242 



Terms of address in use 



themselves of the belief that submission to the ceremony was enjoined 

 by orders from the Civil Government."— p. 88. 



So they believed at first. But Baptism soon became an 

 indispensable rite in regard to their civil rights. One of the 

 consequences of this ceremony was, that the name of the party 

 baptized was registered in the Thombo : and the registration 

 was of the most paramount importance to the litigious Singha- 

 lese. In all matters regarding their inheritance, in all their 

 contentions on the ground of illegitimacy, and on various 

 other questions that frequently come before the Courts, 

 registration, and registration alone, is the best evidence of 

 what they seek to establish, or disprove. From the fearful 

 amount of perjury that is to be found in the Courts, they fear 

 that without this documentary proof they will fail to es- 

 tablish their rights : and it is therefore (to use the language 

 of Sir Emerson Tennent in the subsequent part of the 

 passage that I have just above quoted) that, "when a parent 

 upbraids his child in anger, he sometimes threatens to dis- 

 inherit him, by saying, he will blot out his baptism from the 

 Thombo" So scrupulous however, are they in respect of this 

 registration, that actions have often been brought to compel 

 the registration of particular patronymics, and to cancel 

 others to which parties were not entitled. 



Thus it will be perceived, that the Singhalese resort to 

 baptism, not as a religious duty, nor as a ceremony which con- 

 ferred, as supposed by Sir Emerson Tennent, "some civil 

 distinction f * but simply as an operation which alone secured 

 the registration, which they prized so very high. 



This leads me to notice a misapprehension under which 

 Sir Emerson labours, when he thinks that " to the present 

 day the Singhalese term for the ceremony (Kula-waddanawa) 

 bears the literal interpretation of e admission to rank.' " Not 

 so. Owing to a notion amongst the maritime Singhalese, that 



* See p. 88. 



