388 journal, R.A.S. (ceylon), [Vol. VIII, 



AN-KELIYA. 



By C. J. E. Le Mesurier,Esq.,o.o.s., f.g.s.,f.a.s.lon.,f,c.i. 

 (Read 4th October, 1884.) 



There is a short description of this Sinhalese National 

 game in Mr. Leopold Ludovici's Paper on " The Sports and 

 Games of the Sinhalese" (C. A. S. Journal, 1873),* and a 

 more detailed account of it may not be without interest. 

 Mr. Ludovici, moreover, describes the game as it is played 

 with elk or deer horns, a very tame affair when compared 

 with the an-edima of horns made out of the roots of trees. 

 The tug which precedes the swinging of the henakanda, 

 and the art used in the arrangement of the ropes about 

 the horns before they are hooked into one another, — two 

 of the most important and curious features of the game, 

 — are not described by him ; while the amount of strength 

 that is required to break an ordinary deer horn is not to 

 be compared to that which is exerted, and often exerted 

 in vain, to break the large and strong roots that are used 

 in the true game. I witnessed the game once while on 

 circuit in Udapalata in the Kandy District of the Central 

 Province, and on the third or fourth day two horns were 

 adjusted, which not the united strength of almost all the 

 men and boys in the village, and that not by any means 

 a small one, could break, and which I afterwards learnt 

 never were broken, on that occasion at least. 



The an-keliya, as its name implies, is a game (keliya) 

 played with horns (aw). It is also called an-edima "horn- 

 pulling", and an-keli-pujdwa "the offering of the horn 

 game. " It was, and is for the most part still, a purely 

 religious game, sacred to the goddess Pattini, and is usually 



Note (l)d. 



