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MAY, 1904.)
GLIMPSES OF SINGHALESE SOCIAL LIFE.
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touching a pebble (keto alld) or by the image of Vishnu or some other deity, or by the sacred scriptures (bana) or by Buddha's mandopla (tirisárayu). In all the above, punishment followed in this life itself, except where the Great Master was concerned, when the perjured person suffered in a future existence. There were five common forms of ordeal; that by hot oil required the adversaries to put their middle finger in boiling oil and water mixed with cowdung, and if neither or both were burnt the land was equally divided. The other four modes consisted of the disputants partaking of some rice boiled from the paddy of the land in question ; breaking an earthen vessel and eating a cocoanut that were placed on the portion claimed ; removing the rushes laid along the boundary; or striking each other with the mud of the disputed field; the claim was decided by any misfortune which fell to either party or his relatives within seven or fourteen days. There were two other forms which liad fallen into disuse even in ancient times owing to the severity of the tests, viz., carrying a red-hot iron (rípolla) seven paces without being burnt and picking some coins out of a vessel containing a cobra (nayd) without being bitten.
(8) Industries. The several occupations in which the people are engaged have already been binted st; agriculture and fishing require more detailed reference, as well as hunting, which is followed both to protect the crops from the depredation of wild animals, and as a means of sustenance in districts where cultivation is not possible.
Bice is sown three times a year for the Maha crop in July, for the Yala in January, and for the Medakanna in October - in fields irrigated by taaks, or by rivers dammed up near their mouths : a row of piles is fixed in the bed of the stream and mats made of grass tied to them with jungle creepers : sufficient sand silts up against the framework for a dam. Each owner surrounds his claim of the communal tract of fields with an embankment (niyara), muds it with buffaloes (madavanard), removes the gurplus water with a long wooden ladle (yotumána) hung up on a cross beam at the edge of the field, and sows it with seed-paddy (bittara rí) which had been soaked in water till they bad germinated. From a cadjan-shed (pela), erected on four trestles, the gamarala watches his field by night and day. The neighbours assist each other in reaping the grain (goyan kapanard), tying the sheaves, threshing (goyan pdganard), fanning the chaff in winnowing baskets (kulld) and stacking the straw; and are entertained with a mid-day meal. The harvest time is eagerly looked forward to by the villagers, those employed in towns taking leave of their masters to participate in these rural joys. When water fails, yams and fine grains are cultivated in terraces along hill-slopes, in beds of dried-up tanks, or in clearings (hen) of the communal forests which surround each village : a village consists of a group of hamlets (gan).
The capture of elephants (all) is effected either by pitfalls, female decoys, noosing or by large stockades (etgal) ; 20 leopards (koti) are taken “in traps and pitfalls, and occasionally in spring cages formed of poles driven firmly into the ground, within which a kid is generally fastened as a bait; the door being held open by a sapling bent down by the united force of several men, and so arranged as to act as a spring, to which a noose is ingeniously attached, formed of plaited deer's hide. The cries of the kid attract the leopard, which, being tempted to enter, is enclosed by the liberation of the spring, and grasped firmly round the body by the noosé,"21
Bears (valassu) are very greedy of honey, and this is taken advantage of by woodmen, who "suspend a heavy wooden mallet before the mouth of the fissure in which the hive is built, and & cross-bar to the trunk below at such a distance that when the bear sits on it the end of the mallet will be on a level with his head. Should, as is expected, the bear climb the tree, be makes himself comfortable on the seat provided for him, but no sooner has he done so then he finds the mallet in his way and he pushes it away, when the next moment it comes back and cracks him over the head.
2. There is quite a literature on the subject; consult Modder's Hand Book to the Elephant Kraal (1902). 31 Tennant's Natural History of Ceylon (1831), p. 27.
