{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_51621/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_51621","id":"gutenberg_51621","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51621","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore -- Sri Lanka","Sri Lanka -- Social life and customs"],"text":"SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES\n\n                                 CEYLON\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                           ARTHUR A. PERERA,\n                           Advocate, Ceylon.\n\n\n\n                                Bombay:\n\n              PRINTED AT THE BRITISH INDIA PRESS, MAZGAON\n\n                                  1917\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE.\n\n\nThe Sinhalese beliefs, customs and stories in the present collection\nwere contributed by the writer to the Indian Antiquary fourteen years\nago in a series of articles under the title of \"Glimpses of Sinhalese\nSocial Life\"; they are now offered, amplified and rearranged, to the\nstudent of folklore in Ceylon, as a basis for further research. The\nwriter has adopted the scheme of classification in the Folklore\nSociety's Hand Book of Folklore.\n\n\n    ARTHUR A. PERERA.\n\n                                                        Westwood, Kandy,\n                                                    10th February, 1917.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS.\n\n\n    Belief and Practice.\n\n        Chapter.              PAGES\n\n         1. The Earth and the Sky                          1\n         2. The Vegetable World                            4\n         3. The Animal World                               6\n         4. Human Beings                                  11\n         5. Things made by man                            13\n         6. The Soul and another Life                     14\n         7. Superhuman Beings                             15\n         8. Omens and Divination                          21\n         9. The Magic Art                                 23\n        10. Disease and Leech-craft                       25\n\n    Customs.\n\n        11. Social and Political Institutions             26\n        12. Rites of Individual Life                      32\n        13. Occupations and Industries                    36\n        14. Festivals                                     40\n        15. Games, Sports and Pastimes                    43\n\n    Stories, Songs and Sayings.\n\n        16. Stories                                       47\n        17. Songs and Ballads                             51\n        18. Proverbs, Riddles and Local Sayings           54\n\n    Appendix.\n\n    Glossary of Sinhalese Folk terms from the Service\n    Tenure Register (1872).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE EARTH AND THE SKY.\n\n\nVarious beliefs are held by the peasantry about the hills, rocks,\nboulders and crags scattered about the island.\n\nSamanala Kanda (Adam's Peak) which contains the sacred foot print\nof the Buddha was in prehistoric times sacred to the god Saman who\nstill presides over the mountain. Pilgrims to the Peak invoke his\naid in song for a safe journey; and when they reach the top, cover\nthe foot print with four yards of white cloth, pay obeisance to it,\nrecite the articles of the Buddhist Faith, and make a silver offering\nat the shrine of the Saman Deviyo, which is close by. When worship\nis over the pilgrims greet each other and sound a bell ringing as\nmany peals as they have visited the Peak.\n\nNo lizard is heard chirping within the shadow of Hunasgiriya Peak\nin Pata Dumbara for when the Buddha, on his aerial visit to Ceylon,\nwished to alight on this mountain a lizard chirped and he passed on\nto Adam's Peak.\n\nRitigal Kanda (Sanskrit Arishta) in the Nuvara Kal\u00e2viya district,\nS.E. of Anuradhapura and Rummas Kanda (modern Buona Vista) in the\nGalle district are associated with the Hanuman tradition. It was from\nRitigal Kanda that Hanuman jumped across to India to carry the joyful\nmessage that he had discovered Sita in Ceylon, and when Lakshman was\nwounded and a medicinal herb was required for his cure, Hanuman was\nsent to the Himalayas to fetch it; on the way the name and nature of\nthe plant dropped from his memory; whereupon he snapped a portion\nof the Himalayas and brought it twisted in his tail and asked Rama\nto seek for the herb himself. Buona Vista is that portion of the\nmountain and valuable medicinal herbs are still to be found there.\n\nR\u00e2van\u00e2 Kotte,--the stronghold of R\u00e2van\u00e2 (king of the Rakshas)--was\noff Kirinda in the Hambantota District and is now submerged. The Great\nBasses are what is left of this city; the golden twilight seen there of\nan evening is the reflection of the brazen roofs of the submerged city.\n\nDehi Kanda opposite the Dambulla rock caves in the Matale district is\nthe petrified husk of the rice eaten by the giants who made the caves.\n\nNear Sinigama in Wellaboda pattu of the Galle district is shewn a\ncrag as the petrified craft in which W\u00earagoda Deviyo came to Ceylon\nfrom South India.\n\nWhen a severe drought visited the island, an elephant, a tortoise,\na beetle, an eel, a goat and a she elephant went in search of water\nto the tank Wen\u00earu Veva near Kurunegala. A woman who saw this kept\na lump of salt before the foremost of them, the elephant; while he\nwas licking it she raised a screen of leaves to conceal the tank\nfrom the intruders' view and began to pray; and the gods answered\nby petrifying the animals, the screen and the lump of salt, all of\nwhich are still visible round Kurunegala.\n\n\"Panduvasa, the seventh king of Ceylon, was visited by the tiger\ndisease, a complicated malady of cough, asthma, fever and diabetes in\nconsequence of Wijeya, the first king, having killed his old benefactor\nand discarded mistress, Kuv\u00eani, when, in the shape of a tiger, she\nendeavoured to revenge her slighted charms. The gods taking pity on\nPanduvasa, consulted by what means he might be restored to health, and\nfound that it could not be effected without the aid of one not born of\na woman. The difficulty was to find such a person. Rahu being sent on\nthe service, discovered Malaya Raj\u00e2, king of Malva D\u00easa, the son of\nVishnu, sprung from a flower. Rahu changing himself into an immense\nboar, laid waste the royal gardens to the great consternation of the\ngardeners, who fled to the palace and told what was passing. The king,\nwho was a keen sportsman, hastened to the spot with his huntsmen, whom\nhe ordered to drive the boar towards him. The boar, when pressed, at\none bound flew over the head of the king, who shot an arrow through him\nin passing, but without effect, the animal continuing his flight. The\nking, irritated, instantly gave pursuit with his attendants in the\ndirection the beast had taken, and landed in Ceylon at Ur\u00e2tota (Hog\nferry) near Jaffna; the boar alighted near Attapitiya. A piece of\nsweet potato that he brought from the garden in his mouth and which\nhe here dropt was immediately changed, it is said into a rock, that\nstill preserves its original form, and is still called Batalagala\nor sweet potato rock. The king came up with the beast on the hill\nHantana near Kandy, instantly attacked him sword in hand, and with\nthe first blow inflicted a deep gash. On receiving this wound, the\nboar became transformed into a rock which is now called Uragala, is\nvery like a hog, and is said to retain the mark of the wound. The\nking, whilst surprised and unable to comprehend the meaning of\nthe marvels he had just witnessed, received a visit from Sakra,\nVishnu and other gods who explained the mystery that perplexed him,\nand the object in view in drawing him to Ceylon--he alone, not being\nborn of woman, having it in his power to break the charm under which\nPanduvasa laboured. Malaya Raj\u00e2 complying with the wishes of the gods,\nordered the Kohomba Yakku dance to be performed which, it is said,\ndrove the sickness out of the king into a rock to the northward of\nKandy, which is still called the rock of the Tiger sickness.\" [1]\n\n\"The spirit of Kuv\u00eani is still supposed to haunt the country and\ninflict misfortune on the race of the conqueror by whom she was\nbetrayed. Kuvenigala is a bare mountain of rock on which are two\nstones, one slightly resembling a human figure in a standing attitude,\nthe other looking like a seat. It is on this that traditions assert,\nthe Yakinni sometimes appears and casts the withering glance of\nmalignant power over the fair fields and fertile Valley of Asgiriya--a\nsequestered and most romantic spot in the Matale District.\" [2]\n\nRocks with mystic marks indicate the spot where treasures are concealed\nand lights are seen at night in such places.\n\nWhen the owner of a treasure wanted to keep it safe, it is said that\nhe dug two holes in some lonely jungle and at night proceeded to\nthe spot with a servant carrying the treasure; after the treasure\nwas deposited in one hole, the master cut his servant's throat and\nburied him in the other to make him a guardian of his treasure in\nthe form of a snake or demon.\n\nThe earth goddess (Mihi Ket) supports the world on one of her thumbs\nand when weary shifts it on to the other causing an earthquake.\n\nThe four cardinal points are presided over by four guardian deities\n(Hataravaran Deviy\u00f4).\n\nSea waves are three in number which follow each other in regular\nsuccession. The first and the largest is the brother who fell in love\nwith his sister and who, to conquer his unholy passion, committed\nsuicide by jumping into the sea. The next is his mother who jumped\nafter her son, and the last and the smallest is the daughter herself.\n\nThe sky in the olden times was very close to the earth, and the stars\nserved as lamps to the people; a woman who was sweeping her compound\nwas so much troubled by the clouds touching her back when she stooped\nto sweep that she gave the sky a blow with her ikle broom saying\n'get away' (pala). The sky in shame immediately flew out of the reach\nof man.\n\nThe rainbow is the god Sakra's bow (Devidunne) and portends fair\nweather; when any calamity is approaching Budures (Buddha's\nrays) appear in the sky--\"a luminous phenomenon consisting of\nhorizontal bands of light which cross the sky while the sun is in the\nascendant.\" The twilight seen on hill tops is the sunshine in which\nthe female Rakshis dry their paddy.\n\nLightning strikes the graves of cruel men; thunder induces conception\nin female crocodiles and bursts open the peahen's eggs.\n\nChildren sing out to the moon \"Handahamy apatat bat kande ran tetiyak\ndiyo.\"--(Mr. Moon do give us a golden plate in which to eat our rice).\n\nWhen the new moon is first observed it is lucky to immediately after\nlook on rice, milk or kiss a kind and well to do relative.\n\nThe spots in the moon represent a hare to signify to the world the\nself-sacrifice of Buddha in a previous existence.\n\nIn each year the twelve days (Sankranti) on which the sun moves from\none sign of the zodiac to another, are considered unlucky. There\nare twenty seven constellations (neket) which reach the zenith at\nmidnight on particular days in particular months; and their position is\nascertained from an astrologer before any work of importance is begun.\n\nThe sun, moon, and Rahu were three sons of a widowed mother whom\nthey left at home one day to attend a wedding. When they returned she\ninquired what they had brought with them; the eldest angrily replied\nthat he had brought nothing, the second threw at her the torch which\nhad lighted them on the way, but the third asked for his mother's\nrice pot and put into it a few grains of rice, which he had brought\nconcealed under his nails and which miraculously filled the vessel. The\nmother's blessing made the youngest son the pleasant and cool moon,\nwhile her curses made the second the burning sun and the eldest the\ndemon Rahu who tries to destroy his brothers by swallowing them and\ncausing an Eclipse.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE VEGETABLE WORLD.\n\n\nTrees which grow to a large size like the Nuga (ficus altissima),\nBo (ficus religiosa), Erabadu (erythrina indica), Divul (feroma\nelephantum) are the abodes of spirits and villagers erect leafy\naltars under them where they light lamps, offer flowers and burn\nincense. Before a wood-cutter fells a large tree he visits to it\nthree or four days previously and asks the spirit residing there to\ntake its abode elsewhere; otherwise evil will befall him.\n\nOn the way to Adam's Peak there are to be found sacred orchards where\na person may enter and eat any quantity of fruit but will not be able\nto find his way out if he tries to bring any with him.\n\nThe Bo tree is sacred to Buddha and is never cut down; its leaves\nshiver in remembrance of the great enlightenment which took place\nunder it. His three predecessors in the Buddha hood--Kassapa,\nKon\u00e2gama, Kakusanda--attained enlightenment under the nuga, dimbul\nand the sirisa.\n\nThe margosa tree is sacred to Pattini and the telambu tree to Navaratna\nW\u00e2lli. Each lunar asterism is associated with a particular tree.\n\nHomage is paid to an overlord by presenting him with a roll of 40\nbetel leaves with the stalk ends towards the receiver. Before the\nbetel is chewed, its apex and a piece of the petiole of the base are\nbroken off as a cobra brought the leaf from the lower world holding\nboth ends in its mouth. It is also considered beneath one's dignity\nto eat the base of the petiole.\n\nThe flowering of a tala tree (corypha umbraculifera) is inauspicious to\nthe village. A cocoanut only falls on a person who has incurred divine\ndispleasure; it is lucky to own a cocoanut tree with a double stem.\n\nA king cocoanut tree near the house brings bad luck to the owner's\nsons. When a person dies or a child is born a cocoanut blossom is\nhung over him.\n\nThe person who plants an arekanut tree becomes subject to\nnervousness. The woman who chews the scarred slice of an arekanut\nbecomes a widow. If a married woman eats a plantain which is attached\nto another, she gets twins.\n\nAn astrologer once told a king that a particular day and hour were so\nauspicious that anything planted then would become a useful tree. The\nking directed the astrologer's head to be severed and planted and this\ngrew into the crooked cocoanut tree. Pleased with the result he got his\nown head severed and planted and it grew into the straight areka tree.\n\nRed flowers (rat mal) are sacred to malignant spirits and white flowers\n(sudu mal) to beneficient spirits. Turmeric water is used for charming\nand sticks from bitter plants are used as magic wands. The N\u00e2ga darana\nroot (martynia diandra) protects a man from snake bite.\n\nIt is auspicious to have growing near houses the following:--n\u00e2\n(ironwood), palu (mimusops hexandra), m\u00fbnamal (mimusops elengi), sapu\n(champak), delum (pomegranate), kohomba (margosa), areka, cocoanut,\npalmyra, jak, shoeflower, idda (wrightia zeylanica), sadikka (nutmeg)\nand midi (vitis vinifera) while the following are inauspicious:--imbul\n(cotton), ruk (myristica tursfieldia), mango, beli (aegle marmelos),\nehela (cassia fistula), tamarind, satinwood, ratkihiri (accacia\ncatechu), etteriya (murraya exotica) and penala (soap berry plant).\n\nPersons taken for execution were formerly made to wear wadamal\n(hibiscus).\n\nThe dumella (Trichosanthes cucumerina) and the kekiri (zhenaria\numbellata) are rendered bitter, if named before eating. Alocasia yams\n(habarale) cause a rasping sensation in the throat when they are\nnamed within the eater's hearing.\n\nWhen a person is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves are rubbed on the\ninjured place with the words \"t\u00f4ra kola visa net\u00e2 kahambaliy\u00e2 visa\neta.\" (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle). Cassia\nindicates the fertility of the soil; where diyataliya (mexitixia\ntetrandra) and kumbuk (terminalia tomentosa) flourish a copious supply\nof water can be obtained.\n\nThe bark of the bo tree and of the B\u00f4mbu (symplocos spicata) prevent\nthe contagion of sore eyes when tied on the arms.\n\nIn the beginning the only food used by man was an edible fungus like\nboiled milk which grew spontaneously upon the earth. As man fell\nfrom his primitive simplicity this substance disappeared and rice\nwithout the husk took its place. But when man became depraved the\nrice developed a covering and ceased to grow spontaneously forcing\nmen to work.\n\nA poor widow had a daughter who married a rich man. One day she\nwent to her daughter's and asked for a little rice to eat. Though\nthe pot of rice was on the fire, the daughter said she had none to\ngive and the mother went away. The daughter found the rice in the\npot had turned into blood and she threw it away. The god Sakraya in\nrevenge reduced the daughter to beggary and the mother and daughter\non the god's advice dug where the pot of rice had been emptied and\nfound the batala yam (bata rice and l\u00ea-blood). Thereafter the batala\n(Edulis batatas) became the food of the poor.\n\nThat the jak fruit may be eaten by the people, the god Sakray\u00e2 came\nto earth as a Brahmin, plucked a fruit and asked a woman to cook it\nwithout tasting. The smell was so tempting that she stealthily ate a\nlittle of it and was called a thievish woman (hera, thief; and liya\nwoman.) The fruit is consequently called heraliya.\n\nA king once directed a jeweller to work in gold a design similar to\nthe club moss; the goldsmith found this so hard that he went mad and\nthe moss is called the jeweller's curse (badal vanassa).\n\nThe butterfly orchid inflames one's passion and is called the \"yam\nthat killed the younger sister\" (nag\u00e2 meru ale) as a sister once\naccidentally tasted it and made amorous gestures to her brother who\nkilled her.\n\nIf a person approaches the mythical Damba tree without a charm he\nwill be killed. The celestial Kapruka gives everything one wishes\nfor. The unknown Visakumbha is an antidote for poison and is eaten\nby the mungoose after its fight with the cobra. Kusa grass (sevendr\u00e2)\nexists both on earth and in heaven.\n\nThe imaginary Kalu nika twig floats against the current, cuts in two\nthe strongest metal; when eaten rejuvenates the old; and to obtain\nit the young of the etikukul\u00e2 (jungle fowl) should be tied by a metal\nchain when the parents will fetch the twig to release their young.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE ANIMAL WORLD.\n\n\nThe presence of bats in a house indicates that it will be soon\ndeserted. Medicinal virtues are ascribed to the flesh of monkeys. To\nlook at a slender loris (una hapuluva) brings ill luck and its eyes are\nused for a love potion. The lion's fat corrodes any vessel except one\nof gold; its roar which makes one deaf is raised three times--first\nwhen it starts from its den, next when it is well on its way, and\nlast when it springs on its victim. It kills elephants but eats only\ntheir brain. The unicorn (kangav\u00eana) has a horn on its forehead with\nwhich it pierces the rocks that impede its progress.\n\nIf a dog howls or scratches away the earth before a house it presages\nillness or death; if it walks on the roof, the house will be deserted,\nif it sleeps under a bed it is a sign of the occupant's speedy death.\n\nA bear throws sand on the eyes of its victim before pouncing on him,\nand it does not attack persons carrying rockbine (Galpahura).\n\nWhen a person is bitten by a mouse, the wound is burnt with a heated\npiece of gold. A mouse after drinking toddy boasts that it can\nbreak up the cat into seven pieces. A kick from a wild rat (valmiy\u00e2)\nproduces paralysis.\n\nThe porcupine (itt\u00eav\u00e2) shoots its quills to keep off its antagonists\nand hunts the pengolin (kebellev\u00e2) out of its home and occupies\nit himself.\n\nA cheetah likes the warmth of a blaze and comes near the cultivator's\nwatch fire in the field, calls him by name and devours him; it\nfrequents where peacocks abound; it does not eat the victim that falls\nwith the right side uppermost. Small pox patients are carried away by\nthis animal which is attracted by the offensive smell they emanate;\nwhen the cheetah gets a sore mouth by eating the wild herb m\u00eemanadandu,\nit swallows lumps of clay to allay its hunger; its skin and claws\nare used as amulets; the female cheetah gives birth only once and has\nno subsequent intercourse with her mate owing to the severe travail;\nthe cheetah was taught by the cat to climb up a tree but not to climb\ndown; in revenge it always kills its tutor but is reverent enough not\nto make a meal of the body which it places on an elevated spot and\nworships. One in a thousand cheetahs has the jaya-revula (lucky side\nwhiskers) which never fails to bring good fortune if worn as an amulet.\n\nThe cheetah, the lizard and the crocodile were three brothers,\nherdsmen, skilled in necromancy; as the animals they were looking after\nrefused to yield milk, the eldest transformed himself into a cheetah,\nand the evil nature of the beast asserting itself he began to destroy\nthe flock and attack the brothers; the youngest took refuge on a tree\ntransforming himself into a lizard and the other who had the magical\nbooks turned himself into a crocodile and jumped into a river; these\nthree have ever since lived in friendship and a person who escapes\nthe crocodile is killed if a lizard urinates on him when sleeping;\na crocodile's victim can free himself by tickling its stomach and\ntrying to take away the books concealed there.\n\nA cat becomes excited by eating the root of the acolypha indica\n(kuppam\u00eaniya) and its bite makes one lean; its caterwauling is\nunlucky. The grey mungoose bites as an antidote a plant not identified\ncalled visakumbha before and after its fight with the cobra; when it\nfinds difficulty in fighting the cobra, it retires to the jungle and\nbrings on its back the king of the tribe, a white animal, by whom or\nin whose presence the cobra is easily killed.\n\nThe hare gives birth to its young on full moon days, one of them has\na crescent on its forehead and dies the first day it sees the moon\nor invariably becomes a prey to the rat snake.\n\nWhen a tooth drops, its owner throws it on to the roof saying squirrel,\ndear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty one in return\n(len\u00f4 len\u00f4 me data aran venin datak diy\u00f4).\n\nGoblins are afraid of cattle with crumpled horns; a stick of the leea\nsambucina (burulla) is not used to drive cattle as it makes them lean;\nthe saliva from the mouth of a tired bull is rubbed on its body to\nrelieve its fatigue, and bezoar stones (g\u00f4r\u00f4chana) found in cattle\nare prescribed for small pox. In the olden time the ox had no horns\nbut had teeth in both its jaws, while the horse had horns but had\nno teeth in its upper jaw; each coveted the other's possessions and\neffected an exchange; the ox taking the horns and giving the horse\nits upper row of teeth; cart bulls are driven with the words 'jah,'\n'pita,' 'mak,' 'hov'.--move, to the right, to the left, halt.\n\nWild buffaloes are susceptible to charms.\n\nDeer's musk prolongs a dying man's life.\n\nAn elephant shakes a palm leaf before eating it as bloodsuckers may\nbe lurking there to creep inside its trunk. A dead elephant is never\nfound for when death approaches the elephant goes to a secluded spot\nand lays itself down to die. Children who are made to pass under an\nelephant's body become strong and are free from illness.\n\nWhen the keeper says 'hari hari,' the elephant moves; 'ho ho' it stops,\n'dhana' it kneels; 'hinda', it lies down; 'daha', it gets up; 'bila'\nit lifts the fore foot; 'hayi,' it lifts its trunk and trumpets.\n\nA shower during sunshine denotes the jackal's wedding day; a jackal\nalways joins the cry of its friends, otherwise its hair will drop off\none by one; a jackal's horn (narianga) is very rare and it gives the\npossessor everything he wishes for and when buried in a threshing\nfloor increases the crop, a hundred fold. The jackals assisted\nby the denizens of the woods once waged war against the wild fowls\n(welikukul\u00f4) who called to their aid a party of men one of whom seized\nthe king of the jackals and dashed him on a rock and broke his jaw;\nas the king received the blow he raised the cry, apoi mage hakka (Oh my\njaw), which could still be heard in the jackal's howl. The wild fowls\nare still the enemies of the jackals. The jackals and the crabs have\nalso a feud between them; a jackal once deceived a crocodile on the\npromise of getting the latter a wife and got himself ferried across\nthe river for several days till he had consumed the carcase of the\nelephant on the other bank. A crab undertook to assist the crocodile\nto take revenge, invited the jackal to a feast and suggested to him\nto go to the riverside for a drink of water. The jackal consented but\non seeing his enemy lying in wait killed the crab for his treachery.\n\nDark plumaged birds like the owl, the magpie robin and the black bird\nbring ill luck and are chased away from the vicinity of houses. The\ncry of the night heron (kana-koka) as it flies over a house presages\nillness and that of the devil bird (ulam\u00e2) death. The devil bird was\nin a previous birth a wife whose fidelity her husband suspected and\nin revenge killed their child, made a curry of its flesh and gave it\nto the mother; as she was eating she found the finger of the infant\nand in grief she fled into the forest, killed herself, and was born\nthe devil bird.\n\nCrows are divided into two castes which do not mate, the hooded\ncrows and the jungle crows; they faint three times at night through\nhunger and their insatiate appetite can only be temporarily appeased\nby making them swallow rags dipped in ghee; they hatch their eggs in\ntime to take their young to the Ehela festival held in honour of the\ngodlings during July and August. A crow seldom dies a natural death,\nand once in a hundred years a feather drops. As no one eats its flesh\nit sorrowfully cries k\u00e2tka (I eat every body). The king crow was once\na barber and it now pecks its dishonest debtor, the crow.\n\nThe presence of sparrows in a house indicates that a male child will\nbe born and when they play in the sand that there will be rain. Once\nupon a time a house, where a pair of sparrows had built their nest\ncaught fire; the hen sparrow flew away but the male bird tried to save\ntheir young and scorched his throat; this scar can still be seen on\nthe cock sparrow.\n\nA house will be temporarily abandoned if a spotted dove (alukobeyiy\u00e2)\nflies through it; this bird was once a woman who put out to dry some\nm\u00ee flowers (bassia longifolia) and asked her little son to watch them;\nwhen they were parched they got stuck to the ground and could not\nbe seen; the mother thought the child had been negligent and killed\nhim in anger; a shower of rain which fell just then showed to her the\nlost herbs and in remorse she killed herself and was born the spotted\ndove, who still laments. \"I got back my m\u00ee flowers but not my son,\nOh my child, my child\" (mimal latin daru no latin pubbaru put\u00ea p\u00fb p\u00fb).\n\nParrots are proverbially ungrateful; sunbirds boast after a copious\ndraught of toddy that they can overthrow Maha Meru with their tiny\nbeaks.\n\nThe great difficulty of the horn-bill (kendetta) to drink water is\ndue to its refusal to give water to a thirsty person in a previous\nexistence. The common babbler hops as he was once a fettered\nprisoner. The red tailed fly catcher was a fire thief, and the white\ntailed one a cloth thief.\n\nA white cock brings luck and prevents a garden from being destroyed\nby black beetles. When a hen has hatched the shells are not thrown\naway but threaded together and kept in a loft over the fireplace till\nthe chickens can look after of themselves. Ceylon jungle fowls become\nblind by eating strobilanthes seed when they may be knocked down with\na stick.\n\nThe cuckoo searches for its young, ejected from the crow's nest,\ncrying koho (where) and its cry at night portends dry weather.\n\nThe plover (kiral\u00e2) sleeps with her legs in the air to prevent\nthe sky falling down and crushing her young; her eggs, when eaten,\ninduce watchfulness.\n\nPeacocks dance in the morning to pay obeisance to the Sun God,\nand they are not kept as pets in houses as the girls will not find\nsuitors. Peahens conceive at the noise of thunder and hence their love\nfor rain. Some say that the peacock once fell in love with the swan\nking's daughter and when going to solicit her hand borrowed the pitta's\nbeautiful tail which he refused to return after winning his bride; the\npeahen pecks at the male bird's train during the mating season, angry\nat the deception practised on her while the pitt\u00e2 goes about crying\n\"avichchi\" (I shall complain when the Maitri Buddun comes.) Others\nsay that the peacock stole the garments while pitt\u00e2 was bathing.\n\nThe cry of the pitt\u00e2 (avichchya) presages rain; and it is thought to\nbe a sorrow stricken prince mourning for his beautiful bride Ayitt\u00e2\nand hence his cry.\n\nLeeches are engaged in measuring the ground. Snails were persons who\nin a previous birth used to spit at others; their slime when rubbed\non one's body makes one strong. Worms attack flowers in November and\nare influenced by charms.\n\nRetribution visits one who ruthlessly destroys the clay nest of the\nmason wasp (kumbal\u00e2); a ran kumbal\u00e2 builds a nest with lime when a\nboy is to be born in the house and a metikumbal\u00e2 with clay when a girl.\n\nWinged termites issue in swarms in the rainy season and prognosticate\na large catch of fish. Spiders were fishermen in a previous existence\nand the mantis religiosa (dara kettiy\u00e2) a fire-wood thief.\n\nBugs infest a house when misfortune is impending and crickets (reheyy\u00f4)\nstridulate till they burst.\n\nIt is lucky to have ants carrying their eggs about a house, but it\nis unlucky for the head of the house when large black ants enter it.\n\nWhen a person is in a bad temper it is sarcastically said that a\nlarge sized red ant has broken wind on him.\n\nThe small red myriapod (kanv\u00eay\u00e2) causes death by entering the ear.\n\nEvery new born child has a louse on its head which is not killed but\nthrown away or put on another's head.\n\nAs the finger is taken round the bim\u00fbr\u00e2 (a burrowing insect,) it dances\nto the couplet \"bim \u00fbr\u00e2 bim \u00fbr\u00e2 t\u00f4t nat\u00e2piya, m\u00e2t nattanan.\" (Bim\u00fbr\u00e2\nbim\u00fbr\u00e2, you better dance and I too shall dance.)\n\nButterflies go on a pilgrimage from November to February to Adam's\nPeak against which they dash themselves and die in sacrifice.\n\nCentipedes run away when their name is mentioned; they are as much\naffected as the man they bite.\n\nThe black beetle is the messenger of death to find out how many\npersons there are in a house; if it comes down on three taps from an\nikle broom its intentions are evil; it is seldom killed, but wrapt\nin a piece of white cloth and thrown away or kept in a corner.\n\nThe presence of fire flies in a house indicate that it will be broken\ninto or deserted; if one alights on a person, some loss will ensue;\nif it is picked up, anything then wished for will be fulfilled;\nthe fireflies had refused to give light to one in need of it in a\nprevious existence; their bite requires \"the mud of the deep sea and\nthe stars of the sky for a cure\"--a cryptic way of saying \"salt from\nthe sea and gum from the eye.\"\n\nA crocodile makes lumps of clay to while away the time; it throws\nup its prey as it carries it away and catches it with its mouth;\nits female becomes pregnant at the sound of thunder without any\ncohabitation; at certain times of the year the crocodile's mouth is\nshut fast; whenever its mouth opens, its eyes close.\n\nThe flesh of the iguana is nutritious and never disagrees. The\nkabaragoya is requisitioned to make a deadly and leprosy-begetting\npoison which is injected into the veins of a betel leaf and given to\nan enemy to chew; three of these reptiles are tied to the three stones\nin a fireplace facing each other with a fourth suspended over them;\na pot is placed in the centre into which they pour out their venom\nas they get heated.\n\nThe blood-sucker indicates by the upward motion of its head that girls\nshould be unearthed, and by the downward motion that its inveterate\ntormentors the boys should be buried. Chameleons embody the spirits\nof women who have died in parturition.\n\nThe cry of frogs is a sign that rain is impending and the fluid they\neject is poisonous; if frogs that infest a house be removed to any\ndistance, they always come back; a person becomes lean if a tree-frog\njumps on him.\n\nA python swallows a deer whole and then goes between the trunks of\ntwo trees growing near each other to crush the bones of its prey;\nits oil cures any bad cut or wound.