuruvô. We are going to your jungle (uyana); we do not want to meet with even a single kind of [dangerous] wild animals. We do not want to meet with the tall one (elephant), the jungle watcher (bear), the animal with the head causing fear (snake), the leopard. You must blunt the thorns. We must meet with the horn bearer (sambar deer), the deer (axis), the ore full of oil (pig), the noosed one (iguâna), the storehouse (beehive). We must meet about three pingo (carrying-stick) loads of honey. By the favour of the Gods. We ask only for the sake of our bodily livelihood[3]”.

The jungle attached to a village was the game preserve of its inhabitants; game laws were concerned with the boundaries of the village jungle, and with rights of ownership of the game itself. One half of the game killed by a stranger belonged to the village, and the headman of the village was entitled to a leg and four or five pounds of flesh of every wild animal killed by the villagers.

For regulating the time and manner of fishing in sea, old communal rules have been legalised and are now in force. Fishing with large nets (mâdel) begins about 1st October and ends by May 31st in each year; the number of boats and nets to be used in each inlet is limited; the boats and nets are registered and every registered boat and net is used in the warâya (inlets) by rotation in order of register; the turn of each net and boat begins at sunrise and ends at sunrise of the next day; the headman who supervises these is called the mannandirâle. Whenever koralebabbu, bôllo, ehelamuruvo and such other fish come into the warâya, so long as these swarm in the inlet they should be caught by rod and line and nothing else; when they are leaving the inlet, the headman in consultation with at least six fishermen appoint a date from which boru del or visi del may be used; on no account are mahadel allowed to be used[4].

Each of the boats with its nets belongs to several co-owners and “on a day’s fishing the produce is drawn ashore, is divided in a sufficient number of lots, each estimated to be worth the same assigned value, and these lots are so distributed that 1–50 goes to the owner of the land on which the fish are brought to shore, 1\4 to those engaged in the labour, 1–5 for the assistance of extra nets etc., rendered by third parties in the process of landing and securing the fish, which together equal 47–100 and the remaining 53–100 go to the owners of the boat and net according to their shares therein”[5].

Owners of cattle have brand marks to distinguish the cattle of their caste and class from those of others; individual ownership is indicated by branding in addition the initial letters of the owner’s name.

Herdsmen who tend cattle for others are entitled in the case of the bulls and the he buffaloes they tend to their labour, in the case of cows and she buffaloes to every second third and fifth calf born, and in the case of calves to a half share interest in the young animals themselves.

“At the first milking of a cow there is a ceremony called kiri ettirima. The cow is milked 3 different mornings successively, when the milk is boiled, and poured into three different vessels, till the whole is coagulated. On the fourth day, butter from each vessel is preserved in a clean basin, to form the principal part of the ceremony at a convenient time. From that day the milk may be used, but with particular care never to throw the least milk, or any water that might have washed the milk basons, out of doors. When the convenient time has arrived a bunch of plantains is prepared, cakes are baked, three pots of rice are boiled, a vegetable curry, and a condiment are prepared by an individual who must manifest all cleanness on the occasion, even to the putting a handkerchief before his mouth to present the saliva from falling into the ingredients. All these preparations are brought to an apartment swept and garnished for the purpose where the kapuva cleanly clothed enters and burns sandarac powder, muttering incantations with the intent of removing all evil supposed to rest upon the family, and of bringing down a blessing upon them and their cattle.

Next the kapuva takes 7 leaves of the plantain tree and lays 5 of them in order on the table, canopied, and spread with white cloth, in honour of the gods Wiramunda deviyo, Kosgama deviyo, Pasgama deviyo, Combihamy, and Weddihamy; and the other 2 are put on piece of mat on the ground in honour of the washer and the tom tom beater supposed to have attended these supernatural beings. Over all these leaves the boiled rice from one of the pots is divided, then from the second and third. He afterwards does the same with the curry, and the condiment, cakes, plantains etc., prepared for the performance. He then pretends to repeat the same process by way of deception making a motion, and sounding the ladle on the brim of the pots, as if rice and other ingredients were apportioned the second time etc., to satisfy the gods and the two attendants.

The kapuva next takes a little of every ingredient from all the leaves, both on the table and on the ground, into a cup (made of leaves), and supporting it over his head marches out from the apartment, closing its door; and he conveys it either to the fold of the cattle, or to some elevated place where he dedicates and offers it to the many thousands of the demons and their attendants who are supposed to have accompanied the above particular gods, praying them, by means of incantations, to accept the offering he has brought before them. From hence he returns to the door of the apartment he had closed, and knocking at it, as if to announce his entrance, he opens it and mutters a few more incantations, praying the gods to allow them, (including himself and the members of the family) to partake of the remnants that have been offered in their honour. After these ceremonies are performed, the kapuva, with all the rest, partakes of everything that was prepared, and the owner of the cow may from this day dispose of the milk according to his own pleasure.”[6].

Rural rites differing in details in different localities are observed by the Singhalese peasantry in their agricultural pursuits.[7]

In all places a lucky day for ploughing is fixed in consultation with an astrologer. It is considered unfortunate to begin work on the 1st or 2nd day of the month, and after the work is begun it must be desisted from on unlucky days such as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th and 21st.

Sowing is also commenced at a lucky day and hour pronounced by the astrologer to be the most favourable. In a corner of the field, on a mound of mud where are placed a ginger or a habarala plant (arum maculatum), a cocoanut or an areka flower and some saffron, is sown a handful of the first seed and dedicated to the gods; and after that the entire field is sown.

To drive away insects from the growing rice, charm-lamps are lighted at the four corners of the field or a worm is enclosed in a charmed orange and buried there or a fly or grub is fumigated with charmed resin smoke and bidden to depart or a cultivator sounds a charmed bell metal plate with a kaduru stick crying to the flies “yan yanta” (please go).

When the reaping time comes the portion of rice dedicated to the gods is first reaped by some person who is not a member of the proprietor’s family. It is kept apart on an elevated place till the reaping of the rest of the field is done when it is cooked and ceremonially offered to the kapurâla.

