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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIII. 



by their Sinhalese and Tamil co-religionists. I have included 

 in this collection the two best-known chants, the Pater 

 Noster and the Ave Maria. The latter is extremely tuneful 

 and devotional. Having gradually lost their own priests on 

 account of the prohibition by the Dutch Government of 

 the education of Roman Catholics for the ministry, the 

 Portuguese settlers of Ceylon were for a long time ministered 

 to by priests surreptitiously brought over from Goa. It is 

 therefore probable that many of the Portuguese chants now 

 in use were derived from the Goanese, who themselves are 

 of Indo-Portuguese origin, and among whom there has 

 sprung up a distinct form of chant, known as the Goanese 

 chant. 



The lullabies in use among Ceylonese mothers and ayahs 

 are of Portuguese origin. The word " doiya " (traceable to the 

 Latin dormio and Portuguese dormir) is used to mean sleep 

 when addressing infants. I have included in the collection 

 two of the commonest lullabies. They have lulled to sleep 

 many a Ceylon baby. 



The instruments in use among the Mechanics are the 

 violin, the viaule or tenor violin, the mandoline (which they 

 call the banderinha), the guitar, and a small kind of tom-tom 

 known as the rabdna. The mandoline and the guitar are 

 fast becoming obsolete. The Mechanics are clever execu- 

 tants in respect of their own music, but when they attempt 

 European dance music they are less happy, and succeed only 

 in travestying the original compositions. 



"With the gradual dissemination of Western ideas and 

 habits of life, with the spread of English education, and with 

 the contempt which it unhappily engenders in certain minds 

 for the institutions of this country, there are many who fear 

 that the Mechanic of the future will resemble only in name 

 his ancestor of the present day. But it is to be hoped that 

 the innate conservatism of the Ceylon Portuguese, which 

 has preserved them as a separate community through the 

 troubles and hardships of the Dutch period, and which is 

 still so characteristic of them, will help, not only to maintain, 



