430 JOURNAL, R.A.S. CEYLON. [VOL. XVIII. 
Mr. Ferguson : Are there any ceremonies in regard to cocoanut 
cultivation? 
Mr. DE SiLVA : Yes ; a large number of charms. 
Mr. Ferguson : In the case of cocoanuts, is it at the time of planting ? 
Mr. DE SiLVA : No ; when any pest attacks the palms. 
H. E. the Governor : I hope that Mr. de Silva will give us the 
benefit of his knowledge by reading a Paper on the subject. It 
should be singularly interesting. These are. customs which day by 
day may be dying out, and it is very interesting to have them fully 
recorded. 
Mr. DE Silva promised a Paper. 
Mr. Ferguson referred to a Paper by Mr. Allardyce on Fire- 
walking in Fiji, to which he had listened at the Royal Colonial Institute. 
There the circular hole, or oven, for the fire was 3 feet deep and 25 
feet across, and stones from 6 to 24 inches wide were heated for twelve 
hours by great logs kept burning. A thermometer suspended over 
the stones registered 282° Fahr., and then the solder melted. Mr. 
Allardyce examined the men's feet and could discover nothing unusual, 
not even that any hair was singed. But the fire-walkers in Fiji were 
accustomed to a sandy beach with a substratum of black coral which, 
when exposed, became terribly hot, and the people accustomed to walk 
on it got a thick coating on the soles of their feet. 
H. E. the Governor : I think there was a ceremony of the kind 
at Slave Island in Colombo recently. It is a singular fact that 
walking over fire is so widely practised. I have read of it in 
Morocco and in Fiji. 1 can quite understand such cases as those 
mentioned by Mr. Allardyce, that the extreme thickness on the soles 
induced on people who never wore shoes might have prevented the 
burning through the cuticle; but I have read of this ceremony being 
performed where the flesh was burned because it could be smelled. 
Mr. W. F. GuNAWARDHANA commented at length on some of the 
philological notes to Mr. Coomaraswamy's Paper. 
Referring to the mystic diagram, he thought that the contents 
admitted of interpretation.'"' 
He thought the Paper very instructive. Mr. Coomaraswamy sound- 
ed the right note when he said he thought the time had come 
for educated natives to take a patriotic interest in regard to the life of 
their countryside. It was there the national life of the people in all 
the charm of its native simplicity sill survived, but it was daily giving 
way to a more vigorous civilization, and unless the opportunity be 
taken while it was not yet too late, the time would soon come when all 
traces of that beautiful, simple life have passed away. It was for the 
natives of the Island to take some trouble to preserve for coming 
generations these beautiful memorials of the national life of their 
ancestors. 
Mr. Batuwantudawe disagreed with Mr. Gunawardhana with 
regard to the meaning of certain words in the charm. 
* Mr. Gunawardhana suggested certain variant renderings. — Ed. Sec. 