\n\nVenomous reptiles are hung up after they are killed or are burnt.\n\nThe cobra is held sacred and rarely killed; when caught it is enclosed\nin a mat bag with some boiled rice and floated on a river or stream;\na person killing a cobra dies or suffers some misfortune within seven\ndays. Some cobras have a gem in their throats which they keep out to\nentice insects; they kill themselves if this be taken from them which\ncan be done by getting on to a tree and throwing cowdung over the\ngem. Cobras are fond of sandal wood and the sweet smelling flowers\nof the screw pine, and are attracted by music. Their bite is fatal\non Sundays. Martynia diandra (n\u00e2gadarana) protects a man from the\nbite of the cobra.\n\nThere are seven varieties of vipers; of these the bite of the nidi\npolang\u00e2 causes a deep sleep, and of the le polang\u00e2 a discharge of\nblood. When her skin is distended with offspring, the female viper\nexpires and the young make their escape out of the decomposing body.\n\nCobras and vipers keep up an ancient feud; during a certain hot season\na child was playing inside a vessel full of water and a thirsty cobra\ndrank of it without hurting the child; a thirsty viper met the cobra\nand was told where water was to be found on the viper's promise that\nit will not injure the child; as the viper was drinking the water,\nthe child playfully struck it and the viper bit him to death; the\ncobra who had followed the viper killed it for breaking its promise.\n\nThe green whip snake (ehetull\u00e2) attacks the eyes of those who approach\nit and the shadow of the brown whip snake (hena kandaya) makes one\nlame or paralytic.\n\nA rat snake seldom bites, but if it does, the wound ends fatally only\nif cowdung is trampled on.\n\nThe aharakukk\u00e2 (tropidonoms stolichus) lives in groups of seven and\nwhen one is killed the others come in search of it.\n\nA mapila (dipsas forstenii) reaches its victim on the floor by several\nof them linking together and hanging from the roof.\n\nThe legendary kob\u00f4 snake loses a joint of its tail every time it\nexpends its poison, till one joint is left, when it assumes wings\nand the head of a toad; with the last bite both the victim and the\nsnake die.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nHUMAN BEINGS.\n\n\nIt is considered unlucky to lie down when the sun is setting; to sleep\nwith the head towards the west or with the hands between the thighs;\nto clasp one's hands across the head or to eat with the head resting\non a hand; to strike the plate with the fingers after taking a meal; to\ngive to another's hand worthless things like chunam or charcoal without\nkeeping them on something, and for a female to have a hairy person.\n\nIt is thought auspicious to eat facing eastwards, to gaze at the full\nmoon and then at the face of a kind relative or a wealthy friend;\nto have a girl as the eldest in the family; to have a cavity between\nthe upper front teeth: and if a male to have a hairy body.\n\nIf a person yawns loud the crop of seven of his fields will be\ndestroyed; a child's yawn indicates that it is becoming capable of\ntaking a larger quantity of food.\n\nIf a person bathes on a Friday it is bad for his sons, if on a Tuesday\nfor himself; if he laughs immoderately he will soon have an occasion\nto cry; if he allows another's leg to be taken over him he will be\nstunted in his growth; if he passes under another's arm he will cause\nthe latter to get a boil under the armpit, which can be averted by\nhis returning the same way.\n\nIf a person eats standing, or tramples a jak fruit with one foot only\nhe will get elephantiasis; if he eats walking about he will have to\nbeg his bread; if he gazes at the moon and finds its reflection round\nhis own shadow his end is near.\n\nIf the second toe of a female be longer than the big toe she will\nmaster her husband; if the left eye of a male throbs, it portends\ngrief, the right pleasure--of a female it is the reverse.\n\nIf the eyebrows of a woman meet she will outlive her husband; if of\na man he will be a widower; if a male eats burnt rice his beard will\ngrow on one side only; if the tongue frequently touches where a tooth\nhas fallen the new tooth will come out projecting; if an eye tooth\nbe extracted it will cause blindness.\n\nA sneeze from the right nostril signifies that good is being spoken\nof the person, from the left ill; when an infant sneezes a stander\nby says \"ayi-b\u00f4van\" (long life to you).\n\nIf a child cuts its upper front teeth first, it portends evil to its\nparents; a child sucks its toe when it has drunk seven pots of milk.\n\nAn infant whimpers in its sleep when spirits say that its father is\ndead as it had never seen him, but smiles when they say its mother is\ndead as it knows she has nursed it only a little while before. Mothers\nhush crying children by calling on the kidnapping goblin Bill\u00e2 or\nGurub\u00e2liy\u00e2.\n\nA person who dangles his legs when seated digs his mother's grave. As\none with a hairy whorl on his back will meet with a watery death,\nhe avoids seas and rivers.\n\nEveryone's future is stamped on his head; flowers on the nails signify\nillness and the itching sensation in one's palm that he will get money.\n\nIt is bad to raise one's forefinger as he takes his handful of rice\nto his mouth as he thereby chides the rice.\n\nNo one takes his meal in the presence of a stranger without giving him\na share as it will disagree with him. If any envious person speaks\nof the number of children in another's family or praises them the\nparty affected spits out loud to counteract the evil.\n\nTwo people who are the first born of parents are never allowed to\nmarry as their children rarely live. The dead body of a first male\nchild of parents who are themselves the first born of their parents\nis regarded as having magical powers and sorcerers try to obtain it;\nif this be done the mother will not bear any more children; to prevent\nthis it is buried near the house. When a mother's pregnancy desires\nare not satisfied the child's ears fester.\n\nPollution caused by a death lasts three months, by child birth one\nmonth, by a maid attaining puberty fourteen days, and by the monthly\nturn of a woman till she bathes.\n\nEvery person has in a more or less degree on certain days an evil\neye and a malevolent mouth; to avoid the evil eye black pots with\nchunam marks and hideous figures are placed before houses; children\nare marked between the eyes with a black streak, chanks are tied\nround the forehead of cattle, branches of fruit are concealed with\na covering made of palm leaves and festive processions are preceded\nby mummeries. Serious consequences befall a person who recites\nironically laudatory verses written by a person with a malevolent\nmouth. Assumption of high office and marriage ceremonies are fraught\nwith ill to the persons concerned owing to the evil eye and malevolent\nmouth.\n\nThe kalawa (principle of life,) in man rises with the new moon from\nthe left toe and travels during the lunar month up to the head and\ndown again to the right foot. Any injury however slight to the spot\nwhere it resides causes death. Its movements are reversed in a woman,\nin whom it travels up from the right toe and comes down on the left\nside. The course it takes is (1) big toe of foot; (2) sole of foot;\n(3) calf; (4) knee cap; (5) lingam; (6) side of stomach; (7) pap; (8)\narmpit; (9) side of neck; (10) side of throat; (11) side of lip; (12)\nside of cheek; (13) eye; (14) side of head; (15) other side of head;\n(16) eye; (17) side of cheek; and so on till the big toe of the other\nfoot is reached.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHINGS MADE BY MAN.\n\n\nHouses are not built with a frontage towards the South-East for fear\nof destruction by fire as it is known as the fire quarter (ginikona).\n\nA lucky position of the constellations (neket) is ascertained before\nthe first pillar of a house is erected, before a door frame of a new\nhouse is set or a new house is tiled, before a new house is entered\nor a fire kindled or furniture taken in or before a tree is planted\nor a well dug.\n\nWhen several deaths take place in a dwelling house, it is\ndeserted. Whole villages are sometimes deserted in case of an epidemic.\n\nThe fire that is first kindled in a new house is arranged in the main\nroom and over it is placed a new pot full of milk resting on three\nstones or three green sticks placed like a tripod. As the milk begins\nto boil, pounded rice is put into it.\n\nThe goddess of fortune is said to leave a dwelling house which is\nnot swept and kept clean.\n\nAs a newly married couple crosses the threshold a husked cocoanut is\ncut in two.\n\nTo avoid the evil eye black pots with white chunam marks and hideous\nfigures are placed before houses and in orchards.\n\nWhen a child is born, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side\nof the hut to the other, if a girl an ikle broom.\n\nAll the personal belongings of a dead man are given away in\ncharity. Paddy is not pounded in a house where a person has died as\nthe spirit will be attracted by the noise.\n\nWhen the daily supply of rice is being given out, if the winnowing\nfan or the measure drops, it denotes that extra mouths will have to\nbe fed. If a person talks while the grain is being put into the pot,\nit will not be well boiled.\n\nIn the field things are not called by their proper names, no sad news\nis broken and a shade over the head is not permitted.\n\nIn drawing toddy from the kitul tree, (caryota urens) a knife which\nhas already been used is preferred to another.\n\nIf a grave be dug and then closed up to dig a second, or if a coffin\nbe too large for the corpse, or if the burial be on a Friday there\nwill soon be another death in the family.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SOUL AND ANOTHER LIFE.\n\n\nWhen a person dies everything is done to prevent the disembodied\nspirit being attracted to its old home or disturbed. Even paddy is\nnot pounded in the house as the sound may attract it.\n\nThe day after burial the dead man's belongings are given away in\ncharity and an almsgiving of kenda (rice gruel) to priests or beggars\ntakes place. A little of the kenda in a gotuwa (leaf cup) is kept on\na tree or at a meeting of roads and if a crow or any other bird eats\nit, it is a sign that the deceased is happy; otherwise it indicates\nthat it has become a perturbed spirit. Seven days after, there is\nan almsgiving of rice when a gotuwa of rice is similarly made use of\nfor a further sign. Three months after is the last almsgiving which\nis done on a large scale; relatives are invited for a feast and all\nsigns of sorrow are banished from that day.\n\nThe object of this last almsgiving is to make the disembodied spirit\ncease to long for the things he has left behind and if this be not\ndone the spirit of the dead person approaches the boundary fence of\nthe garden; if the omission be not made good after six months it takes\nits stand near the well; when nine months have elapsed it comes near\nthe doorway, and after twelve months it enters the house and makes\nits presence felt by emitting offensive smells and contaminating food\nas a Peretay\u00e2 or by destroying the pots and plates of the house and\npelting stones as a gevalay\u00e2 or by apparitions as an avat\u00e2r\u00e9 or by\ncreating strange sounds as a holmana; it is afraid of iron and lime\nand when over boisterous a kattadiya rids it from the house by nailing\nit to a tree, or enclosing it in a small receptacle and throwing it\ninto the sea where it is so confined till some one unwittingly sets\nit free when it recommences its tricks with double force. A woman who\ndies in parturition and is buried with the child becomes a bodirima;\nshe is short and fat, rolls like a cask, kills men whenever she can;\nif a lamp and some betel leaves be kept where she haunts she will be\nseen heating a leaf and warming her side; the women chase her away\nwith threats of beating her with an ikle broom; if shot at she turns\ninto a chameleon (yak katuss\u00e2). If a person dreams of a dead relative\nhe gives food to a beggar the next morning.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nSUPERHUMAN BEINGS.\n\n\nThe three sources of superhuman influence from which the Singhalese\npeasantry expect good or ill are (1) the spirits of disease and\npoverty; (2) tutelary spirits of various grades and (3) the planetary\nspirits.\n\nThere are several important spirits of disease such as Maha Sohona,\nRiri Yak\u00e2, Kalu Kum\u00e2ra Yak\u00e2, Sanni Yak\u00e2.\n\nMaha Sohona is 122 feet high, has the head of a bear with a pike in\nhis left hand and in his right an elephant, whose blood he squeezes\nout to drink; he inflicts cholera and dysentery and presides over\ngraveyards and where three roads meet and rides on a pig. In ancient\ntimes two giants Jayasena and Gotimbara met in single combat; the\nlatter knocked off the head of Jayasena when the god Senasur\u00e2 tore\noff the head of a bear and placed it on Jayasena's body who rose up\nalive as the demon Maha Sohona.\n\nRiri Yak\u00e2 has a monkey face, carries in one hand a cock and a club in\nthe other with a corpse in his mouth, is present at every death bed,\nhaunts fields and causes fever flux of blood and loss of appetite,\nand has a crown of fire on his head. He came into the world from the\nwomb of his mother by tearing himself through her heart.\n\nKalu Kum\u00e2ra Yak\u00e2 is a young devil of a dark complexion who is seen\nembracing a woman; he prevents conception, delays childbirth and\ncauses puerperal madness. He was a Buddhist arhat with the supernatural\npower of going through the air. In one of his aerial travels, he saw\na beautiful princess and falling in love with her lost at once his\nsuperhuman powers and dropped down dead and became the demon Kalu\nKum\u00e2ra Yak\u00e2.\n\nSanni Yak\u00e2 has cobras twisting round his body with a pot of fire\nnear him, holds a rosary in his hand, causes different forms of coma,\nrides on a horse or lion, has 18 incarnations and forms a trinity with\nOddi Yak\u00e2 and Huniam Yak\u00e2. He was the son of a queen put to death by\nher husband who suspected she was unfaithful to his bed. As the queen\nwho was pregnant was being executed, she said that if the charge was\nfalse the child in her womb will become a demon and destroy the King\nand his city. Her corpse gave birth to the Sanni Yak\u00e2 who inflicted\na mortal disease on his father and depopulated the country.\n\nWhen any of these demons has afflicted a person the prescribed form\nof exorcism is a devil dance. In the patient's garden, a space of\nabout 30 square feet is marked out (atamagala) and bounded with lemon\nsticks. Within the enclosure, raised about 3 feet from the ground,\nis erected an altar (samema) for the offerings (pidenitatu). The\nshape of the altar depends on the afflicting demon--triangular for\nRiri Yak\u00e2, rectangular for Sanni Yak\u00e2, semicircular for Kalu Kum\u00e2ra\nYak\u00e2 and square for Maha Sohona.\n\nThe offerings consist of boiled rice, a roasted egg, seven kinds\nof curries, five kinds of roasted seed, nine kinds of flowers,\nbetel leaves, fried grain, powdered resin and a thread spun by a\nvirgin. There are the usual tom tom beaters; and the exorcist and his\nassistants are dressed in white and red jackets, with crown shaped\nhead ornaments, and bell attached leglets and armlets, and carrying\ntorches and incense pans.\n\nThe ceremony consists of a series of brisk dances by the exorcist,\nand his men, at times masked, in the presence of the patient to the\naccompaniment of a chant (kavi) giving the life history of the devil,\nwith a whirling of the blazing torches. This lasts from evening till\ndawn when the exorcist lies on his back and calls on the devil to cure\nthe patient (y\u00e2dinna); incantations follow (mantra), and the sacrifices\nare offered. For the Riri Yak\u00e2 a cock which had been placed under the\naltar or tied to the foot of the patient is killed and thrown into\nthe jungle; for the Kalu Yak\u00e2 an earthen pot which had been placed on\nthe altar is broken; for the Sanni Yak\u00e2 the offerings are conveyed\nin a large bag to a stream or river and thrown into the water; for\nthe Maha Sohona the exorcist feigns himself dead to deceive the devil\nand is carried with mock lamentations to a burial ground.\n\nThe spirits of poverty--Gar\u00e2 Yakku--are twelve in number viz., (1)\nMolan Garavva; (2) Dala R\u00e2kshay\u00e2, (3) Yama R\u00e2kshay\u00e2; (4) P\u00fbranik\u00e2;\n(5) Ratnak\u00fbtay\u00e2; (6) N\u00eela Giri; (7) Nanda Giri; (8) Chandra K\u00e2v\u00e2;\n(9) M\u00e2rak\u00e2; (10) Asuraya; (11) N\u00e2tagiri; (12) Pelmadull\u00e2. They haunt\nevery nook and corner of a house, destroy crops, make trees barren,\nnew houses inauspicious, send pests of flies and insects, reduce\nfamilies to abject poverty, and are propitiated by a dance called\nGar\u00e2 Yakuma. A shed (maduva) is put up for it and round it is a\nnarrow altar, with a platform in front (wesatte). On the altar are\nplaced four kinds of flowers, betel leaves, some cotton, a spindle,\na cotton cleaner, a shuttle, a comb, a little hair, a looking glass,\na bundle of gurulla leaves, two burning torches and a few cents. Men of\nthe Oli caste dressed in white and red and at times masked dance from\nevening till morning within the shed and on the platform. Late at night\nan oblation is made in leaf-cups of seven different vegetables cooked\nin one utensil, boiled rice, cakes and plantains. At day break the\ndancers stretch themselves on the ground and receive nine pecuniary\nofferings; they then rise up and conclude the ceremony by striking\nthe roof of the shed with a rice pounder.\n\nThe tutelary deities are of three grades viz., (1) Gods; (2) Godlings\nand (3) Divine Mothers. The Gods are Maha Deviy\u00f4; Natha Deviy\u00f4;\nSaman Deviy\u00f4; Kateragama Deviy\u00f4; and the Goddess Pattini.\n\nMaha Deviy\u00f4 is identified with Vishnu, and is the guardian deity of\nthe island, and is a candidate for the Buddhahood; a miniature weapon\nin gold or silver is placed at his shrine as a votive offering.\n\nNatha Deviy\u00f4 is the future Maitri Buddha and is now biding his time\nin the Tusita heaven; Kandyan sovereigns at their coronation girt\ntheir swords and adopted their kingly title before his shrine.\n\nSaman Deviy\u00f4 is the deified half brother of Rama, who conquered\nCeylon in prehistoric times, and is the guardian spirit of Adam's\nPeak; pilgrims while climbing the sacred hill to worship Buddha's\nfoot-print, call on him to aid their ascent. A miniature elephant in\ngold or silver is the usual votive offering to him.\n\nKateragama Deviy\u00f4 is the most popular of the gods; a prehistoric\ndeity, to whom a miniature peacock in gold or silver is the customary,\nvotive offering. He is said to be the six faced and twelve handed\ngod Kandaswamy who on his homeward return to Kail\u00e2sa after defeating\nthe Asuras halted at Kataragama in South Ceylon; here he met his\nconsort Valli Amm\u00e2 whom he wooed in the guise of a mendicant; when\nhis advances were scornfully rejected, his brother assuming the head\nof a man and the body of an elephant appeared on the scene and the\nterrified maiden rushed into her suitor's arms for safety; the god\nthen revealed himself and she became his bride. The god Ayiyan\u00e2r\ninvoked in the forests of Ceylon is said to be his half brother.\n\nPattini is the goddess of chastity.\n\nThe three eyed P\u00e2ndi Raja of Madura had subjugated the gods and was\ngetting them to dig a pond near his royal city when, at Sakraya's\nrequest, Pattini who resided in Avaragiri Parvata became conceived\nin a mango fruit. After it was severed from the tree by an arrow of\nSakraya, it remain suspended in the air and on P\u00e2ndi R\u00e2ja looking\nup to observe the wonder, a drop of juice fell on the third eye in\nthe middle of his forehead by which he lost his power and the gods\nwere liberated. Pattini was found inside the mango as an infant of\nexquisite beauty sucking her thumb. When she grew up she performed\nwonders and ultimately disappeared within a Kohomba tree (margosa). An\narmlet or a miniature mango fruit in gold or silver is placed at her\ndevala as a votive offering.\n\nThese deities are worshipped in separate dev\u00e2la which are in charge\nof Kapur\u00e2las who have to bathe daily and anoint themselves with lime\njuice, avoid drinking spirits and eating flesh, eggs, turtle or eel\nand keep away from houses where a birth or death has taken place. A\ndewala consists of two rooms, one being the sanctum for the insignia\nof the god--a spear, bill hook or arrow--and the other being the\nante room for the musicians; attached to the devala is the multeng\u00ea\n(kitchen). On Wednesdays and Saturdays the doors of the dewala are\nopened; the Multeng\u00ea Kapur\u00e2la cooks the food for the deity; the Tev\u00e2va\nKapural\u00e2 offers it at the shrine on a plantain leaf enclosed with\nareka-flower-strips, and purified with saffron water, sandal paste and\nincense. Before and after the meal is offered, drums are beaten in the\nante room. In return for offerings made by votaries the Anumetir\u00e2la\ninvokes the god to give relief from any ailment, a plentiful harvest,\nthriving cattle, success in litigation, and children to sterile\nmothers. Punishment to a faithless wife, curses on a forsworn enemy\nand vengeance on a thief are invoked by getting the Kapur\u00e2la to break\na p\u00fbn\u00e2 kale--a pot with mystic designs,--or to throw into the sea or a\nriver a charmed mixture of powdered condiments. Once a year, when the\nagricultural season begins, between July and August, the in-signia of\nthe gods are carried on elephants in procession through the streets\naccompanied by musicians, dancers, temple tenants and custodians of\nthe shrine. The festival begins on a new moon day and lasts till the\nfull moon when the procession proceeds to a neighbouring river or\nstream where the Kapur\u00e2la cuts the water with a sword and removes a\npotful of it and keeps it in the dewala till it is emptied into the\nsame stream the following year and another potful taken.\n\nThe well-known godlings are (1) Wahala Band\u00e2ra Deviy\u00f4 alias D\u00eavat\u00e2\nBand\u00e2ra; (2) Wir\u00e2munda Deviy\u00f4; (3) Wanniya Band\u00e2ra; (4) Kirti Band\u00e2ra;\n(5) Menik Band\u00e2ra; (6) Mangala Deviy\u00f4; (7) Kum\u00e2ra Deviy\u00f4; (8) Irugal\nBand\u00e2ra; (9) Kalu Vedd\u00e2 alias Kalu Band\u00e2ra; (10) Gang\u00ea Band\u00e2ra;\n(11) Devol Deviy\u00f4; (12) Iland\u00e2ri Deviy\u00f4; (13) Sundara Band\u00e2ra; (14)\nMonar\u00e2vila Alut Deviy\u00f4; (15) Gal\u00ea Deviy\u00f4; (16) Ayiyanar Deviy\u00f4.\n\nThe godlings are local; those which are worshipped in one country\ndistrict are not sometimes known in another. Their insignia together\nwith a few peacock feathers are sometimes kept in small detached\nbuildings called kovil with representations of the godlings rudely\ndrawn on the walls. A priest called a Yakdessa is in charge of a kovil\nand when people fall ill \"they send for the Yakdessa to their house,\nand give him a red cock chicken, which he takes up in his hand, and\nholds an arrow with it, and dedicates it to the god, by telling him,\nthat if he restore the party to his health, that cock is given to him,\nand shall be dressed and sacrificed to him in his kovil. They then\nlet the cock go among the rest of the poultry, and keep it afterwards,\nit may be, a year or two; and then they carry it to the temple, or the\npriest comes for it: for sometimes he will go round about, and fetch\na great many cocks together that have been dedicated, telling the\nowners that he must make a sacrifice to the god; though, it may be,\nwhen he hath them, he will go to some other place and convert them\ninto money for his own use, as I myself can witness; we could buy\nthree of them for four-pence half penny. When the people are minded\nto inquire any thing of their gods, the priests take up some of the\narms and instruments of the gods, that are in the temples upon his\nshoulder; and then he either feigns himself to be mad, or really is so,\nwhich the people call pissuvetichchi; and then the spirit of the gods\nis in him, and whatsoever he pronounceth is looked upon as spoken by\nGod himself, and the people will speak to him as if it were the very\nperson of God.\" [3]\n\nGal\u00ea Deviy\u00f4 or Gal\u00ea Band\u00e2ra, also called Malala Band\u00e2ra is the god of\nthe rock and is propitiated in parts of the Eastern Province, Uva and\nthe Kurunegalle district, to avert sickness, bad luck and drought. \"In\nthese districts, in all cases, the dance, which is a very important\npart of the proceedings, and indispensable in the complete ceremony,\ntakes place on a high projecting crag near the top of a prominent\nhill or on the summit of the hill, if it is a single bare rock. On\nthis wild and often extremely dangerous platform, on some hills a\nmere pinnacle usually hundreds of feet above the plain below, the\nAnumetir\u00e2la performs his strange dance, like that of all so called\ndevil dancers. He chants no song in honour of the ancient deity but\npostures in silence with bent knees and waving arms, holding up the\nbill hooks--the god himself for the time being. When he begins to\nfeel exhausted the performer brings the dance to an end, but sometimes\nhis excitement makes it necessary for his assistant to seize him and\nforcibly compel him to stop. He then descends from his dizzy post,\nassisted by his henchmen, and returns to the dev\u00e2la with the tom toms\nand the crowd.\" [4]\n\nThe spirits of the forest, invoked by pilgrims and hunters are Wanniy\u00e2\nBand\u00e2ra, Mangala Deviy\u00f4, Iland\u00e2ri Deviy\u00f4 and Kalu Band\u00e2ra alias Kalu\nVedd\u00e2. Kaluwedda is a demon supposed to possess power over the animal\nrace. \"When a person, more commonly a public hunter, shoots an animal,\nwhether small or large, he, without uttering a single word, takes\non the spot three drops of blood from the wound, and smearing them\non three leaves makes them into the shape of a cup, and offers them\non the branches of a tree, clapping his hands, and expressing words\nto this effect, \"Friend Kaluwedda, give ear to my words: come upon\nthe branches, and receive the offering I give to thee!\" The effect\nof this superstition is supposed to be, that the hunter will seldom\nor never miss his game. [5]\"\n\nManik Band\u00e2ra is the spirit of gem pits and Gange Band\u00e2ra is the\nspirit of streams and rivers.\n\n\"The malignant spirit called Gange Band\u00e2ra, Oya Band\u00e2ra, Oya Yakka,\netc. is properly an object of terror, not of worship; and under\nvery many different appellations the identity is easily perceived:\nhe is the representative or personification of those severe fevers,\nto which, from some occult causes, the banks of all Ceylon rivers are\npeculiarly liable. The manner of making offerings to the Gange Band\u00e2ra\nis by forming a miniature double canoe, ornamented with cocoanut leaves\nso as to form a canopy: under this are placed betel, rice, flowers,\nand such like articles of small value to the donor, as he flatters\nhimself may be acceptable to the fiend, and induce him to spare those\nwho acknowledge his power. After performing certain ceremonies, this\npropitiatory float is launched upon the nearest river, in a sickly\nseason. I have seen many of these delicate arks whirling down the\nstreams, or aground on the sand banks and fords of the Ambanganga\n(Matale East).\" [6]\n\nAyiyannar Deviy\u00f4 is the god of tanks and he is propitiated under a\ntree by the bund of a tank, by throwing up in the air boiled milk\nin a hot state. Sundara Band\u00e2ra extends his protection to those who\ninvoke him before sleeping.\n\nW\u00eeramunda Deviy\u00f4 is a spirit of agriculture and rice cakes made of the\nnew paddy is offered to the godling on a platform on which are placed\nhusked cocoanuts, flowers, plantains, a lighted lamp, a pestle and\na mortar. Gopalla is a pastoral godling who torments cattle at night\nand afflicts them with murrain. Devol Deviy\u00f4 is a South Indian deity\nwho came to Ceylon in spite of the attempts to stop him by Pattini\nwho placed blazing fires in his way. Masked dances of a special kind\ninvolving walking over fire take place in his honour. Kirti Bandara,\nand Monaravila Alut Deviy\u00f4 are two lately deified chieftains, the\nformer lived in the reign of king Kirti Siri (1747-1780), the latter\nis Keppitipola who was beheaded by the British in 1818.\n\nWahala Bandara Deviy\u00f4 alias Devat\u00e2 Bandara is a minister of Vishnu\nand is invoked when demon-possessed patients cannot be cured by the\nordinary devil dance. At his dev\u00e2la in Alut Nuwera, 11 miles from\nKandy, the Kapur\u00e2la beats the patient with canes till the devil is\nexorcised. With him is associated Malwatte Band\u00e2ra, another minister\nof Vishnu.\n\nThe peace of the home is impersonated in seven divine mothers who are\nsaid to be manifestations of the goddess Pattini. Their names vary\naccording to the different localities. They are known in some places\nas:--(1) Miriyabedde Kiri Amma or Bedd\u00ea Mehelli; (2) Pudmar\u00e2ga Kiri\nAmma (3) Un\u00e2p\u00e2na Kiri Amma; (4) Kosgama Kiri Amma; (5) B\u00e2la Kiri Amma;\n(6) B\u00f4valagedere Kiri Amma; (7) Indigolleve Kiri Amma.\n\nNavaratna Valli is the patroness of the Rodiyas and is said to have\nbeen born from the Telambu tree. Henakanda Bis\u00f4 Band\u00e2ra was born of\na wood apple and is invoked as the wife of Devat\u00e2 Band\u00e2ra.\n\nA thank offering is made to the divine mothers when children are\nfretful, when a family recovers from chicken pox or some kindred\ndisease, when a mother has had an easy confinement. Seven married\nwomen are invited to represent them and are offered a meal of rice,\nrice cakes, milk, fruits and vegetables; before eating they purify\nthemselves with turmeric water and margosa leaves; a lamp with seven\nwicks in honour of the seven divine mothers are kept where they are\nserved; after the repast they severally blow out a wick by clapping\ntheir hands and take away what is left of the repast. Before a house is\nnewly occupied the seven divine mothers are invoked by ceremoniously\nboiling rice in milk; a fire is made in the main room and over it\nis kept a new pot full of milk resting on three green sticks placed\nlike a tripod. As the milk begins to boil pounded rice is put into\nit. The person superintending the cooking wears a white cloth over his\nmouth. Seven married women are first served with the cooked milk-rice\non plantain leaves, and afterwards the others present.\n\nThe mystery of the jungle is impersonated in the Bedd\u00ea Mehelli.\n\nAfter a successful harvest or to avert an epidemic from the village\na ceremonial dance (gammadu) for which the peasantry subscribe takes\nplace for seven days in honour of the gods, godlings and divine\nmothers. A temporary building, open on all sides, and decorated with\nflowers and fruits is erected on the village green, and a branch of\nthe Jak tree is cut ceremonially by the celebrant and carried into\nthe building and placed on the east side as a dedicatory post with a\nlittle boiled rice, a cocoanut flower, two cocoanuts and a lamp. Altars\nare erected for the various deities and on these the celebrant places\nwith music, chant and dance their respective insignia, all present\nmaking obeisance. Water mixed with saffron is sprinkled on the floor,\nresin is burnt and a series of dances and mimetic representations of\nthe life history of the deities take place every night. On the last\nday there is a ceremonial boiling of rice in milk and a general feast.\n\nPlanetary spirits influence the life of a person according to their\nposition in the heavens at the time of his birth, and an astrologer for\na handful of betel and a small fee will draw a diagram of 12 squares,\nindicating the twelve signs of the Zodiac and from the position of the\n9 planets in the different squares will recommend the afflicted person\na planetary ceremony of a particular form to counteract the malignant\ninfluence. Representations (bali) of the nine planetary spirits, of the\n12 signs of the Zodiac, the 27 lunar asterisms, the 8 cardinal points,\nthe 7 intervals of time, and the 14 age periods are made of clay and\nare placed erect on a large platform of split bamboo measuring about\n12 square feet--the arrangement varying according to the advice of the\nastrologer;--and on the floor is drawn an eight-sided or twelve-sided\nfigure where the celebrant dances and chants propitiatory verses in\nhonour of the planets. The afflicted person sits the whole time during\nthe music, dance and chanting before the images holding in his right\nhand a lime connected by a thread with the chief idol, and near him are\n2 cocoanut flowers, boiled rice, a hopper, 7 vegetable curries, limes,\ncajunuts, betel, raw rice, white sandalwood and hiressa leaves. At\nintervals a stander-by throws portions of an areka flower into a\nkoraha of water with cries of 'ayib\u00f4van' (long life).