Sinhalese Folklore Notes, Ceylon

by Arthur A. Perera

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.