GUIDE TO THE COLOMBO MUSEUM. 177 



game of the Sinhalese ; but the game is of pecuHar distribution , and 

 has " served for ages to divert the inhabitants of nearly half of the 

 inhabited area of the Globe." 



It obtained the name which it bears in the interior of Ceylon 

 from the small red seeds of the olinda creeper {Ahrus precatorius) 

 which are used for playing it. Olinda or any other suitable seeds or 

 shells are placed in two depressions at the ends, and the players 

 have to make the circuit of the board from pit to pit along the 

 sides without occupying the same hole at one time. The player 

 who gets the seeds home first wins. The game is undoubtedly of 

 wide distribution. The game is said to have had its original home 

 in Central Africa, but it appears to be found wherever Arabian 

 influence is felt. The wide diffusion of the game may be due to its 

 having been carried by returning pilgrims to the various parts of the 

 Muhammadan world. 



Special attention is directed to two chonJca boards, one with three 

 birds in high relief and one, similar to boards in the British Museum, 

 in the shape of a fish, consisting of two halves joined by hinges. 



It is surprising to find that almost every coimtry where the game 

 is known has its special mode of playing it, an additional proof 

 of its antiquity. Ceylon is no exception to this rule, and among the 

 Sinhalese there are no less than five different methods, four of which 

 are found in the interior among the Kandyans, and one on the 

 western coast. (See Plate XXXI.) 



The games are especially played at the season of the New Year, 

 with which they appear to have some connection. At that season 

 olinda boards that have nevei- seen the light during the previous 

 twelve months are invariably brought out of their hiding place on 

 some dark dust-covered and smoke-begrimed shelf, and hour after 

 hour is devoted to the game for several nights in succession. It is 

 almost a monopoly of the women. The boards are then put away 

 carefully, and often are not used again for another year, though 

 there is no feeling of any prohibition against playing it at other 

 times, and occasional games are sometimes indulged in. 



There are four religious games plaj'^ed by the Sinhalese, gamely, 

 An-keliya, "the horn -pulling game ; " Dodan-keliya, "the orange 

 (striking) game;" Pol-keliya, "the coconut (breaking) game;" 

 and Mal'keliya, " the flower game." All these games are intimately 

 connected with the worship of Pattini, the goddess of chastity and 

 controller of epidemics. 



An-keliya is customary only at the time when a district is threat- 

 ened with infectious disease, especially smallpox. Pattini is also 

 considered an incarnation of the goddess Durga, the wife of Siva. 



An-keliya, or the " pulling of horns," is the idea of the merry- 

 thought of European superstition developed on a gigantic scale. The 

 game, though seldom witnessed now, was formerly the one great 

 national game of the Sinhalese, and was performed in many places 

 on a scale of great magnificence and in the presence of thousands 

 of spectators. As mentioned before, it is purely a religious game 

 sacred to the goddess Pattini, and is usually performed on the 

 occasion of some epidemic ascribed to her interference. 



Usually, on a propitious day chosen by an astrologer, a large body 

 of people accompanied by a kapurala, or de vil -priest , repair to the 

 foot of a selected tree surrounded by open ground, and there, at the 

 distance of a few yards from the tree, a narrow hole about six feet 

 long and four or five feet deep is dug, in which a substantial coconut 



43-12 ( 5 ) 



