Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/89

 Collectanea. 77

Rice Harvest, and other Customs in Ceylon.

{Com implicated by Mr. A. Latig and Mr. J. G. Frazer.)

(See vol. xii., p. 457.)

[The first part of the following Notes, dated 31 December, 1901, was impartially sent by the writer to both Mr. Lang and Mr. Frazer, and reached the Editor's hands from both sources on the same day : the rest was addressed to Mr. Frazer alone.]

At Kattaragam, near Hambantotta (Ceylon), is a temple of the Tamil or Hindu god Madu Sami, the Road or River god. In the hot weather, about April or May, after the rice-harvest is in, the priests seek out a shallow place in the river, about one foot deep, and dig a hole in the bottom of the river large enough to hold tightly a bag of paddy (rice). The dry paddy is packed in a sack, put into the hole, tightly jammed in, and the god is placed on the top of it under about one foot of water. The paddy swells in the water, and cannot expand laterally, so rises upwards and carries the god with it. It takes, say, fourteen days to reach the surface. On the 13th day the priests come at night, and finding the god near the surface, proclaim that the new god will rise to- morrow and have an assembly

The Tamils at Pongul "boil the rice"' in the cattle-shed, and they also decorate the cattle with flowers, ribbons, and handker- chiefs ; and they get one bullock and decorate him, and goad him to run and butt them, and the bravest coolie runs up and snatches a ribbon. The god here worshipped is Madu Sami, and he lives in the phallic emblem under the pipul or fig-tree. Tufts of dried grass are hung like tufts on a kite's tail from trees all round, and form festoons (to keep away evil spirits?).

You will find an account of the Perahera procession, by A. E. Souter, in the English Illustrated Magazine (August, 1901, p. 474).

[We give a brief abstract. The festival takes place annually at Kandy, in May, June, or July, usually July. The first night the new moon is visible, the priests of the four temples of Vishnu, Natha, Pattini (goddess of small-pox), and Kataragama, take a young jaktree not yet fruited (its fruit is one of the principal foods

' [The first-fruits of the rice-harvest? — En.]