\n\nThe Sun (Iru) rides on a horse entwined with cotton leaves (imbul)\nwith an emblem of good luck (Sirivasa) in hand and propitiated by\nthe S\u00e2nti Mangala Baliya; sacred to him is the ruby (manikya).\n\nMercury (Budahu) rides on an ox with a chank in hand, entwined with\nmargosa leaves (Kohomba) and propitiated by the Sarva Rupa Baliya;\nthe emerald (n\u00eela) is sacred to this planet.\n\nMars (Angaharuva) rides on a peacock with an elephant goad (unkusa)\nin hand, entwined with gamboge leaves (kolon) and propitiated by the\nKali Murta Baliya; the coral (pravala) is sacred to this planet.\n\nRahu rides on an ass with a fish in hand entwined with screw pine\nleaves (vetakeyiy\u00e2) and is propitiated by the Asura Giri Baliya;\nthe zircon (gomada) is sacred to Rahu.\n\nKehetu rides on a swan with a rosary in hand, entwined with plantain\nleaves (kehel) and is propitiated by the Krishna R\u00e2ksha Baliya;\nthe chrysoberyl (vaidurya) is sacred to Kehetu.\n\nSaturn (Senasur\u00e2) rides on a crow; with a fan in hand entwined with\nbanyan leaves (nuga) and is propitiated by the Dasa Kr\u00f4dha Baliya;\nthe sapphire (indran\u00eela) is sacred to this planet.\n\nVenus (Sikur\u00e2) rides on a buffalo with a whisk (ch\u00e2mara) in hand,\nentwined with karanda leaves (galidupa arborea) and is propitiated by\nthe Giri Mangala Baliya; the diamond (vajra) is sacred to this planet.\n\nJupiter (Brahaspati) rides on a lion with a pot of flowers in hand,\nentwined with bo leaves and is propitiated by the Abhaya Kaly\u00e2na\nBaliya; the topaz (puspar\u00e2ga) is sacred to Jupiter.\n\nThe moon rides on an elephant with a ribbon in hand entwined with\nwood apple leaves (diwul) and propitiated by the S\u00f4ma Mangala Baliya;\npearls (mutu) are sacred to the moon.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nOMENS AND DIVINATION.\n\n\nOne will not start on a journey, if he meets as he gets out a beggar,\na Buddhist priest, a person carrying firewood or his implements of\nlabour, if a lizard chirps, a dog sneezes or flaps his ears. Nor will\nhe turn back after once setting out; if he has forgotten anything it\nis sent after him, he never returns for it. That the object of his\njourney may be prosperous he starts with the right foot foremost\nat an auspicious moment, generally at dawn, when the cock crows;\nhis hopes are at their highest if he sees on the way a milch cow,\ncattle, a pregnant woman or a person carrying a pitcher full of water,\nflowers or fruits.\n\nThieves will not get out when there is the handa madala (ring round\nthe moon) as they will be arrested.\n\nThe day's luck or ill-luck depends on what one sees the first thing\nin the morning; if anything unlucky be done on a Monday, it will\ncontinue the whole week.\n\nIf a crow caws near one's house in the morning, it forebodes sickness\nor death, at noon pleasure or the arrival of a friend, and in the\nevening profit; if it drops its excrement on the head, shoulders or\non the back of a person it signifies happiness but on the knee or in\nstep a speedy death.\n\nA lizard warns by its chirp; if it chirps from the East pleasant\nnews can be expected, from the South news of sickness or death,\nfrom the North profit and from the West the arrival of a friend. If\na lizard or a skink (hikenell\u00e2) falls on the right side of a person,\nhe will gain riches, if on the left he will meet with ill luck.\n\nA snake doctor finds out what kind of reptile had bitten a person by a\nqueer method; if the person who comes to fetch him touches his breast\nwith the right hand it is a viper; if the head it is a mapila; if the\nstomach a frog; if the right shoulder with the left hand a karaval\u00e2,\n(bungarus coerulus); if he be excited a skink; and if the messenger\nbe a weeping female carrying a child it is a cobra.\n\nSomething similar to crystal gazing is attempted by means of a\nbetel leaf smeared with a magical oil; a female deity (Anjanan Devi)\nappears on the leaf and reveals what the gazer seeks.\n\nA professional fortune teller (guru) when a client comes to consult\nhim, measures the client's shadow, divides it into three equal parts\nand after some calculations informs him whether a lost article will\nbe found, a sick person will recover or any enterprise will fail\nor succeed.\n\nDreams that prognosticate a good future are kept secret, but bad ones\nare published. When a bad dream is dreamt it is advisable to go to a\nlime tree early in the morning, mention the dream and ask the tree to\ntake to itself all the bad effects. Dreams at the first watch of the\nnight will be accomplished in a year, at the second watch in eight\nmonths, at the third watch in five months, and at the dawn of day in\nten days.\n\nIf a person dreams of riding on a bull or an elephant, ascending the\nsummit of a mountain, entering a palace, or smearing himself with\nexcrement he will obtain an increase of wealth.\n\nIf a person dreams that his right hand was bitten by a white serpent\nhe will obtain riches at the end of ten days.\n\nIf a person dreams of a crane, a domestic fowl, an eagle or crows,\nhe will get an indulgent wife.\n\nIf a person dreams of the sun or moon, he will be restored from\nsickness.\n\nIf the teeth of an individual in his dream fall out or shake his wealth\nwill be ruined or he will lose a child or parent but if his hands be\nchained or bound together he will have a son or obtain a favour.\n\nIf a female clothed in black embraces a man in his dream it foretells\ndeath.\n\nIf a person dreams of an extensive field ripe for the sickle, he will\nobtain rice paddy within ten days.\n\nIf a person dreams of an owl, a beast in rut or being burnt he will\nlose his habitation.\n\nIf a person dreams of nymphs dancing, laughing, running or clapping\ntheir hands, he will have to leave his native land.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE MAGIC ART.\n\n\nWords of Power called Mantra are committed to memory and used for\nvarious purposes. Jugglers utter them to raise a magic veil over the\neyes of the spectators, and sorcerers to detect thefts, to induce love,\nto remove spells to cure possession and to inflict disease or death.\n\nMantra are uttered to keep away animals. Elephants are frightened by\n\"Om sri j\u00e2t\u00e2 h\u00e2r\u00ea bh\u00e2vatu arahan situ.\" A dog takes to its heels when\nthe following is muttered thrice over the hand and stretched towards\nit \"Om nam\u00f4 budung\u00ea p\u00e2v\u00e2d\u00ea bat k\u00e2pu ball\u00e2 kikki kukk\u00e2 nam t\u00f4 situ. Om\nbuddha namas saka situ.\"\n\nAs a preventive against harmful influences, a thread spun by a virgin,\nand rubbed with turmeric is charmed over charcoal and resin-smoke\nand tied round one's arm, waist or neck, having as many knots as the\nnumber of the times the charm has been repeated.\n\nAmulets (yantra) made of five kinds of metal (gold, silver, copper,\nbrass, iron) are similarly worn for avoiding evil and these are either\npentacle shaped, crescent shaped or cylindrical enclosing a charmed\nola leaf, charmed oil or charmed pills.\n\nTo win a girl's affections the lover has only to rub a charmed\nvegetable paste over his face and show himself to the girl, or give\nher to eat a charmed preparation of peacock's liver, honey and herbs\nor make her chew a charmed betel leaf, or sprinkle on her some charmed\noil, or wear a charmed thread taken from her dress.\n\nTo detect a theft, a cocoanut is charmed, attached to a stick and\nplaced where a thief has made his escape, and while the operator holds\nit he is led along to the thief's house. Persons suspected of theft are\nmade to stand with bared backs round an ash plantain tree and as it is\nstruck with a charmed creeper, the culprit gets an ashy streak on his\nback. They are also asked to touch a charmed fowl in turn and the fowl\nbegins to crow as soon as the thief touches its body. The names of the\nsuspected persons are sometimes written on slips of paper and placed on\nthe ground with a cowrie shell opposite each slip, and as soon as the\nmantra is uttered the shell opposite the thief's name begins to move.\n\nCharmed branches are hung up by hunters and wayfarers near dangerous\nspots. If charmed slaked lime be secretly rubbed on the lintel of a\nman's house before he starts out shooting, he will not kill any bird,\nand if rubbed on the threshold he will not kill any fourfooted animal.\n\nA person under the influence of a charm is taken to a banyan tree\nwith his hair wrapped round the head of a cock; the hair is cut off\nwith a mantra, the bird nailed to the tree and the patient cured.\n\nThe charm known as Pilli is used to inflict immediate death; the\nsorcerer procures a dead body of a child, animal, bird, reptile or\ninsect and goes at dawn, noon or midnight to a lonely spot where\nthree roads meet or to a grave yard and lying on his back utters a\nmantra; the dead body becomes animated and it is given the name of\nthe intended victim with directions to inflict on him a fatal wound:\nto stab, strangle, bite or sting him.\n\nThe charm called Angama causes the victim to throw up blood and it\naffects within seven hours; the sorcerer takes some article that the\nintended victim had worn or touched, goes to a lonely spot, charms it\nand touches the victim, or fans him with it or stretches it towards\nhim, or keeps it in the hand and looks at his face or blows so that\nthe breath may light on him or leaves it in some accessible place\nthat it may be picked up by him.\n\nThe charm known as the Huniama is frequently practised and it\ntakes effect within intervals varying from a day to several years;\nthe sorcerer makes an image to represent the intended victim; nails\nmade of five kinds of metal are fixed at each joint, and the victim's\nname written on a leaf, or a lock of his hair, or a nail paring, or a\nthread from his dress inserted in its body; the image is charmed and\nburied where the victim has to pass and if he does so, he falls ill\nwith swelling, with stiffness of joints, with a burning sensation in\nhis body or with paralysis.\n\nA Pilli or Angama charm can be warded off if the victim himself be a\nsorcerer when by a counter charm he can direct the operator himself\nto be killed or injured.\n\nA Huniama charm can be nullified by getting a sorcerer either to cut\nsome charmed lime fruits which have come in contact with the patient\nor to slit with an arekanut cutter a charmed coil of creepers placed\nround the patient's neck, shoulders and anklets or to keep a charmed\npumpkin gourd on the sorcerer's chest while lying on his back and\nmaking the patient cut it in two with a bill hook, the parts being\nthrown into the sea or a stream; or to break up a charmed waxen figure\nand throw the pieces into boiling oil.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nDISEASE AND LEECHCRAFT.\n\n\nSerious maladies are inflicted by spirits or induced by the vitiation\nof the triple force (v\u00e2ta, pita, sema) which pervades the human\nbody. In the former case they are cured by devil dances and in the\nlatter by drugs. There are, however, numerous minor complaints where\nfolk-remedies are employed.\n\nA cure for boils is to procure without speaking from a smithy water in\nwhich the red hot iron has been cooled and apply it to the affected\nparts.\n\nFor whooping cough is given gruel made of seven grains of rice\ncollected in a chunam receptacle (kill\u00f4t\u00ea) without uttering a word\nfrom seven houses on a Sunday morning.\n\nTo cure a sprain a mother who has had twins is asked to trample the\ninjured place, without informing any one else, every evening for a\ncouple of days.\n\nA touch with a cat's tail removes a sty, and a toothache is cured\nby biting a balsam plant (k\u00fbdalu) uprooted with the right hand,\nthe face averted.\n\nWhen one is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves (t\u00f4ra) are rubbed on the\ninjured place with the words \"t\u00f4ra kola visa neta kahambiliy\u00e2va visa,\netc.\" (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle).\n\nA firefly's bite requires \"the mud of the sea and the stars of the sky\"\nto effect a cure--a cryptic way of saying salt and the gum of the eye.\n\nIll effects of the evil mouth and evil eye are dispelled by various\nmeans:--either a packet made of some sand trodden by the offender is\ntaken three times round the head and thrown into a pot of live coals;\nor a receptacle containing cocoanut shell ashes, burnt incense,\nand a few clods of earth from a neighbouring garden is buried in\nthe compound.\n\nPatients suffering with small pox or a kindred disease are kept in a\nseparate hut, cloth dyed in turmeric and margosa leaves are used in\nthe room; and after recovery an infusion of margosa leaves is rubbed\non their heads before they are bathed.\n\nA string of coral shows by the fading of its colour that the wearer is\nill; to prevent pimples and eruptions a chank is rubbed on the face,\nwhen washing it.\n\nWhen there is a difficult child-birth the cupboards and the doors\nin the house are unlocked. For infantile convulsions, a piece of the\nnavel cord is tied round the child's body.\n\nIf one has warts on his body, stones equal in number to them are tied\nto a piece of rag and thrown where three roads meet; the person who\npicks up the packet and unties it gets the warts and the other becomes\nfree of them.\n\nWhen a person gets a hiccough, he gets rid of it by holding up his\nbreath and repeating seven times \"ikkayi m\u00e2yi G\u00e2lugiya, ikka, hital\u00e2\nman \u00e2v\u00e2\" (Hiccough and I went to Galle; he stayed back and I returned).\n\nExtreme exhaustion will ensue if the perspiration from one's body is\nscraped off; the cure is to swallow the collected sweat.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nSOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.\n\n\nA village community occupy a well defined settlement (wasama) within\nwhich are the hamlets (gan), and in each hamlet live a few families who\nhave their separate homesteads (mulgedera) with proprietary interests\nin the arable land and communal rights in the forest, waste and pasture\nland. A group of such settlements comprise a country district (rata,\nk\u00f4rale, pattu).\n\nThere are two types of village settlements, in one there are the free\npeasant proprietors cultivating their private holdings without any\ninterference, and in the other the people occupy the lands subject\nto an overlord, and paying him rent in service, food or money or in\nall three.\n\nAll communities whether free or servile had, in ancient times to\nperform r\u00e2jakariya for 15 to 30 days a year; in time of war to guard\nthe passes and serve as soldiers, and ordinarily to construct or\nrepair canals, tanks, bridges and roads. These public duties were\nexacted from all males who could throw a stone over their huts; the\nmilitary services were, in later times, claimed only from a special\nclass of the king's tenants.\n\nThe people had also to contribute to the Revenue three times a year,\nat the New Year festival, (April) at the aluts\u00e2l festival (January)\nand the maha or k\u00e2tti festival (November) in arrack, oil, paddy, honey,\nwax, cloth, iron, elephant's tusks, tobacco, and money collected by\nthe headmen from the various country districts. The quantity of paddy\n(kathh\u00e2l) supplied by each family depended on the size of the private\nholding; but no contribution was levied on the lands of persons slain\nin war or on lands dedicated to priests. When a man of property died,\n5 measures of paddy, a bull, a cow with calf, and a male and female\nbuffalo were collected as death dues (marral.)\n\nThe people are divided into various castes and there is reason to\nbelieve that these had a tribal basis. The lower castes formed tribes\nof a prehistoric Dravidian race (the Rakshas of tradition) who drove\ninto the interior the still earlier Australoid Veddahs (the Yakkhas\nof tradition). The higher castes of North Indian origin followed,\nand frequent intercourse with the Dekkan in later historical times led\nto the introduction of new colonists who now form the artisan castes.\n\nA caste consists of a group of clans, and each clan claims descent\nfrom a common ancestor and calls itself either after his name, or the\noffice he held, or if a settler, the village from which he came. The\nclan name was dropped when a person became a chief and a surname which\nbecame hereditary assumed. The clan name was however, not forgotten\nas the ancestral status of the family was ascertained from it. The\nearly converts to Christianity during the Portuguese ascendancy in\nCeylon adopted European surnames which their descendants still use.\n\nThe various castes can be divided socially into five groups. The first\ncomprising the numerically predominating Rat\u00eaett\u00f4 who cultivate fields,\nherd cattle and serve as headmen.\n\nThe second group consists of the Naides who work as smiths, carpenters,\ntoddy drawers, elephant keepers, potters, pack bullock drivers,\ntailors, cinnamon peelers, fish curers and the like.\n\nThe Rat\u00eaetto and the Naide groups wear alike, and the second group are\ngiven to eat by the first group on a rice table of metal or plaited\npalm leaf about a foot high, water to drink in a pot and a block of\nwood as a seat; they have the right to leave behind the remains of\ntheir meals.\n\nThe third group are the Durey\u00e2s who work as labourers besides attending\nto their special caste duties--a kand\u00ea durey\u00e2 makes molasses, a\nbatgam durey\u00e2 carries palanquins, a hunu durey\u00e2 burns coral rock in\ncircular pits to make lime for building; a valli durey\u00e2 weaves cloth\nand a panna durey\u00e2 brings fodder for elephants and cattle.\n\nThe fourth group consists of professional dancers, barbers and\nwashers. Of the professional dancers, the Neketto dance and beat drums\nat all public functions and at devil and planetary ceremonies, while\nthe inferior Oli do so only at the Gara Yakum dance. The washers are of\ndifferent grades; Radav wash for the Rate Ett\u00f4, Hinnevo for the Naides,\nPaliyo for the Durey\u00e2s, barbers and Nekett\u00f4, and Gang\u00e2vo for the Oli.\n\nThe Durey\u00e2s and the group below them were not allowed to wear a\ncloth that reached below their knees and their women except the Radav\nfemales were not entitled to throw a cloth over their shoulders.\n\nThe Durey\u00e2s were given to eat on the ground on a plaited palm leaf;\nwater to drink was poured onto their hands and they had to take away\nthe remains of their meal. The fourth group had to take away with\nthem the food offered.\n\nThe fifth group consists of the outcastes; the Kinnaru and the Rodi\nwho contest between themselves the pride of place. The Kinnaru are\nfibre mat weavers who were forbidden to grow their hair beyond their\nnecks, and their females from wearing above their waist anything more\nthan a narrow strip of cloth to cover their breasts. The Rodi are\nhideworkers and professional beggars; the females were prohibited\nfrom using any covering above their waists.\n\nA guest of equal social status is received at the entrance by the\nhost and is led inside by the hand; on a wedding day the bridegroom's\nfeet are washed by the bride's younger brother before he enters the\nhouse. Kissing is the usual form of salutation among females and\nnear relatives and among friends the salutation is by bringing the\npalms together.\n\nWhen inferiors meet a superior they bend very low with the palms\njoined in front of the face or prostrate themselves on the ground;\nwhen they offer a present it is placed on a bundle of 40 betel leaves\nand handed with the stalks towards the receiver.\n\nA guest always sends in advance a box of eatables as a present; when\nthe repast is ready for him he is supplied with water to wash his\nface, feet and mouth; and the host serves him with rice and curry,\nskins the plantains for him, and makes his chew of betel. The males\nalways eat first and the females afterwards; and they drink water by\npouring it into their mouths from a spouted vessel (kotale).\n\nAt the guest's departure, the host accompanies him some distance--at\nleast as far as the end of the garden. When a person of distinction,\na Buddhist priest or a chief visits a house, the rooms are limed and\nthe seats are spread with white cloth.\n\nAn inferior never sits in the presence of a superior, and whenever\nthey meet, the former removes the shade over his head, gets out of\nthe way and makes a very low obeisance.\n\nSeven generations of recognised family descent is the test of\nrespectability, and each ancestor has a name of his own: appa, \u00e2t\u00e2,\nmutt\u00e2, natt\u00e2, panatt\u00e2, kitt\u00e2, kirikitt\u00e2 (father, grand father, great\ngrand father, etc.)\n\nThe system of kinship amongst the Sinhalese is of the classificatory\nkind where the kin of the same generation are grouped under one\ngeneral term.\n\nThe next of kin to a father or mother and brother or sister are the\nfathers' brothers and the mothers' sisters, and the mothers' brothers\nand the fathers' sisters; of these the first pair has a parental\nrank and is called father (appa) or mother (amma) qualified by the\nwords big, intermediate or little, according as he or she is older\nor younger than the speaker's parents; their children are brothers\n(sahodarya) and sisters (sahodari) to the speaker and fathers and\nmothers to the speaker's children.\n\nThe second pair becomes uncle (mam\u00e2) and aunt (nenda) to the speaker\nqualified as before; their children are male cousins (massina) and\nfemale cousins (n\u00eana) to the speaker, and uncles and aunts to the\nspeaker's children.\n\nThose who are related as brothers and sisters rarely marry, and a\nhusband's relations of the parental class are to his wife, uncles,\naunts and cousins of the other class and vice vers\u00e2.\n\nThese terms are also used as expressions of friendship or endowment\nand also to denote other forms of kinship. The term 'father'\nis applied to a mother's sister's husband, or a step father;\n'mother' to a father's brother's wife or a step mother; 'uncle'\nto a father's sister's husband or a father-in-law. 'Aunt' to a\nmother's brother's wife or mother-in-law. 'Brother' to a wife's or\nhusband's brother-in-law or a maternal cousin's husband; 'Sister'\nto a wife's or husband's sister-in-law or a maternal cousin's wife,\n\"male cousin\" to a brother-in-law or a paternal cousin's husband;\n\"female cousin\" to a sister-in-law or a paternal cousin's wife.\n\nThe terms son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson, grand daughter,\ngreat grandson and great grand daughter include many kinsfolk of the\nsame generation. A son is one's own son, or the son of a brother (male\nspeaking), or the son of a sister (female speaking); a daughter is\none's own daughter, the daughter of a brother (M. S.) or the daughter\nof a sister (F. S.); a nephew is a son-in-law, the son of a sister\n(M. S.) or the son of a brother (F. S.); a niece is a daughter-in-law,\nthe daughter of a sister (M. S.) or the daughter of a brother (F. S.);\na grandson and grand daughter are a 'son's' or 'daughter's' or a\n'nephew's' or 'niece's' children, and their sons and daughters are\ngreat grand sons and great grand daughters.\n\nLand disputes and the petty offences of a village were settled by the\nelders in an assembly held at the ambalama or under a tree. The serious\ndifficulties were referred by them in case of a freehold community\nto the district chief, and in the case of a subject community to the\noverlord. A manorial overlord was invariably the chief of the district\nas well.\n\nThe paternal ancestral holding of a field, garden and chena devolves\non all the sons, but not on sons who were ordained as Buddhist Priests\nbefore the father's demise, nor on daughters who have married and\nleft for their husbands' homes.\n\nA daughter, however, who lived with her husband at her father's\nhouse has all the rights and privileges of a son, but the husband\nhas no claim whatsoever to his wife's property, and such a husband is\nadvised to have constantly with him a walking stick, a talipot shade\nand a torch, as he may be ordered by his wife to quit her house at\nany time and in any state of the weather.\n\nA daughter who lives in her husband's home can claim a share in the\nmother's property only if the father has left an estate for the sons\nto inherit; she has, however, a full right with her brothers to any\ninheritance collaterally derived.\n\nShe will not forfeit her share in her father's inheritance if\nshe returns to her father's house, or if she leaves a child in her\nfather's house to be brought up or if she keeps up a close connection\nwith her father's house.\n\nAfter her husband's death she has a life interest on his\nacquired property, and a right to maintenance from his inherited\nproperty. Failing issue, she is the heir to a husband's acquired\nproperty, but the husband's inherited property goes to the source\nfrom whence it came.\n\nA child who has been ungrateful to his parents or has brought\ndisgrace on the family is disinherited; in olden times the father in\nthe presence of witnesses declared his child disinherited, struck a\nhatchet against a tree or rock and gave his next heir an ola mentioning\nthe fact of disherision.\n\nThere is no prescribed form for the adoption of a child who gets all\nthe rights of a natural child, but it is necessary that he is of the\nsame caste as the adopted father, and that he is publicly acknowledged\nas son and heir.\n\nIllegitimate children share equally with the legitimate their\nfathers' acquired property, but not his inherited property which goes\nexclusively to the legitimate children.\n\nPolyandry was a well established institution in Ceylon; the associated\nhusbands are invariably brothers or cousins. Polyandry was practised\nto prevent a sub-division of the ancestral property and also owing to\nthe exigencies of the r\u00e2jak\u00e2riya (feudal service); when the brothers on\na farm were called out for their fifteen days' labour, custom allowed\none of them to be left behind as a companion to the female at home.\n\nDivorces are obtained by mutual consent; a husband forcibly removing\nthe switch of hair off his wife's head was considered a sufficient\nreason for a separation. If a woman left her husband without his\nconsent it was thought illegal for her to marry till the husband\nmarried again.\n\nContracts were made orally or in writing in the presence of witnesses,\nsanctioned by the imprecation that the one who broke faith will\nbe born a dog, a crow or in one of the hells, and the contract was\nexpected to last till the sun and moon endure. Representations of a\ndog, a crow, sun and moon are to be found on stones commemorating a\nroyal gift. If a man contracts by giving a stone in the king's name\nit is binding and actionable.\n\nA creditor forced the payment of his debt by going to the debtor's\nhouse and threatening to poison himself with the leaves of the\nniyangal\u00e2 (gloriosa superba) or by threatening to jump down a steep\nplace or to hang himself; on which event the debtor would be forced\nto pay to the authorities a ransom for the loss of the creditor's life.\n\nThe creditor at times sent a servant to the debtor's house to live\nthere and make constant demands till payment was made; and at times\ntethered an unserviceable bull, cow or buffalo in the debtor's garden,\nwho was obliged to maintain it, be responsible for its trespass on\nother gardens, and to give another head of cattle, if it died or was\nlost in his keeping.\n\nWhen a man died indebted, it was customary for a relative to tie\nround his neck a piece of rag with a coin attached and beg about the\ncountry till the requisite sum was collected.\n\nWhen a debt remained in the debtor's hands for two years it doubled\nitself and no further interest could be charged. A creditor had the\nright to seize, on a permit from a chief, the debtor's chattels and\ncattle or make the debtor and his children slaves. A wife, however,\ncould only be seized if she was a creditor and came with her husband\nto borrow the money, and the creditor could sell the debtor's children\nonly after the debtor's death. A man could pawn or sell himself or\nhis children. Children born to a bond woman by a free man were slaves,\nwhile children born to a free woman by a bond man were free. If seed\npaddy is borrowed, it is repaid with 50 percent. interest at the\nharvest; if the harvest fails, it is repaid at the next successful\nharvest, but no further interest is charged.\n\nIf cattle be borrowed for ploughing, the owner of the cattle is given\nat the harvest paddy equal to the amount sown on the field ploughed.\n\nThe King alone inquired into murder, treason, sacrilege, conspiracy\nand rebellion; he alone had the right to order capital punishment or\nthe dismemberment of limbs; his attention was drawn to a miscarriage\nof justice by the representation of a courtier, by the aggrieved\npersons taking refuge in a sanctuary like the Dalad\u00e2 M\u00e2lig\u00e2va, by\nprostrating in front of the King's palace and attracting his attention\nby making their children cry, or by ascending a tree near the palace\nand proclaiming their grievances.\n\nThe petitioners were sometimes beaten and put in chains for troubling\nthe King.\n\nFor capital offences, as murder and treason, the nobility was\ndecapitated with the sword; the lower classes were paraded through\nthe streets with a chaplet of shoe flowers on their heads, bones\nof oxen round their necks, and their bodies whitened with lime, and\nthen impaled, quartered and hanged on trees, or pierced with spear\nwhile prostrate on the ground, or trampled on by elephants and torn\nwith their tusks. Whole families sometimes suffered for the offences\nof individuals.\n\nOutcaste criminals like the Rodiyas were shot from a distance as\nit was pollution to touch them. Female offenders were made to pound\ntheir children and then drowned.\n\nThe punishments for robbing the treasury, for killing cattle, for\nremoving a sequestration, and for striking a priest or chief consisted\nof cutting off the offender's hair, pulling off his flesh with iron\npincers dismembering his limbs and parading him through the streets\nwith the hands about the neck.\n\nCorporal punishment was summarily inflicted with whips or rods while\nthe offender was bound to a tree or was held down with his face to\nthe ground; he was then paraded through the streets with his hands\ntied behind him, preceded by a tom tom beater and made to declare\nhis offence.\n\nPrisoners were sent away to malarial districts or kept in chains or\nstocks in the common jail or in the custody of a chief, or quartered in\nvillages. The inhabitants had to supply the prisoners with victuals,\nthe families doing so by turns, or the prisoners went about with\na keeper begging or they procured the expenses by selling their\nhandiwork in way-side shops built near the prison. The prisoners had\nto sweep the streets and were deprived of their headdress which they\ncould resume only when they were discharged.\n\nThieves had to restore the stolen property or pay a sevenfold fine\n(wandia); till the fine was paid, the culprit was placed under\nrestraint (velekma): a circle was drawn round him on the ground,\nand he was not allowed to step beyond it, and had to stay there\ndeprived of his head covering exposed to the sun, sometimes holding\na heavy stone on his shoulder, sometimes having a sprig of thorns\ndrawn between his naked legs.\n\nA whole village was fined if there was a suicide of a sound person, if\na corpse was found unburied or unburnt, or if there was an undetected\nmurder. In case of the breach of any sumptuary law, the inhabitants\nof the offender's village were tabooed and their neighbours prohibited\nfrom dealing or eating with them.\n\nOaths were either mere asseverations on one's eyes or on one's mother\nor imprecations by touching the ground or by throwing up handful\nof sand or by raising the hand towards the sun, or by touching a\npebble, or appeals to the insignia of some deity, or to the Buddhist\nscriptures or to Buddha's mandorla. The forsworn person was punished\nin this world itself except in the last mentioned two instances when\nthe perjurer would suffer in his next birth.\n\nThere were five forms of ordeal, resorted to in land disputes and the\nvillagers were summoned to the place of trial by messengers showing\nthem a cloth tied with 3 knots.\n\nThe ordeal of hot oil required the adversaries to put their middle\nfingers in boiling oil and water mixed with cow dung; if both parties\ngot burnt the land in dispute was equally divided; otherwise the\nuninjured party got the whole land.\n\nThe other four modes consisted of the disputants partaking of some rice\nboiled from the paddy of the field in dispute, breaking an earthen\nvessel and eating of a cocoanut that was placed on the portion of\nthe land in question, removing rushes laid along the boundary line in\ndispute, or striking each other with the mud of the disputed field;\nand the claim was decided against the person to whom some misfortune\nfell within 7 to 14 days.