A village community occupy a well defined
settlement (wasama) within which are the hamlets (gan), and in each
hamlet live a few families who have their separate homesteads
(mulgedera) with proprietary interests in the arable land and communal
rights in the forest, waste and pasture land. A group of such
settlements comprise a country district (rata, kôrale,
pattu).
There are two types of village settlements, in one there
are the free peasant proprietors cultivating their private holdings
without any interference, and in the other the people occupy the lands
subject to an overlord, and paying him rent in service, food or money
or in all three.
All communities whether free or servile had, in ancient
times to perform râjakariya for 15 to 30 days a year; in time of
war to guard the passes and serve as soldiers, and ordinarily to
construct or repair canals, tanks, bridges and roads. These public
duties were exacted from all males who could throw a stone over their
huts; the military services were, in later times, claimed only from a
special class of the king’s tenants.
The people had also to contribute to the Revenue three
times a year, at the New Year festival, (April) at the alutsâl
festival (January) and the maha or kâtti festival (November) in
arrack, oil, paddy, honey, wax, cloth, iron, elephant’s tusks,
tobacco, and money collected by the headmen from the various country
districts. The quantity of paddy (kathhâl) supplied by each
family depended on the size of the private holding; but no contribution
was levied on the lands of persons slain in war or on lands dedicated
to priests. When a man of property died, 5 measures of paddy, a bull, a
cow with calf, and a male and female buffalo were collected as death
dues (marral.)
The people are divided into various castes and there is
reason to believe that these had a tribal basis. The lower castes
formed tribes of a prehistoric Dravidian race (the Rakshas of
tradition) who drove into the interior the still earlier Australoid
Veddahs (the Yakkhas of tradition). The higher castes of North Indian
origin followed, and frequent intercourse with the Dekkan in later
historical times led to the introduction of new colonists who now form
the artisan castes.
A caste consists of a group of clans, and each clan
claims descent from a common ancestor and calls itself either after his
name, or the office he held, or if a settler, the village from which he
came. The clan name was dropped when a person became a chief and a
surname which became hereditary assumed. The clan name was however, not
forgotten as the ancestral status of the family was ascertained from
it. The early converts to Christianity during the Portuguese ascendancy
in Ceylon adopted European surnames which their descendants still
use.
The various castes can be divided socially into five
groups. The first comprising the numerically predominating
Ratêettô who cultivate fields, herd cattle and serve as
headmen.
The second group consists of the Naides who work as
smiths, carpenters, toddy drawers, elephant keepers, potters, pack
bullock [33]drivers, tailors, cinnamon peelers, fish
curers and the like.
The Ratêetto and the Naide groups wear alike, and
the second group are given to eat by the first group on a rice table of
metal or plaited palm leaf about a foot high, water to drink in a pot
and a block of wood as a seat; they have the right to leave behind the
remains of their meals.
The third group are the Dureyâs who work as
labourers besides attending to their special caste duties—a
kandê dureyâ makes molasses, a batgam
dureyâ carries palanquins, a hunu dureyâ burns coral rock
in circular pits to make lime for building; a valli dureyâ weaves
cloth and a panna dureyâ brings fodder for elephants and
cattle.
The fourth group consists of professional dancers,
barbers and washers. Of the professional dancers, the Neketto dance and
beat drums at all public functions and at devil and planetary
ceremonies, while the inferior Oli do so only at the Gara Yakum dance.
The washers are of different grades; Radav wash for the Rate
Ettô, Hinnevo for the Naides, Paliyo for the Dureyâs, barbers
and Nekettô, and Gangâvo for the Oli.
The Dureyâs and the group below them were
not allowed to wear a cloth that reached below their knees and their
women except the Radav females were not entitled to throw a cloth over
their shoulders.
The Dureyâs were given to eat on the ground
on a plaited palm leaf; water to drink was poured onto their hands and they
had to take away the remains of their meal. The fourth group had to
take away with them the food offered.
