NO. 39. — 1889.] PADDY CULTIVATION CEREMONIES. 17 



PADDY CULTIVATION CEREMONIES 

 IN THE FOUR KORALES, 

 KEGALLA DISTRICT.* 



By H. C. P. Bell, Esq., C.C.S., Honorary Secretary. 



Threshing and Measuring Paddy. 



HEN the paddy crop is ripe and is ready for the 

 sickle, a lucky hour is named, and the culti- 

 vator ( goyiyd ; andahdrayd ), after bathing and 

 putting on a clean cloth and eating kiribat, 

 enters the field, and at the set time cuts three 

 ripe ears of paddy. 



These, with a scrap of iron, are wrapped in three divikaduru 

 leaves and are carried on his head to the threshing-floor 

 (kamata). 



A hole is there dug in the centre of the kamata, about three 

 or four inches in depth, and the three ears and iron are buried 

 in it. Over the hole is placed a round stone (called mutta) or 

 a "king cocoanut " (ran tembiliya), and the kamata cleared 

 of grass with a mamoty. 



The crop is then reaped and stacked on the dam of the field 

 (ketakandu-godakaranawd). If the corn cannot be threshed 



* The subject has been so fully dealt with in previous Papers printed in 

 the Society's Journal that this Note may appear superfluous. It is 

 inserted merely to supplement the information contained inMr.R.W. levers' 

 Paper in the Journal for 1880, covering ground not touched therein. The 

 Papers already written for this Society on " Paddy Cultivation Ceremonies." 

 Sinhalese and Tamil, will be found in Journal R. A. S., C. B., Vol. VI., 

 No. 21, 1880 (levers) ; Vol. VIII., No. 26, 1883 (Bell), and No. 29, 1884 

 (Lewis). See also a Paper in the Journal of the R. A. S. of Great 

 Britain, Vol. XVII., new series, p. 366 (Le Mesurier), and the " Orientalist," 

 Vol. 3, pp. 99-103 (Bell). 



16—91 c 