\n\nThere were two other forms which had fallen into disuse even in ancient\ntimes owing to the severity of the tests viz. carrying a red hot iron\nin hand seven paces without being burnt, and picking some coins out\nof a vessel containing a cobra without being bitten.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nRITES OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.\n\n\nWhen a mother is pregnant she avoids looking at deformed persons, or\nugly images and pictures, fearing the impression she gets from them\nmay influence the appearance of her offspring; during this delicate\nperiod she generally pounds rice with a pestle, as the exertion is\nsupposed to assist delivery, and for the same purpose a few hours\nbefore the birth of the child all the cupboards in the house are\nunlocked. For her to cling to, when the pains of child-birth are\nunbearable, a rope tied to the roof hangs by the mat or bedside.\n\nThe water that the child is washed in after birth is poured on to the\nfoot of a young tree, and the latter is remembered and pointed out\nto commemorate the event; a little while after the infant is ushered\ninto the world a rite takes place, when a drop of human milk obtained\nfrom some one other than the mother mixed with a little gold is given\nto the babe (rankiri kata g\u00e2nav\u00e2), and the little child's ability to\nlearn and pronounce well is assured.\n\nWhen the sex of the child is known, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown\nfrom one side of the house to the other; if a girl, an ikle broom;\nthose who are not in the room pretend to find out whether it is a\nshe or a he by its first cry, believing it is louder in the case of\nthe former than of the latter. The cries of the babe are drowned by\nthose of the nurse, lest the spirits of the forest become aware of\nits presence and inflict injury on it.\n\nAt the birth of the first born cocoanut shells are pounded in a mortar.\n\nThe mother is never kept alone in the room, a light is kept burning in\nit night and day, and the oil of the margosa is much used in the room\nfor protection; care is taken that the navel cord is not buried and\na little of it is given to the mother with betel if she fall severely\nill. Visitors to the lying-in-room give presents to the midwife when\nthe child is handed to them, especially if it is the first-born one.\n\nA month after birth, the babe, nicely dressed and with tiny garlands\nof acorus calamus (wadakaha) and allium sativum (sudu l\u00fbnu) tied\nround its wrists and lamp-black applied under the eye-brows, is for\nthe first time brought out to see the light of day (dottavadanav\u00e2);\nand it is made to look at a lamp placed in the centre of a mat or\ntable, with cakes (kevum) made of rice-flour, jaggery, and cocoanut\noil, plantains, rice boiled with cocoanut milk (kiribat), and other\neatables placed around it. The midwife then hands round the little\nchild to the relatives and gets some presents for herself.\n\nThe rite of eating rice (indul katag\u00e2nav\u00e2 or bat kavanav\u00e2) is gone\nthrough when the child is seven months old; the same eatables are\nspread on a plantain-leaf with different kinds of coins, and the\nchild placed among them; what it first touches is carefully observed,\nand if it be kiribat it is considered very auspicious. The father or\ngrandfather places a few grains of rice in the child's mouth, and\nthe name that is used at home (bat nama) is given on that day. The\nastrologer, who has already cast the infant's horoscope and has\ninformed the parents of its future, is consulted for a lucky day and\nhour for the performance of the above observances.\n\nThe children are allowed to run in complete nudity till about five\nyears and their heads are fully shaved when young; a little of the\nhair first cut is carefully preserved. From an early age a boy is\nsent every morning to the pansala, where the village priest keeps his\nlittle school, till a certain course of reading is completed and he\nis old enough to assist the father in the fields. The first day he\nis taught the alphabet a rite is celebrated (at pot tiyanava), when\na platform is erected, and on it are placed sandal-wood, a light,\nresin, kiribat, kevum, and other forms of rice cakes as an offering\nto Gan\u00eas\u00e2, the god of wisdom, and the remover of all obstacles and\ndifficulties. At a lucky hour the pupil washes the feet of his future\nguru, offers him betel, worships him, and receives the book, which he\nhas to learn, at his hands, and, as the first letters of the alphabet\nare repeated by him after his master, a husked cocoanut is cut in\ntwo as an invocation to Gan\u00eas\u00e2. A girl is less favoured and has to\ndepend for her literary education on her mother or an elder sister;\nmore attention, however, is paid to teach her the domestic requirements\nof cooking, weaving and knitting, which will make her a good wife.\n\nOn the attainment of the years of puberty by a girl she is confined to\na room, no male being allowed to see her or be seen by her. After two\nweeks she is taken out with her face covered and bathed at the back of\nthe house by the female inmates, except little girls and widows, with\nthe assistance of the family laundress, who takes all the jewellry on\nthe maiden's person. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any\nmilk-bearing tree, usually of the jak tree. On her return from her\npurification, her head and face, still covered, she goes three times\nround a mat having on it kiribat, plantains, seven kinds of curries,\nrice, cocoanuts, and, in the centre, a lamp With seven lighted wicks;\nand as she does she pounds with a pestle some paddy scattered round the\nprovisions. Next, she removes the covering, throws it on to the dh\u00f4b\u00ee\n(washerwoman) and, after making obeisance to the lamp and, putting\nout its wicks by clapping her hands, presents the laundress with money\nplaced on a betel leaf. She is then greeted by her relatives, who are\nusually invited to a feast, and is presented by them with valuable\ntrinkets. Everything that was made use of for the ceremony is given\nto the washerwoman. In some cases, till the period of purification is\nover, the maiden is kept in a separate hut which is afterwards burnt\ndown. Girls who have arrived at the age of puberty are not allowed to\nremain alone, as devils may possess them and drive them mad; and till\nthree months have elapsed no fried food of any sort is given to them.\n\nThe 'shaving of the beard' is the rite the young man has to go\nthrough, it is performed at a lucky hour and usually takes place a\nfew days before marriage; the barber here plays the important part the\nlaundress did in the other. The shavings are put into a cup, and the\nperson operated on, as well as his relatives who have been invited,\nput money into it; this is taken by the barber; and the former are\nthrown on to a roof that they may not be trampled upon.\n\nMarriages are arranged between two families by a relative or a trusted\nservant of one of them, who, if successful, is handsomely rewarded\nby both parties. The chances of success depend on the state of the\nhoroscopes of the two intended partners, their respectability which\nforms a very important factor in the match, the dowry which used\nto consist of agricultural implements, a few head of cattle, and\ndomestic requisites, together with a small sum of money to set the\ncouple going, and, if connected, the distance of relationship. Two\nsisters' or brothers' children are rarely allowed to marry, but the\nsolicitation of a mother's brother's or father's sister's son is\nalways preferred to that of any other.\n\nA few days before the marriage, the two families, in their respective\nhamlets, send a messenger from house to house to ask, by presenting\nbetel, the fellow-villagers of their own caste for a breakfast; and\nthe guests bring with them presents in money. Only few, however, are\ninvited to the wedding; and the party of the bridegroom, consisting\nof two groomsmen, an attendant carrying a talipot shade over him,\nmusicians, pingo-bearers, relatives and friends, arrives in the\nevening at the bride's village and halts at a distance from her\nhouse. A messenger is then sent in advance with a few pingo-loads of\nplantains, and with betel-leaves equal in number to the guests, to\ninform of their arrival; and when permission is received to proceed,\ngenerally by the firing of a jingal, they advance, and are received\nwith all marks of honour; white cloth is spread all the way by the\nwasherwoman, and at the entrance a younger brother of the bride\nwashes the bridegroom's feet and receives a ring as a present. A sum\nof money is paid to the dh\u00f4bi (washerwoman) as a recompense for her\nservices. They are then entertained with music, food and betel till the\nsmall hours of the morning, when the marriage ceremony commences. The\nbride and bridegroom are raised by two of their maternal uncles on to\na dais covered with white cloth, and having on it a heap of raw rice,\ncocoanuts, betel leaves and coins. A white jacket and a cloth to wear\nare presented by the bridegroom to the bride; betel and balls of boiled\nrice are exchanged; their thumbs are tied together by a thread, and,\nwhile water is poured on their hands from a spouted vessel by the\nbride's father, certain benedictory verses are recited. Last of all,\na web of white cloth is presented by the bridegroom to the bride's\nmother; and it is divided among her relatives.\n\nIn connection with this presentation it is said that if the\nmother-in-law be dead, the web should be left in a thicket hard by\nto appease her spirit.\n\nOn the day after the wedding the married couple return to their future\nhome with great rejoicing, and on their entering the house a husked\ncocoanut is cut in two on the threshold.\n\nThe tokens of virginity are observed by the bridegroom's mother,\nand the visit of the parents and relatives of the bride a few days\nafter completes the round of ceremonies.\n\nThere is a peculiar custom fast disappearing, and almost totally\nextinct, called Kula Kanav\u00e2, that is, making one respectable by eating\nwith him. If a member of a family makes a m\u00e9salliance he is cast\nout of his clan, and should he want his children and himself to be\nrecognized and taken back by the relatives, the latter are induced to\nattend and partake of a feast given by him at his house. The 'making\nup' takes place when very many years have elapsed, and only if the\nwife who was the cause of the breach is dead. The difference due to\nmarriage with another caste or nationality is never healed up.\n\nEven in the presence of death, ceremonies are not wanting; if the\ndying patient is known to have been fond of his earthly belongings,\nand seems to delay in quitting this life, a few pieces of his furniture\nare washed and a little drop of the water given to him. A lamp is\nkept burning near the corpse, the body is washed before burial and a\npiece of cotton or a betel-leaf is put into its mouth. All the time\nthe body is in the house nothing is cooked, and the inmates eat the\nfood supplied by their neighbours (adukku).\n\nNo one of the same village is told of the death, but all are expected\nto attend the funeral; the outlying villages, however, are informed\nby a relative who goes from house to house conveying the sad news.\n\nThe visitors are given seats covered with white cloth; and the betel\nfor them to chew are offered with the backs of the leaves upwards as\nan indication of sorrow. Some times only the relatives come, while\nfriends leave betel at a distance from the house and go away fearing\npollution. It may be observed that, according to the Sinhalese belief,\npollution is caused by the attaining of puberty by a maiden which\nlasts fourteen days; by the monthly flow of a woman which lasts till\nshe bathes; by child-birth which lasts one month; and by death which\nlasts three months.\n\nFriends and relatives salute the body with their hands clasped in\nthe attitude of prayer, and only the members of the family kiss\nit. The route along which the funeral proceeds is previously strewn\nwith white sand, and the coffin is carried by the closest relatives,\nwith the cloth to be given to the priests for celebrating the service\nthrown on it, over white foot-cloth spread by the dh\u00f4bi, and preceded\nby the tom-tom beaters with muffled drums. Lights are carried by the\ncoffin and a shade is held over the head of it.\n\nThe service commences with the intoning of the three Refugees of\nBuddhism and the Five Vows of abstinence by one of the priests,\nand they are repeated after by those present, all squatting on the\nground. The cloth, referred to, is then given to be touched by the\nbystanders in order to partake of the merits of the almsgiving;\none end of it is placed on the coffin, and the other is held by the\npriests. They recite three times the Pali verse that all organic and\ninorganic matter are impermanent, that their nature is to be born and\ndie, and that cessation of existence is happiness; and while water\nis poured from a spouted vessel into a cup or basin, they chant the\nlines that the fruits of charity reach the departed even as swollen\nrivers fill the ocean and the rain-water that falls on hill-tops\ndescends to the plain. A short ex tempore speech by a priest on the\nvirtues of the deceased completes the service.\n\nIf it be a burial, the grave is by the roadside of the garden with\na thatched covering over it. Two lights are lit at the head and the\nfoot of the mound, the bier in which the coffin was carried is placed\nover it, and a young tree planted to mark its site.\n\nIn a cremation, the coffin is first carried with music three times\nround the pyre, and the latter is set fire to by the sons or nephews\nwith their faces turned away from it. Those assembled leave when the\npyre is half burnt; and, on the following day, or a few days after,\nthe ashes are collected and buried in the garden of the deceased, over\nwhich a column is erected, or they are thrown into the nearest stream.\n\nThe party bathe before returning to the house, and are supplied by the\ndh\u00f4bi with newly-washed clothes; during their absence the house is well\ncleansed and purified by the sprinkling of water mixed with cow-dung;\nand the visitors before leaving partake of a meal either brought from\nsome neighbour's or cooked after the body had been removed.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nOCCUPATIONS AND INDUSTRIES.\n\n\nIn the olden time, people were occupied according to their caste,\nbut now they pursue any vocation they choose, carefully avoiding the\ninauspicious hours.\n\nOne man works at his field or goes hunting and honey gathering; a\nsecond fishes at the village stream with a rod made of the midrib of\nthe kitul leaf; a third slings his basket of garden produce at the ends\nof a kitul shaft and carries them on his shoulders to towns or village\nfairs; a fourth climbs the palm trees with his ankles encircled by\na ring of cocoanut leaf and picks the fruit with his hand; a fifth\ntaps for toddy the blossoms of several cocoanut trees by coupling\ntheir crowns with stout ropes to walk upon and the straight boughs\nwith smaller ropes to support himself; a sixth brings for sale from\nthe county straw and firewood in single or double bullock carts and\na seventh transports cocoanuts, salt, and dried fish to centres of\ntrade by pack bullocks or in flat bottomed boats.\n\nThe women either make molasses from the unfermented toddy; or plait\nmats of dyed rushes in mazy patterns; or earn a pittance by selling\non a small stand by the roadside the requisites for a chew of betel;\nor hawk about fruits and vegetables in baskets carried on their heads;\nor keep for sale, on a platform in the verandah, sweetmeats and other\neatables protected from the crows which infest the place by a net;\nor make coir by beating out the fibre from soaked cocoanut husks;\nor attend to their domestic duties with a child astride their hips;\nor seated lull their infant child to sleep on their outstretched legs.\n\nVarious ceremonies are performed in the sylvan occupations of hunting\nand honey gathering.\n\n\"Hunting parties of the Kandian Sinhalese of the North Central Province\nperform a ceremony which is very similar to that of the Wanniyas [7]\nand Veddahs [8] when about to leave their village on one of their\nexpeditions in the forest. Under a large shady tree they prepare a\nmaessa, or small covered shrine, which is raised about three feet\noff the ground, and is open only in front; it is supported on four\nsticks set in the ground. In this they offer the following articles if\navailable, or as many as possible of them:--one hundred betel leaves,\none hundred arekanuts, limes, oranges, pine apples, sugar cane, a head\nof plantains, a cocoanut, two quarts of rice boiled specially at the\nsite of the offering, and silver and gold. Also the flowers of the\narekanut tree, the cocoanut, and ratmal tree. All are purified by\nlustration and incense, as usual, and dedicated. They then light a\nsmall lamp at the front of the offering, and remain there watching\nit until it expires, differing in this respect from the practice\nof the Wanniyas, who must never see the light go out. Before the\nlight expires they perform obeisance towards the offering, and\nutter aloud the following prayer for the favour and protection of\nthe forest deities, which must also be repeated every morning during\nthe expedition, after their millet cake, gini-p\u00fbva, has been eaten,\nbefore starting for the day's hunting:--\n\nThis is for the favour of the God Ayiyan\u00e2r; for the favour of the Kiri\nAmma, for the favour of the Kataragama God (Skanda) for the favour\nof Kalu D\u00eavat\u00e2; for the favour of Kambili Unn\u00e6h\u00e6; for the favour of\nIland\u00e2ri D\u00eavat\u00e2 Unn\u00e6h\u00e6; for the favour of Kadavara D\u00eavat\u00e2 Unn\u00e6h\u00e6; for\nthe favour of Gal\u00ea Band\u00e2ra; for the favour of the Hat Rajjuruv\u00f4. We\nare going to your jungle (uyana); we do not want to meet with even\na single kind of [dangerous] wild animals. We do not want to meet\nwith the tall one (elephant), the jungle watcher (bear), the animal\nwith the head causing fear (snake), the leopard. You must blunt the\nthorns. We must meet with the horn bearer (sambar deer), the deer\n(axis), the ore full of oil (pig), the noosed one (igu\u00e2na), the\nstorehouse (beehive). We must meet about three pingo (carrying-stick)\nloads of honey. By the favour of the Gods. We ask only for the sake\nof our bodily livelihood [9]\".\n\nThe jungle attached to a village was the game preserve of its\ninhabitants; game laws were concerned with the boundaries of the\nvillage jungle, and with rights of ownership of the game itself. One\nhalf of the game killed by a stranger belonged to the village, and\nthe headman of the village was entitled to a leg and four or five\npounds of flesh of every wild animal killed by the villagers.\n\nFor regulating the time and manner of fishing in sea, old communal\nrules have been legalised and are now in force. Fishing with large nets\n(m\u00e2del) begins about 1st October and ends by May 31st in each year;\nthe number of boats and nets to be used in each inlet is limited;\nthe boats and nets are registered and every registered boat and net\nis used in the war\u00e2ya (inlets) by rotation in order of register;\nthe turn of each net and boat begins at sunrise and ends at sunrise\nof the next day; the headman who supervises these is called the\nmannandir\u00e2le. Whenever koralebabbu, b\u00f4llo, ehelamuruvo and such other\nfish come into the war\u00e2ya, so long as these swarm in the inlet they\nshould be caught by rod and line and nothing else; when they are\nleaving the inlet, the headman in consultation with at least six\nfishermen appoint a date from which boru del or visi del may be used;\non no account are mahadel allowed to be used [10].\n\nEach of the boats with its nets belongs to several co-owners and \"on a\nday's fishing the produce is drawn ashore, is divided in a sufficient\nnumber of lots, each estimated to be worth the same assigned value,\nand these lots are so distributed that 1-50 goes to the owner of the\nland on which the fish are brought to shore, 1\\4 to those engaged\nin the labour, 1-5 for the assistance of extra nets etc., rendered\nby third parties in the process of landing and securing the fish,\nwhich together equal 47-100 and the remaining 53-100 go to the owners\nof the boat and net according to their shares therein\" [11].\n\nOwners of cattle have brand marks to distinguish the cattle of their\ncaste and class from those of others; individual ownership is indicated\nby branding in addition the initial letters of the owner's name.\n\nHerdsmen who tend cattle for others are entitled in the case of the\nbulls and the he buffaloes they tend to their labour, in the case of\ncows and she buffaloes to every second third and fifth calf born,\nand in the case of calves to a half share interest in the young\nanimals themselves.\n\n\"At the first milking of a cow there is a ceremony called kiri\nettirima. The cow is milked 3 different mornings successively,\nwhen the milk is boiled, and poured into three different vessels,\ntill the whole is coagulated. On the fourth day, butter from each\nvessel is preserved in a clean basin, to form the principal part\nof the ceremony at a convenient time. From that day the milk may be\nused, but with particular care never to throw the least milk, or any\nwater that might have washed the milk basons, out of doors. When\nthe convenient time has arrived a bunch of plantains is prepared,\ncakes are baked, three pots of rice are boiled, a vegetable curry,\nand a condiment are prepared by an individual who must manifest all\ncleanness on the occasion, even to the putting a handkerchief before\nhis mouth to present the saliva from falling into the ingredients. All\nthese preparations are brought to an apartment swept and garnished\nfor the purpose where the kapuva cleanly clothed enters and burns\nsandarac powder, muttering incantations with the intent of removing\nall evil supposed to rest upon the family, and of bringing down a\nblessing upon them and their cattle.\n\nNext the kapuva takes 7 leaves of the plantain tree and lays 5 of\nthem in order on the table, canopied, and spread with white cloth, in\nhonour of the gods Wiramunda deviyo, Kosgama deviyo, Pasgama deviyo,\nCombihamy, and Weddihamy; and the other 2 are put on piece of mat on\nthe ground in honour of the washer and the tom tom beater supposed\nto have attended these supernatural beings. Over all these leaves the\nboiled rice from one of the pots is divided, then from the second and\nthird. He afterwards does the same with the curry, and the condiment,\ncakes, plantains etc., prepared for the performance. He then pretends\nto repeat the same process by way of deception making a motion, and\nsounding the ladle on the brim of the pots, as if rice and other\ningredients were apportioned the second time etc., to satisfy the\ngods and the two attendants.\n\nThe kapuva next takes a little of every ingredient from all the leaves,\nboth on the table and on the ground, into a cup (made of leaves),\nand supporting it over his head marches out from the apartment,\nclosing its door; and he conveys it either to the fold of the cattle,\nor to some elevated place where he dedicates and offers it to the\nmany thousands of the demons and their attendants who are supposed\nto have accompanied the above particular gods, praying them, by\nmeans of incantations, to accept the offering he has brought before\nthem. From hence he returns to the door of the apartment he had closed,\nand knocking at it, as if to announce his entrance, he opens it and\nmutters a few more incantations, praying the gods to allow them,\n(including himself and the members of the family) to partake of the\nremnants that have been offered in their honour. After these ceremonies\nare performed, the kapuva, with all the rest, partakes of everything\nthat was prepared, and the owner of the cow may from this day dispose\nof the milk according to his own pleasure.\" [12].\n\nRural rites differing in details in different localities are observed\nby the Singhalese peasantry in their agricultural pursuits. [13]\n\nIn all places a lucky day for ploughing is fixed in consultation with\nan astrologer. It is considered unfortunate to begin work on the 1st or\n2nd day of the month, and after the work is begun it must be desisted\nfrom on unlucky days such as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th and 21st.\n\nSowing is also commenced at a lucky day and hour pronounced by the\nastrologer to be the most favourable. In a corner of the field,\non a mound of mud where are placed a ginger or a habarala plant\n(arum maculatum), a cocoanut or an areka flower and some saffron,\nis sown a handful of the first seed and dedicated to the gods; and\nafter that the entire field is sown.\n\nTo drive away insects from the growing rice, charm-lamps are lighted\nat the four corners of the field or a worm is enclosed in a charmed\norange and buried there or a fly or grub is fumigated with charmed\nresin smoke and bidden to depart or a cultivator sounds a charmed\nbell metal plate with a kaduru stick crying to the flies \"yan yanta\"\n(please go).\n\nWhen the reaping time comes the portion of rice dedicated to the gods\nis first reaped by some person who is not a member of the proprietor's\nfamily. It is kept apart on an elevated place till the reaping of the\nrest of the field is done when it is cooked and ceremonially offered\nto the kapur\u00e2la.\n\nThe threshing is done on a floor specially prepared; when the crop\nis ripe a small pit is made in the centre of the threshing floor\nin which are placed a margosa plant, and a conch shell containing a\npiece of the tolabu plant (crinum asiaticum) and of the hiressa (vitis\ncissus quadrangularis), a piece of metal, charcoal and a small grain\nsheaf. Besting on these is an ellipsoidal luck stone (arakgala), round\nwhich are traced with ashes three concentric circles bisected by lines\nand in the segments are drawn representations of a broom, a scraper,\na flail, a measure, agricultural implements and Buddha's foot print.\n\nAt the lucky hour the cultivator walks three times round the inner\ncircles of the threshing floor with a sheaf on his head, bowing to the\ncentre stone at east, north, west and south and casts down the sheaf\non the centre stone prostrating himself. The rest of the sheaves are\nthen brought in and the threshing begins.\n\nThe harvest is brought down on a full moon day and some of the new\npaddy is husked, pounded, boiled with milk and offered to the gods\nin a d\u00eavala or on a temporary altar under a tree by the field, and\nfollowed by a general feasting.\n\nPersons cultivating their fields with their own cattle, implements,\nseed paddy and the like receive the whole produce less the payments\nof the watchers (warav\u00eari) and the perquisites of the headman.\n\nWhen the fields are given out to be cultivated for a share of the\nproduce, if the field owner supplies the cultivator with the cattle,\nimplements of labour, and seed paddy the produce is divided equally\nby the owner and the cultivator; if the field owner supplies nothing\nhe only gets 1\\4 of the produce.\n\nWhen an allotment of field is owned by several co-owners, it is\ncultivated alternately on a complicated system called tattum\u00e2ru [14].\n\nThere is a jargon used in Ceylon by hunters and pilgrims travelling\nin forests [15], by the outcaste rodiyas who go about begging and\nthieving [16]; and by cultivators while working in their fields\n[17]. This jargon has many words used by the Veddahs [18].\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nFESTIVALS.\n\n\nThe entering of the sun into Aries is celebrated as the new year's\nday; the ephemeris of the year is drawn up by the village astrologer\nand the necessary information for the observance of the festive rites\nis obtained by presenting him with sweetmeats and a bundle of forty\nbetel leaves.\n\nAs the sun is moving into the sign Aries all cease from work\nand either visit temples or indulge in games till a lucky moment\narrives when every family welcomes the new year with the strains of\nthe rab\u00e2na. Special kinds of sweetmeats and curries are cooked and\neaten, cloth of the colour recommended by the astrologer are worn,\ncalls exchanged, the headman visited with pingo-loads of presents,\nand a commencement made of the usual daily work.\n\nAt an appointed hour, the people anoint themselves with an infusion\nof oil, kokun leaves (swietenia febrifugia), kal\u00e2nduru yams (Cyprus\nrotundus) and nelli fruits (Phylanthus emblica) and an elder of the\nfamily rubs a little of it on the two temples, on the crown of the\nhead, and on the nape of the neck of each member, saying:--\n\n\n            Kalu kaputan sudu venaturu\n            Ehela kanu liyalana turu\n            Gerandianta an enaturu\n            Ekasiya vissata desiya vissak\n            Maha Brahma R\u00e2jay\u00e2 atinya\n            \u00c2yib\u00f4van \u00e2yib\u00f4van \u00e2yib\u00f4van.\n\n\n\"This (anointing) is done by the hand of Maha Br\u00e2hma; long life to you,\nlong life to you, long life to you! may you, instead of the ordinary\nperiod of life, viz., 120 years, live for 220 years; till rat-snakes\nobtain horns, till posts of the Ehela tree (Cassia fistula) put on\nyoung shoots, and till black crows put on a plumage white.\"\n\nWhile being annointed the person faces a particular direction, having\nover his head leaves sacred to the ruling planet of the day, and at\nhis feet those sacred to the regent of the previous day. For each\nof the days of the week, beginning with Sunday, belong respectively\nthe cotton tree (imbul), the wood-apple (diwul), the Cochin gamboge\n(kollan), the margosa (kohomba), the holy fig-tree (bo) Galidupa\narborea (karanda) and the banyan (nuga).\n\nThis rite is followed by the wearing of new clothes, after a bath\nin an infusion of screw-pine (wetake), Suffa acutangula (wetakolu),\nEvolvulus alsinoides (Vishnu-kr\u00e2nti), Aristolochia indica (sapsanda),\nCrinum zeylanicum (godam\u00e2nel), roots of citron (nasn\u00e2ranmul), root of\nAegle marmelos (belimul), stalk of lotus, (nelum dandu), Plectranthus\nzeylanicus (iriv\u00e9riya), Cissompelos convolvulus (getaveni-vel)\nHeterepogon hirtus (\u00eetana) and bezoar stone (gor\u00f4chana).\n\nThis festival is also observed at the Buddhist temples when milk is\nboiled at their entrances and sprinkled on the floor.\n\nThe birthday of the Founder of Buddhism is celebrated on the\nfull-moon day of May (wesak). Streets are lined with bamboo arches,\nwhich are decorated with the young leaves of the cocoanut-palm;\ntall superstructures (toran) gaily adorned with ferns and young king\ncocoanuts bridge highways at intervals; lines of flags of various\ndevices and shapes are drawn from tree to tree; booths are erected at\nevery crossing where hospitality is freely dispensed to passers-by;\nand at every rich house the poor are fed and alms given to Buddhist\npriests. Processions wend their way from one temple to another with\nquaintly-shaped pennons and banners, and in the intervals of music\ncries of s\u00e2dhu, s\u00e2dhu, are raised by the pilgrims.\n\nThe Kandy Perahera Mangalaya, begins at a lucky hour on the first\nday after the new moon. \"A jack-tree, the stem of which is three\nspans in circumference, is selected beforehand for each of the four\nd\u00e9w\u00e2la--the Kataragama, N\u00e2tha, Saman, and Pattini; and the spot where\nit stands is decorated and perfumed with sandalwood, frankincense,\nand burnt resin, and a lighted lamp with nine wicks is placed at the\nfoot of the tree. At the lucky hour a procession of elephants, tom-tom\nbeaters and dancers proceed to the spot, the tree is cut down by one\nof the tenants (the watt\u00f4rur\u00e2la) with an axe, and it is trimmed, and\nits end is pointed by another with an adze. It is then carried away\nin procession and placed in a small hole in a square of slab rock,\nburied in the ground or raised platform in the small room at the back\nof the d\u00e9w\u00e2la. It is then covered with a white cloth. During the five\nfollowing days the procession is augmented by as many elephants,\nattendants, dancers, tom-tom beaters and flags as possible; and it\nmakes the circuit of the temples at stated periods. The processions\nof the several temples are then joined by one from the Dalad\u00e2,\nM\u00e2lig\u00e2va (the temple of the Sacred Tooth of Buddha), and together\nthey march round the main streets of Kandy at fixed hours during the\nfive days next ensuing. On the sixth day, and for five days more,\nfour palanquins--one for each d\u00e9w\u00e2la are added to the procession,\ncontaining the arms and dresses of the gods; and on the last day\nthe bowl of water (presently to be explained) of the previous year,\nand the poles cut down on the first day of the ceremony. On the\nnight of the fifteenth and last day, the Perahera is enlarged to the\nfullest limits which the means of the several temples will permit,\nand at a fixed hour, after its usual round, it starts for a ford in\nthe river near Kandy, about three miles distant from the temple of\nthe Sacred Tooth. The procession from the M\u00e2lig\u00e2va, however, stops\nat a place called the Ad\u00e2hana Maluwa, and there awaits the return of\nthe others. The ford is reached towards dawn, and here the procession\nwaits until the lucky hour (generally about 5 A. M.) approaches. A few\nminutes before its arrival the chiefs of the four temples, accompanied\nby a band of attendants, walk down in Indian file under a canopy of\nlinen and over cloth spread on the ground to the waterside. They enter\na boat and are punted up the river close to the bank for some thirty\nyards. Then at a given signal (i. e., at the advent of the lucky hour)\nthe four jack poles are thrown into the river by the men on shore,\nwhile each of the four chiefs, with an ornamental silver sword, cuts a\ncircle in the water; at the same time one attendant takes up a bowl of\nwater from the circle, and another throws away last year's supply. The\nboat then returns to the shore, the procession goes back to Kandy, the\nbowls of water are placed reverently in the several d\u00e9w\u00e2la, to remain\nthere until the following year; and the Perahera is at an end.