A BELIEF IN DEMON INFLUENCE. 



115 



So this sort of shooting at monkeys continued for three or four^ 

 weeks. One evening, as the astrologer was returning home from 

 another village, and was moving along a footpath flanked on both 

 sides by thick bushes, he was shot by somebody concealed among 

 the bushes and lived only a few hours. The Jury, who tried 

 the old carpenter, at once acquitted him, as, although there was as 

 usual a good deal of false evidence put in, which from its nature 

 was not, and could not be, believed, there was not a tittle of trust- 

 worthy evidence against him, excepting the mere fact of his having 

 had at his house a gun borrowed from a neighbour to shoot monkeys. 

 But all the villagers knew to a certainty that the old man was the 

 murderer. 



Instances like the above can be multiplied by hundreds, if neces- 

 sary ; but the few already cited will, we think, be sufficient to give 

 the reader some idea of the nature of the evils, which a belief in 

 the power of charms often produces among our countrymen ; a be- 

 lief, which is not confined to those, whom we are in the habit of 

 styling common people, but which prevails equally, though with 

 less serious consequences, among Singhalese of a higher class and 

 condition, with the exception of a very few well educated intelli- 

 gent people, not exceeding, we firmly believe, four or five hundred 

 individuals in the whole island. 



There is a peculiarity, very general among the Singhalese, that 

 if an European questions a Cattadiya about any particular depart- 

 ment of his art, he will give just such answers, as he thinks will 

 be most in accordance with the opinions of the querist, as far as it 

 can be done without wholly condemning the entire system ; but 

 whenever there appears to be no chance of avoiding this last dilemma, 

 he will make every possible excuse to make a hasty retreat, with- 

 out entangling himself in. the difficulties of a discussion, in which 

 he knows he will not be able to triumph. If an Englishman tells 

 an advocate of Demonism that charms and Demon Ceremonies are 

 mere follies ; that no benefit whatever can be derived from them ; 

 that they are mere impostures intended to delude the ignorant]; and 

 that the most learned Cattadiya cannot satisfactorily prove that they 