The threshing is done on a floor specially prepared; when the crop is ripe a small pit is made in the centre of the threshing floor in which are placed a margosa plant, and a conch shell containing a piece of the tolabu plant (crinum asiaticum) and of the hiressa (vitis cissus quadrangularis), a piece of metal, charcoal and a small grain sheaf. Besting on these is an ellipsoidal luck stone (arakgala), round which are traced with ashes three concentric circles bisected by lines and in the segments are drawn representations of a broom, a scraper, a flail, a measure, agricultural implements and Buddha’s foot print.

At the lucky hour the cultivator walks three times round the inner circles of the threshing floor with a sheaf on his head, bowing to the centre stone at east, north, west and south and casts down the sheaf on the centre stone prostrating himself. The rest of the sheaves are then brought in and the threshing begins.

The harvest is brought down on a full moon day and some of the new paddy is husked, pounded, boiled with milk and offered to the gods in a dêvala or on a temporary altar under a tree by the field, and followed by a general feasting.

Persons cultivating their fields with their own cattle, implements, seed paddy and the like receive the whole produce less the payments of the watchers (waravêri) and the perquisites of the headman.

When the fields are given out to be cultivated for a share of the produce, if the field owner supplies the cultivator with the cattle, implements of labour, and seed paddy the produce is divided equally by the owner and the cultivator; if the field owner supplies nothing he only gets 1\4 of the produce.

When an allotment of field is owned by several co-owners, it is cultivated alternately on a complicated system called tattumâru[8].

There is a jargon used in Ceylon by hunters and pilgrims travelling in forests[9], by the outcaste rodiyas who go about begging and thieving[10]; and by cultivators while working in their fields[11]. This jargon has many words used by the Veddahs[12].

---

[1] Taprobanian (1887) vol. 2 p. 17 (Neville). [↑]

[2] The Veddas (1911) p. 252 (Seligmann). [↑]

[3] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 169. (Parker). [↑]

[4] Govt. Gazette No. 6442 of 19th May 1911. [↑]

[5] The Aryan village in India and Ceylon (1882) p. 205 (Phear). [↑]

[6] The Friend (old series) Vol. IV (1840–1841) p. 211. David de Silva (Ambalangeda). [↑]

[7] Vide:—

The friend (oldseries) (1840–1841) Vol. IV p. 189 (David de Silva).
J.R.A.S.	(Ceylon)	(1848–1849)	Vol. II No. 4 p. 31 (R. E. Lewis).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Ceylon) ,,	(1880)	Vol. VI No. 21 p. 46 (Ievers).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Ceylon) ,,	(1883)	Vol. VIII No. 26 p. 44 (Bell).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Ceylon) ,,	(1884)	Vol. VIII No. 29 p. 331 (J. P. Lewis).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Ceylon) ,,	(1889)	Vol. XI No. 39 p. 17 (Bell).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Ceylon) ,,	(1905)	Vol. XVIII No. 56 p. 413 (Comaraswamy).
J.R.A.S. ,,	(Great Britain)	(1885)	Vol. XVII p. 366 (Lemesurier).
Taprobanian (1885) Vol. I p.94 (Neville).
Orientalist (1887) Vol. IIIp. 99 (Bell).
Spolia Zeylanica (1908)(Parson).
North Central ProvinceManual (1899) p. 181 (Ievers).
The Book ofCeylon (1908) p. 382 (Cave).

[8] Vide glossary in the [appendix]. [↑]

[9] For hunter’s jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 2 p. 19. [↑]

[10]

For

,,

jargon

,,

vide

,,

Taprobanian

,,

[11]

For

,,

jargon

,,

vide

,,

Taprobanian

,,

[12]

For

,,

vide

,,

Taprobanian

,,

CHAPTER XIV.

FESTIVALS.

The entering of the sun into Aries is celebrated as the new year’s day; the ephemeris of the year is drawn up by the village astrologer and the necessary information for the observance of the festive rites is obtained by presenting him with sweetmeats and a bundle of forty betel leaves.

As the sun is moving into the sign Aries all cease from work and either visit temples or indulge in games till a lucky moment arrives when every family welcomes the new year with the strains of the rabâna. Special kinds of sweetmeats and curries are cooked and eaten, cloth of the colour recommended by the astrologer are worn, calls exchanged, the headman visited with pingo-loads of presents, and a commencement made of the usual daily work.

At an appointed hour, the people anoint themselves with an infusion of oil, kokun leaves (swietenia febrifugia), kalânduru yams (Cyprus rotundus) and nelli fruits (Phylanthus emblica) and an elder of the family rubs a little of it on the two temples, on the crown of the head, and on the nape of the neck of each member, saying:—

Kalu kaputan sudu venaṭuru

Ẹhẹla kanu liyalana turu

Gerandianta aṇ enaturu

Ekasiya vissaṭa desiya vissak

Maha Brahma Râjayâ atinya

Âyibôvan âyibôvan âyibôvan.

“This (anointing) is done by the hand of Maha Brâhma; long life to you, long life to you, long life to you! may you, instead of the ordinary period of life, viz., 120 years, live for 220 years; till rat-snakes obtain horns, till posts of the Ẹhẹla tree (Cassia fistula) put on young shoots, and till black crows put on a plumage white.”

While being annointed the person faces a particular direction, having over his head leaves sacred to the ruling planet of the day, and at his feet those sacred to the regent of the previous day. For each of the days of the week, beginning with Sunday, belong respectively the cotton tree (imbul), the wood-apple (diwul), the Cochin gamboge (kollan), the margosa (kohomba), the holy fig-tree (bo) Galidupa arborea (karanda) and the banyan (nuga).

This rite is followed by the wearing of new clothes, after a bath in an infusion of screw-pine (wẹtake), Suffa acutangula (wẹtakolu), Evolvulus alsinoides (Vishnu-krânti), Aristolochia indica (sapsanda), Crinum zeylanicum (godamânel), roots of citron (nasnâranmul), root of Aegle marmelos (belimul), stalk of lotus, (nelum danḍu), Plectranthus zeylanicus (irivériya), Cissompelos convolvulus (gẹtaveni-vẹl) Heterepogon hirtus (îtana) and bezoar stone (gorôchana).

