4 



GENERAL REMARKS ON 



the first impulse of uneducated nature, a supernatural agency to 

 natural causes and events, when these were beyond the comprehen- 

 sion of their simple intellects, and naturally impelled, therefore, in 

 the absence of any other form of religion calculated to fill up the 

 void in their minds, to embrace any which their untutored passions 

 and feelings, and their immediate wants and conveniences suggested 

 to them, as the best — men such as these are likely to coin for them- 

 selves a religion, which in every respect corresponds with their own 

 dispositions. Sickness and death, the most direful calamities of 

 life, with the many dreadful circumstances generally attending 

 them, are, of all causes, those which would naturally, in those early 

 ages of the world, excite, in an ignorant and simple mind, feelings 

 of supernatural terror; and the rise, among such a people, of a 

 system of worship, in which every form of disease and suffering is 

 attributed to the agency of demons, must cease to excite wonder 

 in any mind. If Demonism did actually exist here previous to the 

 invasion of Wijeyo, as we think it did, a multitude of other causes 

 and cireum stances, which followed that event, as consequences of 

 it, must have cooperated to bring it into its present condition, with 

 its charms and spells and invocations to the Hindoo deities. These 

 changes appear to have bean going on till within the last 3 centuries. 



But though we are not able to fix the exact period at which 

 Demonism originated in the Island, we have enough of evidence to 

 prove, that its origin could not have been later than the fifth century; 

 for the seventh Chapter of 31 ah a Wanse, a work whose authen- 

 ticity has never been called in question, makes mention of Balli* 

 offerings, made to demons at the time of Wijeyo, that is five and a 

 half centuries before the Christian Era; which shews, that, even if 

 Demon- worship did not prevail here in the days of Wijeyo, it did so 



* Although the books of the demon priests direct that a balli or image of 

 any demon invoked on any occasion, should be formed, and offerings be made to 

 it, yet in point of practice this image, or balli, has generally been dispensed with 

 in modern times. 



There is another species of balli made to represent, not demons, but Planet 

 gods. These will come to be noticed under the head Grahaism. 



