SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
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 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.)
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.
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 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 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.