This festival is also observed at the Buddhist temples when milk is boiled at their entrances and sprinkled on the floor.

The birthday of the Founder of Buddhism is celebrated on the full-moon day of May (wesak). Streets are lined with bamboo arches, which are decorated with the young leaves of the cocoanut-palm; tall superstructures (toran) gaily adorned with ferns and young king cocoanuts bridge highways at intervals; lines of flags of various devices and shapes are drawn from tree to tree; booths are erected at every crossing where hospitality is freely dispensed to passers-by; and at every rich house the poor are fed and alms given to Buddhist priests. Processions wend their way from one temple to another with quaintly-shaped pennons and banners, and in the intervals of music cries of sâdhu, sâdhu, are raised by the pilgrims.

The Kandy Pẹrahẹra Mangalaya, begins at a lucky hour on the first day after the new moon. “A jack-tree, the stem of which is three spans in circumference, is selected beforehand for each of the four déwâla—the Kataragama, Nâtha, Saman, and Pattini; and the spot where it stands is decorated and perfumed with sandalwood, frankincense, and burnt resin, and a lighted lamp with nine wicks is placed at the foot of the tree. At the lucky hour a procession of elephants, tom-tom beaters and dancers proceed to the spot, the tree is cut down by one of the tenants (the waṭṭôrurâla) with an axe, and it is trimmed, and its end is pointed by another with an adze. It is then carried away in procession and placed in a small hole in a square of slab rock, buried in the ground or raised platform in the small room at the back of the déwâla. It is then covered with a white cloth. During the five following days the procession is augmented by as many elephants, attendants, dancers, tom-tom beaters and flags as possible; and it makes the circuit of the temples at stated periods. The processions of the several temples are then joined by one from the Daladâ, Mâligâva (the temple of the Sacred Tooth of Buddha), and together they march round the main streets of Kandy at fixed hours during the five days next ensuing. On the sixth day, and for five days more, four palanquins—one for each déwâla are added to the procession, containing the arms and dresses of the gods; and on the last day the bowl of water (presently to be explained) of the previous year, and the poles cut down on the first day of the ceremony. On the night of the fifteenth and last day, the Perahẹra is enlarged to the fullest limits which the means of the several temples will permit, and at a fixed hour, after its usual round, it starts for a ford in the river near Kandy, about three miles distant from the temple of the Sacred Tooth. The procession from the Mâligâva, however, stops at a place called the Adâhana Maluwa, and there awaits the return of the others. The ford is reached towards dawn, and here the procession waits until the lucky hour (generally about 5 A. M.) approaches. A few minutes before its arrival the chiefs of the four temples, accompanied by a band of attendants, walk down in Indian file under a canopy of linen and over cloth spread on the ground to the waterside. They enter a boat and are punted up the river close to the bank for some thirty yards. Then at a given signal (i. e., at the advent of the lucky hour) the four jack poles are thrown into the river by the men on shore, while each of the four chiefs, with an ornamental silver sword, cuts a circle in the water; at the same time one attendant takes up a bowl of water from the circle, and another throws away last year’s supply. The boat then returns to the shore, the procession goes back to Kandy, the bowls of water are placed reverently in the several déwâla, to remain there until the following year; and the Perahẹra is at an end.”[1]

During the time of the kings, it was on this occasion that the provincial governors gave an account of their stewardship to their over-lord and had their appointments renewed by him.

When the rainy months of August, September and October are over and the Buddhist monks return to their monasteries from their vas retreats, is held the Festival of Lights (Kârtika Mangalya). The Buddhist temples are illuminated on the full moon day of November by small oil-lamps placed in niches of the walls specially made for them; in the olden times all the buildings were bathed in a blaze of light, the Royal Palace the best of all, with the oil presented to the king by his subjects. This festival is now confined to Kandy.

The Alut Sâl Mangalya, the festival of New Rice, is now celebrated to any appreciable extent only in the Kandian Provinces, the last subdued districts of the island. In the villages the harvest is brought home by pingo-bearers on the full-moon day of January with rural jest and laughter, and portions of it are given to the Buddhist priest, the barber and the dhobi of the village; next the new paddy is husked, and kiribat dressed out of it.

In the capital, in the time of the kingdom, this festival lasted for four days; “on the first evening the officers of the royal stores and of the temples proceeded in state from the square before the palace to the crown villages from which the first paddy was to be brought. Here the ears of paddy and the new rice were packed up for the temples the palace and the royal stores by the Gabadânilamés and their officers. The ears of paddy carefully put into new earthenware pots and the grain into clean bags, were attached to pingos. Those for the Mâligâva (where the Sacred Tooth was kept) were conveyed on an elephant for the temples by men marching under canopies of white cloth; and those for the palace and royal stores by the people of the royal villages of respectable caste, well dressed; and with apiece of white muslin over their mouths to guard against impurity. This procession, starting on the evening of the next day (full-moon day) from the different farms under a salute of jingals and attended by flags, tom-tom beaters, etc., was met on the way by the 2nd Adigar and a large number of chiefs at some distance from the city. From thence all went to the great square to wait for the propitious hour, at the arrival of which, announced by a discharge of jingals, the procession entered the Mâligâva where the distribution for the different temples was made. At the same fortunate hour the chiefs and the people brought home their new rice. On the next morning the king or governor received his portion consisting of the new rice and a selection of all the various vegetable productions of the country, which were tasted at a lucky hour.”[2]

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[1] J.R.A.S.(C. B.) 1881 Vol. VII p. 33. [↑]

[2] Illustrated Supplement to the Examiner (1875) Vol. I p. 8. [↑]

CHAPTER XV.

GAMES, SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

On festive days itinerant songmen amuse the village folk at open places and greens; they keep time to a dance by skilfully whirling metal-plates or small tambourines on their fingers or pointed stakes, by striking together sticks, by tossing earthen pots up in the air and catching them and they eulogize the hamlet and its people in extempore couplets with the refrain, “tana tanamda tânênâ, tanâ, tamda, tânênâ, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, tânênâ.”