\" [19]\n\nDuring the time of the kings, it was on this occasion that the\nprovincial governors gave an account of their stewardship to their\nover-lord and had their appointments renewed by him.\n\nWhen the rainy months of August, September and October are over\nand the Buddhist monks return to their monasteries from their vas\nretreats, is held the Festival of Lights (K\u00e2rtika Mangalya). The\nBuddhist temples are illuminated on the full moon day of November by\nsmall oil-lamps placed in niches of the walls specially made for them;\nin the olden times all the buildings were bathed in a blaze of light,\nthe Royal Palace the best of all, with the oil presented to the king\nby his subjects. This festival is now confined to Kandy.\n\nThe Alut S\u00e2l Mangalya, the festival of New Rice, is now celebrated to\nany appreciable extent only in the Kandian Provinces, the last subdued\ndistricts of the island. In the villages the harvest is brought home\nby pingo-bearers on the full-moon day of January with rural jest and\nlaughter, and portions of it are given to the Buddhist priest, the\nbarber and the dhobi of the village; next the new paddy is husked,\nand kiribat dressed out of it.\n\nIn the capital, in the time of the kingdom, this festival lasted for\nfour days; \"on the first evening the officers of the royal stores\nand of the temples proceeded in state from the square before the\npalace to the crown villages from which the first paddy was to be\nbrought. Here the ears of paddy and the new rice were packed up for\nthe temples the palace and the royal stores by the Gabad\u00e2nilam\u00e9s and\ntheir officers. The ears of paddy carefully put into new earthenware\npots and the grain into clean bags, were attached to pingos. Those\nfor the M\u00e2lig\u00e2va (where the Sacred Tooth was kept) were conveyed on\nan elephant for the temples by men marching under canopies of white\ncloth; and those for the palace and royal stores by the people of the\nroyal villages of respectable caste, well dressed; and with apiece\nof white muslin over their mouths to guard against impurity. This\nprocession, starting on the evening of the next day (full-moon day)\nfrom the different farms under a salute of jingals and attended by\nflags, tom-tom beaters, etc., was met on the way by the 2nd Adigar\nand a large number of chiefs at some distance from the city. From\nthence all went to the great square to wait for the propitious\nhour, at the arrival of which, announced by a discharge of jingals,\nthe procession entered the M\u00e2lig\u00e2va where the distribution for the\ndifferent temples was made. At the same fortunate hour the chiefs\nand the people brought home their new rice. On the next morning the\nking or governor received his portion consisting of the new rice and\na selection of all the various vegetable productions of the country,\nwhich were tasted at a lucky hour.\" [20]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nGAMES, SPORTS AND PASTIMES.\n\n\nOn festive days itinerant songmen amuse the village folk at open\nplaces and greens; they keep time to a dance by skilfully whirling\nmetal-plates or small tambourines on their fingers or pointed stakes,\nby striking together sticks, by tossing earthen pots up in the air\nand catching them and they eulogize the hamlet and its people in\nextempore couplets with the refrain, \"tana tanamda t\u00e2n\u00ean\u00e2, tan\u00e2,\ntamda, t\u00e2n\u00ean\u00e2, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, t\u00e2n\u00ean\u00e2.\"\n\nThe people also enjoy themselves on the merry-go-round (katuru\nonchill\u00e2va)--a large revolving wheel on a tall wooden superstructure\nwith seats attached; at theatrical representations called k\u00f4lan netum,\nr\u00fbkada netum, and n\u00e2dagam; at games of skill and at divers forms of\noutdoor games.\n\nK\u00f4lan netuma is a series of mimetic dances of a ludicrous character\nby actors dressed like animals and demons, wearing masks and sometimes\nperched on high stilts.\n\nThe r\u00fbkada netuma is a marionette show of the ordinary incidents\nof village life--usually of the adventures of a married couple,\na hev\u00e2rala (a militia guard) and his wife Kadiragoda lamay\u00e2; the\nformer goes to the wars and returns with his eyes and ears off only\nto be beaten by his wife who soon after falls ill with labour pains,\nand devil dancers are requisitioned to relieve her; Pinnagoda r\u00e2la\nis the clown of the show.\n\nThe n\u00e2dagama is a dramatic play and for its performance a circular\nstage is erected with an umbrella-shaped tent over it; round it\nsits the audience, who, though admitted free, willingly contribute\nsomething into the collection-box brought by the clown (k\u00f4nangiya)\nat the end of the play. Before the drama begins, each of the actors,\nin tinselled costume, walks round the stage singing a song appropriate\nto his character. The piece represented is based on a popular tale\nor an historical event.\n\nGames of skill and chance are played on boards made for that\npurpose. [21]\n\nIn Olinda Keliya a board having seven holes a side is used; only\ntwo can take part in the game, and each in turn places olinda seeds\n(abrus precatorius) in the holes and the object of the opponent is\nto capture the other's seeds according to certain rules. [22]\n\nIn Pancha Keliya dice and six cowries are used; the latter are taken\ninto the player's hand and dropped, and the shells which fall on the\nreverse side are counted and the dice moved an equal number of places\non the board and the game continues till all the dice reach the other\nend of the board.\n\nIn Deeyan Keliya sixteen dice representing cows and four dice\nrepresenting tigers are placed on a board and the cows have to get\nfrom one side to the other without being intercepted and captured by\nthe tigers.\n\nSome of the outdoor games played by adults are of the ordinary kind,\nand others of a semi-religious significance.\n\nThe ordinary outdoor games are Buhu Keliya, Pandu Keliya, Lunu Keliya,\nMutt\u00ea, H\u00e2lmel\u00ea and Tattu penille.\n\nIn Buhu Keliya there are several players who place their balls,\n(made of any bulbous root hardened and boiled till it becomes like\nrubber), round a pole firmly fixed to the ground; to this pole is\nattached a string about 5 feet long held by a player whose endeavour\nis to prevent the others getting possession of the balls without being\ntouched. The person touched takes the place of the guarding player\nand when all the balls are taken away the last guard is pelted with\nthem till he finds safety in a spot previously agreed upon.\n\nIn Pandu Keliya the players form into two sides, taking their stand\n100 yards apart with a dividing line between; the leader of one party\nthrows a ball up and as it comes down beats it with his open palm\nand sends the ball over the line to the opposing side. If the other\nparty fails to beat or kick it back, they must take their stand where\nthe ball fell and the leader of their party throws the ball to the\nother side in the same way. This goes on till one party crosses the\nboundary line and drives the other party back.\n\nIn Lunu Keliya there are two sets of players occupying the two sides\nof a central goal (lunu) about 30 or 40 yards from it; a player from\none side has to start from the goal, touch a player of the other\nside and regain the goal holding up his breath; if he fails he goes\nout and this goes on till the side which has the greatest number of\nsuccessful runners at the end is declared the winner.\n\nIn Mutt\u00e9 (rounders) a post is erected as a goal, and one of the players\nstands by it and has a preliminary conversation with the others:--\n\nQ.--K\u00eekkiy\u00f4.\n\nA.--Muddar\u00ea.\n\nQ.--Dehikatuvada batukatuvada--Is it a lime-thorn or a brinjal-thorn?\n\nA.--Batukatuva--Brinjal-thorn.\n\nQ.--Man endada umba enavada--should I come or would you come?\n\nA.--Umbamavaren--you had better come.\n\nAs soon as the last word is uttered, the questioner gives chase, and\nthe others dodge him and try to reach the post without being touched;\nthe one who is first touched becomes the pursuer.\n\nIn Halmele there is no saving post, but the area that the players\nhave to run about is circumscribed; the pursuer hops on one leg and is\nrelieved by the person who first leaves the circle or is first touched.\n\nBefore starting he cries out--H\u00e2lmel\u00e9 A.--Kanakabar\u00e9.\n\nQ.--Enda hond\u00ea? (May I come?).\n\nA.--Bohama hondayi (All right).\n\nIn Tattu penilla also called Mahason's leap, a figure in the shape\nof H is drawn; a player guards each line and the others have to\njump across them and return without being touched; it is optional to\nleap over the middle line and is only attempted by the best players,\nas the demon Mahason himself is supposed to guard it.\n\nThe outdoor games with a semi-religious significance are Polkeliya,\nDodankeliya and ankeliya.\n\nIn Pol Keliya the villagers divide themselves into two factions called\nyatipila and udupila and the leaders of the two parties take a fixed\nnumber of husked cocoanuts and place themselves at a distance of 30\nfeet and one bowls a nut at his adversary who meets it with another\nin his hand. This goes on till the receiver's nut is broken when he\nbegins to bowl. The side which exhausts the nuts of the other party\nis declared the winner.\n\nDodan Keliya is a game similar to the Pol Keliya the oranges taking\nthe place of the cocoanuts.\n\nIn An Keliya a trunk of a tree is buried at the centre of an open space\nof ground; a few yards off is placed the log of a cocoanut tree about\n20 feet high in a deep hole large enough for it to move backwards and\nforwards and to the top of it thick ropes are fastened. The villagers\ndivide themselves into two parties as in Pol Keliya, and bring two\nforked antlers which they hook together and tying one to the foot of\nthe trunk and the other to that of the log pull away with all their\nmight till one of them breaks.\n\nIn all these semi-religious games the winning party goes in procession\nround the village and the defeated side has to undergo a lot of abuse\nand insult intended to remove the bad effects of the defeat.\n\nChildren in addition to their swings, tops, bamboo pop-guns, cut water,\nbows and arrows, water squirts, cat's cradles and bull roarers have\ntheir own special games.\n\nThey play at hide and seek, the person hiding giving a loud 'hoo'\ncall that the others may start the search; or one of them gets to an\nelevated place and tauntingly cries out \"the king is above and the\nscavenger below\" and the others try to drag him down.\n\nSeveral children hold their hands together forming a line and one of\nthem representing a hare comes running from a distance and tries to\nbreak through without being caught; or one of them becomes a cheetah\nand the rest form a line of goats holding on to each other's back. The\ncheetah addresses the foremost goat saying \"eluvan kannayi man \u00e2v\u00ea.\" (I\nhave come to eat the goats) and tries to snatch away one of the players\nat the back; who avoids his clutches singing \"elubeti kapiya sundire\"\n(go and eat the tasty goat dung); if one is caught he has to hold\non to the back of the cheetah and the game continues till all are\nsnatched away.\n\nWhen the children are indoors they amuse themselves in various ways.\n\nThey hold the backs of each other's hands with their thumb and\nfore-finger, move them up and down singing \"kaputu k\u00e2k k\u00e2k k\u00e2k,\ngoraka d\u00ean d\u00ean d\u00ean, amutu v\u00e2v v\u00e2v v\u00e2v, dorakada gah\u00ea puvak puvak,\nbatapandur\u00ea bulat bulat, usi kaput\u00e2, us\u00ee,\" and let go each other's\nhold at the end of the jingle, which means that \"crows swinging on a\ngamboge-tree (goraka) take to their wings when chased away (usi, usi),\nand there are nuts in the areca-tree by the house and betel-creepers\nin the bamboo-grove.\" They also close their fists and keep them one\nover the other, pretending to form a cocoanut-tree; the eldest takes\nhold of each hand in turn, asks its owner, \"achchiy\u00e9 achchiy\u00e9 honda\npol gediyak tiyanav\u00e2 kadannada?\" (grandmother, grandmother, there is a\ngood cocoanut, shall I pluck it); and, when answered, \"Oh, certainly\"\n(bohoma hondayi), brings it down. A mimetic performance of husking\nthe nuts, breaking them, throwing out the water, scraping the pulp\nand cooking some eatable follows this.\n\nThey twist the fingers of the left hand, clasp them with the right,\nleaving only the finger-tips visible and get each other to pick out\nthe middle finger.\n\nThey take stones or seeds into their hands and try to guess the number,\nor they take them in one hand, throw them up, catch them on the back\nof the hand, and try to take them back to the palm.\n\nThey keep several seeds or stones in front of them, throw one up and\ntry to catch it after picking up as many seeds or stones as possible\nfrom the ground.\n\nThey hold the fingers of their baby brothers saying \"this says he\nis hungry, this says what is to be done, this says let us eat, this\nsays who will pay, this says though I am the smallest I will pay\"\nand then tickle them saying \"han kutu.\"\n\nThey keep their hands one over the other, the palm downwards, and\nthe leader strokes each hand saying, \"Aturu muturu, demita muturu\nR\u00e2jakapuru hetiy\u00e2 aluta gen\u00e2 manam\u00e2li h\u00e2l atak geral\u00e2, hiyala getat\nbed\u00e2la pahala getat bed\u00e2l\u00e2, us us daramiti p\u00e9liyayi, miti miti daramiti\np\u00e9liyayi, kukal\u00e2 kapal\u00e2 dara pill\u00ea, kikili kapal\u00e2 veta mull\u00ea, sangan\npall\u00e2,\" (Aturu muturu demita muturu; the new bride that the merchant,\nR\u00e2jakapuru, brought, having taken a handful of rice, cleansed it\nand divided it to the upper and lower house; a row of tall faggots;\na row of short faggots; the cock that is killed is on the threshold;\nthe hen that is killed is near the fence; sangan pall\u00e2); one hand is\nnext kept on the owner's forehead and the other at the stomach and\nthe following dialogue ensues:--\n\nQ.--Nalal\u00e9 monav\u00e2da--What is on the forehead?\n\nA.--Le--Blood.\n\nQ.--Elwaturen h\u00eaduv\u00e2da--Did you wash it in cold water?\n\nA.--Ov--Yes.\n\nQ.--Giy\u00e2da--Did it come off?\n\nA.--N\u00ea--No.\n\nQ.--Kiren h\u00eaduv\u00e2da--Did you wash it in milk?\n\nA.--Ov--Yes.\n\nQ.--Giy\u00e2da--Did it come off?\n\nA.-Ov--Yes.\n\n(The hand on the forehead is now taken down).\n\nQ.--Bad\u00eainne mokada--What is at your stomach?\n\nA.--Lamay\u00e2--A child.\n\nQ.--Eyi andann\u00ea--why is it crying?\n\nA.--Kiri batuyi netuva--For want of milk and rice.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 man dunna kiri batuyi--Where is the milk and rice I gave?\n\nA.--Ballayi belal\u00ee k\u00eav\u00e2--The dog and the cat ate it.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 ballayi belali--Where is the dog and the cat?\n\nA.--Lind\u00ea vetuna--They fell into the well.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 linda--Where is the well?\n\nA.--Goda keruv\u00e2--It was filled up.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 goda--Where is the spot?\n\nA.--\u00c2ndiy\u00e2 pela hittevv\u00e2,--There \u00e2ndiy\u00e2 plants were planted.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 \u00e2ndiy\u00e2 pela--Where are the \u00e2ndiy\u00e2 plants?\n\nA.--D\u00eav\u00e2--They were burnt.\n\nQ.--K\u00f4 alu--Where are the ashes?\n\nA.--Tampal\u00e2 vattata iss\u00e2--They were thrown into the tampal\u00e2\n(Nothosocruva brachiata) garden.\n\nThen the leader pinches the other's cheek and jerks his head backward\nand forward singing \"Tampal\u00e2 k\u00e2pu hossa genen (give me the jaw that\nate the tampal\u00e2).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nSTORIES.\n\n\nStory telling is the intellectual effort of people who have little\nused or have not acquired the art of writing. A story is told for\namusement by mothers to their children, or by one adult to another,\nwhile guarding their fields at night in their watch hut or before\nlying down to sleep after their night meal. At each pause during the\nnarration, the listener has to say \"hum\" as an encouragement to the\nnarrator that he is listening; and every tale begins with the phrase\n\"eka mathaka rata\" (in a country that one recalls to mind) and ends\nwith the statement that the heroes of the Story settled down in their\ncountry and the narrator returned home.\n\nStories are roughly classified as (1) myths, (2) legends and (3)\nfolk tales.\n\n(1) \"The myth,\" says Gomme, \"is the recognisable explanation of some\nnatural phenomenon, some forgotten or unknown object of human origin,\nor some event of lasting influence.\"\n\nThe crow and the king crow were uncle and nephew in the olden time;\nthey once laid a wager as to who could fly the highest, each carrying a\nweight with him, and the winner was to have the privilege of knocking\nthe loser on the head; the crow selected some cotton as the lightest\nmaterial, while his nephew carried a bag of salt as the clouds looked\nrainy. On their way up, rain fell and made the crow's weight heavier\nand impeded his flight while it diminished the king crow's burden\nwho won the victory and still knocks the crow on his head.\n\nThe water fowl once went to his uncle's and got a load of arekanuts to\nsell; he engaged some geese to carry them to the waterside and hired\na wood pecker's boat to ferry them over; the boat capsized and sank\nand the cargo was lost, the geese deformed their necks by carrying\nthe heavy bags, the wood pecker is in search of wood to make another\nboat and the waterfowl still complains of the arekanuts he had lost.\n\n(2) A legend is a narrative of things which are believed to have\nhappened about a historical personage, locality or event.\n\nA cycle of legend has clustered round king Dutugemunu who rolled\nback the Tamil invasion of Ceylon in the 4th Century B. C., and\nhe is to the Singhalese peasantry what king Arthur has been to the\nCelts. The old chronicles, based on the folklore of an earlier period,\nplace his traditional exploits in Magam Pattu, Uva and Kotmale. His\nmother was Vih\u00e2re Devi; she was set afloat in a golden casket by her\nfather Kelani Tissa to appease the gods of the sea, who, incensed by a\nsacrilege act of his, were submerging his principality of Kelaniya;\nthe princess drifted to the country of Hambantota and its ruler\nKavantissa rescued her and made her his queen. The coast on which she\nlanded is still remembered as Dur\u00e2va and has the ruins of a vihare\nbuilt to commemorate her miraculous escape.\n\nDutugemunu was her eldest son and when she was pregnant she longed to\ngive as alms to the Buddhist priesthood a honey comb as large as an ox,\nto bathe in the water which had washed the sword with which a Tamil\nwarrior had been killed, and to wear unfaded waterlilies brought from\nthe marshes of Anuradapura. The town of Negombo supplied the first\nand the warrior Velusumana procured the other two. Astrologers were\nconsulted as to the meaning of these longings and they predicted,\nto quote the words of the old chronicler \"the queen's son destroying\nthe Damilas, and reducing the country under one sovereignty, will\nmake the religion of the land shine forth again.\"\n\nWhen Dutugemunu was a lad, he was banished from his father's court for\ndisobedience and he passed his youth among the peasantry of Kotmale\ntill his father's death made him the ruler of Ruhuna.\n\nDutugemunu had a band of ten favourite warriors, all of whom have\nindependent legends attached to their names; along with them, riding\non his favourite elephant Sedol, he performed wonders in 28 pitched\nbattles.\n\nHe died at an advanced age, disappointed in his only son Sali,\nwho gave up the throne for a low caste beauty. The peasantry still\nawaits the re-birth of Dutugemunu as the chief disciple of the future\nMaitri Buddha.\n\n(3) A folk tale is a story told mainly for amusement, deals with ideas\nand episodes of primitive life and includes elfin tales, beast tales,\nnoodle tales, cumulative tales and apologues.\n\nElfin tales deal with the magical powers and the cannibalistic nature\nof the R\u00e2kshas.\n\nA Gamarala's wife, while expecting a baby, weaves a mat bag to collect\nthe kekira melons when the season is on. The Gamar\u00e2la goes out every\nday, enjoys the kekira himself without informing his wife that the\nmelons are ripe. The wife discovers that the kekira is ripe from a\nseed on the Gamarala's beard. Both go out to collect the kekira melons\nand fill the mat bag, when the wife gives birth to a girl. They decide\nto carry the bag of kekira home and throw the child into the woods as\nit is a girl. A male and female crane see this and carry the child to\na cave. The cranes get a parrot, a dog and a cat to be companions of\nthe girl who all grow up together and the girl is called 'sister' by\nthe pets. The cranes leave the girl to dive for some pearls to adorn\nher and before departing advise her not to leave the cave as there is\na cannibalistic Rakshi in the woods; they also ask her to manure the\nplantain tree with ash, to water the murunga tree and to feed her pets\nespecially the cat. The cat gets a less allowance of food than usual\nand in anger puts out the fire by urinating on it. The girl goes out\nto fetch fire and comes to the Rakshi's cave and meets her daughter,\nwho tries to keep the girl till her mother comes by promising to give\nher fire, if she would bring water from the well, break firewood and\npound two pots of amu seed. The girl does all this work before the\nRakshi arrives and the daughter gives her live coals in a cocoanut\nshell with a hole in it, so that the ashes dropped all along her\nway. On the Rakshi's return she is told of the girls' departure and\nshe follows up the ash track and reaches the cave. The Rakshi sings\nout to the girl that the crane father and crane mother have come with\nthe pearls and to open the door. The dog and the cat warn her from the\noutside and the Rakshi kills them and goes away leaving her thumb nails\nfixed to the lintel and her toe nails to the threshold. The cranes\nreturn and on the parrot's advice the girl opens the door and comes\nout but gets fixed by the nails and swoons away. The cranes think she\nis dead, but on removal of the nails the girl recovers. They dress up\nthe girl beautifully, cover her with a scab covered cloth, tell her\nthat she is too grown up to live with them and bid her farewell. The\ngirl travels through the woods, becomes tired and meets the Rakshi;\nshe asks the Rakshi to eat her up but the Rakshi contemptuously passes\nher by saying \"I do not want to eat a scab covered girl; I am going\nto eat a beautiful princess.\" The girl arrives at a king's palace\nand is employed as a help mate to the cook. She used to remove her\nscab covered cloth only when she went out to bathe, and a man on a\nkitul tree tapping for toddy saw her beauty and informed the king who\nforced her with threats to remove her scab covering and married her.\n\nIn beast tales the actors are animals who speak and act like human\nbeings.\n\nA hare and a jackal sweep a house-compound; they find two pumpkin\nseeds and plant them; the jackal waters his creeper with urine and the\nhare waters his from the well; the jackal's creeper dies; the hare\ngenerously agrees to share the pumpkin with his friend; the jackal\nproposes a ruse to obtain the other requisites for their meal; the\nhare lays himself on the road as if dead; pingo bearers pass carrying\nfirewood, cocoanuts, rice, pots; as each pingo carrier passes, the\njackal cries out \"keep that pingo down and take away the dead hare;\nas they do so the hare scampers away and the jackal runs away with the\npingos; the jackal places the food on the fire and asks the hare to\nfetch stalkless kenda leaves, the hare goes in search and the jackal\ncooks and eats the whole meal leaving a few grains of rice for the\nhare; the jackal places a cocoanut husk under his tail to act as a\nstopper for his over-filled stomach; the hare returns without the\nleaves and shares the remnants of the meal with the jackal; at the\njackal's request the hare strokes the jackal's back and removes the\ncocoanut husk and is besmeared with excretion; the hare runs to a\nmeadow, rolls on the grass and returns quite clean; the jackal asks\nhim how he became so and the hare replies that the dhoby has washed\nhim; the jackal runs to the riverside and asks the dhoby to make him\nalso clean; the dhoby takes him by his hind legs and thwacks him on\nthe washing stone till he dies, saying \"this is the jackal who ate\nmy fowls.\"\n\nThe noodle tales describe the blunders of fools and foolish husbands.\n\nTwelve men went one day to cut fence sticks and they made twelve\nbundles. One of them inquired whether there were twelve men to carry\nthe bundles. They agreed to count and only found eleven men. As\nthey thought that one man was short, they went in search of him to\nthe jungle. They met a fellow villager to whom they mentioned their\nloss. He arranged the bundles in one line, and the men in another\nand said \"now you are alright; let each one take a bundle of sticks\nand go home\" which they did as no one was missing.\n\nThe people of Rayigam Korale threw stones at the moon one moonlight\nnight to frighten it off as they thought it was coming too near and\nthere was a danger of its burning their crops; they also cut down a\nkitul tree to get its pith and to prevent its falling down, one of\nthem supported it on his shoulder and got killed.\n\nThe country folks of Tumpane tried to carry off a well because they\nsaw a bee's nest reflected in the water; the men of Maggona did the\nsame but ran away on seeing their shadows in the well.\n\nThe Moravak Korale boatmen mistook a bend in the river for the sea,\nleft their cargo there and returned home; and the Pasdum Korale folk\nspread mats for elephants to walk upon.\n\nIn cumulative tales there is a repetition of the incidents till the\nend when the whole story is recapitulated.\n\nA bird laid two eggs which got enclosed between two large stones. The\nbird asked a mason to split open the stones; the mason refused and the\nbird, asked a wild boar to destroy the mason's paddy crop. The wild\nboar refused and the bird asked a hunter to shoot the wild boar. The\nhunter refused and the bird asked the elephant to kill the hunter as\nthe hunter will not shoot the wild boar and the wild boar will not\ndestroy the mason's paddy, and the mason will not split open the\nstones. The bird asked a bloodsucker to creep into the elephant's\ntrunk, but the bloodsucker declined. The bird then asked a wild-fowl\nto peck at the bloodsucker as the bloodsucker would not creep up\nthe elephant's trunk, as the elephant would not kill the hunter; as\nthe hunter would not shoot the wild boar, as the wild boar would not\ndestroy the paddy crop of the mason who would not split the stones\nwhich enclosed the birds' eggs. The wild-fowl refused and the bird\nasked a jackal to eat the wild-fowl. The jackal began to eat the fowl,\nthe fowl began to peck at the bloodsucker, the bloodsucker began\nto creep up the elephants' trunk; the elephant began to attack the\nhunter; the hunter began to shoot at the wild boar; the boar began\nto eat the mason's paddy; the mason began to split the stones, and\nthe bird gained access to her two eggs.\n\nApologues are narratives with a purpose, they point a moral and are\nserious in tone.\n\nThe moral \"be upright to the upright; be kind to the kind, and\ndishonest to the deceitful\" is illustrated by the following tale. A\ncertain man having accidentally found a golden pumpkin gave it to a\nfriend for safe keeping. When the owner asked for it back his friend\ngave him a brass one; and he went away apparently satisfied. Sometime\nafter the friend entrusted the owner of the pumpkin with one of his\nsons, but when the father demanded the son back, he produced a large\nape. Complaint was made to the king who ordered each men to restore\nwhat each had received from the other.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nSONGS AND BALLADS.\n\n\nThe ordinary folk songs of the country are called sivupada and can be\nheard sung in a drawn out melody by the peasants labouring on their\nfields or watching their crops at night, by the bullock drivers as\nthey go with their heavy laden carts; by the elephant keepers engaged\nin seeking fodder, by the boat men busy at their oars, by the women\nnursing their infants, by the children as they swing under the shady\ntrees, and by the pilgrims on their way to some distant shrine.\n\nFor rhythmic noise women and girls sit round a large tambourine placed\non the ground and play on it notes representing jingle sounds like\nthe following:--\n\n\n    Vatta katat katat t\u00e2\n    Kumbura katat katat t\u00e2\n    Vatta katat kumbura katat katat katat katat t\u00e2.\n    Attaka ratumal, attaka sudumal\n    Elimal dolimal, r\u00eankitul mal\n    Rajjen tarikita rajjen t\u00e2.\n\n\nOxen are encouraged to labour in the threshing floor by songs [23]\n\n\n    On, leader-ox, O ox-king, on,\n    In strength the grain tread out.\n    On, great one, yoked behind the king,\n    In strength the grain tread out.\n    This is not our threshing floor,\n    The Moon-god's floor it is.\n    This is not our threshing floor\n    The Sun-god's floor it is.\n    This is not our threshing floor,\n    God Ganesha's floor it is.\n                \"On, leader ox, etc.\"\n\n    As high as Adam's Sacred Peak,\n    Heap the grain, O heap it up;\n    As high as Mecca's holy shrine,\n    Heap the grain, O heap it up;\n    From highest and from lowest fields,\n    Bring the grain and heap it up;\n    High as our greatest relic shrine,\n    O heap it up, heap it up.\n                \"On, leader ox, etc.\"\n\n\nThe cart drivers still sing of a brave Singhalese chieftain who fell\non the battle field:--\n\n\n    Pun sanda s\u00eama p\u00e2y\u00e2l\u00e2 rata medd\u00ea\n    Ran kendi s\u00eama p\u00eer\u00e2l\u00e2 pita medd\u00ea\n    M\u00e2ra senaga vatakaragana Yama yudde\n    Levke metindu ada taniyama velc medde\n\n    (Like full orb'd moon his glory shone,\n          his radiance filled the world\n    His loosen'd hair knot falling free in\n          smoothest threads of gold.\n    M\u00e2ra's host beset him--no thought was\n          there to yield;\n    To-day Lord Levke's body still holds the\n          lonely field. [24])\n\n\nThe elephant keepers strike up a rustic song to the accompaniment of\na bamboo whistle.\n\n\n    Etun tamayi api balamuva bolann\u00ea\n    Kitul tamayi api kotaninda denn\u00ea\n    Rat\u00ea gam\u00eavat kitulak nedenn\u00ea\n    Etun nis\u00e2mayi api divi nassin\u00ea.\n\n    (It is elephants that we must look after, O fellows.\n    From where can we get kitul for them.\n    No village or district supplies us with kitul.\n    It is owing to elephants that we lose our lives.)\n\n\nThe following are specimens of a river song, a sea song and a tank\nsong.\n\n\n    Mal\u00ea mal\u00ea oya n\u00e2mala nel\u00e2 varen\n    Att\u00e2 bindeyi paya burulen tiy\u00e2 varen\n    Mahavili ganga diyayanav\u00e2 bal\u00e2 varen\n    S\u00e2duk\u00eared\u00ee oruva pedana varen.\n\n    (Brother, brother pluck that n\u00e2 flower and come.\n    The branch will break, step on it lightly and come.\n    See how Mahavili ganga's waters flow and come.\n    Raising shouts of thanks row your boat and come).\n\n\n    Tan tan tan tal\u00e2 mediriy\u00e2\n    Tin tin tin ti l\u00e2 mediriy\u00e2\n    Ape del\u00ea m\u00e2lu\n    Goda edapan Y\u00e2lu\n    Vell\u00ea pur\u00e2 m\u00e2lu.