54 



JOURNAL. K. A, S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. VIII. 



Indeed, little licence is permitted inside the limits of the 

 kamata from the commencement of threshing operations. It 

 is unseemly to stand on one leg or to place the hand under 

 the chin, whilst the presence of certain persons and articles 

 of food is absolutely tabooed. Any one who may have eaten 

 of meat or fish which is held unclean — names ending in ran 

 are impure— is not admitted : nor are (unless after bathing 

 and putting on clean clothes) persons who have attended a 

 funeral or come from an "unclean house." After threshing 

 has once commenced, women are prohibited from entering 

 the threshing floor altogether. 



The tabu extends even to the words employed at the 

 threshing-floor. All terms conveying a negative or unlucky 

 sense are discarded, and, a fortiori, the names of Yakseyo 

 never breathed. 



Mr. levers has already drawn attention to the strange 

 conventionalism adopted by Sinhalese cultivators of substi- 

 tuting an odd shibboleth for the ordinary colloquial talk of 

 everyday life. 



This goyibasa or threshing-floor speech, as might be 

 expected, varies in different localities. A comparative list 

 is appended of some of the words in use in the Kegalla 

 District, the Kayigam and Siyane Korales of the Western 

 Province, and a portion of the Galle District, which, 

 however incomplete, may serve as a nucleus for further 

 investigation into this branch of the subject.* 



If threshing is done by men (minissunnen pdganavd) 

 a katura is erected. This construction consists of four poles, 

 placed so as to form two crutches, across which another 

 pole (pdvara-Uya) is laid horizontally, chest high. Mats 

 are spread underneath, and the corn from the heap gradually 

 trodden out by men, who hold on to the cross pole from 

 either side to make greater play with their feet. 



When all the grain has been threshed, the mats are taken 

 up and the bags covered with straw to protect them from 

 rain. The paddy is winnowed (hidan-karanwvd or gaka- 

 nawd) finally a day or two days afterwards and dried for 

 two or three days more as required. 



* Note 7. 