The people also enjoy themselves on the merry-go-round (katuru onchillâva)—a large revolving wheel on a tall wooden superstructure with seats attached; at theatrical representations called kôlan nẹtum, rûkada nẹtum, and nâdagam; at games of skill and at divers forms of outdoor games.

Kôlan nẹtuma is a series of mimetic dances of a ludicrous character by actors dressed like animals and demons, wearing masks and sometimes perched on high stilts.

The rûkada nẹtuma is a marionette show of the ordinary incidents of village life—usually of the adventures of a married couple, a hevârala (a militia guard) and his wife Kadiragoda lamayâ; the former goes to the wars and returns with his eyes and ears off only to be beaten by his wife who soon after falls ill with labour pains, and devil dancers are requisitioned to relieve her; Pinnagoda râla is the clown of the show.

The nâdagama is a dramatic play and for its performance a circular stage is erected with an umbrella-shaped tent over it; round it sits the audience, who, though admitted free, willingly contribute something into the collection-box brought by the clown (kônangiya) at the end of the play. Before the drama begins, each of the actors, in tinselled costume, walks round the stage singing a song appropriate to his character. The piece represented is based on a popular tale or an historical event.

Games of skill and chance are played on boards made for that purpose.[1]

In Olinda Keliya a board having seven holes a side is used; only two can take part in the game, and each in turn places olinda seeds (abrus precatorius) in the holes and the object of the opponent is to capture the other’s seeds according to certain rules.[2]

In Pancha Keliya dice and six cowries are used; the latter are taken into the player’s hand and dropped, and the shells which fall on the reverse side are counted and the dice moved an equal number of places on the board and the game continues till all the dice reach the other end of the board.

In Deeyan Keliya sixteen dice representing cows and four dice representing tigers are placed on a board and the cows have to get from one side to the other without being intercepted and captured by the tigers.

Some of the outdoor games played by adults are of the ordinary kind, and others of a semi-religious significance.

The ordinary outdoor games are Buhu Keliya, Pandu Keliya, Lunu Keliya, Muttê, Hâlmẹlê and Tattu penille.

In Buhu Keliya there are several players who place their balls, (made of any bulbous root hardened and boiled till it becomes like rubber), round a pole firmly fixed to the ground; to this pole is attached a string about 5 feet long held by a player whose endeavour is to prevent the others getting possession of the balls without being touched. The person touched takes the place of the guarding player and when all the balls are taken away the last guard is pelted with them till he finds safety in a spot previously agreed upon.

In Pandu Keliya the players form into two sides, taking their stand 100 yards apart with a dividing line between; the leader of one party throws a ball up and as it comes down beats it with his open palm and sends the ball over the line to the opposing side. If the other party fails to beat or kick it back, they must take their stand where the ball fell and the leader of their party throws the ball to the other side in the same way. This goes on till one party crosses the boundary line and drives the other party back.

In Lunu Keliya there are two sets of players occupying the two sides of a central goal (lunu) about 30 or 40 yards from it; a player from one side has to start from the goal, touch a player of the other side and regain the goal holding up his breath; if he fails he goes out and this goes on till the side which has the greatest number of successful runners at the end is declared the winner.

In Muṭṭé (rounders) a post is erected as a goal, and one of the players stands by it and has a preliminary conversation with the others:—

Q.—Kîkkiyô.

A.—Muddarê.

Q.—Dehikatuvada batukatuvada—Is it a lime-thorn or a brinjal-thorn?

A.—Batukatuva—Brinjal-thorn.

Q.—Man endada umba enavada—should I come or would you come?

A.—Umbamavaren—you had better come.

As soon as the last word is uttered, the questioner gives chase, and the others dodge him and try to reach the post without being touched; the one who is first touched becomes the pursuer.

In Halmele there is no saving post, but the area that the players have to run about is circumscribed; the pursuer hops on one leg and is relieved by the person who first leaves the circle or is first touched.

Before starting he cries out—Hâḷmelé A.—Kanakabaré.

Q.—Enda hondê? (May I come?).

A.—Bohama hondayi (All right).

In Tattu pẹnilla also called Mahason’s leap, a figure in the shape of H is drawn; a player guards each line and the others have to jump across them and return without being touched; it is optional to leap over the middle line and is only attempted by the best players, as the demon Mahason himself is supposed to guard it.

The outdoor games with a semi-religious significance are Polkeliya, Dodankeliya and ankeliya.

In Pol Keliya the villagers divide themselves into two factions called yatipila and udupila and the leaders of the two parties take a fixed number of husked cocoanuts and place themselves at a distance of 30 feet and one bowls a nut at his adversary who meets it with another in his hand. This goes on till the receiver’s nut is broken when he begins to bowl. The side which exhausts the nuts of the other party is declared the winner.

Dodan Keliya is a game similar to the Pol Keliya the oranges taking the place of the cocoanuts.

In An Keliya a trunk of a tree is buried at the centre of an open space of ground; a few yards off is placed the log of a cocoanut tree about 20 feet high in a deep hole large enough for it to move backwards and forwards and to the top of it thick ropes are fastened. The villagers divide themselves into two parties as in Pol Keliya, and bring two forked antlers which they hook together and tying one to the foot of the trunk and the other to that of the log pull away with all their might till one of them breaks.

In all these semi-religious games the winning party goes in procession round the village and the defeated side has to undergo a lot of abuse and insult intended to remove the bad effects of the defeat.

Children in addition to their swings, tops, bamboo pop-guns, cut water, bows and arrows, water squirts, cat’s cradles and bull roarers have their own special games.

They play at hide and seek, the person hiding giving a loud ‘hoo’ call that the others may start the search; or one of them gets to an elevated place and tauntingly cries out “the king is above and the scavenger below” and the others try to drag him down.

Several children hold their hands together forming a line and one of them representing a hare comes running from a distance and tries to break through without being caught; or one of them becomes a cheetah and the rest form a line of goats holding on to each other’s back. The cheetah addresses the foremost goat saying “eluvan kannayi man âvê.” (I have come to eat the goats) and tries to snatch away one of the players at the back; who avoids his clutches singing “elubeti kapiya sundire” (go and eat the tasty goat dung); if one is caught he has to hold on to the back of the cheetah and the game continues till all are snatched away.