\n\n    (Tan tan tan tal\u00e2 mediriy\u00e2\n    Tin tin tin ti l\u00e2 mediriy\u00e2\n    There is fish in our nets\n    Pull it to the shore, friends\n    The shore is full of fish.)\n\n\n    \"Sora bora vev\u00ea sonda sonda olu nelum eti.\n    \u00cav\u00e2 nelannata sonda sonda liy\u00f4 eti\n    Kalu karal\u00e2 sudu karal\u00e2 uy\u00e2 deti\n    Olu s\u00e2l\u00ea bat kannata m\u00e2lu neti.\n\n    (The Sora bora tank has fine white lotus flowers\n    To pluck them there are very handsome women\n    After cleaning and preparing, the blossoms will be cooked\n    But alas there are no meat curries to eat with the lotus rice).\n\n\nPilgrims on their way to Adam's Peak sing the following first verse\nand as they return the second.\n\n\n1.  Devindu balen api vandinda\n    Saman devindu vandavanda\n    Muni sirip\u00e2 api vandinda\n    Ap\u00ea Budun api vandinda.\n\n(To worship our Buddha, to worship His footprint, may god Saman help\nus, may his might support us).\n\n\n2.  Devindu balen api vend\u00f4\n    Saman devindu vendev\u00f4\n    Munisirip\u00e2 api vend\u00f4\n    Ap\u00ea budun api vend\u00f4.\n\n    (We have worshipped our Buddha;\n    We have worshipped his foot print;\n    The god Samen helped us;\n    His might supported us).\n\n\nA mother amuses her children by pointing out the moon and asking them\nto sing out Handa hamy apatat bat kanda rantetiyak diy\u00f4 diyo (Mr. Moon,\ndo give us a golden dish to eat our rice in); or she makes them clap\ntheir hands singing appuddi pudi puvathth\u00e2 kevum dekak devathth\u00e2\n(clap, clap, clap away with two rice cakes in your hands); or she\ntickles them with the finger rhyme kand\u00ea duvayi, hakuru geneyi, t\u00f4t\nk\u00e2yi, matat deyi, hankutu kutu. (Run to the hills, bring molasses,\nYou will eat, you will give me, hankutu kutu); or she swings them to\nthe jingle \"Onchilli chilli chille mal\u00ea, Vella digata nelli kel\u00ea;\"\nor she rocks them to sleep with the following lullabies:--\n\n\n    Umb\u00ea amm\u00e2 kirata giy\u00e2\n    Kiri muttiya gang\u00e9 giy\u00e2\n    Ganga vatakara kokku giy\u00e2,\n    Kokku evith kiri bivv\u00e2,\n    Umba n\u00e2dan bab\u00f4\n\n    (Your mother went to fetch milk\n    The milk pot went down the river\n    The cranes surrounded the river\n    The cranes came and drank the milk\n    You better not cry, my baby.)\n\n\n    Baloli loli b\u00e2loliy\u00ea\n    B\u00e2la bilindu b\u00e2loliy\u00ea\n    Kiyamin gi neleviliy\u00ea\n    Sethapemi mag\u00ea suratheliy\u00ea\n\n    (Darling darling little one\n    Darling little tender one\n    Sleeping songs do I sing\n    Sleep away my fond little one.)\n\n\n    Rad\u00e2gedere kosatt\u00ea\n    Eka gediyayi palagatt\u00ea\n    \u00caka kanta lunu nett\u00ea\n    Numba n\u00e2dan doyi doyiy\u00ea.\n\n    (The jak tree at the washer's house\n    Bore only one fruit\n    There is no salt to eat with it\n    You better not cry, but sleep, sleep)\n\n\n    Vandur\u00f4 indagana amb\u00ea liyannan\n    Vendiri indagana h\u00e2l garannan\n    Petiy\u00f4 indagana sindu kiyannan\n    Tala kola pettiya, gang\u00ea duvannan.\n\n    (The monkeys are engaged in cutting up a mango\n    Their mates are engaged in washing the rice\n    Their young ones are engaged in singing songs.\n    The palm leaf box is drifting in the river.)\n\n\nThe following is a specimen of a love song.\n\n\n    \"Galaknan peleyi mata vedunu gindar\u00ea\n    Vilaknan pireyi net kandulu enaser\u00ea\n    Malak vat pudami numba namata rubar\u00ea\n    Tikakkat nedda matatibunu \u00e2dar\u00ea.\n\n    (If I were a stone my passion's heat would have split me.\n    If I were a pond my weeping tears would have filled me.\n    O my darling, I shall offer a flower to your memory.\n    Is there nothing left of your old love for me).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nPROVERBS, RIDDLES AND LOCAL SAYINGS.\n\n\nA proverbial saying is said to state a fact or express a thought in\nvivid metaphor while a riddle to describe a person or thing in obscure\nmetaphor calculated as a test of intellectual ability in the person\nattempting to solve it.\n\nProverbial sayings are divided, according to their form into direct\nstatements and metaphorical statements.\n\nThe following are examples of direct statements:--\n\nThe quarrel between the husband and the wife lasts only till the pot\nof rice is cooked.\n\nA lie is short lived.\n\nOne individual can ruin a whole community.\n\nWhat is the use of relations who do not help you when your door\nis broken.\n\nPoverty is lighter than cotton.\n\nMetaphorical statements are more numerous and are best considered\naccording to the matter involved such as honesty, thrift, folly,\nknavery, natural disposition, ingratitude, luck, hypocrisy; and the\nfollowing are some typical examples:--\n\nWhen the king takes the wife to whom is the poor man to complain.\n\nYou may escape from the god Saman Deviyo but you cannot escape his\nservant Amangall\u00e2.\n\nThere is certain to be a hailstorm when the unlucky man gets his\nhead shaved.\n\nThe teeth of the dog that barks at the lucky man will fall out.\n\nOn a lucky day you can catch fish with twine; but on an unlucky day\nthe fish will break even chains of iron.\n\nThe water in an unfilled pot makes a noise.\n\nYou call a kabaragoy\u00e2 a talagoya when you want to eat it.\n\nIt is like wearing a crupper to cure dysentery.\n\nLike the man who got the roasted jak seeds out of the fire by the\nhelp of a cat.\n\nLike the man who would not wash his body to spite the river.\n\nLike the man who flogged the elk skin at home to avenge himself on\nthe deer that trespassed in his field.\n\nLike the villagers who tied up the mortars in the village in the\nbelief that the elephant tracks in the fields were caused by the\nmortars wandering about at night.\n\nThough a dog barks at a hill will it grow less.\n\nIt is like licking your finger on seeing a beehive on a tree.\n\nIt is not possible to make a charcoal white by washing it in milk.\n\nThe cobra will bite you whether you call it cobra or Mr. Cobra.\n\nRiddles are either in prose or verse.\n\nAs examples of prose riddles the following may be mentioned:--\n\nWhat is it that cries on this bank, but drops its dung on the other\n(megoda andalayi egoda betilayi)--A gun.\n\nWhat is the tree by the door that has 20 branches and 20 bark\nstrips; twenty knocks on the head of the person who fails to solve\nit. (dorakadagahe atuvissayi potu vissayi net\u00earuvot toku vissayi)--10\nfingers and 10 toes.\n\nWhat is it that is done without intermission (nohita karana ved\u00ea)--the\ntwinkling of the eye.\n\nThe following are examples of verse riddles.\n\n\nThe Eye--\n\n    \"Ihala gob\u00ea pansiyayak pancha n\u00e2da karan\u00e2\n    Pahala gob\u00ea pansiyayak pancha n\u00e2da karan\u00e2\n    Emeda devi ruva eti lamayek inda kelin\u00e2\n    Met\u00fbn pad\u00ea t\u00earuvot Buduvenav\u00e2.\"\n\n    (On the upper shoot there are 500 songsters\n    On the lower shoot there are 500 songsters\n    Between them is an infant of divine beauty.\n    If one can solve this he will become a Buddha).\n\n\nThe Cobra.\n\n    Vel vel diga eti\n    Mal mal ruva eti\n    R\u00e2ja vansa eti\n    K\u00eavot pana neti.\n\n    (Long like a creeper\n    Beautiful like a flower\n    Of royal caste\n    With a deadly bite).\n\n\nThe Pine Apple.\n\n    Katuv\u00e2nen ketuv\u00e2nen kol\u00ea seti\n    Ratu n\u00fblen getuv\u00e2veni mal\u00ea seti\n    Tun masa giya kalata kukulek seti\n    Metun pad\u00ea t\u00earu aya ratak vat\u00ee\n\n    (The leaf is beautifully encased\n    The flower is worked with red thread\n    And this becomes like a chicken in three months\n    The one who can solve this deserves a country.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nGLOSSARY OF SINHALESE FOLK TERMS APPEARING IN THE SERVICE TENURE\nREGISTER (1872.)\n\n\n\nA\n\nABARANA: Insignia of a Deviyo; vessels of gold and silver, etc.,\nin a Dewala.\n\nADAPPAYA: Headman amongst the Moors; a term of respect used in\naddressing an elder.\n\nADHAHANA-MALUWA: A place of cremation; especially the place where\nthe bodies of the kings of Kandy were burnt and where their ashes\nwere buried.\n\nADIKARAMA: An officer of the Kataragama Dewala next in rank to the\nBasnayake Nilame.\n\nADIPALLA OR WARUPALLA: The lower layers of the stacked paddy on the\nthreshing floor allowed to the watcher as a perquisite.\n\nADUKKU: Cooked provisions given to headmen or persons of rank.\n\nADUKKU-WALANKADA: A pingo of earthenware vessels for cooking or\ncarrying food for headmen, etc.\n\nAGAS: First-fruits; ears of paddy cut as alut-sal, i.e., for the\nthanksgiving at the harvest home.\n\nAHARA-PUJAWA: The daily offering of food in a Vihare; before noon\nthe mid-day meal is carried to the Vihare, and placed in front of\nthe image of Buddha; it is then removed to the refectory or pansala,\nwhere it is consumed by the priests or by the servitors.\n\nAHAS-KAMBE: The tight-rope (literally air-rope) used for rope-dancing\nwhich is a service of certain tenants of the Badulla Dewale.\n\nAKYALA: Contribution of rice or paddy on the occasion of a procession\nat a Dewala; first fruits offered for protection of the crop by\nthe Deviyo.\n\nALATTIBEMA: A ceremony performed at the door of the sanctuary in a\nDewale; the waving to and fro of an oil lamp by females, who repeat\nthe while in an undertone the word ayu-bowa, long life (lit. may your\nyears increase).\n\nALGA-RAJAKARIYA: Service at the loom.\n\nALAGU: A mark to assist the memory in calculation (Clough); a tally,\ne. g. in counting cocoanuts one is generally put aside out of each 100;\nthose thus put aside are called alagu.\n\nALIANDURA: The morning music at a temple.\n\nALLASA: A present, a bribe, a fee paid on obtaining a maruwena-panguwa.\n\nALUT-AWRUDU-MANGALYAYA: Festival of the Sinhalese new year; it falls\nin the early part of April.\n\nALUT-SAL-MANGALYAYA: The festival of the first fruits; the harvest\nhome.\n\nALWALA-REDDA: A cloth fresh from the loom.\n\nAMARAGE OR AMBARAGE: Covered walk or passage between a Dewala and\nthe Wahalkada or porch.\n\nAMUNA: A dam or anicut across a stream; a measure of dry grain equal\nto about 4-1/2 bushels, sometimes 5 bushels.\n\nANAMESTRAYA: A shed in which to keep lights during festivals. In\nsome temples these sheds are built permanently all round the widiya\nor outer court; in others they were mere temporary structures to\nprotect the lights from wind and rain.\n\nANDE: Ground share given to a proprietor.\n\nANDU-GIRAKETTA: An arecanut-cutter of the shape of a pair of pincers;\nit forms the penuma or annual offering of the blacksmiths to their\nlord.\n\nANKELIYA: The ceremony of pulling horns or forked sticks to propitiate\nPattini-deviyo in times of epidemics; according to ancient legends,\nit was a pastime at which the Deviyo and her husband Palanga took\nsides. They are said to have emulated each other in picking flowers\nwith the forked sticks the husband standing at the top and the wife\nat the foot of a tree. The ankeliya as its name imports partakes more\nof the nature of a village sport than of a religious ceremony. There\nare two sides engaged, called the uda and yati-pil. It is conducted\nin a central spot in the midst of a group of villages set apart for\nthe particular purpose, called anpitiya, and commenced on a lucky\nday after the usual invocation by the Kapurala, who brings with\nhim to the spot the Halan a kind of bracelet the insignia of the\nDeviyo. The two Pil select each its own horn or forked stick; the\nhorns or sticks are then entwined--one is tied to a stake or tree,\nand the other is tied to a rope, which is pulled by the two parties\ntill one or other of the horns or sticks breaks. The Pila which owns\nthe broken horn is considered to have lost, and has to undergo the\njeers and derision of the winning party. If the Yatipila which is\npatronized by the Deviyo (Pattini) wins, it is regarded as a good\nomen for the removal or subsidence of the epidemic. The ceremony\ncloses with a triumphal procession to the nearest Dewale. A family\nbelongs hereditarily to one or the other of the two Pil.\n\nANPITIYA: The spot or place where the above ceremony is performed.\n\nANUMETIRALA: A respectful term for a Kapurala, one through whom the\npleasure of the Deviyo is known.\n\nANUNAYAKA UNNANSE: A priest next in rank to a Maha-Nayaka or chief\npriest, the sub-prior of a monastery.\n\nAPPALLAYA: The earthen ware vessel flatter than an atale, q. v.\n\nARALU: Gall-nuts.\n\nARAMUDALA: Treasury, or the contents of a treasury; the reserve fund.\n\nARANGUWA: An ornamental arch decorated with flowers or tender leaves\nof the cocoanut tree.\n\nARA-SALAWA OR BOJANASALAWA: Refectory.\n\nARRIKALA: One-eighth portion.\n\nASANA-REDI: Coverings of an asanaya; altar cloth.\n\nASANAYA: Throne, altar, seat of honor.\n\nATALE: A small earthenware-pot usually used in bathing.\n\nATPANDAMA: A light carried in the hand, formed generally of a brass\ncup at the end of a stick about two feet long. The cup is filled with\ntow and oil.\n\nATAPATTU-WASAMA: The messenger class. A holding held by the atapattu\npeople. The service due from this class is the carrying of messages,\nkeeping guard over treasure or a temple or chief's house, and\ncarrying in procession state umbrellas, swords of office etc.,\nwatching threshing floors and accompanying the proprietor on journeys.\n\nATAPATTU MOHOTTALA: Writer over the messenger class.\n\nATAWAKA: The eighth day before and after the full moon. The first is\ncalled Pura-atavaka and the second Ava-atavaka.\n\nATTANAYAKARALA: Custodian; storekeeper; overseer corresponding in\nrank to Wannakurala, q.v.\n\nATUGE: A temporary shed or outhouse for a privy.\n\nATUPANDALAYA: A temporary shed or booth made of leaves and branches.\n\nATUWA: Granary.\n\nAWALIYA: The same as Hunduwa or Perawa, which is one-fourth of a seer.\n\nAWATEWAKIRIMA: Ministration; Daily service at a Dewala.\n\nAWATTA: An ornamental talipot used as an umbrella.\n\nAWULPAT: Sweetmeats taken at the end of a meal.\n\nAWRUDU-PANTIYA: New year festival, a term in use in the Kurunegala\nDistrict.\n\nAWRUDU-WATTORUWA: A chit given by the astrologer shewing the hour\nwhen the new year commences, and its prognostics.\n\nAYUBOWA: \"Live for years\", a word used by way of chorus to recitals\nat Bali ceremonies.\n\n\n\nB\n\nBADAHELA-PANGUWA: The tenement of land held by a potter. His service\nconsists of supplying a proprietor with all the requisite earthenware\nfor his house and bath, and his lodgings on journeys, for his\nmuttettuwa, for cooking, and for soaking seed paddy, for festivals,\nYak and Bali ceremonies, weddings, etc. The supplying of tiles and\nbricks and keeping the roof of tiled houses waterproof, giving penum\nwalan to tenants for the penumkat, and making clay lamps, and kalas\nfor temples. The potter also makes a present of chatties as his penum\nto proprietor and petty officers. When the quantity of bricks and\ntiles to be supplied is large, the proprietor finds the kiln, shed,\nclay and firewood. Kumbala is another name by which a potter is known.\n\nBADAL-PANGUWA: The holding held by smiths, called likewise\nNawan-panguwa. Under the general term are included: Achari\n(blacksmiths), Lokuruwo (braziers) and Badallu (silver or gold\nsmiths). The blacksmith supplies nails for roofing houses, hinges,\nlocks, and keys for doors, all kitchen utensils, agricultural\nimplements, and tools for felling and converting timber. His penuma\nconsists of arecanut cutters, chunam boxes, ear and tooth picks, at\nthe forge he is given the services of a tenant to blow the bellows,\nand when employed out of his house he is given his food. The Lokuruwa\nmends all brass and copper-vessels of a temple, and generally takes\npart in the service of the other smiths. The silver and goldsmiths work\nfor the proprietor in their special craft when wanted, and in temples\nmend and polish all the sacred vessels, do engraving and carving work,\ndecorate the Rate (car of the deviyo) and remain on guard there during\nthe Perahera, attend at the Kaphitawima, and supply the silver rim\nfor the Ehala-gaha. The goldsmiths present penum of silver rings,\ncarved betel boxes, ornamental arrow-heads, etc. The smith tenant\nalso attends and assists at the smelting of iron. In consideration\nof the value of the service of a smith, he generally holds a large\nextent of fertile land.\n\nBAGE: A division; a term used in Sabaragamuwa for a number of villages\nof a Dewala in charge of a Vidane.\n\nBAKMASA: The first month of the Sinhalese year (April-May).\n\nBALIBAT NETIMA: A devil-dance performed for five days after the\nclose of the Perahera by a class of persons superior to the ordinary\nyakdesso (devil dancers) and called Balibat Gammehela, supposed to\nbe descendants of emigrants from the Coast.\n\nBALI-EDURO: The persons who make the clay images for, and dance\nat, a Bali-maduwa which is a ceremony performed to propitiate the\nplanets. The performance of Bali ceremonies is one of the principal\nservices of tenants of the tom-tom beater caste.\n\nBALI-EMBIMA: The making of images for a Bali ceremony.\n\nBALI-ERIMA: The performance of the above ceremony. Note the peculiar\nexpression Bali arinawa not Karanawa.\n\nBALI-KATIRA: Sticks or supports against which the images at a Bali\nceremony are placed.\n\nBALI-TIYANNO: Same as Bali-eduro.\n\nBAMBA-NETIMA: In the processions at a Diya-kepima there is carried a\nwickerwork frame made to represent a giant (some say Brahma); a man\nwalks inside this frame and carries it along exactly in the same way\nas \"Jack-in-the green.\" The service of carrying it in procession is\ncalled Bambanetima.\n\nBAMBARA-PENI: Honey of one of the large bees. A pingo of this honey\nis given to the proprietor of the lands in which it is collected.\n\nBANA-MADUWA: A large temporary shed put up for reading Bana during\nWaskalaya, q. v.\n\nBANA-SALAWA: A permanent edifice attached to a wihare for reading Bana.\n\nBANDARA: Belonging to the palace. It is now used of any proprietor,\nwhether lay or clerical, e. g., Bandara-atuwa means the proprietor's\ngranary.\n\nBANKALA WIYANA: A decorated cloth or curtain, so called, it is\nsupposed, from being imported from Bengal.\n\nBARAKOLAN: Large masks representing Kataragama Deviyo, used in dancing\nat the Dewala Perehara.\n\nBARAPEN: Remuneration given to copyists. Hire given for important\nservices, as the building of wihares, making of images, etc.\n\nBASNAYAKE NILAME: The lay chief or principal officer of a Dewale.\n\nBATAKOLA: The leaves of a small species of bamboo used for thatching\nbuildings.\n\nBATGOTUWA: Boiled rice served out or wrapped up in a leaf. Boiled\nrice offered up at a Yak or Bali ceremony.\n\nBATTANARALA: The Kapurala who offers the multen (food offering).\n\nBATWADANARALA: The same as Battanarala.\n\nBATWALANDA: Earthenware vessel for boiling rice in. It is as large\nas a common pot but with a wider mouth.\n\nBATWALAN-HAKURU: Large cakes of jaggery of the shape of a \"Batwalanda\"\ngenerally made in Sabaragamuwa.\n\nBATWEDA: Work not done for hire, but for which the workmen receive\nfood.\n\nBATWI: Paddy given by the proprietor as sustenance to a cultivator\nin lieu of food given during work.\n\nBEMMA: A Wall, a bank, a bund.\n\nBEHET-DIYA: A lotion made of lime juice and other acids mixed with\nperfumes for use at the Nanumura mangalyaya, when the priest washes\nthe sacred reflection of the head of Buddha in a mirror held in front\nof the image for the purpose.\n\nBETMERALA: The officer in charge of a number of villages belonging\nto a temple, corresponding to a Vidane, q.v.\n\nBIN-ANDE: Ground share; Ground rent.\n\nBINARAMASA: The sixth month of the Sinhalese year (September-October).\n\nBINNEGUNWI: Paddy given as sustenance during ploughing time.\n\nBISOKAPA: See Ehelagaha. It is a term in use in the Kabulumulle\nPattini Dewale in Hatara Korale.\n\nBISSA: A term in use in the Kegalle District for a granary round in\nshape, and of wickerwork daubed with mud.\n\nBINTARAM-OTU: Tax or payment in kind, being a quantity of paddy,\nequal to the full extent sown, as distinguished from half and other\nproportionate parts of the sowing extent levied from unfertile\nfields. Thus in an amuna of land the bintaram-otu is one amuna paddy.\n\nBODHIMALUWA: The Court round a bo-tree, called also Bomeda.\n\nBOJANA-SALAWA: The same as arasalava.\n\nBOLPEN: Water used at a temple for purposes of purification.\n\nBULAT-ATA: A roll of betel consisting of 40 leaves forming the common\npenuma to a proprietor at the annual festival corresponding to the\nold English rent day. It is a mark of submission and respect, and is\ntherefore greatly valued.\n\nBULAT-HURULLA: A fee given to a chief or proprietor placed on a roll\nof betel. The fee given annually for a Maruvena panguwa.\n\nBULU: One of the three myrobalans (Clough).\n\n\n\nC\n\nCHAMARAYA: A fly-flapper, a yak's tail fixed to a silver or other\nhandle, used to keep flies off the insignia of a deviyo or persons\nof distinction.\n\n\n\nD\n\nDADAKUDAMAS: A compound word for meat and fish.\n\nDAGOBE OR DAGEBA: Lit. Relic chamber. A Buddhist mound or stupa of\nearth or brick sometimes faced with stone, containing generally a\nchamber in which is preserved a casket of relics.\n\nDALUMURE: A turn to supply betel for a temple or proprietor.\n\nDALUMURA-PANGUWA: The holding of tenants, whose special service is that\nof supplying weekly or fortnightly, and at the festivals, a certain\nquantity of betel leaves for the \"dalumura-tewawa\" immediately after\nthe multen or \"ahara-pujawa\" and for the consumption by the officers\nor priests on duty. This service was one of great importance at the\nCourt of the King, who had plantations of betel in different parts of\nthe country, with a staff of officers, gardeners, and carriers. At\npresent the tenants of this class in Ninda villages supply betel\nto the proprietor for consumption at his house and on journeys. In\nsome service villages the betel is to be accompanied with a quantity\nof arecanuts.\n\nDALUPATHKARAYA: A sub-tenant; a garden tenant; one who has\nasweddumised land belonging to a mulpangukaraya. In some Districts\nthe dalupathkaraya is called pelkaraya.\n\nDAMBU: Tow; rags for lights. The supplying of dambu at festivals in\na temple or for a Bali ceremony at a chief's house forms one of the\nprincipal services of a dhobi.\n\nDAN-ADUKKUWA: Food given by a tenant of a vihare land to the incumbent\nas distinguished from \"dane\" given to any priest for the sake of merit.\n\nDANDUMADUWA: A timber-shed; a timber room. Every temple establishment\nhas an open long shed for timber and building materials etc., and\nits upkeep forms one of the duties of the tenants.\n\nDANE: Food given to priests for merit; alms: charity.\n\nDANGE: Kitchen of a Pansale.\n\nDANKADA: Pingo of food given to a priest.\n\nDARADIYARA: Fuel and water the supplying of which forms the service\nof the Uliyakkarawasam tenants.\n\nDASILIKAMA: An assistant to a Lekama or writer. The term is peculiar\nto Sabaragamuwa.\n\nDAWULA: The common drum.\n\nDAWULKARAYA: A tenant of the tom-tom beater caste, playing on a dawula\nat the daily service of a Vihare or a Dewale, and at the festivals.\n\nDAWUL-PANGUWA: The tenement held by tenants of the tom-tom beater\ncaste. In temples their service comes under the kind called the\nPita-kattale (out-door-service). At the daily tewawa, at festivals,\nat pinkam, and on journeys of the incumbent, they beat the hewisi\n(tom-toms). On their turn of duty in a temple, they have to watch\nthe temple and its property, to sweep and clean the premises, to\ngather flowers for offerings, and to fetch bolpen (water for temple\nuse). The services of a Hewisikaraya are required by a lay proprietor\nonly occasionally for weddings, funerals, yak and bali ceremonies,\nand on state occasions. This class of persons is employed in weaving\ncloth, and their penuma consists of a taduppu cloth or lensuwa. In\nall respects the services of the Dawulkarayo resemble those of\nthe Tammattankarayo, a portion of the same caste, but who beat the\nTammattama instead of the Dawula.\n\nDEHAT-ATA: A roll of betel leaves given to a priest. A respectful\nterm for a quid of betel.\n\nDEHET-GOTUWA: Betel wrapped up in the leaf of some tree.\n\nDEKUMA: A present given to a chief or incumbent of a temple by a\ntenant when he makes his appearance annually or oftener, and consists\nof either money, or sweetmeats, or cloth, or arecanut-cutters, etc.,\naccording to the tenants trade or profession or according to his caste.\n\nDELIPIHIYA: A razor. One of the \"atapirikara\" or eight priestly\nrequisites viz., three robes an almsbowl, a needle case, a razor, a,\ngirdle, and a filter.\n\nDEPOYA: The poya at full moon.\n\nDEWALAYA: A temple dedicated to some Hindu Deviyo or local\ndivinity. The four principal dewala are those dedicated to Vishnu,\nKataragama, Nata and Pattini Daviyo. There are others belonging to\ntutelary deities, such as the Maha Saman Dewalaya in Sabaragamuwa\nbelonging to Saman Dewiyo the tutelary deviyo of Siripade, Alutunwara\nDewale in the Kegalle District to Dedimundi-dewata-ban-dara, prime\nminister of Vishnu etc.\n\nDEWA-MANDIRAYA: Term in Sabaragamuwa for the \"Maligawa\" or sanctuary\nof a Dewale.\n\nDEWA-RUPAYA: The image of a Deviyo.\n\nDEWOL OR DEWOL-YAKUN: Foreign devils said to have come from beyond\nthe seas and who according to tradition landed at the seaside village\ncalled Dewundare near Matara and proceeded thence to Sinigama near\nHikkaduwa. Pilgrims resort to either place and perform there the vows\nmade by them in times of sickness and distress.\n\nDIGGE: The porch of a Dewalaya. It is a building forming the\nante-chamber to the Maligawa or sanctuary where the daily hewisi is\nperformed and to which alone worshippers have access. It is a long\nhall, as its name signifies, and it is there that the dance of the\nwomen at festivals, called Digge-netima, takes place.\n\nDISSAWA: The ruler of a Province.\n\nDIWA-NILAME: Principal lay officer of the Dalada-maligawa. The term\nis supposed to have had its origin from the highest dignitary in the\nkingdom holding amongst other functions the office of watering the\nSrimahabodinvahanse or sacred Bo-tree in Anuradhapura,\n\nDIWEL: Hire or remuneration for service.\n\nDIYAGE: A bath room. The putting up of temporary sheds, or the upkeep\nof permanent structures as well as supplying water, forms part of\nthe menial services of the Uliamwasam tenants.\n\nDIYA-KACHCHIYA: Coarse cloth bathing dress which it is the duty\nof the dhobi to supply at the bath. It is also called Diyaredi or\nDiyapiruwata.\n\nDIYAKEPUMA: The ceremony of cutting water with golden swords by the\nKapurala of the Dewale at the customary ford or pond at the close of\nthe Perehera in July or August.\n\nDIYATOTA: The ford or ferry where the above ceremony is performed.\n\nDOLAWA: A palanquin.\n\nDOTALU-MAL: The flowers of the dotalu-tree, a small species of the\narecanut-tree used in decorations.\n\nDUMMALA: Powdered resin used at a yak or bali ceremony to give\nbrilliancy to the light.\n\nDUNUKARAWASAMA: The military class. Literally, archers. The lands\nforming the holding of the Dunukarawasam tenants. Their chief services\nat present are the carrying of letters and messages, keeping guard at\nthe Walauwe (house) of the proprietor, watching the threshing floor,\nfetching buffaloes for work and accompanying the proprietor on journeys\nof state bearing the mura awudaya (lance).\n\nDUNUMALE-PENUMA: The penuma (present) given in the mouth of Nawan\n(February) by tenants to the high priest of the Sripadastane (Adam's\nPeak) so called after an incumbent of that name.\n\nDURUTUMASE: The tenth month of the Sinhalese year (January-February).\n\nDUREYA: A headman of the Wahumpura Badde or Paduwa caste. Also a\ngeneral name for a palanquin bearer.\n\nDURAWASAMA: The office of Dureya or headman of the Durayi. The\ntenement of land held by their class. Their services resemble those\nof the Ganwasama the difference being that instead of cooked they\ngive uncooked provisions, and vegetables or raw provisions instead\nof sweet-meats for the penuma to the landlord.\n\n\n\nE\n\nEBITTAYA: A Boy. A priest's servant.\n\nEDANDA: A plank or trunk thrown across a stream. A log bridge.\n\nEHELA-GAHA: A post or tree set up at a Dawale at a lucky hour in\nthe month of Ehela as a preliminary to the Perahera. Compare the\nEnglish May-pole.\n\nEHELA-PEREHARA: Vide Perahera.\n\nELAWALUKADA: A pingo of vegetables, which is the penuma given to\nproprietors by the tenants of the lower castes.\n\nELWI: A kind of paddy grown on all hill sides under dry cultivation.\n\nEMBETTAYA: A barber.\n\nEMBULKETTA: A kitchen knife. It is the penuma given by blacksmith\ntenants.\n\nETIRILLA: Cloth spread on chairs or other seats out of respect to a\nguest or headman. (Clough) It is the service of a dhobi tenant.\n\nETULKATTALAYA: The inner room or sanctuary of a Dewale, called\nalso the Maligawa and Dewamandiraya. The term is also applied to\nall the officers having duties in the sanctuary, such as Kapurala,\nBatwadanarala, Wattorurala, etc.\n\n\n\nG\n\nGAHONI: Ornamental covers made of cloth to throw over penuma.\n\nGALBEMMA: Stone-wall. Rampart.\n\nGAL-LADDA: A smith. A stonemason.\n\nGAL-ORUWA: A stone trough for water, called also Katharama.\n\nGAMANMURE: A turn of attendance at festivals, which in the of case\ntenants living in remote villages is frequently commuted for a\nfee. Hence the term.\n\nGAMARALA: The headman of a village, generally an hereditary office\nin the family of the principal tenant.\n\nGAMMADUWA-DA: The day of an almsgiving at a Dewale to conciliate the\nDeviyo in times of sickness.\n\nGAMMIRIS: Pepper corn.\n\nGANWASAMA: Sometimes written Gammasama. The tenement held by a\nGanwasama, the superior class of tenants in a village. Their panguwa\nsupplies the proprietor with persons eligible for appointment\nto the subordinate offices in a village such as Vidane, Lekama,\nand Kankanama. The Ganwasama people are often of the same social\nstanding as the proprietor and sometimes are related to him. They\nare generally the wealthiest people in the village and hold the most\nfertile lands. Consequently they have to make heavy contributions\nin the shape of adukku and pehidum to the proprietor and his retinue\non his periodical visits, to his officers coming on duty and to his\nmessengers dispatched with orders to tenants. They also have to give\nthe Mahakat monthly, the Penumkat at festivals, and Dankat during Was,\nand to feed the workmen in the Muttettuwa and officers superintending\nthe work. In the same manner as the Uliyam-wasama has to provide all\nthe ordinary labour in a village so the Ganwasama has to provide all\nthat is required for strangers visiting the village and generally to\ndischarge the duties of hospitality for which the Kandyan villages\nare celebrated. This entails upon the Ganwasama the necessity of\nsetting apart a place called the Idange for lodging strangers. The\nwhole charge of the Muttettu work devolves on the Ganwasama which also\nhas to superintend and assist in building work at the proprietor's\nhouse attend, at his house on festive and other occasions in times\nof sickness and at funerals bringing penumkat and provisions. A\nGanwasama tenant has to accompany the proprietor on his journeys\non public occasions, and to guard his house in his absence. A woman\nof the panguwa has likewise to wait on the lady of the house and to\naccompany her on journeys. The Ganwasama takes the lead in the annual\npresentation of the tenants before the proprietor. In temple villages,\nin addition to the above services performed to the lay chief, the\nGanwasama has to superintend and take part in the preparations for,\nand celebration of, the festivals.\n\nGANGATAYA: The leg of an animal killed in the chase given to the\nproprietor of the land. Sometimes more than one leg is given.\n\nGANLADDA: An owner of land. Sometimes applied to small proprietors, and\nsometimes to proprietors of inferior castes, e. g., the proprietors of\nthe village Kotaketana (smiths and wood-carvers) are always so styled.\n\nGANMURE: Watching at a temple, or the period of service there taken\nin turns by villages.\n\nGANNILE: The service field in a village held by the Gammahe or the\nvillage headman for the time being. Field held by a small proprietor\nand cultivated for him by his tenants.\n\nGANPANDURA: Tribute for land. Ground rent.\n\nGAN-PAYINDAKARAYA: A messenger under an inferior headman.\n\nGARA-YAKUMA: A devil dance performed in some districts at the close\nof important undertakings such as construction of buildings at the\nclose of the Perehera for the elephants, etc.\n\nGEBARALA: A storekeeper whose duty it is to measure the paddy, rice,\noil etc., received into and issued out of a temple gabadawa (store).\n\nGEWATU-PANAMA: Payment for gardens. Garden rent, as the name implies,\noriginally a fanam.