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NOVEMBER, 1903.)
GLIMPSES OF SINGHALESE SOOIAL LIFE.
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to February to Adam's Peak, against which they dash themselves and die. Centipedes (pattéyó) ran away when their name is mentioned and kill themselves when surrounded by a fire; they are as much affected as the person they bite. The black beetle (kuruminiyd) is a departed spirit sent by Yama, king of the dead, to find out how many there are in a family; if it comes down on three taps from an ikle broom, its intentions are evil; it is either killed or wrapped in a piece of white cloth and kept in a corner.
If one approaches the mythical damba tree without a charm, he is killed by evil spirits; a twig of the unknown kalunika floats against the current and cuts in two the strongest metal, and the fabulous kapruka gives everything one wishes for. Bo-trees are sacred to Buddha and never cut down; the margosa (kohomba) is consecrated to Pattini and her seven attondants; and the fruits of the Steroulia fetida (telambu) are never eaten, as this tree is haunted by Navaratna Walli, the patronegs of the Rodiya caste. A nut of the cocoanut-tree never falls on one except he has incurred divine displeasure ; it is lacky to possess a double cocoanat-tree, but bad for one's male children to have a king cocoanut-tree near a house, and when a child is born or a person dies, a cocoanut blossom is hung over to keep away the devils.
The flowering of the Corypha umbraculifera (tala) is inauspicious to a village, and to remove the evil influence a gardyakuma is performed. In drawing toddy from the Caryota urens (kitul), a knife which has already been used is preferred to another. One who plants an areca-tree becomes subject to nervousness, and the woman who chews with betel the slice containing the scar becomes a widow. Before a betel is chewed its apex and sometimes the ribs are removed, either as poison may have been injected, or as a cobra bronght this leaf from the lower world with the stalk in its mouth; the petiole also is broken off, as it is beneath one's dignity to eat it.
There are rites and ceremonies before ploughing and sowing rice ; for making a threshing-floor; before the threshing takes place; after the first crop of corn is threshed; after the paddy is collected and at the measuring of the grain. In a field things are given strange names; no sad news is told, and shade over the head is not permitted. When the daily supply of rice is being given out, if the winnowing fan (kulla) or the measure (hundua) drops, it denotes that extra mouths will have to be fed ; and if a person talks while the grain is pat into the pot it will not swell, Paddy is not pounded in a house where one has died, as the spirit is attracted by the noise. Twilight seen on the tops of trees is the light by which the female elf Rakshi dries ber paddy.
A bite of the Habenaria macrostachya naga meru alb) inflames one's passion; the Trichosanthes cucumerina (dummalla) and the Zehenaria umbellata (kekiri) are rendered bitter if named before eating; the Alocasia yams (habarala) give a rasping sensation in the throat whenever it is mentioned within the eater's hearing; if a married female eats a plantain which is attached to another, she will get twins; when one is hurt by a nettle, Cassia leaves (tóra) are rubbed on the injured place with the words "Lôra kola visa nota kahambiliyáva visa eta" (Cassia leaves are stingless, but prickly is the nettle); and to get a good crop yams are planted in the afternoon and fruitbearing trees in the forenoon. The Cassia grows on a fertile soil, and where the Maritizia tetrandra (diya taliya) and the Terminalia tomentosa (kumbuk) flourish, & copious supply of water can be obtained ; persons taken for execution were formerly decorated with the hibiscus (wadamal), and flowers of different colours are used for devil ceremonies.
It is auspicions to have growing near houses the iron-wood (nd), the Mimusops hexandra (palu), the Mimusops elengi (münamal). champak (sapu), the pomegranate (delum), the margosa, the areca, the cocoanut, the palmyrah (talgaha), the jack (herali), the shoeflower, the Wrightia zeylanica (idda), the nutmeg (sadikka), and the Vitis vinifera (midt). But the following are unlucky: the cotton tree (imbul), the Myristica horsfieldia (ruk), the mango (amba), the Aegle marmelos (belt), the Cassia fistula (ehela), the tamarind (siyamball), the satinwood (bruta), the Acacia catechu (rat kihiri), the Murraya exotica (ellériya) and the soapberry plant (penela).16
(To be continued.) 36 I am largely indebted for the information about plants to J. R. 4. 8. (Ceylon), 1801, Vol. XII. No. 12, p. 185.
