When a mother is pregnant she avoids looking at deformed persons, or ugly images and pictures, fearing the impression she gets from them may influence the appearance of her offspring; during this delicate period she generally pounds rice with a pestle, as the exertion is supposed to assist delivery, and for the same purpose a few hours before the birth of the child all the cupboards in the house are unlocked. For her to cling to, when the pains of child-birth are unbearable, a rope tied to the roof hangs by the mat or bedside.

The water that the child is washed in after birth is poured on to the foot of a young tree, and the latter is remembered and pointed out to commemorate the event; a little while after the infant is ushered into the world a rite takes place, when a drop of human milk obtained from some one other than the mother mixed with a little gold is given to the babe (rankiri kata gÂnavÂ), and the little child’s ability to learn and pronounce well is assured.

When the sex of the child is known, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the house to the other; if a girl, an ikle broom; those who are not in the room pretend to find out whether it is a she or a he by its first cry, believing it is louder in the case of the former than of the latter. The cries of the babe are drowned by those of the nurse, lest the spirits of the forest become aware of its presence and inflict injury on it.

At the birth of the first born cocoanut shells are pounded in a mortar.

The mother is never kept alone in the room, a light is kept burning in it night and day, and the oil of the margosa is much used in the room for protection; care is taken that the navel cord is not buried and a little of it is given to the mother with betel if she fall severely ill. Visitors to the lying-in-room give presents to the midwife when the child is handed to them, especially if it is the first-born one.

A month after birth, the babe, nicely dressed and with tiny garlands of acorus calamus (wadakaha) and allium sativum (sudu lÛnu) tied round its wrists and lamp-black applied under the eye-brows, is for the first time brought out to see the light of day (do??avadanavÂ); and it is made to look at a lamp placed in the centre of a mat or table, with cakes (kevum) made of rice-flour, jaggery, and cocoanut oil, plantains, rice boiled with cocoanut milk (kiribat), and other eatables placed around it. The midwife then hands round the little child to the relatives and gets some presents for herself.

The rite of eating rice (indul katagÂnav or bat kavanavÂ) is gone through when the child is seven months old; the same eatables are spread on a plantain-leaf with different kinds of coins, and the child placed among them; what it first touches is carefully observed, and if it be kiribat it is considered very auspicious. The father or grandfather places a few grains of rice in the child’s mouth, and the name that is used at home (bat nama) is given on that day. The astrologer, who has already cast the infant’s horoscope and has informed the parents of its future, is consulted for a lucky day and hour for the performance of the above observances.

The children are allowed to run in complete nudity till about five years and their heads are fully shaved when young; a little of the hair first cut is carefully preserved. From an early age a boy is sent every morning to the pansala, where the village priest keeps his little school, till a certain course of reading is completed and he is old enough to assist the father in the fields. The first day he is taught the alphabet a rite is celebrated (at pot tiyanava), when a platform is erected, and on it are placed sandal-wood, a light, resin, kiribat, kevum, and other forms of rice cakes as an offering to GanÊsÂ, the god of wisdom, and the remover of all obstacles and difficulties. At a lucky hour the pupil washes the feet of his future guru, offers him betel, worships him, and receives the book, which he has to learn, at his hands, and, as the first letters of the alphabet are repeated by him after his master, a husked cocoanut is cut in two as an invocation to GanÊsÂ. A girl is less favoured and has to depend for her literary education on her mother or an elder sister; more attention, however, is paid to teach her the domestic requirements of cooking, weaving and knitting, which will make her a good wife.

On the attainment of the years of puberty by a girl she is confined to a room, no male being allowed to see her or be seen by her. After two weeks she is taken out with her face covered and bathed at the back of the house by the female inmates, except little girls and widows, with the assistance of the family laundress, who takes all the jewellry on the maiden’s person. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the jak tree. On her return from her purification, her head and face, still covered, she goes three times round a mat having on it kiribat, plantains, seven kinds of curries, rice, cocoanuts, and, in the centre, a lamp With seven lighted wicks; and as she does she pounds with a pestle some paddy scattered round the provisions. Next, she removes the covering, throws it on to the dhÔbÎ (washerwoman) and, after making obeisance to the lamp and, putting out its wicks by clapping her hands, presents the laundress with money placed on a betel leaf. She is then greeted by her relatives, who are usually invited to a feast, and is presented by them with valuable trinkets. Everything that was made use of for the ceremony is given to the washerwoman. In some cases, till the period of purification is over, the maiden is kept in a separate hut which is afterwards burnt down. Girls who have arrived at the age of puberty are not allowed to remain alone, as devils may possess them and drive them mad; and till three months have elapsed no fried food of any sort is given to them.

The ‘shaving of the beard’ is the rite the young man has to go through, it is performed at a lucky hour and usually takes place a few days before marriage; the barber here plays the important part the laundress did in the other. The shavings are put into a cup, and the person operated on, as well as his relatives who have been invited, put money into it; this is taken by the barber; and the former are thrown on to a roof that they may not be trampled upon.

Marriages are arranged between two families by a relative or a trusted servant of one of them, who, if successful, is handsomely rewarded by both parties. The chances of success depend on the state of the horoscopes of the two intended partners, their respectability which forms a very important factor in the match, the dowry which used to consist of agricultural implements, a few head of cattle, and domestic requisites, together with a small sum of money to set the couple going, and, if connected, the distance of relationship. Two sisters’ or brothers’ children are rarely allowed to marry, but the solicitation of a mother’s brother’s or father’s sister’s son is always preferred to that of any other.

