So Punchi Menika and Hinnihami grew up to be somewhat different from the
other village children, who crawl and play about the compounds, always
with the women and always listening to women's gossip. Long before they
had grown strong and big enough to go down in the morning and evening
with Karlinahami to the tank, and to carry back on their heads the red
earthenware waterpots, they had learnt from Silindu to sit by his side
for hour upon hour through the hot afternoons, very still and very
silent, while he stared silently before him, or droned out his
interminable tales. They grew up to be strange and silent children,
sitting one on either side of him in a long, thoughtless trance. And
they learnt to believe all he told them about the strange world of
jungle which surrounded them, the world of devils, animals, and trees.
But above all they learnt to love him, blindly, as a dog loves his
master.
When they grew old enough to trot along by his side, Silindu used to
take them out with him into the jungle. The villagers were astonished
and shocked, but Silindu went his own way. He showed them the
water-holes upon the rocks; the thick jungle where the elephant hides
himself from the heat of the day, strolling leisurely among the trees
and breaking off great branches to feed upon the leaves as he strolls;
the wallow of the buffalo, and the caves where the bear and the leopard
make their lairs. He showed them the sambur lying during the day in the
other great caves; they dashed out, tens and tens of them, like enormous
bats from the shadow of the overhanging rocks, to disappear with a crash
into the jungle below. He taught them to walk so that no leaf rustled or
twig snapped under their feet, to creep up close to the deer and the
sambur and the pig. They were surprised at first that the animals in the
jungle did not speak to them as they always did to Silindu when he was
alone. But Silindu explained it to them. 'You are very young,' he said.
'You do not know the tracks. You are strange to the beasts. But they
know me. I have grown old among the tracks. A man must live many years
in the jungle before the beasts speak to him, or he can understand what
they say.'
Punchi Menika and Hinnihami were also unlike the other village children
in appearance. They, like Silindu, never had fever, and even in the days
of greatest scarcity Karlinahami had seen that they got food.
Karlinahami was far more careful to wash them than most mothers are: she
used to quote the saying, 'Dirt is bad and children are trouble, but a
dirty child is the worst of troubles.' The result was that they never
got parangi, or the swollen belly and pale skin of fever. Their skin was
smooth and blooming; it shone with a golden colour, like the coat of a
fawn when the sun shines on it. Their eyes were large and melancholy;
like the eyes of Buddha in the Jataka, 'they were like two windows made
of sapphire shining in a golden palace.' Their limbs were strong and
straight, for their wanderings with Silindu had made their muscles firm
as a man's, not soft like the women's who sit about in the compound,
cooking and gossiping and sleeping all day.
There was therefore considerable jealousy among the women, and
ill-feeling against Karlinahami, when they saw how her foster children
were growing up. When they were ten or eleven years old, it often burst
out against her in angry taunts at the tank.
'O Karlinahami!' Nanchohami, the headman's wife, would say, 'you are
growing an old woman and, alas, childless! But you have done much for
your brother's children. Shameless they must be to leave it to you to
fetch the water from the tank and not to help you. This is the fourth
chatty full you are carrying to-day. I have seen it with these eyes. The
lot of the childless woman is a hard one. See how my little one of eight
years helps me!'
'Nanchohami, your tongue is still as sharp as chillies. Punchi Menika
has gone with my brother, and Hinnihami is busy in the house.'
'Punchi Menika wants but three things to make her a man. I pity you,
Karlinahami, to live in the house of a madman, and to bring up his
children shameless, having no children of your own. They are vedda[5]
children, and will be vedda women, wandering in the jungle like men.'
The other women laughed, and Angohami, a dirty shrivelled woman, with
thin shrivelled breasts, called out in a shrill voice:
'Why should we suffer these veddas in the village? Their compound smells
of their own droppings, and of the offal and rotten meat on which they
feed. I have borne six children, and the last died but yesterday. In the
morning he was well: then Silindu cast the evil eye upon him as he
passed our door, and in the evening he was dead. They wither our
children that their own may thrive.'
'You lie,'said Karlinahami, roused for the moment by this abuse; 'you
lie, mother of dirt. Yesterday at this hour I saw your Podi Sinho here
in the tank, pale and shivering with fever, and pouring the cold tank
water over himself. How should such a mother keep her children? All know
that you have borne six, and that all are dead. What did you ever give
them but foul words?'
