32 



THE DEMONS 



a hundred other ways, in all of which the Madana Yakseniyo be- 

 come useful agents in the hands of the magician. But the most 

 efficacious aud unfailing of all these methods is considered to be a 

 certain oil called Madana Tayiley, a single drop of which, sprin- 

 kled on the person of a female, is supposed to act irresistibly on her: 

 but the preparation of the wonderful oil is said to be fraught with 

 so much danger to those engaged in it, that few or none dare to 

 attempt it, and those who do, seldom or never succeed, as the demons 

 are supposed to do their best to disappoint the men by frightening 

 and scaring them away from the scene of their operations, which is 

 said to result in the incurable insanity and eventual or immediate 

 death of the operators. 



A short time ago we found the inhabitants of our native village 

 in a high state of excitement, owing to the freaks that a mad man 

 was playing in the neighbourhood. It was said that he had be- 

 come a maniac by attempting to make the oil Madane Tayiley; that 

 he had, for the last few days, been living in the woods eating ser- 

 pents, frogs, and other loathsome creatures; that he stirred out in 

 the darkness of the night with no other clothing on his person than 

 a few green Gurulla leaves* tied round his waistj that he carried 

 in his hands a man's skull and a bone, and on his shoulders a pot of 

 human blood, w T hich he used to slake his thirst; and that his favo- 

 rite sleeping places were graves. For three or four days together 

 nothing else was talked of in the village. By and bye the real 

 truth eked out from other sources, but not from the villagers them- 

 selves. It appeared that a mad man, a native of Salpitty Corle^ 

 breaking loose from his keepers, had wandered about from village 

 to village, and that during these wanderings he happened one night 

 to pass through the villages we have alluded to above, accompanied 



* Gurulla or Burulla is a kind of plant, between which and the demons there 

 smees to be some mysterious connection. It is used in the construction and 

 decoration of the altars and other structures, which are made in many of the 

 Demon ceremonies. The Cattadiya sometimes adorns his head and his waist 

 with its leaves in certain ceremonies. 



