Sinhalese Folklore Notes, Ceylon

SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES

CEYLON

BY
ARTHUR A. PERERA,
Advocate, Ceylon.

Bombay:
PRINTED AT THE BRITISH INDIA PRESS, MAZGAON
1917

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The Sinhalese beliefs, customs and stories in the present collection were contributed by the writer to the Indian Antiquary fourteen years ago in a series of articles under the title of “Glimpses of Sinhalese Social Life”; they are now offered, amplified and rearranged, to the student of folklore in Ceylon, as a basis for further research. The writer has adopted the scheme of classification in the Folklore Society’s Hand Book of Folklore.

ARTHUR A. PERERA.

Westwood, Kandy,
10th February, 1917.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Belief and Practice.

Customs.

Stories, Songs and Sayings.

Appendix.

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

SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARTH AND THE SKY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER II.

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III.

THE ANIMAL WORLD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wild buffaloes are susceptible to charms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV.

HUMAN BEINGS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER V.

THINGS MADE BY MAN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VI.

THE SOUL AND ANOTHER LIFE.

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII.

SUPERHUMAN BEINGS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pattini is the goddess of chastity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII.

OMENS AND DIVINATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAGIC ART.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X.

DISEASE AND LEECHCRAFT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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