'Go and lie with your brother, the madman, the vedda, the pariah,'
shrieked Angohami as Karlinahami turned to go. 'Go to your brother of
the evil eye. You blighter of others' children, eater of offal, vesi,
vesige mau! Go to him of the evil eye, belli, bellige duwa; go to your
brother. Aiyo! aiyo! My little Podi Sinho! I am a mother only of the
dead, a mother of six dead children. Look at my breasts, shrivelled and
milkless. I say to the father of my child,[6] "Father of Podi Sinho," I
say, "there is no kurakkan in the house, there is no millet and no
pumpkin, not even a pinch of salt. Three days now I have eaten nothing
but jungle leaves. There is no milk in my breasts for the child." Then I
get foul words and blows. "Does the rain come in August?" he says. "Can
I make the kurakkan flower in July? Hold your tongue, you fool. August
is the month in which the children die. What can I do?" Then comes fever
and Silindu's evil eye, curse him, and the little ones die. Aiyo! aiyo!'
'Your man is right,' said Nanchohami. 'This is the month when the
children die. Last year in this month I buried one and my brother's wife
another. Good rain never falls now, and there is always hunger and
fever. The old die and the little ones with them. The father of my
children has but nine houses under him, and makes but five shillings a
year from his headmanship. His father's father, who was headman before
him, had thirty houses in his headmanship, and twenty shillings were
paid him by the Government every year, besides twenty-four kurunies of
paddy from the fields below the tank. I have not seen rice these five
years. The headman now gives all and receives nothing.' Here one of the
women laughed. 'You may well laugh, Podi Nona,' she continued. 'Did not
he[7] lend your man last year twenty kurunies[8] of kurakkan,[9] and has
a grain of it come back to our house? And Silindu owes another thirty,
and came but yesterday for more. And Angohami there, who whines about
her Podi Sinho, her man has had twenty-five kurunies since the reaping
of the last crop.'
These words of Nanchohami were not without effect. An uneasy movement
began among the little group of women at the mention of debts: clothes
were gathered up, the chatties of water placed on their heads, and they
began to move away out of reach of the sharp tongue of the headman's
wife. And as they moved away up the small path, which led from the tank
to the compounds, they murmured together that Nanchohami did not seem to
remember that they had to repay two kurunies of kurakkan for every
kuruni lent to them.
Nanchohami had touched the mainspring upon which the life of the village
worked--debt. The villagers lived upon debt, and their debts were the
main topic of their conversation. A good kurakkan crop, from two to four
acres of chena, would be sufficient to support a family for a year. But
no one, not even the headman, ever enjoyed the full crop which he had
reaped. At the time of reaping a band of strangers from the little town
of Kamburupitiya, thirty miles away, would come into the village.
Mohamadu Lebbe Ahamadu Cassim, the Moorman boutique-keeper, had supplied
clothes to be paid for in grain, with a hundred per cent, interest, at
the time of reaping; the fat Sinhalese Mudalali,[10] Kodikarage Allis
Appu, had supplied grain and curry stuffs on the same terms; and among a
crowd of smaller men the sly-faced low-caste man, who called himself
Achchige Don Andris (his real name Andrissa would have revealed his
caste), who, dressed in dirty white European trousers and a coat, was
the agent of the tavern-keeper in Kamburupitiya, from whom the villagers
had taken on credit the native spirit, made from the juice of the
cocoanut flowers, to be drunk at the time of marriages. The villagers
neither obtained nor expected any pity from this horde. With the reaping
of the chenas came the settlement of debts. With their little greasy
notebooks, full of unintelligible letters and figures, they descended
upon the chenas; and after calculations, wranglings, and abuse, which
lasted for hour after hour, the accounts were settled, and the strangers
left the village, their carts loaded with pumpkins, sacks of grain, and
not infrequently the stalks of Indian hemp,[11] which by Government
order no man may grow or possess, for the man that smokes it becomes
mad. And when the strangers had gone, the settlement with the headman
began; for the headman, on a small scale, lent grain on the same terms
in times of scarcity, or when seed was wanted to sow the chenas.
In the end the villager carried but little grain from his chena to his
hut. Very soon after the reaping of the crop he was again at the
headman's door, begging for a little kurakkan to be repaid at the next
harvest, or tramping the thirty miles to Kamburupitiya to hang about the
bazaar, until the Mudalali agreed once more to enter his name in the
greasy notebook.