When the children are indoors they amuse themselves in various ways.

They hold the backs of each other’s hands with their thumb and fore-finger, move them up and down singing “kaputu kâk kâk kâk, goraka dên dên dên, amutu vâv vâv vâv, dorakada gahê puvak puvak, batapandurê bulat bulat, usi kaputâ, usî,” and let go each other’s hold at the end of the jingle, which means that “crows swinging on a gamboge-tree (goraka) take to their wings when chased away (usi, usi), and there are nuts in the areca-tree by the house and betel-creepers in the bamboo-grove.” They also close their fists and keep them one over the other, pretending to form a cocoanut-tree; the eldest takes hold of each hand in turn, asks its owner, “achchiyé achchiyé honda pol gediyak tiyanavâ kadannada?” (grandmother, grandmother, there is a good cocoanut, shall I pluck it); and, when answered, “Oh, certainly” (bohoma hondayi), brings it down. A mimetic performance of husking the nuts, breaking them, throwing out the water, scraping the pulp and cooking some eatable follows this.

They twist the fingers of the left hand, clasp them with the right, leaving only the finger-tips visible and get each other to pick out the middle finger.

They take stones or seeds into their hands and try to guess the number, or they take them in one hand, throw them up, catch them on the back of the hand, and try to take them back to the palm.

They keep several seeds or stones in front of them, throw one up and try to catch it after picking up as many seeds or stones as possible from the ground.

They hold the fingers of their baby brothers saying “this says he is hungry, this says what is to be done, this says let us eat, this says who will pay, this says though I am the smallest I will pay” and then tickle them saying “han kutu.”

They keep their hands one over the other, the palm downwards, and the leader strokes each hand saying, “Aturu muturu, demita muturu Râjakapuru hetiyâ aluta genâ manamâli hâl atak geralâ, hiyala geṭat bedâla pahala geṭat bedâlâ, us us daramiti péliyayi, miti miti daramiti péliyayi, kukalâ kapalâ dara pillê, kikili kapalâ vẹta mullê, sangan pallâ,” (Aturu muturu demita muturu; the new bride that the merchant, Râjakapuru, brought, having taken a handful of rice, cleansed it and divided it to the upper and lower house; a row of tall faggots; a row of short faggots; the cock that is killed is on the threshold; the hen that is killed is near the fence; sangan pallâ); one hand is next kept on the owner’s forehead and the other at the stomach and the following dialogue ensues:—

Q.—Nalalé monavâda—What is on the forehead?

A.—Le—Blood.

Q.—Ẹlwaturen hêduvâda—Did you wash it in cold water?

A.—Ov—Yes.

Q.—Giyâda—Did it come off?

A.—Nê—No.

Q.—Kireṅ hêduvâda—Did you wash it in milk?

A.—Ov—Yes.

Q.—Giyâda—Did it come off?

A.-Ov—Yes.

(The hand on the forehead is now taken down).

Q.—Badêinne mokada—What is at your stomach?

A.—Lamayâ—A child.

Q.—Ẹyi andannê—why is it crying?

A.—Kiri batuyi nẹtuva—For want of milk and rice.

Q.—Kô man dunna kiri batuyi—Where is the milk and rice I gave?

A.—Ballayi bẹlalî kêvâ—The dog and the cat ate it.

Q.—Kô ballayi bẹlali—Where is the dog and the cat?

A.—Lindê vẹtuna—They fell into the well.

Q.—Kô linda—Where is the well?

A.—Goda keruvâ—It was filled up.

Q.—Kô goda—Where is the spot?

A.—Ândiyâ pẹla hittevvâ,—There ândiyâ plants were planted.

Q.—Kô ândiyâ pẹla—Where are the ândiyâ plants?

A.—Dêvâ—They were burnt.

Q.—Kô alu—Where are the ashes?

A.—Tampalâ vattata issâ—They were thrown into the tampalâ (Nothosocruva brachiata) garden.

Then the leader pinches the other’s cheek and jerks his head backward and forward singing “Tampalâ kâpu hossa genen (give me the jaw that ate the tampalâ).

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[1] J. R. A. S. (C. B.) vol. V. No. 18 p. 17 (Ludovici.) [↑]

[2] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 587 (Parker.) [↑]

CHAPTER XVI.

STORIES.

Story telling is the intellectual effort of people who have little used or have not acquired the art of writing. A story is told for amusement by mothers to their children, or by one adult to another, while guarding their fields at night in their watch hut or before lying down to sleep after their night meal. At each pause during the narration, the listener has to say “hum” as an encouragement to the narrator that he is listening; and every tale begins with the phrase “eka mathaka rata” (in a country that one recalls to mind) and ends with the statement that the heroes of the Story settled down in their country and the narrator returned home.

Stories are roughly classified as (1) myths, (2) legends and (3) folk tales.

(1) “The myth,” says Gomme, “is the recognisable explanation of some natural phenomenon, some forgotten or unknown object of human origin, or some event of lasting influence.”

The crow and the king crow were uncle and nephew in the olden time; they once laid a wager as to who could fly the highest, each carrying a weight with him, and the winner was to have the privilege of knocking the loser on the head; the crow selected some cotton as the lightest material, while his nephew carried a bag of salt as the clouds looked rainy. On their way up, rain fell and made the crow’s weight heavier and impeded his flight while it diminished the king crow’s burden who won the victory and still knocks the crow on his head.

The water fowl once went to his uncle’s and got a load of arekanuts to sell; he engaged some geese to carry them to the waterside and hired a wood pecker’s boat to ferry them over; the boat capsized and sank and the cargo was lost, the geese deformed their necks by carrying the heavy bags, the wood pecker is in search of wood to make another boat and the waterfowl still complains of the arekanuts he had lost.

(2) A legend is a narrative of things which are believed to have happened about a historical personage, locality or event.

