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).
[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.