254 J. HORNELL ON 



all the linking of the oculus with the name of the goddess in the case of the kalla 

 dhoni, we must draw our conclusions. Just as there is in India a presiding or pro- 

 tecting deity in each Hindu house, so in these four boats we have what cannot well be 

 other than a survival from the days when the ceremonies attendent upon the launch 

 of every boat in India endowed it with a presiding god or rather goddess, in whose 

 care the vessel and her crew should thereafter be ; as the house deity is associated in 

 special measure with the entrance or threshold, so the guardian of the boat appears 

 to be associated more particularly with the bow. Many Indian sea-customs tend to 

 confirm this view of the sacredness of the bow and its association with the protect- 

 ing deity — among others that may be mentioned is that of splashing water upon the 

 prow when a fishing boat pushes off from shore ; this is practised by the Roman 

 Catholic fishermen of the Tinnevelly coast and it most certainly conserves for us an 

 extremely old custom of offering libation to the boat's presiding deity. ^ 



Any indignity to the bow of their boat is resented by the Hindu boat-people 

 of the north of Ceylon as shown by the following incident. One of my assistants, 

 when on a journe^^ in a Jaffna dhoni, happened to sit upon the stem-head, carved as 

 usual into a inwardly coiled ornament. The tindal was greatly annoyed at this, 

 although my assistant was a Brahman ; he ordered him to get off, telling him he 

 should not sit there as the bow was Lakshmi, and such action was offensive to the 

 goddess. In explanation he subsequently stated that the bow is held sacred among 

 Jaffnese Hindu sailors, consequent upon the special religious cremonies performed at 

 the launch of the boat. The tindal described these as follows: — 



Before the boat is put into the water, it is decorated with flags and plantain 

 trees and a garland of flowers is hung round the prow, which is also smeared with 

 sandalwood paste and vermilion powder. A small coloured "cloth" such as is 

 worn by young girls is also wrapped round it ; finally a tali or marriage token in 

 the form of a small brass cup or bowl is tied round the same part exactly as a 

 token of similar form but fashioned in gold, is tied around a bride's neck during 

 orthodox Hindu marriage rites. The ceremonies appear intended to wed lyakshmi to the 

 boat and instal her there permanently. The brass tali used at the launching is a 

 cherished possession of the boat-owner and is handed down from father to son. 

 Hindu boatro.en in the north of Ceylon are now few in number, and the above cus- 

 tom is rapidly dying out. 



Regarding the antiquity of the above practices and beliefs, it is of importance to 

 note that the Jaffnese Tamils, long resident in the north of Ceylon as descendants 

 of emigrants and invaders from the Chola and Pandyan kingdoms of South India, 

 have retained many archaic Tamil customs long since lost by their continental 

 kindred ; they are noted also for employing in ordinary speech a form of Tamil which 

 they claim closely approaches the classical Tamil of i,ooo to 1,500 years ago. If true. 



1 An interesting account of the belief held among the Malay fishermen of Patani that all boats have a ' oul,' is 

 given by Dr. X. Annandale in Fasciculi Malayenses (Anthropology, Pt. I, 1903, p. 80). After a spell of bad luck 

 in fishing, an offering is laid on the head of each rib of the boat. Some fishermen also make a practice of placing 

 . turmeric rice ' on the prow of their boat every Friday, with the same object 