With the traders in Kamburupitiya the transactions were purely matters
of business, but with the headman the whole village recognised that they
were something more. It was a very good thing for Babehami, the
Arachchi, to feel that Silindu owed him many kurunies of kurakkan which
he could not repay. When Babehami wanted some one to clear a chena for
him, he asked Silindu to do it; and Silindu, remembering the debt, dared
not refuse. When Silindu shot a deer--for which offence the Arachchi
should have brought him before the police court at Kamburupitiya--he
remembered his debt, and the first thing he did was to carry the best
piece of meat as an offering to the headman's house. And Babehami was a
quiet, cunning man in the village: he never threatened, and rarely
talked of his loans to his debtors, but there were few in the village
who dared to cross him, and who did not feel hanging over them the power
of the little man.
The power which they felt hanging over them was by no means imaginary;
it could make the life of the man who offended the headman extremely
unpleasant. It was not only by his loans that Babehami had his hand upon
the villagers; their daily life could be made smooth or difficult by him
at every turn.
The life of the village and of every man in it depended upon the
cultivation of chenas. A chena is merely a piece of jungle, which every
ten years is cleared of trees and undergrowth and sown with grain
broadcast and with vegetables. The villagers owned no jungle themselves;
it belonged to the Crown, and no one might fell a tree or clear a chena
in it without a permit from the Government. It was through these permits
that the headman had his hold upon the villagers. Application for one
had to be made through him; it was he who reported if a clearing had
been made without one, or if a man, having been given one, cleared more
jungle than it allowed him to clear. Every one in the village knew well
that Babehami's friends would find no difficulty in obtaining the
authority to clear a chena, and that the Agent Hamadoru[12] would never
hear from Babehami whether they had cleared four acres or eight. But the
life of the unfortunate man, who had offended the headman, would be full
of dangers and difficulties. The permit applied for by him would be very
slow in reaching his hands: when it did reach his hands, if he cleared
half an acre more than it allowed him to clear, his fine would be heavy;
and woe betide him if he rashly cleared a chena without a permit at all.
Babehami had never liked Silindu, who was a bad debtor. Silindu was too
lazy even to cultivate a chena properly, and even in a good year his
crop was always the smallest in the village. He was always in want, and
always borrowing; and Babehami found it no easy task to gather in
principal and interest after the boutique-keepers from Kamburupitiya had
taken their dues. And he was not an easy man to argue with: if he wanted
a loan he would, unheeding of any excuse or refusal, hang about the
headman's door for a whole day. But if it were a case of repayment, he
would sit staring over his creditor's head, listening, without a sign or
a word, to the quiet persuasive arguments of the headman.
The headman's dislike became more distinct after the birth of Punchi
Menika and Hinnihami. Silindu had resented his interference between him
and his wife, and when Dingihami died bitter words had passed between
them; Though Silindu soon forgot them, Babehami did not. For years
Silindu did not realise what was taking place, but he vaguely felt that
life was becoming harder for him. A month after Dingihami's death his
store of grain was exhausted, and it became necessary for him to begin
his yearly borrowings. Accordingly, he took his gun and went in the
evening to the nearest water-hole to wait for deer. The first night he
was unsuccessful: no deer came to drink; but on the second he shot a
doe. He skinned the deer, cut it up, and carried the meat to his hut. He
then carefully chose the best piece of meat, and took it with him to
Babehami's house. The headman was squatting in his doorway chewing
betel. His little eyes twinkled when he saw Silindu with the meat.
'Ralahami,'[13] said Silindu, stopping just outside the door, 'yesterday
I was in the jungle collecting domba fruit--what else is there to
eat?--when I smelt a smell of something dead some fathoms away. I
searched about, and soon I came upon the carcass of a doe killed by a
leopard--the marks of his claws were under the neck, and the belly was
eaten. The meat I have brought to my house. This piece is for you.'
The headman took the meat in silence, and hung it up in the house. He
fetched a chew of betel and gave it to Silindu. The two men then
squatted down, one on each side of the door. For a long time neither
spoke: their chewing was only interrupted every now and then by the
ejection of a jet of red saliva. At last Babehami broke the silence:
'Four days ago I was in Kamburupitiya--I was called to the kachcheri
there. They asked me two fanams[14] in the bazaar for a cocoanut.'