The fifth group consists of the outcastes; the Kinnaru
and the Rodi who contest between themselves the pride of place. The
Kinnaru are fibre mat weavers who were forbidden to grow their hair
beyond their necks, and their females from wearing above their waist
anything more than a narrow strip of cloth to cover their breasts. The
Rodi are hideworkers and professional beggars; the females were
prohibited from using any covering above their waists.
A guest of equal social status is received at the
entrance by the host and is led inside by the hand; on a wedding day
the bridegroom’s feet are washed by the bride’s younger
brother before he enters the house. Kissing is the usual form of salutation
among females and near relatives and among friends the salutation is by
bringing the palms together.
When inferiors meet a superior they bend very low with
the palms joined in front of the face or prostrate themselves on the
ground; when they offer a present it is placed on a bundle of 40 betel leaves
and handed with the stalks towards the receiver.
A guest always sends in advance a box of eatables as a
present; when the repast is ready for him he is supplied with water to
wash his face, feet and mouth; and the host serves him with rice and
curry, skins the plantains for him, and makes his chew of betel. The
males always eat first and the females afterwards; and they drink water
by pouring it into their mouths from a spouted vessel (kotale).
At the guest’s departure, the host accompanies him
some distance—at least as far as the end of the garden. When a
person of distinction, a Buddhist priest or a chief visits a house, the
rooms are limed and the seats are spread with white
cloth.
An inferior never sits in the presence of a superior,
and whenever they meet, the former removes the shade over his head,
gets out of the way and makes a very low obeisance.
Seven generations of recognised family descent is the
test of respectability, and each ancestor has a name of his own: appa,
âtâ, muttâ, nattâ, panattâ, kittâ,
kirikittâ (father, grand father, great
grand father, etc.) [34]
The system of kinship amongst the Sinhalese is of the
classificatory kind where the kin of
the same generation are grouped under one general term.
The next of kin to a father or mother and brother or
sister are the fathers’ brothers and the mothers’ sisters,
and the mothers’ brothers and the fathers’ sisters; of
these the first pair has a parental rank and is called father (appa) or
mother (amma) qualified by the words big, intermediate or little,
according as he or she is older or younger than the speaker’s
parents; their children are brothers (sahodarya) and sisters (sahodari)
to the speaker and fathers and mothers to the speaker’s
children.
The second pair becomes uncle (mamâ) and aunt
(nenda) to the speaker qualified as before; their children are male
cousins (massina) and female cousins (nêna) to the speaker, and
uncles and aunts to the speaker’s children.
Those who are related as brothers and sisters rarely
marry, and a husband’s relations of the parental class are to his
wife, uncles, aunts and cousins of the other class and vice
versâ.
These terms are also used as expressions of friendship
or endowment and also to denote other forms of kinship. The term
‘father’ is applied to a mother’s sister’s
husband, or a step father; ‘mother’ to a father’s
brother’s wife or a step mother; ‘uncle’ to a
father’s sister’s husband or a father-in-law.
‘Aunt’ to a mother’s brother’s wife or
mother-in-law. ‘Brother’ to a wife’s or
husband’s brother-in-law or a maternal cousin’s husband;
‘Sister’ to a wife’s or husband’s sister-in-law
or a maternal cousin’s wife, “male cousin” to a
brother-in-law or a paternal cousin’s husband; “female
cousin” to a sister-in-law or a paternal cousin’s wife.
The terms son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson, grand
daughter, great grandson and great grand daughter include many kinsfolk
of the same generation. A son is one’s own son, or the son of a
brother (male speaking), or the son of a sister (female speaking); a
daughter is one’s own daughter, the daughter of a brother
(M. S.) or the daughter of a sister
(F. S.); a nephew is a son-in-law, the son of a
sister (M. S.) or the son of a brother
(F. S.); a niece is a daughter-in-law, the
daughter of a sister (M. S.) or the daughter of
a brother (F. S.); a grandson and grand
daughter are a ‘son’s’ or ‘daughter’s’
or a ‘nephew’s’ or ‘niece’s’ children, and their sons
and daughters are great grand sons and great grand daughters.
Land disputes and the petty offences of a village were
settled by the elders in an assembly held at the ambalama or under a
tree. The serious difficulties were referred by them in case of a
freehold community to the district chief, and in the case of a subject
community to the overlord. A manorial overlord was invariably the chief
of the district as well.
