NO. 26.— 1883.] PADDY CULTIVATION CUSTOMS. 



57 



reserved for a succeeding ceremony, Rdlahdmi-pidima or 

 Kudd-yakun-pldvma. The other two portions, after being 

 again dried in the sun on clean mats, are husked by about 

 a dozen women, who have purified themselves by bathing 

 and putting on clean cloths (piruwata.) The rice is then 

 put into bags and kejDt in the ddne-pela or cadjan covered 

 alms-shed, which is erected opposite the space where the 

 Kapurala is to perform. Inside the pela are also placed 

 the different vegetables brought by those attending the 

 ddne, and a hearth roughly built for cooking. The Kapurala 

 requires to be got ready for him 50 sticks, 6 young cocoanut 

 branches, 4 arekanut flowers, 6 young cocoanuts (gobahi ) a 

 bundle of valid fibre, 2 clean cloths for each man, 50 torches, 

 a clay oven (gim-kabala), and 5 chatties — a kotale, a small 

 kattiya, and three kala.gedl. A boy is sent ahead to erect a 

 small shed (kuduwa; koratuwa ; mal-pela; pakan-pela), 

 adorned with young cocoanut leaves, flowers, and encircling 

 lamps.* 



On arriving in the evening with three or four assistants, 

 the Kapurala first places his box of bangles (deyiran-karan- 

 duwa ) on two chairs cleansed with saffron waterf and covered 

 with a white cloth. 



Then the pe-bat meal, consisting of untasted rice and 

 vegetable curries, is served, and the Kapurala with the 

 other persons assembled there sit on mats and proceed to 

 eat from plantain leaves, after the Kapurala has invoked 

 the gods' blessing (ydga-karanawd ) and first tasted the food. 

 Dinner concluded, four or five women, dressed in clean 

 cloths, repair to the ddne-pela and begin cooking, while the 

 Kapurala, tying a cloth round his head, enters the mal- 

 pela and makes obeisance to the red cloth arras embroi- 

 dered with representations of deities, and taking a tom-tom 



* " When they worship those whom they call devils, many of whom 

 they hold to be spirits of some that died heretofore, they make no 

 images for them, as they did for the planets ; but only build a new 

 house in their yard, like a barn, very slight, covered only with leaves, 

 and adorn it with branches and flowers." (Knox, p. 77.) He adds 

 that " victuals" are placed on " stools at one end of the house, which 

 is hanged with cloth for that purpose." 



f See U. A. S, Journ. 1865-6, p. 58, note (*)'. 



