AKGAM CHARMS, 



81 



for destruction, who, on breaking open or rather unloosing the bands 

 of what appears to him to be a letter, falls down senseless. 



If a man however be fortified by charms against Angams and 

 other agents of demoniac power, he can be affected only by the An gam 

 called Nee c ha Cula Angam, (No. 5), which can break through all 

 such defences, and affect the man as easily as if he had never been 

 protected by any charms whatever. 



If you tell a Cattadiya that his science of charms is nothing but 

 an absurd ridiculous fiction, calculated to delude only the most 

 ignorant and credulous; that it can do nothing to those who do not 

 believe in it, and if you ask him why it can not injure an English- 

 man, although the latter courts and challenges a trial, he will tell 

 you, if you are a Singhalese, (but if you are an Englishman, he 

 will give you a very different reason), that, though a demon revels 

 in blood and human carcasses, yet he possesses certain ideas of 

 cleanliness and decency, and that therefore he is unwilling to affect 

 with his influence an Englishman, who does not cleanse his person 

 with water after the discharge of the bodily functions; he will tell 

 you indeed that there is one low filthy demon, who, being indiffer- 

 ent to dirt, does influence even an Englishman, when forced to it 

 by the charm called Rodi Angam, (No. 6); but that in the Jee- 

 wama of this Angam, a green leaf of the Alu Kesel* plantain tree, 

 used by a Rodia (a man of the lowest caste in the Island) to put 

 his meals on, is necessary; and that it is extremely difficult to get 

 this, as no Rodia will leave it behind him after he has taken his 

 meals on it, and will not part with it to any but one of his own 

 caste. 



If sticks or clubs, submitted to the Jeewama of Tadicara Angam 

 (No. 9), are left on roads and other places frequented by people, any 

 person passing by and seeing them will be irresistibly compelled to 

 take them up, and use them in assaulting every one he may happen 

 to see, and at last turn them against himself. 



* Alu Kesel literally means Ash Plantain ; it is so called from its fruit being 

 covered with something similar to ashes, 



M 