The paternal ancestral holding of a field, garden and
chena devolves on all the sons, but not on sons who were ordained as
Buddhist Priests before the father’s demise, nor on daughters who
have married and left for their husbands’ homes.
A daughter, however, who lived with her husband at her
father’s house has all the rights and privileges of a son, but
the husband has no claim whatsoever to his wife’s property, and
such a husband is advised to have constantly with him a walking stick,
a talipot shade and a torch, as he may be ordered by his wife to quit
her house at any time and in any state of the weather.
A daughter who lives in her husband’s home can
claim a share in the mother’s property only if the father has
left an estate for the sons to inherit; she has, however, a full right
with her brothers to any inheritance collaterally derived. [35]
She will not forfeit her share in her father’s
inheritance if she returns to her father’s house, or if she
leaves a child in her father’s house to be brought up or if she
keeps up a close connection with her father’s house.
After her husband’s death she has a life interest
on his acquired property, and a right to maintenance from his inherited
property. Failing issue, she is the heir to a husband’s acquired
property, but the husband’s inherited property goes to the source
from whence it came.
A child who has been ungrateful to his parents or has
brought disgrace on the family is disinherited; in olden times the
father in the presence of witnesses declared his child disinherited,
struck a hatchet against a tree or rock and gave his next heir an
ola mentioning the fact of disherision.
There is no prescribed form for the adoption of a child
who gets all the rights of a natural child, but it is necessary that he
is of the same caste as the adopted father, and that he is publicly
acknowledged as son and heir.
Illegitimate children share equally with the legitimate
their fathers’ acquired property, but not his inherited property
which goes exclusively to the legitimate children.
Polyandry was a well established institution in Ceylon;
the associated husbands are invariably brothers or cousins. Polyandry
was practised to prevent a sub-division of the ancestral property and
also owing to the exigencies of the râjakâriya (feudal
service); when the brothers on a farm were called out for their fifteen
days’ labour, custom allowed one of them to be left behind as a
companion to the female at home.
Divorces are obtained by mutual consent; a husband
forcibly removing the switch of hair off his wife’s head was
considered a sufficient reason for a separation. If a woman left her
husband without his consent it was thought illegal for her to marry
till the husband married again.
Contracts were made orally or in writing in the presence
of witnesses, sanctioned by the imprecation that the one who broke
faith will be born a dog, a crow or in one of the hells, and the
contract was expected to last till the sun and moon endure.
Representations of a dog, a crow, sun and moon are to be found on
stones commemorating a royal gift. If a man contracts by giving a stone
in the king’s name it is binding and actionable.
A creditor forced the payment of his debt by going to
the debtor’s house and threatening to poison himself with the
leaves of the niyangalâ (gloriosa superba) or by threatening to
jump down a steep place or to hang himself; on which event the debtor
would be forced to pay to the authorities a ransom for the loss of the
creditor’s life.
The creditor at times sent a servant to the
debtor’s house to live there and make constant demands till
payment was made; and at times tethered an unserviceable bull, cow or
buffalo in the debtor’s garden, who was obliged to maintain it,
be responsible for its trespass on other gardens, and to give another
head of cattle, if it died or was lost in his keeping.
When a man died indebted, it was customary for a
relative to tie round his neck a piece of rag with a coin attached and
beg about the country till the requisite sum was collected.
When a debt remained in the debtor’s hands for two
years it doubled itself and no further interest could be charged. A
creditor had the right to seize, on a permit from a chief, the
debtor’s chattels and cattle or make the debtor and his children
slaves. A wife, however, could only be seized if she was a creditor and
came with her husband to [36]borrow the money, and the
creditor could sell the debtor’s children only after the
debtor’s death. A man could pawn or sell himself or his children.
Children born to a bond woman by a free man were slaves, while children
born to a free woman by a bond man were free. If seed paddy is
borrowed, it is repaid with 50 percent. interest at the harvest; if the
harvest fails, it is repaid at the next successful harvest, but no
further interest is charged.