A cycle of legend has clustered round king Dutugemunu who rolled back the Tamil invasion of Ceylon in the 4th Century B. C., and he is to the Singhalese peasantry what king Arthur has been to the Celts. The old chronicles, based on the folklore of an earlier period, place his traditional exploits in Magam Pattu, Uva and Kotmale. His mother was Vihâre Devi; she was set afloat in a golden casket by her father Kelani Tissa to appease the gods of the sea, who, incensed by a sacrilege act of his, were submerging his principality of Kelaniya; the princess drifted to the country of Hambantota and its ruler Kavantissa rescued her and made her his queen. The coast on which she landed is still remembered as Durâva and has the ruins of a vihare built to commemorate her miraculous escape.

Dutugemunu was her eldest son and when she was pregnant she longed to give as alms to the Buddhist priesthood a honey comb as large as an ox, to bathe in the water which had washed the sword with which a Tamil warrior had been killed, and to wear unfaded waterlilies brought from the marshes of Anuradapura. The town of Negombo supplied the first and the warrior Velusumana procured the other two. Astrologers were consulted as to the meaning of these longings and they predicted, to quote the words of the old chronicler “the queen’s son destroying the Damilas, and reducing the country under one sovereignty, will make the religion of the land shine forth again.”

When Dutugemunu was a lad, he was banished from his father’s court for disobedience and he passed his youth among the peasantry of Kotmale till his father’s death made him the ruler of Ruhuna.

Dutugemunu had a band of ten favourite warriors, all of whom have independent legends attached to their names; along with them, riding on his favourite elephant Sedol, he performed wonders in 28 pitched battles.

He died at an advanced age, disappointed in his only son Sali, who gave up the throne for a low caste beauty. The peasantry still awaits the re-birth of Dutugemunu as the chief disciple of the future Maitri Buddha.

(3) A folk tale is a story told mainly for amusement, deals with ideas and episodes of primitive life and includes elfin tales, beast tales, noodle tales, cumulative tales and apologues.

Elfin tales deal with the magical powers and the cannibalistic nature of the Râkshas.

A Gamarala’s wife, while expecting a baby, weaves a mat bag to collect the kekira melons when the season is on. The Gamarâla goes out every day, enjoys the kekira himself without informing his wife that the melons are ripe. The wife discovers that the kekira is ripe from a seed on the Gamarala’s beard. Both go out to collect the kekira melons and fill the mat bag, when the wife gives birth to a girl. They decide to carry the bag of kekira home and throw the child into the woods as it is a girl. A male and female crane see this and carry the child to a cave. The cranes get a parrot, a dog and a cat to be companions of the girl who all grow up together and the girl is called ‘sister’ by the pets. The cranes leave the girl to dive for some pearls to adorn her and before departing advise her not to leave the cave as there is a cannibalistic Rakshi in the woods; they also ask her to manure the plantain tree with ash, to water the murunga tree and to feed her pets especially the cat. The cat gets a less allowance of food than usual and in anger puts out the fire by urinating on it. The girl goes out to fetch fire and comes to the Rakshi’s cave and meets her daughter, who tries to keep the girl till her mother comes by promising to give her fire, if she would bring water from the well, break firewood and pound two pots of amu seed. The girl does all this work before the Rakshi arrives and the daughter gives her live coals in a cocoanut shell with a hole in it, so that the ashes dropped all along her way. On the Rakshi’s return she is told of the girls’ departure and she follows up the ash track and reaches the cave. The Rakshi sings out to the girl that the crane father and crane mother have come with the pearls and to open the door. The dog and the cat warn her from the outside and the Rakshi kills them and goes away leaving her thumb nails fixed to the lintel and her toe nails to the threshold. The cranes return and on the parrot’s advice the girl opens the door and comes out but gets fixed by the nails and swoons away. The cranes think she is dead, but on removal of the nails the girl recovers. They dress up the girl beautifully, cover her with a scab covered cloth, tell her that she is too grown up to live with them and bid her farewell. The girl travels through the woods, becomes tired and meets the Rakshi; she asks the Rakshi to eat her up but the Rakshi contemptuously passes her by saying “I do not want to eat a scab covered girl; I am going to eat a beautiful princess.” The girl arrives at a king’s palace and is employed as a help mate to the cook. She used to remove her scab covered cloth only when she went out to bathe, and a man on a kitul tree tapping for toddy saw her beauty and informed the king who forced her with threats to remove her scab covering and married her.

In beast tales the actors are animals who speak and act like human beings.

A hare and a jackal sweep a house-compound; they find two pumpkin seeds and plant them; the jackal waters his creeper with urine and the hare waters his from the well; the jackal’s creeper dies; the hare generously agrees to share the pumpkin with his friend; the jackal proposes a ruse to obtain the other requisites for their meal; the hare lays himself on the road as if dead; pingo bearers pass carrying firewood, cocoanuts, rice, pots; as each pingo carrier passes, the jackal cries out “keep that pingo down and take away the dead hare; as they do so the hare scampers away and the jackal runs away with the pingos; the jackal places the food on the fire and asks the hare to fetch stalkless kenda leaves, the hare goes in search and the jackal cooks and eats the whole meal leaving a few grains of rice for the hare; the jackal places a cocoanut husk under his tail to act as a stopper for his over-filled stomach; the hare returns without the leaves and shares the remnants of the meal with the jackal; at the jackal’s request the hare strokes the jackal’s back and removes the cocoanut husk and is besmeared with excretion; the hare runs to a meadow, rolls on the grass and returns quite clean; the jackal asks him how he became so and the hare replies that the dhoby has washed him; the jackal runs to the riverside and asks the dhoby to make him also clean; the dhoby takes him by his hind legs and thwacks him on the washing stone till he dies, saying “this is the jackal who ate my fowls.”

The noodle tales describe the blunders of fools and foolish husbands.

Twelve men went one day to cut fence sticks and they made twelve bundles. One of them inquired whether there were twelve men to carry the bundles. They agreed to count and only found eleven men. As they thought that one man was short, they went in search of him to the jungle. They met a fellow villager to whom they mentioned their loss. He arranged the bundles in one line, and the men in another and said “now you are alright; let each one take a bundle of sticks and go home” which they did as no one was missing.

The people of Rayigam Korale threw stones at the moon one moonlight night to frighten it off as they thought it was coming too near and there was a danger of its burning their crops; they also cut down a kitul tree to get its pith and to prevent its falling down, one of them supported it on his shoulder and got killed.