'Aiyo! I have not seen a cocoanut for two years.'
'Two fanams! And last year at this time they were but one fanam each. In
the bazaar I met the Korala Mahatmaya. The Korala Mahatmaya is a hard
man: he said to me, "Arachchi, there are guns in your village for which
no permit has been given by the Agent Hamadoru." I said to him,
"Ralahami, if there be, the fault is not mine." Then he said, "The order
has come from the Agent Hamadoru to the Disa Mahatmaya[15] that if one
gun be found without permit in a headman's village there will be trouble
both for the Arachchi and the Korala." Now the Disa Mahatmaya is a good
man, but the Korala is hard; and they say in Kamburupitiya that the
Agent Hamadoru is very hard and strict, and goes round the villages
searching for guns for which no permits have been given. They say, too,
that he will come this way next month.'
There was a short silence, and then Babehami continued:
'It is five months, Silindu, since I told you to take a permit for your
gun, and you have not done so yet. The time to pay three shillings has
gone by, and you will now have to pay four. The Korala is a hard man,
and the Agent Hamadoru will come next month.'
Silindu salaamed.
'Ralahami, I am a poor man. How can I pay four shillings or even three?
There is not a fanam in the house. There was a permit taken two years
ago. You are my father and my mother. I will hide the gun in a place
that only I know of, and if it be taken or question be made, is it not
easy to say that the stock was broken, and it was not considered
necessary to take a permit for a broken gun?'
But the argument, which before had been successful with Babehami, now
seemed to have lost its strength.
'A permit is required. It is the order of Government. I have told you
the Korala is a hard man, and he is angry with me because I brought him
but two cocoanuts as a present, whereas other Arachchis bring him an
amunam of paddy. For I, too, am a poor man.'
Silindu sat in helpless silence. The hopelessness of raising two rupees
to pay for a gun licence for the moment drove out of his mind the object
of his coming to Babehami's house. All that he felt was the misery of a
new misfortune, and, as was his nature, he sat dumb under it. At last,
however, the pressing need of the moment again recurred to him, and he
started in the tortuous way, habitual to villagers, to approach the
subject.
'Ralahami, is there any objection to my clearing Nugagahahena next chena
season?'
'There are three months before the chena season. Why think of that now?'
'When the belly is empty, the mouth talks of rice. Last year my chena
crop was bad. There was but little rain, and the elephants broke in and
destroyed much kurakkan. The Lord Buddha himself would be powerless
against the elephants.'
Silindu got up as if to go. He took a step towards the stile which led
into the compound, and then turned back as if he had just remembered
something, and began in a soft, wheedling voice:
'Ralahami, there is nothing to eat in the house. There is Karlinahami to
feed too. If you could but lend me ten kurunies! I would repay it
twofold at the reaping of Nugagahahena.'
Babehami chewed for some minutes, and then spat with great deliberation.
'I have no grain to lend now, Silindu.'
'Ralahami, it is only ten kurunies I am asking for--only ten
kurunies--and surely the barn behind your house is full.'
'There is very little grain in the barn now, and what there is will not
last me until the reaping of the next crop. There is the old man, my
father, to be fed, and my wife and her brother, and the two children.'
'Will you let me die of hunger? and my two children? Give but five
kurunies, and I will repay it threefold.'
'If you had come last poya, Silindu, I could have given it. But I owed
fifteen rupees to Nandiyas, the boutique-keeper in Kamburupitiya, for
clothes, and I took kurakkan to pay it. The barn is all but empty.'
'Aiyo! We must die of hunger then. Give but one measure, and I will
repay one kuruni at next reaping.'
'I paid away all my grain that was in the barn. The grain which remains
is my father's, and he keeps it for his use. You must go to the Mudalali
in Kamburupitiya, Silindu, and borrow from him. And when you go there,
remember, you must take a permit for the gun.'
Silindu felt that he had nothing more to say. He had the meat at home
which he would dry and take to Kamburupitiya and sell in the bazaar.
Then he would have to borrow from the Mudalali, who knew him too well to
give anything but ruinous terms. Perhaps in that way he would manage to
return to the village with a few kurunies of kurakkan and a gun licence.
He walked slowly away from the headman's compound. Babehami's little
eyes twinkled as he saw Silindu move away, and he smiled to himself.