\n\nGIKIYANA-PANGUWA: Tenement held by tenants whose service consists\nin singing at Dewale on \"Kenmura\" days and on festivals, and in the\nperformance of the Digge-netima, which latter is a service performed by\nwomen. The songs generally relate to the exploits of the Dewiyo. The\nmen sing and play on cymbals, drums, etc., and the women dance. The\nordinary tom-tom-beater is not allowed to play for dancers of this\nclass, which is supposed to be of Tamil origin.\n\nGILANPASA: The evening meal of Buddhists priests restricted to\ndrinkables, as tea, coffee, etc. solid food is prohibited after\nnoon-day.\n\nGODA-OTU: Literally, tax on high lands. Tax on chenas.\n\nGODAPADDA: A messenger under a headman of the low-castes. The term\nis in use in the Matale Districts.\n\nGORAKA: The fruit of the gamboge tree dried. It imparts to food a\ndelicate acid, and is chiefly used in seasoning fish.\n\nGOYIGANAWA: Smoothing the bed of a field, being the last process\npreparatory to sowing.\n\nGURULETTUWA: A goglet.\n\n\n\nH\n\nHAKDURE: A service of blowing the conch-shell or horn in the daily\nservice of a Dewalaya.\n\nHAKGEDIYA: A chank. A conch-shell.\n\nHAKPALIHA: The carrying of the conch-shell and shield in procession\nwhich forms one of the services of the tenants of temple villages.\n\nHAKURU-ESSA: A cake of jaggery. Half a \"mula\" (packet).\n\nHAKURUKETAYA: A ball of jaggery. It is of no definite size.\n\nHAKURUMULA: A packet of two cakes of jaggery.\n\nHAKURUPATTAYA: Balls of jaggery wrapped up in the sheath of the branch\nof an arecanut tree.\n\nHALUPAINDAYA: Officer in charge of the sacred vestments of a Dewale.\n\nHAMBA: Paddy belonging to a temple of the king.\n\nHAMBA-ATUWA: The granary belonging to a temple or the king.\n\nHAMUDA-WALE-MURAYA: The mura by tenants of Pidawiligam under the\nDalada Maligawa.\n\nHANGIDIYA: A head-smith.\n\nHANGALA: The piru-wataya (lent-cloth) given by dhobies to Kapuwo\nand Yakdesso.\n\nHANNALIYA: A tailor; large Dewala and Wihara establishments have\ntenants to sew and stitch the sacred vestments, curtains, flags,\netc., and to assist in decorating the car.\n\nHARASKADAYA: A cross stick in an arch, supplied by tenants for\ndecorations at festivals.\n\nHATMALUWA: A curry made of seven kinds of vegetables and offered with\nrice at a Bali ceremony.\n\nHATTIYA: A hat shaped talipot carried on journeys by female attendants\nof ladies, answering the double purpose of a hat and an umbrella.\n\nHAYA-PEHINDUMA: Provisions given to a temple or person of rank,\nconsisting of six neli (seru) of rice and condiments in proportion.\n\nHELAYA: A piece of cloth of twelve cubits.\n\nHELIYA: A large round vessel with a wide mouth for boiling rice,\npaddy, etc.\n\nHEMA-KADA: Food offering in a Dewala similar to the Ahara-pujawa at a\nVihare. It is carried by the proper Kapurala, called Kattiyana-rala,\npingo-fashion, and delivered at the door of the sanctuary to the\nofficiating Kapurala.\n\nHENDA-DURE: The evening hewisi (music) at a Dewale.\n\nHENDUWA: Elephant-goad.\n\nHEPPUWA: A box, a basket. The term is in use in the Kegalle District\nin connection with a penuma of sweetmeats called Kevili-heppuwa just\nas in other Districts it is called Kevili-pettiya.\n\nHEWAMUDALA: Payment in lieu of the services of a tenant of the Hewasam\nor military class.\n\nHEWAWASAMA: The tenement held by the Hewawasama. The military\nclass. Their services at present are those of the Atapattuwasama\nand consist in carrying messages and letters etc., accompanying the\nproprietor on journeys, carrying his umbrella or talipot and keeping\nguard at halting places attending to the service of betel, guarding the\nproprietor's house, watching threshing floors, attending at funerals\nand setting fire to the pyre. They present a penuma of sweetmeats and\nreceive as funeral prerequisites a suit of clothes. Persons of their\nwasama, as those of the Ganwasama, are chosen for subordinate offices.\n\nHEVENPEDURA: A mat made of a kind of rush.\n\nHEWISI-MANDAPPAYA: The court where the Hewisi (music) is performed\nin a Vihare corresponding to the Digge in a Dewale.\n\nHILDANE: The early morning meal of Buddhist priests, generally of\nrice-gruel.\n\nHILEKAN: Registers of fields.\n\nHIMILA: Money given by a proprietor as hire for buffaloes employed\nin ploughing and threshing crops.\n\nHIRAMANAYA: A cocoanut scraper. It is an article of penuma with\nblacksmith tenants.\n\nHIROHI-NETIMA: Called also Niroginetima. It is a dance at the\nprocession returning from the Diyakepima of the Saragune Dewale in\nthe Badulla District.\n\nHITIMURAYA: The turn for being on guard at a temple or a chief's\nhouse. It consists generally of fifteen days at a time, nights\nincluded. The tenant both on entering upon and on leaving his muraya,\nappears before the incumbent or chief with the penuma of a roll of\nbetel, and when on mure has the charge of the place and its property,\nclears and sweeps the premises, attends to ordinary repairs, fetches\nflowers in temples and goes on messages. He receives food from\nthe temple.\n\nHIWEL: Coulters, the providing of which forms one of the services of\na blacksmith tenant.\n\nHIWEL-ANDE: Cultivators' share of the produce of a field being half of\nthe crop after deducting the various payments called \"Waraweri\" which\nare (1) Bittara-wi (seed-padi), as much as had been sown and half as\nmuch as interest; (2) Deyyanne-wi, 4 or 5 laha of paddy set apart for\nthe Dewiyo, or boiled into rice and distributed in alms to the poor;\n(3) Adipalla, the lower layers of the stacked paddy; (4) Peldora,\nthe ears of com round the watchhut which together with Adipalla are\nthe watcher's prerequisites (5) Yakunewi, paddy set apart for a devil\nceremony. Besides the above, \"Akyala\" (first-fruits) is offered to\nthe Deviyo for special protection to the crop from vermin, flies, etc.\n\nHULAWALIYA: The headman of the Rodi. The Rodi tenants are very few in\nnumber and are found in but very few villages. They supply prepared\nleather for drums and ropes of hide halters, thongs and cords for\ncattle and bury carcases of dead animals found on the estate to which\nthey belong.\n\n\n\nI\n\nIDANGE OR IDAMA: The principal building where visitors of rank are\nlodged in a village.\n\nIDINNA: Called also Usna. A smith's forge.\n\nILLATTATTUWA: A betel-tray. The penuma given by a tenant engaged in\ncarpentry or by a carver in wood.\n\nILMASA: The eighth month of the Sinhalese year (Nov. Dec.)\n\nIRATTUWA: A word of Tamil extraction and applied to a kind of native\ncloth originally made by the Mahabadde people and at present by the\ntom-tom beater caste.\n\nIRILENSUWA: A striped handkerchief given as a penuma by tenants of\nthe tom-tom beater caste.\n\nISSARA: The individual share or strip of land in a range of fields\ncultivated by the shareholders in common.\n\nITIPANDAMA: A wax candle.\n\nITIWADALA: A lump of wax. In the honey-producing jungle districts\nas Nuwarakalawiya, Matale North etc., honey and itiwadal are dues to\nwhich a proprietor is entitled.\n\n\n\nJ\n\nJAMMAKKARAYA: A low-caste man. This is the sense in which the word\nis at present used in the Kandyan country but is proper meaning is\na man of caste--of good birth.\n\n\n\nK\n\nKADA: A load divided into two portions of equal weight and tied to\nthe two ends of a pole, which is balanced on the shoulder, called in\nCeylon a \"pingo\" and in India a \"bhangy.\"\n\nKADAKETTA: a razor.\n\nKADAPAIYA: A long bag or purse called also Olonguwa.\n\nKADA-RAJAKARIYA: A pingo-load of village supplies given to the king by\nthe Ganwasam. The Gamarala had to deliver it in person in Kandy. The\nchiefs, lands exempted from tax for loyalty to the British Government\nwere not relieved of the pingo duty. (See proclamation of 21st November\n1818, Clause 22).\n\nKAHADIYARA: Sprinkling water used by a Kapurala in ceremonies.\n\nKAHAMIRIS: Saffron and chillies.\n\nKAHATAPOTU: Bark of the saffron tree used in dyeing priests' robes.\n\nKALAGEDIYA OR KALAYA: A pot, the ordinary vessel used by\nwater-carriers.\n\nKALALA: Carpets, or mats made of a kind of fibre (Sanseviera\nZeylanica.)\n\nKALANCHIYA: A Tamil word for an earthenware spitting pot.\n\nKALA-PANDAMA OR KILA-PANDAMA: A branched torch with generally three\nlights sometimes, six see ATPANDAMA.\n\nKALAS: Earthenware lamps with stands for decorations.\n\nKAMMALA: A forge. A smithy.\n\nKAMMALKASI: Payment in lieu of service at the smithy.\n\nKAMATA: A threshing-floor.\n\nKANGAN: Black cloth given to attendants at funerals.\n\nKANHENDA: An ear-pick.\n\nKANKANAMA: An overseer.\n\nKANKARIYA: A devil ceremony.\n\nKANUWA: A post.\n\nKAPHITUNDAWASA: The day on which a pole is set up in a Dewale for\nthe Perehera, see Ehelagaha.\n\nKAPURALA: A dewala-priest. The Office is hereditary.\n\nKARANDA: A tree, the twigs of which are in general use amongst Buddhist\npriests by way of tooth brushes. The village of Tittawelgoda has to\nsupply annually 2000 of these tooth-brushes to the Dambulla monastery.\n\nKARANDU-HUNU: Chunam to offer with betel at the sanctuary.\n\nKARAKGEDIYA: A portable wicker basket for catching fish open at both\nends and conical in shape used in shallow streams.\n\nKARAWALA: Dried fish, the usual penuma of Moor tenants.\n\nKARIYA KARANARALA: Officer second in rank to the Diwa Nilame in the\nDalada Maligawa. The office is restricted to a few families and the\nappointment is in the hands of the Diwa Nilame, who receives a large\nfee for it at the yearly nomination. As the Diwa Nilame's deputy,\nthe Kariyakaranarala attends to all the business matters of the\nMaligawa and is entitled to valuable dues from subordinate headmen\non appointment.\n\nKASAPEN: Young cocoanuts generally given as penuma.\n\nKATARAMA: Same as Galoruwa.\n\nKATBULATHURULU: Penuma consisting of pingoes and money with betel.\n\nKATGAHA: Sometimes called Kajjagaha. The same as Ehelagaha q.v.\n\nKATHAL: The pingo-loads of rice due to the king by way of the Crown\ndues on all lands cultivated with paddy, except those belonging to the\nDuggenewili people or class from which the King's domestic servants\nwere taken.\n\nKATMUDALA: Money payment in lieu of the above.\n\nKATTIYANAMURAYA: The turn for the tenant of a kapu family to perform\nthe service of carrying from the multenge (Dewale kitchen) to the\nMaligawa (the sanctuary) the multen-kada or daily food offering.\n\nKATUKITUL: Wild prickly kitul the flowers of which are used in\ndecorations.\n\nKATUPELALI: Rough screens made of branches as substitutes for walls\nin temporary buildings.\n\nKATU-PIHIYA: A small knife of the size of a penknife with a stylus\nto it.\n\nKAWANI: A kind of cloth.\n\nKATTIYA: A general term for a festival, but in particular applied to\nthe festival of lights in Nov.-Dec. called Kattimangalaya.\n\nKEDAGAN: A palanquin fitted up (with sticks) for the occasion to take\nthe insignia of a Deviyo in procession.\n\nKEHELMUWA: Flower of the plantain.\n\nKEKULHAL: Rice pounded from native paddy.\n\nKEKUNA-TEL: Common lamp oil extracted from the nuts of the Kekuna tree;\nthe oil is largely used in illuminations at festivals and given as\ngarden dues by tenants.\n\nKEMBERA: The beating of tom-toms on Kenmura days.\n\nKENDIYA-WEDAMAWIMA: The carrying in procession of the Rankendiya or\nsacred-vessel containing water after the Diyakepima.\n\nKENMURA: Wednesdays and Saturdays on which are held the regular\nservices of a Dewale.\n\nKERAWALA: Half of a pingo. Half of a panguwa.\n\nKETIUDALU: Bill-hooks and hoes. Agricultural implements supplied by\nthe proprietor for work in the Muttettu fields. He supplies the iron\nand the smith tenant makes the necessary implements, assisted by the\nnilawasam tenants who contribute the charcoal.\n\nKEVILI-HELIYA: A chatty of sweetmeats given as penuma.\n\nKEVILI-KADA: A pingo of sweetmeats given as penuma by high caste\ntenants.\n\nKEVILI-KIRIBAT: Sweetmeats and rice boiled in milk.\n\nKEVILI-HEPPUWA: See heppuwa.\n\nKEVILI-TATTUWA: See heppuwa.\n\nKEWUN: Cakes, sweetmeats.\n\nKEWUN-KESELKAN: Sweetmeats and ripe plantains.\n\nKILLOTAYA: A chunam-box given as a penuma by smith tenants.\n\nKINISSA: A ladle, a common cocoanut spoon.\n\nKIRI-AHARA OR KIRIBAT: Rice boiled in milk and served on festive\noccasions.\n\nKIRIMETI: Pipe-clay. The supplying and preparation of clay for the\nBadaheleya (potter) when making bricks and tiles for a proprietor\nforms one of the duties of every tenant of a temple village, and of\nthe tenants of the Nila or Uliyam pangu in a chief's village.\n\nKIRIUTURANA-MANGALYAYA: The ceremony of boiling milk at a Dewale\ngenerally at the Sinhalese new year and after a Diyakepima.\n\nKITUL-ANDA-MURE: The half share of the toddy of all kitul trees tapped,\nwhich is the due of the proprietor. The trees are tapped by Wahumpura\ntenants by who are also called Hakuro, and the toddy is converted\ninto the syrup from which hakuru (jaggery) is made.\n\nKITUL-PENI-MUDIYA: A small quantity of kitul syrup carried in a leaf\nand served out to tenants in mura.\n\nKODI: Flags.\n\nKOLALANU: Cords for tying sheaves.\n\nK\u00d4LAN: Masks worn in dancing in Dewala festivals.\n\nKOLMURA: A rehearsal at the Nata Dewala by the Uliyakkarayo before\nthe Perehera starts.\n\nKOMBUWA: A bugle, a horn. It is blown at the Tewawa or service at a\nDewale. There are special tenants for this service.\n\nKORAHA: A large wide-mouthed chatty used as a basin.\n\nKONA: The year's end. The Sinhalese new year (April).\n\nKOTAHALU: The cloth worn by a young female arriving at puberty, which\nis the perquisite of the family dhobi, with other presents given at\nthe festivities held on the occasion.\n\nKOTALE: An earthenware vessel with a spout given as a penuma by the\npotter to petty officers.\n\nKOTTALBADDE VIDANE: The headman of smith villages.\n\nKOVAYA: An earthenware crucible. A socket for candles.\n\nKOVILA: A small temple. A minor Dewale.\n\nK\u00dbDE: A basket to remove earth, sand, etc.\n\nKUDAYA: An umbrella.\n\nKUDAMASSAN: Small fishes cured for curry.\n\nKULU: Winnowing fans made of bamboo.\n\nKUMBAL-PEREHERA: Preliminary Perehera at a Dewale when the insignia are\ncarried in procession round the inner Court for five days, followed\nby the Dewale Perehera for five days twice a day round the Widiya,\nand the Randoli or Maha Perehera for five days.\n\nKUMBAYA: A post, a pole for arches in decorations.\n\nKUMARIHAMILLA: Ladies of rank.\n\nKUMARA-TALA-ATTA: A talipot of state. An ornamental talipot carried\nin processions by tenants of superior grade.\n\nKUNAMA: The palanquin carried in procession at the Perehera containing\ninside the insignia of a Deviyo. It is also called Randoliya.\n\nKURUMBA: The same as Kasapen.\n\nKURU: Hair-pins.\n\nKURU-KANDA: A candle stick made of clay, called also Kotvilakkuwa.\n\nKURAPAYIYA: The same as Kadapayiya.\n\nKURUNIYA: One eighth of a bushel or four seer.\n\nKURUWITALE: Spear used at elephant kraals.\n\nKUSALANA: A cup.\n\n\n\nL\n\nLAHA: The same as Kuruniya.\n\nLANSA-MURE: The turn of service of the Hewawasam tenants; it is now\ntaken also by the Atapattu class.\n\nLATDEKUMA OR LEBICHCHAPENUMA: Present of money or provisions given\nto the proprietor by his nominee on appointment to an office.\n\nLEGUNGE: The dormitory. A priest's cell.\n\nLENSUWA: A handkerchief.\n\nLEKAMA: A writer. A clerk, out of courtesy styled Mohottala.\n\nLEKAM PANGUWA: The tenement held by the Lekam pangu tenants. The\npanguwa was originally Maruwena, but in course of time, in most\ninstances, it has become Paraveni. The Lekam tenant besides doing\nduty as writer to the proprietor of Ninda villages superintends his\nworking parties and harvesting operations and appears before him at\nthe annual presentations of the tenants, accompanies him on important\njourneys, attends on him and supplies him with medicines when sick, and\noccasionally guards the house in his absence. In temple villages where\nthere is no resident Vidane, the Lekama does all the duties of that\nofficer, besides keeping an account of the things received into and\nissued out of the Gabadawa, arranges and superintends all the services\nof the tenants, in which capacity it is that he is styled Mohottala.\n\nLIYADDA: The bed of a field. A terrace.\n\nLIYANABATA: Food given by a cultivator to tho Lekam on duty at a\nthreshing floor.\n\nLIYANARALA: A Writer.\n\nLIYAWEL: Ornamental flower work in carvings or paintings generally\nfound in Wihare and which it is the duty of the Sittaru (painters)\nto keep in order. The service is valuable and large and valuable\npangu have consequently been allotted to this class. The cost of the\npigments is borne by the temples.\n\nLUNUKAHAMIRIS: Salt, saffron, and chillies. The three principal\ningredients which give flavour to a curry. Hence in enumerating the\narticles which make up a pehinduma or dankada, mention is always\nmade of Lunukahamiris or Sarakku or Tunapahe, general terms for\n\"curry-stuff\".\n\n\n\nM\n\nMADAPPULURALA: Title of an officer in the Nata Dewale who performs\nduties analogous to those of a Wattoru-rala such as sweeping out the\nMaligawa cleaning and tending its lamps, etc.\n\nMADDILIYA: A Tamil drum used in the Kataragama Dewale in the Badulla\nDistrict.\n\nMADOL-TEL: Lamp-oil extracted from the nuts of the Madol.\n\nMADU-PIYALI: The nuts of the Madugaha, broken into pieces dried and\nconverted into flour for food.\n\nMAGUL-BERE: The opening tune beaten on tom-toms at the regular hewisi\n(musical service) at the daily service and at festivals.\n\nMAHADANE: The midday meal of the priests before the sun passes the\nmeridian.\n\nMAHA-NAYAKA-UNNANSE: The highest in order amongst the Buddhist\npriesthood. The Malwatte and Asgiriya establishments in Kandy have\neach a Mahanayake before whom the incumbents of the subordinate Wihara\nbelonging to the respective padawiya (see or head monastery) have\nto appear annually with penumkat and ganpanduru consisting chiefly\nof rice.\n\nMAHA-PEREHERA OR RANDOLI-PEREHERA: The last five days of the Perehera\n(in July) when the insignia are taken in procession out of the\nprecincts of a Dewalaya along the principal streets of the town.\n\nMAHA-SALAWA: The chief or great hall.\n\nMAHEKADA: The pingo of raw provisions, chiefly vegetables and lamp oil,\ngiven regularly once a month to a temple or chief by the tenants of\nthe mul-pangu in a village, namely the Ganwasama, Durawasanaa, etc.\n\nMALIGAWA: Palace. The sanctuary of a Dewale where the insignia are\nkept. In Dewala only the officiating Kapurala can enter it. Even its\nrepairs such as white washing, etc. are done by the Kapurala.\n\nMALU-DENA-PANGUWA: Lands held by the tenants generally of the Nilawasam\nclass, whose duty it is to supply a temple with vegetables for curry\nfor the multen service. A quantity sufficient to last a week or two is\nprovided at one time, and this is continued all the year through. The\nvegetables supplied are of different sorts, consisting of garden and\nhenaproduce and greens and herbs gathered from the jungle.\n\nMALU-KESELKEN: Green plantains for curries, as distinguished from\nripe plantains.\n\nMALUPETMAN: The courtyard of a temple with its approaches.\n\nMALWATTIYA: A basket or tray of flowers. One of the duties of a\ntenant in mura at a temple is to supply a basket of flowers morning\nand evening for offering in front of the image of Buddha or in front\nof the shrine.\n\nMAKARA-TORANA: An ornamental arch over the portal of a Vihare formed\nof two fabulous monsters facing each other. These monsters are said to\nbe emblems of the God of Love (Kama). They are a modern introduction\nborrowed from modern Hinduism.\n\nMAKUL: Clay used in whitewashing.\n\nMALABANDINA-RAJAKARIYA: The term in use in the Matale District for\nthe services of putting up the pole for the Perehera, so called from\nflowers being tied to the pole when it is set up.\n\nMALASUNGE: A small detached building at a Vihare to offer flowers\nin. These buildings are also found attached to private houses, where\nthey serve the purpose of a private chapel.\n\nMANDAPPAYA: Covered court or verandah.\n\nMANGALA-ASTAKAYA OR MAGUL-KAVI: Invocation in eight stanzas recited\nat Dewale as a thanks giving song.\n\nMANGALYAYA: A festival, a wedding. The four principal festivals are\nthe Awurudu (old year) the Nanumura (new year), the Katti (feast of\nlights) in Il (November) and the Alutsal (harvest home) in Duruta\n(January). Some reckon the old and new year festivals as one, and\nnumber the Perehera in Ehala (July) amongst the festivals. In Ninda\nvillages it is at one of the festivals, generally the old or new\nyear, that the tenants appear with presents before the proprietor\nand attend to the ordinary repairs of his Wala, awwa. In temple\nvillages they likewise present their penuma, repair and clean the\nbuildings, courts-compounds and paths, put up decorations, join in\nthe processions, and build temporary sheds for lights and for giving\naccommodation to worshippers on these occasions. They pay their\nGanpandura, have land disputes etc. settled and the annual officers\nappointed. Tenants unable to attend by reason of distance or other\ncauses make a payment in lieu called Gamanmurakasi.\n\nMANNAYA: Kitchen knife. Knife commonly used in tapping Kitul.\n\nMASSA: An ancient Kandyan coin equal to two groats or eight\npence. Massa is used in singular only; when more than one is spoken of\n\"Ridi\" is used.\n\nMEDERI OR MENERI: A small species of paddy grown on hen. Panic grass\n(Clough).\n\nMEDINDINA MASE: The twelfth month of the Sinhalese year (March-April.)\n\nMEKARAL: A long kind of bean.\n\nMETIPAN: Clay lamps supplied by the potter for the Katti-Mangalyaya.\n\nMETIPANDAMA: A bowl, made of clay to hold rags and oil, used as\na torch.\n\nMINUMWI: Remuneration given to the Mananawasam tenants for measuring\npaddy. The rate is fixed by custom in each village but varies\nconsiderably throughout the country.\n\nMINUMWASAMA OR PANGUWA: The office of a Mananna or the holding held\nby the Manana people; their primary service as their name denotes is\nmeasuring out paddy given to be pounded as well as the paddy brought\nin from the fields and rice brought in after being pounded, but as\nthe office has come to be held by low caste people and by Vellala\nof low degree the service has become analogous to those of the\nUliyakkara-Wasam class such as putting up privies, mudding walls,\ncarrying palanquins, baggage Penumkat and Adukkukat and serving\nas torch bearers at festivals. The Mananna is as much the Vidane's\nmessenger as the Attapattu Appu is the messenger of the proprietor. He\ntogether with the Lekama keeps watch at the threshing floor, takes care\nof the buffaloes brought for ploughing and threshing and assists the\nVidane, Lekama, and Kankanama in the collection of the dues such as,\nGanpandura etc.\n\nMIPENI: Honey. It is given as a sort of forest dues by tenants of\nvillages in the wild districts.\n\nMIRIS: Chillies given as a rent or proprietor's ground share of hena\nland cultivated with it.\n\nMOHOTTALA: The same as Lekama q. v.\n\nMOLPILLA: The iron rim of a pestle or paddy pounder.\n\nMUDUHIRUWA OR MUDUWA: A ring. It is the penuma given by silver-smiths\nand gold-smiths.\n\nMUKKALA: Three-fourths. A Tamil word used by certain tenants in the\nSeven Korala for three-fourths of the service of a full Panguwa.\n\nMULTEN OR MURUTEN: Food offered to a Deviyo in a Dewale by a Kapurala\ndaily, or on Kenmura days. The Muttettu fields of the Dewalaya\nsupply the rice for it, and the tenants of the Malumura-panguwa\nthe vegetables. It is cooked in the temple, mulutenge or kitchen,\nsometimes as often as three times a day. It is carried from the kitchen\nwith great ceremony on a Kada by the proper Kattiyanaralas. All thus\nengaged in cooking, carrying and offering it should be of the Kapu\nfamily, by whom it is afterwards eaten.\n\nMULTEN-MEWEDAMAWIMA: The carrying of the Multen Kada from the Multenge\n(kitchen) to the sanctuary. The term is in use in the Badulla District.\n\nMUN: A sort of pea forming one of the chief products of a hena,\nand largely used as a curry.\n\nMURA-AMURE: An ordinary turn and an extraordinary turn of service. A\nterm applied to a holding which, in addition to its proper or ordinary\nturn of service, has to perform some extra service on account of\nadditional land attached to the mulpanguwa. The term is used in\nKurunegala District.\n\nMURA-AWUDAYA: A lance. The weapon in the hands of the Hewawasam or\nDunukara tenant on guard.\n\nMURA-AWUDA-RAJAKARIYA: The service of a guard holding a lance.\n\nMURAGEYA: Guard-room.\n\nMURAYA: A general term for the turn of any service. The Muraya is of\ndifferent lengths, 7, 10, or 15 days being the common periods of each\nmura. In some mura the tenant receives food, in the others not.\n\nMUSNA: Broom; brush.\n\nMUTTEHE-PENUMA: presents of sweetmeats or raw provisions given\nby tenants of some villages in the Sabaragamuwa District after the\nharvesting of a middle crop between the ordinary Yala and Maha crops,\nknown as the Muttes harvest.\n\nMUTTETTUWA: A field belonging to the proprietor, whether a chief\nor temple, and cultivated on his account jointly by tenants of\nevery description. The proprietor usually finds the seed-paddy,\nand bears all costs of agricultural implements, and sometimes gives\nthe buffaloes; the service of the tenants is reckoned not by days,\nbut by the number of the different agricultural operations to which\nthey have to contribute labour, and they are accordingly spoken of as\n\"Wedapaha\" and \"Weda-hata,\" which are--1, puran ketuma or puran-hiya\n(first digging or first ploughing); 2, dekutuma or binnegunhiya\n(the second digging or ploughing); 3, wepuruma (sowing including the\nsmoothing of the beds); 4, goyan-kepuma (reaping including stacking);\nand 5, goyan-medima (threshing including storing). These admit of\nsub-divisions. Hence the number of agricultural operations differ in\ndifferent districts. All the tenants take a part in the cultivation,\nand are generally fed by the proprietor or by the Ganwasam tenants on\nhis behalf. The sowing of the seed-paddy is the work of the Gammahe\nas requiring greater care, and irrigation that of the Mananna, unless\nspecial arrangements are made for it with a Diyagoyya who is allowed\nin payment, a portion of the field to cultivate free of ground-rent,\nor the crop of a cultivated portion. The Muttettu straw furnishes\nthatch for buildings, the tying and removing of which is also a service\nrendered by the tenants. The services of the different classes of the\ntenantry on an estate are centred in its Muttettu field. Hence the\npassing of the Muttettuwa from the family of the landlord into the\nhands of strangers is invariably followed by the tenants resisting\ntheir customary services in respect of the Muttettu. They have\ngenerally succeeded in such resistance. See first Report of the\nService Tenure Commission P. 9. \"In only a few cases have estates\nbeen sold away from the families of the local chiefs, and in these\ncases with the almost invariable result of the loss of all claim to\nservice by disuse, the Kandyan tenant being peculiarly sensitive as\nto the social status of his Lord. A few years ago one of the leading\nAdvocates in Kandy acquired three estates, and after several years'\nlitigation, he was compelled to get the original proprietor to take\nback the largest of the three, and the claim to services from the\nother two had to be abandoned. On the original proprietor resuming\nprocession, the tenants returned to their allegiance.\"\n\nMUTTIYA: The same as heliya (q.v.)\n\nMUTU-KUDE: Umbrella of State, made of rich cloth, and carried in\nprocession by one of the higher tenants over the insignia of the\nDeviyo, or over the Karanduwa of the Maligawa which is borne on\nan elephant.\n\n\n\nN\n\nNAMBIRALA OR NAMBURALA: A headman corresponding to an overseer. It\nis a term in use in Moorish villages in the Kurunegala District.\n\nNANAGEYA: A bath-house. On the visit of the proprietor or some\nother person of rank, the nanage and atuge (privy) are put up at the\nlodging prepared for him by a tenant of the Uliyam or Nila panguwa,\nor by the mananna of the village.\n\nNANU: Composition generally made of lime juice, and other acids\nfor cleansing the hair. In temples it is made of different fragrant\ningredients the chief of which is powdered sandal-wood.\n\nNANUMURA-MANGALYAYA: The festival immediately following the Sinhalese\nnew year on which purification with nanu is performed (see above).\n\nNATA-DEWALE: The temple of Nata Daviyo, who is said to be now in the\nDivyalokaya, but is destined when born on earth to be the Buddha of\nthe next kalpa under the name Mayitri Buddha.\n\nNATANA-PANGUWA: It is one and the same with the Geekiyana-panguwa\nq. v. The service of this section of the Geekiyana-panguwa is the\nDigge-netima by females on the nights of the Kenmura days and of\nfestivals. They likewise perform the Alattibema and dance during the\nwhole night of the last day of the Perehera and one of their number\naccompanies the Randoli procession. Dancing taught by the matron of\nthe class, called Alatti-amma or Manikkamahage. This panguwa is also\ncalled the Malwara-panguwa. One of favourite dances of the Alatti\nwomen is \"Kalagedinetima\" (dancing with new pots) the pot used at\nwhich becomes the dancer's perquisite.\n\nNAVAN-MASE: The eleventh month of the Sinhalese year (February-March.)\n\nNAYYANDI-NETIMA: The dance of the Yakdesso (devil-dancers) during\nPerehera in Dewale.\n\nNAYAKE-UNNANSE: Chief priest.\n\nNELIYA: A seer measure.\n\nNELLI: One of the three noted myrobalans (Clough).\n\nNELUNWI: Paddy given as hire for weeding and transplanting in a field.\n\nNEMBILIYA: A vessel used in cleansing rice in water previous to being\nboiled. It is of the size and shape of a large \"appallaya\" but the\ninside instead of being smooth is grooved, or has a dented surface\nto detain sand and dirt.\n\nNETTARA-PINKAMA: The festival on the occasion of painting-in the eyes\nof a figure of Buddha in a Vihare. The offerings received daring\nthe ceremony are given to the artificers or painters as their hire\n(see Barapen.)\n\nNETTIPALE: A penthouse, or slanting roof from a wall or rock.\n\nNETTIMALE: The ornamental head dress of an elephant in processions.\nNIKINIMASE: The fifth month of the Sinhalese year (August-September).\n\nNILAKARAYA: A tenant liable to service, more particularly the term\nis applied to tenants doing menial service.\n\nNILAWASAMA: The tenement held by the Nilawasam tenants. The services,\nas those of the Uliyakwasam embrace all domestic and outdoor work of\nvarious and arduous kinds some of which, as those already enumerated\nunder the Minumwasama, are the supplying of fuel and water to the\nkitchen and bath, the pounding of paddy, the extracting of oil,\nthe mudding of walls and floors, the dragging of timber and other\nbuilding materials, the preparation of clay and the supplying of\nfirewood for the brick and tile kiln, blowing the bellows for the\nsmith and supplying him with charcoal for the forge, the breaking\nof lime stones, the cutting of banks and ditches, putting up fences,\nclearing gardens, sweeping out courtyards and compounds, joining in\nall agricultural operations on gardens, fields, and hen, removing\nthe crops, tying straw and assisting in thatching, the carrying of\npalanquins and baggage on journeys, conveying to the proprietor the\npenumkat, adukkukat, pehindumkat, mahekat, wasdankat, etc., supplied by\nthe other tenants, joining in the preparations for festivals, carrying\npandam in processions, and serving at the proprietor's on occasions,\nof importance such as weddings, funerals, arrival of distinguished\nvisitors, and at Yak and Bali ceremonies. Nilawasam tenants for\nthe most part, are of a low caste or belong to the lower classes\nof the Vellala caste. Hence their yearly penuma to the proprietor,\ninstead of being a kada of sweetmeats consists of vegetables and a\ncontribution of raw or uncooked articles of food. Besides services\nas above, rendered to the proprietor, the Nilawasam tenants work for\nthe proprietor's Vidane, and for the Ganwasama, a few days in fields\nand hen and carry their baggage on journeys.\n\nNILA-PANDAMA OR KILA-PANDAMA: The same as Kalapandama. q. v.\n\nNINDAGAMA: A village or lands in a village in exclusive possession\nof the proprietor. Special grants from kings are under sannas.\n\nNIYANDA: A plant, the fibres of which are used in making cords,\nstrings for curtains and hangings and carpets or mats.\n\nNIYAKOLA: The leaves of a shrub used for chewing with betel.\n\nNULMALKETE: A ball or skein of thread.\n\n\n\nO\n\nOTU: Tax, tythe.\n\nOLONGUWA: A long bag or sack having the contents divided into two\nequal portions so as to fall one before and one behind when the bag\nis slung over the shoulder.\n\nORAK-KODIA OR OSAKKODIYA: Small flags on arches or on sticks placed\nat intervals.\n\n\n\nP\n\nPADALAMA: A floor, foundation.\n\nPADIYA: Water to wash the feet on entering the sanctuary of a Dewale.\n\nPADUWA: A palanquin bearer. This class carries the palanquins of males,\nthose of females being carried by Wahunpura tenants.\n\nPAHALOSWAKADA: Full-moon day.\n\nPALLEMALERALA: The chief officer of the Pallemale (lower temple in\nthe Dalada Maligawa.)\n\nPANAMA: A fanam, equal to one-sixteenth part of a rupee.\n\nPANALELI: Horns cut into shape for combs, and given as penum.\n\nPANDAMA: A torch, candle, see atpandama.