The country folks of Tumpane tried to carry off a well because they saw a bee’s nest reflected in the water; the men of Maggona did the same but ran away on seeing their shadows in the well.

The Moravak Korale boatmen mistook a bend in the river for the sea, left their cargo there and returned home; and the Pasdum Korale folk spread mats for elephants to walk upon.

In cumulative tales there is a repetition of the incidents till the end when the whole story is recapitulated.

A bird laid two eggs which got enclosed between two large stones. The bird asked a mason to split open the stones; the mason refused and the bird, asked a wild boar to destroy the mason’s paddy crop. The wild boar refused and the bird asked a hunter to shoot the wild boar. The hunter refused and the bird asked the elephant to kill the hunter as the hunter will not shoot the wild boar and the wild boar will not destroy the mason’s paddy, and the mason will not split open the stones. The bird asked a bloodsucker to creep into the elephant’s trunk, but the bloodsucker declined. The bird then asked a wild-fowl to peck at the bloodsucker as the bloodsucker would not creep up the elephant’s trunk, as the elephant would not kill the hunter; as the hunter would not shoot the wild boar, as the wild boar would not destroy the paddy crop of the mason who would not split the stones which enclosed the birds’ eggs. The wild-fowl refused and the bird asked a jackal to eat the wild-fowl. The jackal began to eat the fowl, the fowl began to peck at the bloodsucker, the bloodsucker began to creep up the elephants’ trunk; the elephant began to attack the hunter; the hunter began to shoot at the wild boar; the boar began to eat the mason’s paddy; the mason began to split the stones, and the bird gained access to her two eggs.

Apologues are narratives with a purpose, they point a moral and are serious in tone.

The moral “be upright to the upright; be kind to the kind, and dishonest to the deceitful” is illustrated by the following tale. A certain man having accidentally found a golden pumpkin gave it to a friend for safe keeping. When the owner asked for it back his friend gave him a brass one; and he went away apparently satisfied. Sometime after the friend entrusted the owner of the pumpkin with one of his sons, but when the father demanded the son back, he produced a large ape. Complaint was made to the king who ordered each men to restore what each had received from the other.

CHAPTER XVII.

SONGS AND BALLADS.

The ordinary folk songs of the country are called sivupada and can be heard sung in a drawn out melody by the peasants labouring on their fields or watching their crops at night, by the bullock drivers as they go with their heavy laden carts; by the elephant keepers engaged in seeking fodder, by the boat men busy at their oars, by the women nursing their infants, by the children as they swing under the shady trees, and by the pilgrims on their way to some distant shrine.

For rhythmic noise women and girls sit round a large tambourine placed on the ground and play on it notes representing jingle sounds like the following:—

Vatta katat katat tâ

Kumbura katat katat tâ

Vatta katat kumbura katat katat katat katat tâ.

Attaka ratumal, attaka sudumal

Elimal dolimal, rênkitul mal

Rajjen tarikita rajjen tâ.

Oxen are encouraged to labour in the threshing floor by songs[1]

On, leader-ox, O ox-king, on,

In strength the grain tread out.

On, great one, yoked behind the king,

In strength the grain tread out.

This is not our threshing floor,

The Moon-god’s floor it is.

This is not our threshing floor

The Sun-god’s floor it is.

This is not our threshing floor,

God Ganesha’s floor it is.

“On, leader ox, etc.”

As high as Adam’s Sacred Peak,

Heap the grain, O heap it up;

As high as Mecca’s holy shrine,

Heap the grain, O heap it up;

From highest and from lowest fields,

Bring the grain and heap it up;

High as our greatest relic shrine,

O heap it up, heap it up.

“On, leader ox, etc.”

The cart drivers still sing of a brave Singhalese chieftain who fell on the battle field:—

Pun sanda sêma pâyâlâ rata meddê

Ran kendi sêma pîrâlâ pita meddê

Mâra senaga vatakaragana Yama yudde

Levke metindu ada taniyama velc medde

(Like full orb’d moon his glory shone, his radiance filled the world

His loosen’d hair knot falling free in smoothest threads of gold.

Mâra’s host beset him—no thought was there to yield;

To-day Lord Levke’s body still holds the lonely field.[2])

The elephant keepers strike up a rustic song to the accompaniment of a bamboo whistle.

Etun tamayi api balamuva bolannê

Kitul tamayi api kotaninda dennê

Ratê gamêvat kitulak nedennê

Etun nisâmayi api divi nassinê.

(It is elephants that we must look after, O fellows.

From where can we get kitul for them.

No village or district supplies us with kitul.

It is owing to elephants that we lose our lives.)

The following are specimens of a river song, a sea song and a tank song.

Malê malê oya nâmala nelâ varen

Attâ bindeyi paya burulen tiyâ varen

Mahavili ganga diyayanavâ balâ varen

Sâdukêredî oruva pedana varen.

(Brother, brother pluck that nâ flower and come.

The branch will break, step on it lightly and come.

See how Mahavili ganga’s waters flow and come.

Raising shouts of thanks row your boat and come).

Tan tan tan talâ mediriyâ

Tin tin tin ti lâ mediriyâ

Ape delê mâlu

Goda edapan Yâlu

Vellê purâ mâlu.

(Tan tan tan talâ mediriyâ

Tin tin tin ti lâ mediriyâ

There is fish in our nets

Pull it to the shore, friends

The shore is full of fish.)

“Sora bora vevê sonda sonda olu nelum eti.

Êvâ nelannata sonda sonda liyô eti

Kalu karalâ sudu karalâ uyâ deti

Olu sâlê bat kannata mâlu nẹti.

(The Sora bora tank has fine white lotus flowers

To pluck them there are very handsome women

After cleaning and preparing, the blossoms will be cooked

But alas there are no meat curries to eat with the lotus rice).

Pilgrims on their way to Adam’s Peak sing the following first verse and as they return the second.

1. Devindu balen api vandinda

Saman devindu vandavanda

Muni siripâ api vandinda

Apê Budun api vandinda.

(To worship our Buddha, to worship His footprint, may god Saman help us, may his might support us).

