166 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



therefore his duty to make an offering to the Buddhist priest and to 

 provide the necessities for a dance to the Ne Yakd, and that he had 

 not the wherewithal to fulfil these duties. If these matters were 

 neglected the spirit of the dead man would be angry, and after seven 

 days, when the spirit had become a yaka, would cause sickness, and 

 probably kill him. His manifest relief when we offered him the 

 money needed to purchase the offerings, showed that his sorrow 

 for the loss of his brother was the least of his troubles, and he was 

 quite gay when he started on his twenty-mile walk to the nearest 

 boutique with Rs. 3*50 in his betel pouch, and readily assented to 

 our condition that he must return and perform the Ne Yahu dance 

 near our camp. He declared that the place of the dance was im- 

 material, but that it must occur on the seventh day after death, 

 because on the third day the spirit visited the Kataragam god, who, 

 on the seventh day, gave it permission to receive offerings and to 

 exercise power for good or evil over its living relatives. 



The things which it was necessary to present to the Buddhist 

 priest and their price in cents at the native boutique were : — ^Three 

 measures of rice, 60 ; two coconuts, 20 ; five balls of Jaggery, 15 ; 

 twenty-five arecanuts, 6 ; five tobacco leaves, 12 ; 100 betel leaves, 

 18 ;one plate, 30 ; one cup, 25; one mat, 25; one handkerchief, 36 ; 

 half bottle of coconut oil, 50 ; total, Rs. 2-97. On the other hand, 

 the offering to the Ne Yaku consisting of rice, betelnuts, and a coco- 

 nut, costing less than 50 cents. Notwithstanding this unpromising 

 beginning the Ne Yaku dance they performed seemed to be entirely 

 Vedda in purpose and feeling, agreeing closely with that seen later 

 among the " wild " Veddas near Nuwaragala, the chief feature of 

 both dances being that the dancer possessed by the spirit of the dead 

 man, on seeing the good things provided by his relatives, showed 

 his lovingkindness to them by feeding them with part of the offering 

 and promising them protection and good hunting. 



While at Bandaraduwa we also had the opportunity of seeing a 

 Sinhalese " devil " ceremony at the village of Gonagola, some four 

 miles from Bandaraduwa. The ceremony was got up to cure a 

 woman and child of what seemed to be chronic malaria, though the 

 woman also had a number of chronic sores which suggested multiple 

 granulomata. The ceremony, which began about 2.30 p.m., lasted 

 about six hours, the kattadirdla being possessed by a number of 

 demons in turn, to all of whom offerings of various foods were made. 

 A living fowl was offered to one of the demons, Riri Yakd by name, 

 but no masks were worn, and the ceremony could not begin until 

 fresh blood, other than the blood of a fowl, of which there were many 

 running about the village, had been obtained. To this end the 

 villagers borrowed a gun from a member of our party, and although 

 nominal Buddhists, having shot a monkey but not quite killed it, 

 they could not be persuaded to kill it until the rice with which the 

 blood was to be mixed was cooked, since the fresher its blood the 

 more pleasing it would be to the spirits invoked. 



