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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. VIII. 



While engaged in these operations they keep up shouting 

 the auspicious word " poli" "poli" for good luck. * 



Three pairs of buffaloes or bullocks having been linked 

 together in a row (nadaiyan kodi) are led into the heap of 

 paddy, and the biggest of the six is tied to the stake. This 

 animal is called porppainadaiyan, and those further from it 

 mddinadaiyar. The last is called the chdduvdyan. A man 

 (porppaippolan) then drives them round and round the 

 stake, abreast of each other, with repeated applications of a 

 thick stick (polimildru) to their hides and shouts of "poli, 

 poll,''''* until the grain is all trodden out from the ears. 

 Not until then are the oxen released or allowed even to be 

 taken to water ; neither will the Kaddaippolan leave the 

 threshing-floor until all the ricks of paddy have been 

 threshed, and his food is supplied to him there. When the 

 oxen are taken out from the floor for the last time each day, 

 one of the servants takes a wisp of straw, and pulls the tail of 

 the one nearest the stake, and then puts the straw on the 

 floor. 



The completed heap of threshed paddy is greeted with 

 shouts of "poli" and the straw is collected and tossed by 

 means of a bent stick (velai-dl or velai-kdran Jf to leeward of 

 the threshing-floor. When nearly all the straw has been 

 so collected into a heap, the oxen are taken off the threshing- 

 floor. Four of the men then starting, each from one of the 

 cardinal points of the floor, and facing the stake, in a sitting 

 posture heap up the paddy with their hands. In this 

 operation they move round towards the right, following 

 each other in a circle, and when they come back each to his 

 place in rotation, they stop, and the rest of the ceremony is 

 performed by the Kaddaipolan, who walks round the heap 

 to the right three times in a stooping posture between 

 them and the heap of grain, and smoothes and levels the top 



* The Coorg ryots shout "pole! pole! Devare." (C. A. S. Journal, 

 1883,p. 81.) In the Kalutara District, on the other hand, it seems that the 

 bullock-drivers are not allowed to shout to their animals. {Ibid, p. 51.) 



f That is, the labourer. Curiously enough the name given to this 

 stick by the Sinhalese cultivators is deti-goyiyd {goyiyd = " cultivator 



