48 



HOW DEMONS 



The more dangerous and critical a disease is, the surer is Tanicama 

 to come upon the sick man; and when the disease appears to be past 

 all hopes of a cure, the Tanicama influence becomes strongest, 

 and the demons remain in the very neighbourhood of the sick 

 man's house, if not near his bed. The sound of footsteps, of the 

 violent shaking of trees and bushes, sudden loud sounds, as of striking 

 with whips and sticks, and similar other tokens of their presence 

 and of their joy at the expected death, are supposed to be heard 

 around the house. These ominous signs are called Holm an. It is 

 on this account, that so many demon ceremonies are performed, 

 when a person is sick, from the commencement of the sickness to 

 its termination. 



The literal meaning of the word Tanicama gives us a key towards 

 the understanding of many of the mysterious and wonderful cir- 

 cumstances connected with this part of our subject, especially when 

 it is taken in connection with the other doctrine of Demon ism already 

 alluded to, viz., that, though a demon try his utmost by means of 

 terrible apparitions or by actual seizure to frighten a man and give 

 him the Tanicama, which results in sickness, yet the man will 

 seldom get ill, if he do not get frightened. 



Among many hundreds of instances of sickness, which we have 

 heard of, as the consequences of Tanicama, the following is one, 

 which came within our own knowledge a few years ago; and we 

 give it here, merely to enable the reader to form some idea of the 

 superstitious fears of a Singhalese, and of the strange pranks, which 

 imagination plays with him. 



One evening about 8 o'clock, some four years ago, we happened 

 to take a walk to the seashore, which was not very far from our 

 house. It was a bright moonlight night, and the sky was glowing 

 with the brilliancy of thousands of stars. We were accompanied 

 by two men, of whom one was a young man, whose name was Baba. 

 The heat was unusually great, so we remained more than an hour 

 on the seabeach on account of the cool sea breeze. The greater part 

 of that hour was taken up by one of our two companions relating 

 ghost stories, to which Baba, like every other Singhalese of his 



