[1] Jīvan keruwā, made magical “life” or power in it, by means of spells. [↑]
[2] Gamarāla kenekunnē; this plural form is often used for the singular. A few lines further on we have, redda aendapu kenekunḍayi. [↑]
[3] Probably said sarcastically; he may have had a bad figure. This kind of sarcastic talk is very common in the villages. [↑]
[4] A coconut shell slung from cords, for use as a water-vessel (mungawē). [↑]
[5] Lit., “them,” kiri, milk, being a plural noun. [↑]
[6] Compare the similar account on p. 296, vol. i. In Clough’s Dictionary, Giju-lihiṇiyā (lit., Vulture-glider or hawk) is termed Golden Eagle, a bird which is not found in India or Ceylon. Apparently the word is a synonym of Rukh (the Æt-kanda Lihiṇiyā), which in the second note, p. 300, vol. i, is said to be “of the nature of vultures.” In Man, vol. xiii, p. 73, Captain W. E. H. Barrett published an A’Kikuyu (East African) story in which when a man took refuge inside a dead elephant the animal was carried off by a huge vulture to a tree in the midst of a great lake. The man escaped by grasping one of the bird’s tail feathers when it flew away, and being thus carried by it to land, without its knowledge. [↑]
[7] Oṭṭu-welā, having pushed against. [↑]
[8] Lit., to be (re-)born. [↑]
[9] The narrator, belonging to a village in the far interior, evidently thought a shark is a small fish, little larger than those caught in the tanks. Compare also No. 214, in which a Queen carries a shark home to eat. [↑]