2. Devindu balen api vendô

Saman devindu vendevô

Munisiripâ api vendô

Apê budun api vendô.

(We have worshipped our Buddha;

We have worshipped his foot print;

The god Samen helped us;

His might supported us).

A mother amuses her children by pointing out the moon and asking them to sing out Handa hamy apatat bat kanda rantetiyak diyô diyo (Mr. Moon, do give us a golden dish to eat our rice in); or she makes them clap their hands singing appuddi pudi puvaththâ kevum dekak devaththâ (clap, clap, clap away with two rice cakes in your hands); or she tickles them with the finger rhyme kandê duvayi, hakuru geneyi, tôt kâyi, matat deyi, hankutu kutu. (Run to the hills, bring molasses, You will eat, you will give me, hankutu kutu); or she swings them to the jingle “Onchilli chilli chille malê, Vella digata nelli kelê;” or she rocks them to sleep with the following lullabies:—

Umbê ammâ kirata giyâ

Kiri muttiya gangé giyâ

Ganga vatakara kokku giyâ,

Kokku evith kiri bivvâ,

Umba nâdan babô

(Your mother went to fetch milk

The milk pot went down the river

The cranes surrounded the river

The cranes came and drank the milk

You better not cry, my baby.)

Baloli loli bâloliyê

Bâla bilindu bâloliyê

Kiyamin gi neleviliyê

Sethapemi magê suratheliyê

(Darling darling little one

Darling little tender one

Sleeping songs do I sing

Sleep away my fond little one.)

Radâgedere kosattê

Eka gediyayi palagattê

Êka kanta lunu nettê

Numba nâdan doyi doyiyê.

(The jak tree at the washer’s house

Bore only one fruit

There is no salt to eat with it

You better not cry, but sleep, sleep)

Vandurô indagana ambê liyannan

Vendiri indagana hâl garannan

Petiyô indagana sindu kiyannan

Tala kola pettiya, gangê duvannan.

(The monkeys are engaged in cutting up a mango

Their mates are engaged in washing the rice

Their young ones are engaged in singing songs.

The palm leaf box is drifting in the river.)

The following is a specimen of a love song.

“Galaknan peleyi mata vedunu gindarê

Vilaknan pireyi nẹt kandulu enasẹrê

Malak vat pudami numba namata rubarê

Tikakkat neḋda matatibunu âdarê.

(If I were a stone my passion’s heat would have split me.

If I were a pond my weeping tears would have filled me.

O my darling, I shall offer a flower to your memory.

Is there nothing left of your old love for me).

---

[1] From Revd. Moscrop’s translation of the song of the Thresher in the “Children of Ceylon”, p. 53. [↑]

[2] From Mr. Bell’s translation in the Archæological Survey of Kegalle, p. 44. [↑]

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROVERBS, RIDDLES AND LOCAL SAYINGS.

A proverbial saying is said to state a fact or express a thought in vivid metaphor while a riddle to describe a person or thing in obscure metaphor calculated as a test of intellectual ability in the person attempting to solve it.

Proverbial sayings are divided, according to their form into direct statements and metaphorical statements.

The following are examples of direct statements:—

The quarrel between the husband and the wife lasts only till the pot of rice is cooked.

A lie is short lived.

One individual can ruin a whole community.

What is the use of relations who do not help you when your door is broken.

Poverty is lighter than cotton.

Metaphorical statements are more numerous and are best considered according to the matter involved such as honesty, thrift, folly, knavery, natural disposition, ingratitude, luck, hypocrisy; and the following are some typical examples:—

When the king takes the wife to whom is the poor man to complain.

You may escape from the god Saman Deviyo but you cannot escape his servant Amangallâ.

There is certain to be a hailstorm when the unlucky man gets his head shaved.

The teeth of the dog that barks at the lucky man will fall out.

On a lucky day you can catch fish with twine; but on an unlucky day the fish will break even chains of iron.

The water in an unfilled pot makes a noise.

You call a kabaragoyâ a talagoya when you want to eat it.

It is like wearing a crupper to cure dysentery.

Like the man who got the roasted jak seeds out of the fire by the help of a cat.

Like the man who would not wash his body to spite the river.

Like the man who flogged the elk skin at home to avenge himself on the deer that trespassed in his field.

Like the villagers who tied up the mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant tracks in the fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at night.

Though a dog barks at a hill will it grow less.

It is like licking your finger on seeing a beehive on a tree.

It is not possible to make a charcoal white by washing it in milk.

The cobra will bite you whether you call it cobra or Mr. Cobra.

Riddles are either in prose or verse.

As examples of prose riddles the following may be mentioned:—

What is it that cries on this bank, but drops its dung on the other (megoda andalayi egoda betilayi)—A gun.

What is the tree by the door that has 20 branches and 20 bark strips; twenty knocks on the head of the person who fails to solve it. (dorakadagahe atuvissayi potu vissayi netêruvot toku vissayi)—10 fingers and 10 toes.

What is it that is done without intermission (nohita karana vẹdê)—the twinkling of the eye.

The following are examples of verse riddles.

The Eye—

“Ihala gobê pansiyayak pancha nâda karanâ

Pahala gobê pansiyayak pancha nâda karanâ

Emeḍa devi ruva ẹti lamayek inda kelinâ

Metûn padê têruvot Buduvenavâ.”

(On the upper shoot there are 500 songsters

On the lower shoot there are 500 songsters

Between them is an infant of divine beauty.

If one can solve this he will become a Buddha).

The Cobra.

Vẹl vẹl diga ẹti

Mal mal ruva ẹti

Râja vansa ẹti

Kêvot pana neti.

(Long like a creeper

Beautiful like a flower

Of royal caste

With a deadly bite).

The Pine Apple.

Katuvânen ketuvânen kolê sẹti

Ratu nûlen getuvâveni malê sẹti

Tun masa giya kalata kukulek sẹti

Metun padê têru aya ratak vatî

(The leaf is beautifully encased

The flower is worked with red thread

And this becomes like a chicken in three months

The one who can solve this deserves a country.

APPENDIX.

GLOSSARY OF SINHALESE FOLK TERMS APPEARING IN THE SERVICE TENURE REGISTER (1872.)