A few days before the marriage, the two families, in their respective hamlets, send a messenger from house to house to ask, by presenting betel, the fellow-villagers of their own caste for a breakfast; and the guests bring with them presents in money. Only few, however, are invited to the wedding; and the party of the bridegroom, consisting of two groomsmen, an attendant carrying a talipot shade over him, musicians, pingo-bearers, relatives and friends, arrives in the evening at the bride’s village and halts at a distance from her house. A messenger is then sent in advance with a few pingo-loads of plantains, and with betel-leaves equal in number to the guests, to inform of their arrival; and when permission is received to proceed, generally by the firing of a jingal, they advance, and are received with all marks of honour; white cloth is spread all the way by the washerwoman, and at the entrance a younger brother of the bride washes the bridegroom’s feet and receives a ring as a present. A sum of money is paid to the dhÔbi (washerwoman) as a recompense for her services. They are then entertained with music, food and betel till the small hours of the morning, when the marriage ceremony commences. The bride and bridegroom are raised by two of their maternal uncles on to a dais covered with white cloth, and having on it a heap of raw rice, cocoanuts, betel leaves and coins. A white jacket and a cloth to wear are presented by the bridegroom to the bride; betel and balls of boiled rice are exchanged; their thumbs are tied together by a thread, and, while water is poured on their hands from a spouted vessel by the bride’s father, certain benedictory verses are recited. Last of all, a web of white cloth is presented by the bridegroom to the bride’s mother; and it is divided among her relatives.

In connection with this presentation it is said that if the mother-in-law be dead, the web should be left in a thicket hard by to appease her spirit.

On the day after the wedding the married couple return to their future home with great rejoicing, and on their entering the house a husked cocoanut is cut in two on the threshold.

The tokens of virginity are observed by the bridegroom’s mother, and the visit of the parents and relatives of the bride a few days after completes the round of ceremonies.

There is a peculiar custom fast disappearing, and almost totally extinct, called Kula KanavÂ, that is, making one respectable by eating with him. If a member of a family makes a mÉsalliance he is cast out of his clan, and should he want his children and himself to be recognized and taken back by the relatives, the latter are induced to attend and partake of a feast given by him at his house. The ‘making up’ takes place when very many years have elapsed, and only if the wife who was the cause of the breach is dead. The difference due to marriage with another caste or nationality is never healed up.

Even in the presence of death, ceremonies are not wanting; if the dying patient is known to have been fond of his earthly belongings, and seems to delay in quitting this life, a few pieces of his furniture are washed and a little drop of the water given to him. A lamp is kept burning near the corpse, the body is washed before burial and a piece of cotton or a betel-leaf is put into its mouth. All the time the body is in the house nothing is cooked, and the inmates eat the food supplied by their neighbours (adukku).

No one of the same village is told of the death, but all are expected to attend the funeral; the outlying villages, however, are informed by a relative who goes from house to house conveying the sad news.

The visitors are given seats covered with white cloth; and the betel for them to chew are offered with the backs of the leaves upwards as an indication of sorrow. Some times only the relatives come, while friends leave betel at a distance from the house and go away fearing pollution. It may be observed that, according to the Sinhalese belief, pollution is caused by the attaining of puberty by a maiden which lasts fourteen days; by the monthly flow of a woman which lasts till she bathes; by child-birth which lasts one month; and by death which lasts three months.

Friends and relatives salute the body with their hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, and only the members of the family kiss it. The route along which the funeral proceeds is previously strewn with white sand, and the coffin is carried by the closest relatives, with the cloth to be given to the priests for celebrating the service thrown on it, over white foot-cloth spread by the dhÔbi, and preceded by the tom-tom beaters with muffled drums. Lights are carried by the coffin and a shade is held over the head of it.

The service commences with the intoning of the three Refugees of Buddhism and the Five Vows of abstinence by one of the priests, and they are repeated after by those present, all squatting on the ground. The cloth, referred to, is then given to be touched by the bystanders in order to partake of the merits of the almsgiving; one end of it is placed on the coffin, and the other is held by the priests. They recite three times the Pali verse that all organic and inorganic matter are impermanent, that their nature is to be born and die, and that cessation of existence is happiness; and while water is poured from a spouted vessel into a cup or basin, they chant the lines that the fruits of charity reach the departed even as swollen rivers fill the ocean and the rain-water that falls on hill-tops descends to the plain. A short ex tempore speech by a priest on the virtues of the deceased completes the service.

If it be a burial, the grave is by the roadside of the garden with a thatched covering over it. Two lights are lit at the head and the foot of the mound, the bier in which the coffin was carried is placed over it, and a young tree planted to mark its site.

In a cremation, the coffin is first carried with music three times round the pyre, and the latter is set fire to by the sons or nephews with their faces turned away from it. Those assembled leave when the pyre is half burnt; and, on the following day, or a few days after, the ashes are collected and buried in the garden of the deceased, over which a column is erected, or they are thrown into the nearest stream.

The party bathe before returning to the house, and are supplied by the dhÔbi with newly-washed clothes; during their absence the house is well cleansed and purified by the sprinkling of water mixed with cow-dung; and the visitors before leaving partake of a meal either brought from some neighbour’s or cooked after the body had been removed.