Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/90

 7 8 Collectanea.

of the natives), and the priest-woodcutter of Vishnu cuts it into four parts, which are carried ceremonially to the four temples, and for four days the bows and arrows of each deity are carried daily round his log. On the fifth day the bows and arrows are carried in shrines on elephants, escorted by devil-dancers (cf. F. L.,yi\., 456) to the temple of Buddha's tooth. (The connection of Buddha with the festival is known to date only from 1775.) The empty shrifie of the tooth is placed on an elephant and the whole com- pany march round the town for nine successive nights. On the second and following nights a sword and a golden water-vessel are carried in a palanquin immediately after the weapons of each god. On the fifteenth night the shrine of the tooth is deposited at the Gedige, a college of priests ; the rest of the company repair to their respective temples, where offerings of curry, rice, and cakes are made to the gods and then eaten, and the procession re-formed, without the shrine, goes outside the town to the bank of the river. " The chief priest of each of the four dezvales (temples), bearing the four swords of the gods, and accompanied by four attendant priests carrying the golden pitchers, go down to the water's edge, where they find a boat. They embark and row into the middle of the sullenly-flowing river. With faces turned towards the east, they wait, motionless and quiet, amid the perfect silence of those on the shore. Then the first streak of dawn steals into the sky ; immediately the priests strike the waters with their swords, de- scribing a circle in honour of Krishna, the sun-god, and at the same moment the attendants empty the golden pitchers and refill them from the waters within the charmed circle. With much re- joicing the boat returns to shore ; the water-vessels are replaced in their palanquins with the swords, and the whole procession goes back in the early morning sunshine to the Gedige, where the pro- cession of the tooth joins them, when all return to Kandy and dis- perse." Religious dancing and feasting are carried on in the temples for fourteen more days : then the pieces of jak-tree are thrown into the river. (" They have an idea that if any possession flows steadily down a river, it means prosperity to the owner." Cingalese women when they cut their hair throw the ends into a river that their tresses may be long and flowing as the stream.) The Perahera closes with a final procession on the thirty-first day. This account, though referred to by Dr. Drummond him- self, shows a slight discrepancy with the remainder of his letter.]