\n\nPANDAM-DAMBU: It is sometimes written D\u00e2mbu. The same as Dambu q. v.\n\nPANGUWA: A holding, a portion, a farm.\n\nPANGUKARAYA: The holder of a panguwa, a tenant, a shareholder.\n\nPANHARANGUWA: An ornamented arch or support for lights at festivals\nin temples.\n\nPANIKKILA OR PANIKKALA: Elephant keeper. He has the charge of temple\nelephants used in processions, in which service he is assisted by a\ngrass-cutter allowed by the temple, and is besides fed when on duty\nat a temple.\n\nPANIKKIYA: The headman of the tom-tom beater caste. A barber.\n\nPANMADUWA: The festival of lights occasionally held at a Dewale in\nhonour of Pattini Deviyo, in which all the tenants of a village join\nand contribute to the expenses.\n\nPANPILI: Rags for lights or lamps. The same as Dambu.\n\nPANSALA: The residence of a priest. Lit. hut of leaves.\n\nPANTIYA: An elephant stall. A row of buildings. A festival.\n\nPAN-WETIYA: A wick.\n\nPATA: A measure corresponding to a hunduwa. One-fourth of a seer. The\nsame as Awaliya.\n\nPATABENDI: Titled. There are in some villages a superior class of\ntenants called Patabendo, doing nominal service, such as occasionally\nguarding the proprietor's house. In temple villages, however, they\nperform services similar to those of the Ganwasama.\n\nPATHISTHANAYA: A lance with an ornamented handle, carried in\nprocessions or on journeys of state by the Hewawasam or Atapattu\ntenants.\n\nPATHKADAYA: A priest's kneeling cloth or leathern rug.\n\nPATHKOLAYA: A piece of a plantain leaf used instead of a plate. It\nis called Pachchala in Sabaragamwua. In temples there is a special\ntenant to supply it for the daily service.\n\nPATHTHARAYA: The alms bowl of a priest, sometimes of clay but generally\nof iron or brass, or, rarely of silver.\n\nPATTAYA: The sheath of an arecanut branch. It is very commonly used\nby way of a bottle for keeping jaggery or honey in.\n\nPATTINIAMMA: The female attendant in the Pattini Dewale.\n\nPATTINI-NETUMA: Dance held by Nilawasam tenants in charge of\ntemple cattle, who serves at the giving of fresh milk called\n\"Hunkiri-payinda-kirima\" and at the \"Kiri-itirima\" ceremony of boiling\nmilk in Dewale at the new year, and sprinkling it about the precincts,\nin expression of a wish that the year may be a prosperous one.\n\nPATTIRIPPUWA: An elevated place, or raised platform in the Widiya of\nDewale, as a resting place for the insignia during procession.\n\nPAWADAYA OR PIYAWILLA: A carpet or cloth spread on the ground by the\ndhobi on duty for the Kapurala to walk upon during the Tewawa, or at\nthe entry of a distinguished visitor into the house of the proprietor.\n\nPEDIYA: A dhobi. A washerman.\n\nPEDURA: A mat. It is given for use at a threshing floor or for a\nfestival or public occasion by tenants as one of their dues.\n\nPEHINDUM: Uncooked provisions given to headmen, generally by low\nclass tenants.\n\nPELA: A shed, a watch-hut.\n\nPELDORA: Perquisite to the watcher of a field, being the crop of the\npaddy around the watch-hut. See Hiwelande.\n\nPELELLA: A screen made of leaves and branches to answer the purpose\nof a wall in temporary buildings.\n\nPELKARAYA: A sub-tenant. See Dalu pathkaraya. The Mulpakaraya (original\nor chief tenant) frequently gets a person to settle on the lands of\nhis panguwa, in order to have a portion of the services due by him\nperformed by the person so brought in, who is called the pelkaraya;\nlit. cotter.\n\nPELLAWEDAGAMAN: The service turns of tenants. A term in use in the\nKegalle District.\n\nPENPOLA: A priest's bath.\n\nPENUMA: The same as dekuma. q. v.\n\nPENUM-KADA: A pingo of presents, provisions, vegetables, dried fish\nor flesh, chatties, etc., given annually or at festivals by tenants\nto their landlords.\n\nPENUMWATTIYA: Presents carried in baskets.\n\nPERAWA: A measure equal to one-fourth of a seer, in use in the\nKurunegala District, corresponding to a Hunduwa.\n\nPERAHANKADA: A piece of cloth to strain water through, used by priests,\nbeing one of their eight requisites. A filter; vide \"delipihiya\" supra.\nPEREHERA: A procession; the festival observed in the month of\nEhela (July), in Dewale, the chief ceremony in which is the taking\nin procession, the insignia of the divinities Vishnu, Kataragama,\nNata and Pattini for fifteen days. All the Dewala tenants and\nofficers attend it; buildings and premises are cleansed, whitewashed,\ndecorated, and put into proper order. The festival is commenced by\nbringing in procession a pole and setting it up at the Temple in a\nlucky hour. This is done by the Kapurala; during the first five days\nthe insignia are taken in procession round the inner court of the\nDewale; the five days so observed are called the Kumbal-Perehera,\nfrom Kumbala, a potter, who provided the lamps with stands called\nKalas generally used in some Dewala at the festival. During the next\nfive days, called the Dewala Perehera the procession goes twice daily\nround the Widiya or outer court of a Dewale. During the third or last\nfive days, called the Maha or Randoli-perehera the procession issues\nout of the temple precincts, and taking a wider circuit passes round\nthe main thoroughfare of a town. The festival concludes with one of\nits chief ceremonies, the Diyakepima, when the insignia are taken in\nprocession on elephants to the customary ferry which is prepared and\ndecorated for the occasion; and the Kapurala, proceeding in a boat\nto the middle of the stream, cuts with the Rankaduwa (golden sword)\nthe water at the lucky hour. At that very instant the \"Rankendiya\"\n(the gold goblet) which is first emptied of the water preserved in it\nfrom the Diyakepima of the previous year, is re-filled and taken back\nin procession to the Dewala. It is customary in some temples for the\ntenants to wash themselves in the pond or stream immediately after\nthe Diyake-pima. This is a service obligatory on the tenants. After\nthe conclusion of the Perehera, the officers and tenants engaged in\nit, including the elephants, have ceremonies, for the conciliation of\nlesser divinities and evil spirits, performed called Balibat-netima,\nGarayakunnetima and Waliyakun-netima. The Perehera is observed in all\nthe principal Dewala such as Kataragama, the four Dewala in Kandy,\nAlutnuwara Dewale and Saman Dewale in Sabaragamuwa etc. The following\nnotice of the Kandy Perehera is taken from a note to the first report\nof the Service Tenures Commission:--\"The most celebrated of these\nprocessions is the Perehera, which takes place at Kandy in Esala\n(July-Aug.) commencing with the new moon in that month and continuing\ntill the full moon. It is a Hindu festival in honor of the four deities\nNatha, Vishnu, Kataragama (Kandaswami) and Pattini, who are held in\nreverence by the Buddhists of Ceylon as Deviyo who worshipped Goutama\nand are seeking to attain Nirwana. In the reign of King Kirtissiri\n(A. D. 1747-1780) a body of priests who came from Siam for the purpose\nof restoring the Upasampada ordination objected to the observance of\nthis Hindu ceremony in a Buddhist country. To remove their scruples,\nthe king ordered the Dalada relic of Buddha to be carried thenceforth\nin procession with the insignia of the four deities. Nevertheless,\nthe Perehera is not regarded as a Buddhist ceremony.\"\n\nPERUDAN: Food given to priests according to turns arranged amongst\ntenants.\n\nPETAWILIKARAYA: A tavalan driver. It is the Moor tenants who perform\nthis service.\n\nPETHETIYA: A vessel for measuring an hour. A small cup of brass or\nsilver, or sometimes a cocoanut shell, having a small hole in the\nbottom, is put to float in a basin of water, the hole is made of\nsuch a size that the water which comes through it will be exactly\nsufficient to make the cup sink in the space of a Sinhalese hour or\npeya, equal to twenty-five minutes or one-sixtieth part of a day.\n\nPETMAN: Foot-paths. They are to be kept free of jungle by the tenants,\nwith whom it is a principal duty.\n\nPILIMAGEYA: Image-repository, the chamber in Wihare for images.\n\nPILLEWA: A bit of high land adjoining a field, called also \"Wanata\".\n\nPINBERA: The beating of tom-tom, not on service but for merit at\npinkam at the poya days, or after an almsgiving.\n\nPINKAMA: In a general sense, any deed of merit, but more particularly\nused for the installing of priests in \"Was\" in the four months of\nthe rainy season (July to November) for the public reading of Bana.\n\nPIRIWEHIKADA: A pingo made up of \"piriwehi\" wicker baskets filled\nwith provisions or other articles.\n\nPIRUWATAYA: A cloth, towel, sheet etc., supplied by the dhobi and\nreturned after use.\n\nPITAKATTALAYA: The exterior of a Dewale or the portion outside\nthe sanctuary. It is also a term applied to all the classes of\ntenants whose services are connected with the exterior of a Dewale,\nas distinguished from the Etul-kattale, tenants or servants of the\nsanctuary.\n\nPIYAWILLA: The same as Pawadaya. q. v.\n\nPOKUNA: A pond, or well, or reservoir of water, resorted to at a\nPerehera for the Diyakepuma.\n\nPOL\u00c9: The present given to the Vidane of a village by a sportsman on\nkilling game within the village limits. It is about four or five pounds\nof flesh. In some districts the custom of giving the pole, apart from\nthe Gangate, has ceased to exist, but it is kept up in Sabaragamuwa.\n\nPOLGEDIYA: The fruit of the cocoanut tree.\n\nPOLWALLA: A bunch of cocoanuts used in decorations, and the supplying\nof which forms a service.\n\nPORODDA: The collar of an elephant.\n\nPOSONMASA: The third month of the Sinhalese year (June-July).\n\nPOTSAKIYA: The button fastened to the end of a string used in tying\nup and keeping together the ola leaves and wooden covers of native\nmanuscripts.\n\nPOTTANIYA: A bundle larger than a \"mitiya.\"\n\nPOYAGEYA: A detached building at a Wihare establishment within proper\n\"sima\" (military posts). It is used as a confessional for priests\non poya days, as a vestry for convocations and meetings on matters\necclesiastical, and for holding ordination and for worship.\n\nPUJAWA: An offering of any kind--e. g. food, cloth, flowers, incense,\netc.\n\nPULLIMAL: Ear-rings.\n\nPURAGEYA: The scaffolding of a building or the temporary shed put\nup to give shelter to the workmen and protection to the permanent\nstructure in course of erection.\n\nPURANA: A field lying fallow, or the time during which a field lies\nuncultivated.\n\nPURAWEDIKODIYA: A flag. A term used in the Four Korale.\n\nPURAWASAMA: See Ganpandura. A term in use in the Kurunegala District\nfor ground rent.\n\nPURUKGOBA: Tender cocoanut branch for decorations. It is called\nPulakgoba in Sabaragamuwa and Pulakatta in Matale.\n\nPRAKARAYA: A rampart, a strong wall.\n\n\n\nR\n\nRADA-BADDARA-RAJAKARIYA: Dhoby service. It consists of washing weekly\nor monthly the soiled clothes of a family, the robes, curtains, flags,\nand vestments of a Temple; decorating temples with viyan (ceilings)\nfor festivals and pinkam, and private houses on occasions of weddings,\nYak or Bali ceremonies, and arrival of distinguished visitors; the\nsupplying on such occasions of \"Piruwata\" for wearing, \"etirili\" or\ncovers for seats, tables etc., \"piyawili\" or carpets, and \"diyaredi\"\nor bathing dresses; the making of \"pandam\" torches and \"panweti\"\nwicks and the supplying of \"dambu\" tow. The \"Heneya\" (dhobi) has\nalso to attend his master on journeys carrying his bundle of clothes\nand bathing requisites. He supplies the Kapurala and Yakdessa with\npiruwata, the former weekly when on duty at a Dewale and the latter for\ndancing at festivals. He gives piruwata for the Muttettu, for serving\nout the food, for penum-kat and tel-kat as covers, and for the state\nelephant during festivals. The penuma he presents consists generally\nof a piece of wearing apparel or of a \"sudu-toppiya\" (Kandyan hat)\nor in some cases of Panaleli (horns for combs.) His prerequisites\nvary according to the occasion calling forth his services. Thus\nat the Sinhalese new year besides the quota of sweetmeats and rice\ngiven on such an occasion every member of the family ties up a coin\nin the cloth he delivers to him for washing. At \"kotahalu\" (occasion)\nof a female attaining puberty, festivities the dhoby is entitled to\nthe cloth worn by the young woman and to her head ornaments, and at\na funeral to all the clothes not allowed to be burnt on the pyre.\n\nRADAYA: A washerman of an inferior grade.\n\nRADALA: A chief, an officer of rank.\n\nRAHUBADDA: A general term for small temples or dependencies of the\nKandy Pattini Dewale. It is sometimes used of a kind of dancers. It is\nalso sometimes taken as one of the nine \"Nawabadda\" the nine trades,\nwhich are, possibly, the following, but it is difficult to find any\ntwo Kandyans who give precisely the same list: 1, Kottal, smiths; 2,\nBadahela, potters; 3, Hakuru, jaggery makers; 4, Hunu, lime burners;\n5, Hulanbadde, or Madige, tavalam-drivers, who are always Moors; 6,\nRada, dhobies; 7, Berawa tom-tom-beaters; 8, Kinnaru, weavers; 9,\nHenda or Rodi, Rodiyas.\n\nRAJAHELIYABEMA: The distribution of rice boiled at a Dewale at the\nclose of the Perehera, among the servitors who took part in the\nceremonies.\n\nRAJAKARIYA: Service to the king. The word is now used indiscriminately\nfor services done to a temple or Nindagam proprietors, or for the\nduties of an office.\n\nRAMBATORANA: An arch in which plantain trees form the chief decoration.\n\nRAN-AWUDA: The golden sword, bow, and arrows etc., belonging to a\nDewale. The insignia of a Deviyo.\n\nRANDOLIYA: A royal palanquin, the palanquin in which the insignia\nare taken in procession during the Maha Perehera.\n\nRANHILIGE: The royal howdah in which the insignia are taken in\nprocessions on the back of an elephant.\n\nRANKAPPAYA: A plate made of gold. See ranmandaya.\n\nRANMANDAYA: A circular plate or tray for offerings in the sanctuary\nof a Dewale.\n\nRATHAGEYA: The building for the car used in processions.\n\nREDIPILI: Curtains, coverings, etc. of a temple; clothes.\n\nRELIPALAM: Decorations of an arch made of cloth, tied up so as to\nform a kind of frill.\n\nRIDISURAYA: Rim of silver by a smith tenant for the Ehela tree.\n\nRIDIYA: An ancient coin equal to eight-pence, or one-third of a rupee.\n\nRIPPA: Called also Pattikkaleli are laths forming building material\nannually supplied by tenants.\n\nRITTAGE: Resting place for the insignia during the procession round\nthe courts of a Dewalaya. See Pattirippuwa.\n\n\n\nS\n\nSADANGUWE-PEHINDUMA: A pehinduma given by a village in common, not\nby the tenants in turns. The term is in use in Sabaragamuwa.\n\nSAMAN DEWALE: Temple of Sumana or Saman deviyo, the tutelary god of\nSripadastane. The one in Sabaragamuwa is the richest and largest of\nthe Dewale dedicated to this Deviyo.\n\nSAMUKKALAYA: A cover for a bed or couch forming a travelling requisite\ncarried by a tenant for the use of his superior.\n\nSANDUN-KIRIPENI-IHIMA: A sprinkling of perfumes at festivals to denote\npurification, tranquility.\n\nSANNI-YAKUMA: A species of devil-dance to propitiate demons afflicting\na patient.\n\nSARAKKU: Curry-stuff. Drugs.\n\nSARAMARU-MOHOTTALA: A mohottala over service villages, holding his\noffice during the pleasure of the head of the Dewale.\n\nSATARA-MANGALYAYA: The four principal festivals in the year. See\nmangalyaya.\n\nSATTALIYA: An ancient coin equal to about one and-a-half fanam,\nor two-pence and a farthing.\n\nSEMBUWA: A small brazen pot generally used on journeys for carrying\nwater or for bathing. The service of carrying it on journeys devolves\non the dhoby.\n\nSEMENNUMA: Remuneration given originally to an irrigation headman,\nwhich in lapse of time began to be given to the proprietor, and called\n\"Huwandiram\" or \"Suwandirama\". When given to a Dewale, it is sometimes\ncalled Semennuma.\n\nSESATA: A large fan made of talipot or cloth and richly ornamented,\nwith a long handle to carry it in processions. It was once an emblem\nof royalty.\n\nSIHILDAN: Priest's early meal at daybreak. The same as Hildana q. v.\n\nSINHARAKKARA-MUHANDIRAMA: A rank conferred on the headman over the\nmusicians of a temple.\n\nSINHASANAYA: A throne. An altar, A seat of honor. It is also a name\ngiven to the \"Pattirippuwa.\"\n\nSITTARA: A painter. He is a tenant generally of the smith caste, and\nmends and keeps in repair the image and paintings of temples. The\ntemple supplies the requisite pigments and food during work. The\ncompletion of an image or a restoration or construction of a Vihare\nis observed with a pinkama; and the offerings of moneys, etc., for\na certain number of days are allowed as perquisites to the painters\nand smiths in addition to the hire agreed upon called \"Barapen\"\n(q. v.) The painter, likewise, supplies ornamented sticks as handles\nfor lances, flags, etc., and presents to the head of the temple a\npenuma of an ornamented walking-stick or betel tray.\n\nSIWURUKASI OR SIWURUMILA: Contribution for priests' robes, being a\nvery trifling but a regular annual payment during the Was Season,\nand given with the usual dankada.\n\nSRIPADASTANE: The place of the sacred foot-step-Adam's peak. It\nis yearly frequented by crowds of pilgrims, has a separate temple\nestablishment of its own, presided over by a Nayaka Unnanse, and held\nin great veneration second only to the Dalada Maligawa or shrine of\nthe eye-tooth of Buddha.\n\nSUDUREDI-TOPPIYA: The white hat commonly worn by Kandyan headmen\nforming the annual penuma of a dhoby tenant.\n\nSUWANDIRAMA: See Semennuma.\n\n\n\nT\n\nTADUPPUREDDA: Country-made cloth of coarse texture, which forms with\nthe tenants of the tom-tom beater caste their annual penuma to the\nproprietor.\n\nTAHANCHIKADA OR TAHANDIKADA: A ponumkada given to a Dissawa. A term\nin use in the Kegalle District.\n\nTALA: Sesamum.\n\nTALA-ATU-MUTTUWA: Two talipots sown together and ornamented. It is\nused as an umbrella, and on journeys of the proprietor it is carried\nby the proper tenant, generally of the Atapattu class.\n\nTALAM-GEHIMA: To play with the \"Taliya\" cymbals as an accompaniment\nto the tom-tom.\n\nTALATTANIYA: An elder in a village.\n\nTALIGEDIYA: A large earthen-ware pot.\n\nTALIMANA: Blacksmith's apparatus for a pair of bellows generally made\nof wood, sunk in the ground and covered with elk-hide.\n\nTALIYA OR TALAMA: A kind of cymbal.\n\nTALKOLA-PIHIYE: A small knife with a stylus to write with.\n\nTAMBALA: A creeper, the leaves of which are used with betel.\n\nTAMBORUWA: A tambourine.\n\nTANAYAMA: A rest-house. A lodging put up on the occasion of the visit\nof a proprietor or person of rank to a village.\n\nTANGAMA: Half a ridi, equal to one groat or four-pence.\n\nTANTUWAWA: Any ceremony such as a wedding, a devil-dance, a funeral,\netc.\n\nTATUKOLA: Pieces of plantain leaves used as plates. The same as\nPatkola q. v.\n\nTATTUMARUWA: The possession of a field in turns of years; a system\nleading often to great complications e. g., a field belongs to A and\nB in equal shares, and they possess it in alternate years. They die\nand leave it to two sons of A, and three sons of B. These again hold\nin Tattumaru (A1, A2) (B1, B2, B3,). In fourteen years the possession\nis A1, B1, A2, B2, A1, B3, A2, B1, A1, B2, A2, B3, A1, B1, and so\non. A1 leaves two sons, A2 lives, B1 has three sons, B2 has four sons\nand B3 has five. A2 gets his turn after intervals of four years,\nbut A1a and B1b have to divide A1's turn. Each therefore gets his\nturn after intervals of eight years, but each of the B shareholders\ngets his turn at intervals of six years and B1a, B1b, B1c now have\na turn each at intervals of eighteen years, B2a, B2b, B2c, B2d, at\nintervals of twenty-four years, B3e at intervals of thirty years,\nas in the following table:--\n\n\n            1   A1a        11   A2        21   A1b\n            2   B1a        12   B3b       22   B2d\n            3   A2         13   A1b       23   A2\n            4   B2a        14   B1c       24   B3d\n            5   A1b        15   A2        25   A1a\n            6   B3a        16   B2c       26   B1b\n            7   A2         17   A1a       27   A2\n            8   B1b        18   B3c       28   B2a\n            9   A1a        19   A2        29   A1b\n           10   B2b        20   B1a       30   B3e\n\n\nTAWALAMA: Pack-bullock.\n\nTELGEDI: Ripe or dry cocoanuts to express oil from.\n\nTEMMETTAMA: A kettle-drum. One of the five musical instruments of\na temple.\n\nTEMMETTANKARAYA: A tenant playing on the Temmettama and belonging to\nthe tom-tom beater caste. His service is in requisition for the daily\nservices of a temple at its festivals, perehera, and pinkama and when\nthe incumbent proceeds on journeys of importance such as ordinations,\nvisits to the prior, and pinkam duties. Under a lay proprietor,\nthe Temmettankaraya attends at weddings, Yak and Bali ceremonies,\nfunerals, and on journeys on state occasions. He occasionally assists\nin agricultural and building works, and presents a penuma of a towel\nor piece of cloth with betel. At the four festivals in temples he\ntakes a part in all the preparations and decorations.\n\nTETAMATTUWA: A towel or piece of cloth to rub the body dry after a\nbath, which it is the service of the dhoby to supply.\n\nTETIYA: A metal dish used for the purposes of a plate.\n\nTEWAWA: The daily service of a Dewale, morning, noon, and evening,\nwhen muruten is offered.\n\nTIRALANU: Cords for curtains.\n\nTIRAPILI: Curtains.\n\nTITTAYAN: A kind of small fresh-water fish having bitter taste. It\nis dried and given with other articles as penum.\n\nTORANA: An ornamental arch put up on public and festive occasions.\n\nTUPPOTTIYA: A cloth of ten yards worn round the waist. The ordinary\nwearing cloth of a Kandyan.\n\nTUTTUWA: A pice, equal sometimes to 3/8d. sometimes one half-penny;\nwhen it contains four challies it is called the \"Mahatuttuwa.\"\n\nTUWAYA-TUNDAMA: A towel given by the tom-tom beater tenants as\na penuma.\n\n\n\nU\n\nUDAHALLA: A hanging basket of wicker-work.\n\nUDAKKIYA: A small kind of drum carried in the hand and used to play\nfor dance music. Its use is not restricted to any caste.\n\nUDUWIYANA: A canopy held over the muruten in the daily service of\na Dewale, or over the insignia at processions, or over any sacred\nthing taken in procession, such as Alutsal, Nanu, Bana books, Relics,\netc. The word also means ceilings put up by the dhoby.\n\nUGAPATA: Vegetables, jaggery, or kitul-peni etc., wrapped up in leaves,\ngenerally in the sheath of the arecanut branch. Six ugapat make a kada,\nor pingo-load.\n\nULIYAMWASAMA: The holding of land by the Uliyamwasam tenants who\nperform all kinds of menial service. The same as Nilawasam q. v.\n\nUL-UDE: Trousers worn by dancers.\n\nUNDIYARALA: A Dewala messenger.\n\nUNDUWAPMASA: The ninth month of the Sinhalese year (December-January).\n\nUPASAKARALA: Persons devoted to religious exercises.\n\nUPASAMPADAWA: The highest order of Buddhist priests. The ceremony of\nadmission into the order.\n\nUSNAYA: A smith's forge. The same as idinna. q.v.\n\nUYANWATTA: A park, a garden. The principal garden attached to a temple\nor to the estate of a proprietor, the planting, watching, gathering\nand removing the produce of which forms one of the principal services\nof tenants.\n\n\n\nW\n\nWADANATALAATTA: A richly ornamented talipot. In ancient times its\nuse was restricted to the court of the king and to temples; but now\nit is used by the upper classes on public occasions, being carried\nby the Atapattu tenants. The same as Kumaratalatta. q.v.\n\nWAHALBERE: The same as Magulbere. q.v.\n\nWAHALKADA: The porch before a temple or court.\n\nWAHUNPURAYA: A tenant of the jaggery caste, which supplies the upper\nclasses with domestic servants, chiefly cooks. This class has to\naccompany the proprietor on journeys and carry the palanquin of female\nmembers of the proprietor's family. When not engaged as domestics the\nWahumpurapangu tenants supply jaggery and kitul-peni. They likewise\nsupply vegetables, attend agricultural work and carry baggage.\n\nWAJJANKARAYA: A tom-tom-beater. A general term for a temple\nmusician. The five wajjan of which a regular Hewisia is made up are:\n1, the Dawula (the common drum); 2, the Temettama (kettle-drum) 3,\nthe Boraya (drum longer than a Dawula) 4, the Taliya (cymbals) and 5,\nthe Horanewa (the trumpet.)\n\nWADUPASRIYANGE: The same as \"Anamestraya.\"\n\nWAKMASE OR WAPMASE: The seventh month of the Sinhalese year (Oct. Nov.)\n\nWALANKADA: A pingo of pottery, usually ten or twelve in number,\nsupplied by the potter as a part of his service, either as a penumkada\nor as the complement of chatties he has to give at festivals, etc.\n\nWALAN-KERAWALA: Half a pingo of pottery.\n\nWALAWWA: A respectful term for the residence of a person of rank. The\nmanor-house.\n\nWALIYAKUMA: Called also \"Wediyakuma.\" The devil-dance after a\nDiyakepuma. See \"Hiro hinetima.\"\n\nWALLAKOTU: Sticks, the bark or twigs of which are used in place of\nstring. It is supplied by tenants for Yak or Bali ceremonies.\n\nWALLIMALE: A poem containing the legends of Valliamma, the wife\nof Kataragama.\n\nWALUMALGOBA: The cluster of young fruit the flower and the sprout\n(tender branch) of the cocoanut tree used in decorations, and supplied\nby tenants.\n\nWANATA: A clearing between a cultivated land and the adjacent\njungle. The same as \"Pillowa\".\n\nWANNAKURALA: An accountant. Tho officer of a temple whose duties\ncorrespond to those of a Dewala Mohattala or Attanayakarala.\n\nWAPPIHIYA: A knife little larger than a Wahunketta (kitchen knife)\nwith the blade somewhat curved.\n\nWARAGAMA: A gold coin varying in value from six shillings to seven\nshillings and sixpence.\n\nWASAMA: An office. A service holding.\n\nWASKALAYA: The season in which priests take up a fixed residence,\ndevoting their time to the public reading and expounding of Bana. It\nfalls between the months of July and October. Sometimes a resident\npriest is placed in Was in his own Pansala, which means that he is to\nbe fed with dan provided by the tenantry during the season of Was. The\npractice originated in the command of Buddha that his disciples should\ntravel about during the dry season as mendicant monks, but that in the\nrainy season they should take shelter in leaf huts. The modern priests\nnow desert their substantially built monasteries to take up their\nresidence for the Was-lit: rainy season--in temporary buildings. The\nobject of the original institution was to secure attention during\npart of the year to the persons living near the monastery--in fact\nthat for this period the monks should serve as parish priests.\n\nWAS-ANTAYA: The close of the Was-season.\n\nWATADAGE: Temporary sheds for lights, sometimes called \"Pasriyangewal\"\nor \"Wadupasriyangewal.\"\n\nWATAPETTIYA: A circular flat basket to carry adukku and penum in.\n\nWATATAPPE: Circular wall round a temple.\n\nWATTAKKA: The common gourd generally grown on hen.\n\nWATTAMA: A round or turn. In Nuwarakalawiya it is applied to the turn\nin a Hewisimura service.\n\nWATTIYA: A flat basket for carrying penum, flowers etc.\n\nWATTORURALA: The tenant whose duty it is to open and close the doors\nof the sanctuary in a Dewale, to sweep it out, to clean and trim\nthe lamps, to light and tend them, and to take charge of the sacred\nvessels used in the daily service.\n\nWENIWEL: A creeper used as strings for tying.\n\nWESAK: The second month of the Sinhalese year (May-June).\n\nWESIGILIYA OR WESIKILIYA: A privy for priests.\n\nWESMUNA: A mask worn at a Devil or other dance.\n\nWIBADDE-MOHOTTALA: The writer who keeps the account of the paddy\nrevenue of a temple.\n\nWIDANE: The superintendent of a village or a number of villages. The\nagent of a proprietor.\n\nWIHARAYA: A Buddhist temple (from the Sanskrit vi-hri to walk about),\noriginally the hall where the Buddhist priests took their morning walk;\nafterwards these halls were used as temples and sometimes became the\ncentre of a whole monastic establishment. The word Wihara or Vihara\nis now used only to designate a building dedicated to the memory of\nGautama Buddha, and set apart for the daily offering of flowers,\nand of food given in charity. To the Wihara proper there has been\nadded in modern times an image-house for figures of Buddha in the\nthree attitudes standing as the law-giver, sitting in meditation,\nreclining in the eternal repose of unbroken peace and happiness;\nand these figures now form prominent objects in every Wihara, and it\nis before these figures that pious Buddhists make their offerings\nof rice, flowers, money, etc. It should not be confounded with the\n\"Pansala\" which signifies the monastic buildings as distinguished\nfrom the temple or place of worship around which they are clustered.\n\nWILKORAHA: A large chatty used in soaking seed paddy.\n\nWITARUMA: An inferior Vidane, but the office has lost its original\ndignity. The duties formerly consisted of mere general superintendence\nof Muttettu-work and carrying of messages to Hewawasam tenants. The\nVitaranna now is only a common messenger doing ordinary service as\na petty overseer.\n\nWIYADAMA: Anything expended or issued for use, whether money or\nstores. It is generally used for provisions given to a headman or\nperson of rank.\n\nWIYAKOLAMILA: Hire of buffaloes employed in threshing paddy.\n\nWIYANBENDIMA: The hanging up by the dhoby of clean cloths in temples\nfor festivals or in private houses on festive and other occasions.\n\nWIYAN-TATTUWA: A canopy; a coiling.\n\n\n\nY\n\nYAKDESSA: A tenant of the tom-tom beater caste who performs Devil\nceremonies.\n\nYAKGE OR YAKMADUWA: The shed in which is performed a devil ceremony.\n\nYAKADAMILA: Hire or cost of agricultural implements for Muttettu\ncultivation, given by a proprietor.\n\nYAKADAWEDA: Hard-ware. Blacksmith's work.\n\nYALA: The second or the smaller of the two yearly harvests. The\nseason for it varies according to the facilities which each part of\nthe country has in respect of irrigation. Sometimes the word is used\nin a general sense to mean a crop.\n\nYAMANNA OR YAPAMMU: Smelters of iron. Their service consists of giving\na certain number of lumps of iron yearly, the burning of charcoal\nfor the forge, carrying baggage, assisting in field work, and at\nYak or Bali ceremonies. They put up the Talimana (pair of bellows)\nfor the smith, and smelt iron.\n\nYATIKAWA: A Kapurala's incantation or a pray uttered on behalf of a\nsick person.\n\nYATU: Half lumps of iron given as a penum by the Yamana tenants.\n\nYOTA: A strong cord or rope.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n[1] An account of the Interior of Ceylon (1821) Page 119 Davy.\n\n[2] Eleven Years in Ceylon (1841), Vol. II, p. 81 Forbes.\n\n[3] An Historical Relation of Ceylon 1681 Page 75 (Knox)\n\n[4] Ancient Ceylon (1909) pp. 191, 196 (Parker)\n\n[5] The Friend (Old Series) Vol. IV. (1840-1841) p. 189. (David\nde Silva.)\n\n[6] Eleven years in Ceylon (1841) Vol. II, page 104 (Major Forbes.)\n\n[7] Taprobanian (1887) vol. 2 p. 17 (Neville).\n\n[8] The Veddas (1911) p. 252 (Seligmann).\n\n[9] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 169. (Parker).\n\n[10] Govt. Gazette No. 6442 of 19th May 1911.\n\n[11] The Aryan village in India and Ceylon (1882) p. 205 (Phear).\n\n[12] The Friend (old series) Vol. IV (1840-1841) p. 211. David de Silva\n(Ambalangeda).\n\n[13] Vide:--\n\nThe friend (old series) (1840-1841) Vol. IV p. 189 (David de Silva).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1848-1849) Vol. II No. 4 p. 31 (R. E. Lewis).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1880)      Vol. VI No. 21 p. 46 (Ievers).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1883)      Vol. VIII No. 26 p. 44 (Bell).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1884)      Vol. VIII No. 29 p. 331 (J. P. Lewis).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1889)      Vol. XI No. 39 p. 17 (Bell).\nJ.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1905)      Vol. XVIII No. 56 p. 413 (Comaraswamy).\nJ.R.A.S. (Great Britain) (1885) Vol. XVII p. 366 (Lemesurier).\nTaprobanian (1885) Vol. I p. 94 (Neville).\nOrientalist (1887) Vol. III p. 99 (Bell).\nSpolia Zeylanica (1908) (Parson).\nNorth Central Province Manual (1899) p. 181 (Ievers).\nThe Book of Ceylon (1908) p. 382 (Cave).\n\n[14] Vide glossary in the appendix.\n\n[15] For hunter's jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 2 p. 19.\n\n[16] For Rodi jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 2 p. 90.\n\n[17] For cultivator's jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 1 p. 167.\n\n[18] For Veddi dialect vide Taprobanian Vol. 1 p. 29.\n\n[19] J.R.A.S.(C. B.) 1881 Vol. VII p. 33.\n\n[20] Illustrated Supplement to the Examiner (1875) Vol. I p. 8.\n\n[21] J. R. A. S. (C. B.) vol. V. No. 18 p. 17 (Ludovici.)\n\n[22] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 587 (Parker.)\n\n[23] From Revd. Moscrop's translation of the song of the Thresher in\nthe \"Children of Ceylon\", p. 53.\n\n[24] From Mr. Bell's translation in the Arch\u00e6ological Survey of\nKegalle, p. 44.","title":"Sinhalese Folklore Notes, Ceylon","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":44352}