If cattle be borrowed for ploughing, the owner of the
cattle is given at the harvest paddy equal to the amount sown on the
field ploughed.
The King alone inquired into murder, treason, sacrilege,
conspiracy and rebellion; he alone had the right to order capital
punishment or the dismemberment of limbs; his attention was drawn to a
miscarriage of justice by the representation of a courtier, by the
aggrieved persons taking refuge in a sanctuary like the Daladâ
Mâligâva, by prostrating in front of the King’s
palace and attracting his attention by making their children cry, or by
ascending a tree near the palace and proclaiming their grievances.
The petitioners were sometimes beaten and put in chains
for troubling the King.
For capital offences, as murder and treason, the
nobility was decapitated with the sword; the lower classes were paraded
through the streets with a chaplet of shoe flowers on their heads,
bones of oxen round their necks, and their bodies whitened with lime,
and then impaled, quartered and hanged on trees, or pierced with spear
while prostrate on the ground, or trampled on by elephants and torn
with their tusks. Whole families sometimes suffered for the offences of
individuals.
Outcaste criminals like the Rodiyas were shot from a
distance as it was pollution to touch them. Female offenders were made
to pound their children and then drowned.
The punishments for robbing the treasury, for killing
cattle, for removing a sequestration, and for striking a priest or
chief consisted of cutting off the offender’s hair, pulling off
his flesh with iron pincers dismembering his limbs and parading him
through the streets with the hands about the neck.
Corporal punishment was summarily inflicted with whips
or rods while the offender was bound to a tree or was held down with
his face to the ground; he was then paraded through the streets with
his hands tied behind him, preceded by a tom tom beater and made to
declare his offence.
Prisoners were sent away to malarial districts or kept
in chains or stocks in the common jail or in the custody of a chief, or
quartered in villages. The inhabitants had to supply the prisoners with
victuals, the families doing so by turns, or the prisoners went about
with a keeper begging or they procured the expenses by selling their
handiwork in way-side shops built near the prison. The prisoners had to
sweep the streets and were deprived of their headdress which they could
resume only when they were discharged.
Thieves had to restore the stolen property or pay a
sevenfold fine (wandia); till the fine was paid, the culprit was placed
under restraint (velekma): a circle was drawn round him on the ground,
and he was not allowed to step beyond it, and had to stay there
deprived of his head covering exposed to the sun, sometimes holding a
heavy stone on his shoulder, sometimes having a sprig of thorns drawn
between his naked legs.
A whole village was fined if there was a suicide of a
sound person, if a corpse was found unburied or unburnt, or if there
was an undetected murder. In case of the breach of any sumptuary law,
the inhabitants of [37]the offender’s
village were tabooed and their neighbours prohibited from dealing or
eating with them.
Oaths were either mere asseverations on one’s eyes
or on one’s mother or imprecations by touching the ground or by
throwing up handful of sand or by raising the hand towards the sun, or
by touching a pebble, or appeals to the insignia of some deity, or to
the Buddhist scriptures or to Buddha’s mandorla. The forsworn
person was punished in this world itself except in the last mentioned
two instances when the perjurer would suffer in his next birth.
There were five forms of ordeal, resorted to in land
disputes and the villagers were summoned to the place of trial by
messengers showing them a cloth tied with 3 knots.
The ordeal of hot oil required the adversaries to put
their middle fingers in boiling oil and water mixed with cow dung; if
both parties got burnt the land in dispute was equally divided;
otherwise the uninjured party got the whole land.
The other four modes consisted of the disputants
partaking of some rice boiled from the paddy of the field in dispute,
breaking an earthen vessel and eating of a cocoanut that was placed on
the portion of the land in question, removing rushes laid along the
boundary line in dispute, or striking each other with the mud of the
disputed field; and the claim was decided against the person to whom
some misfortune fell within 7 to 14 days.
There were two other forms which had fallen into disuse
even in ancient times owing to the severity of the tests viz.
carrying a red hot iron in hand seven paces without being burnt, and
picking some coins out of a vessel containing a cobra without being
bitten. [38]
