Babun put up a new hut in Silindu's compound, and three weeks after he
left his brother-in-law, he and Punchi Menika began to live together in
it. It was the beginning of a far greater prosperity for the family.
Babun worked hard: he cleared his chena and watched it well: his crop
was always the best in the village, and the produce went with Silindu's
into a barn which served in common for the whole compound.
Silindu did not again refer to Punchi Menika's leaving him. He seemed
hardly to be aware of Babun's existence in the compound: he very rarely
addressed a word to him. In fact, he now scarcely ever spoke to any one
except Hinnihami. When he came back to the compound from the jungle or
from the chenas, he never went into the new hut, where Punchi Menika
lived: he never called her to him as he had been used to do. If she came
out in the evenings to sit with him and speak with him, he answered her
questions; but he no longer poured out to her everything that was in his
mind, as he still did to Hinnihami. It seemed as if he were unable to
share her with another.
And Punchi Menika altered. Her blind love for her father and her sister
remained, but it was swamped by a fierce attachment to Babun. She felt
the barrier which had grown up and separated her from Silindu, and in a
less degree from Hinnihami. And as her life became different, she lost
some of the wildness which had before belonged to her. She began to lead
a life more like the other village women. She no longer went to, or
worked, in the chena; the jungle began to lose its hold on her. She had
listened from the time when she first began to understand anything to
the tales of her father, and imperceptibly his views of life had become
hers: she and he were only two out of the countless animals which wander
through the jungle, continually beset by hunger and fear. But as she
became more and more separated from him and attached to Babun, this view
of life--always vague and unconsciously held--became vaguer and dimmer.
The simplicity of Babun reacted upon her: she became the man's woman,
the cook of his food, the cleaner of his house, the bearer of his
children.
There had always been considerable difference in character between
Hinnihami and Punchi Menika. There was very little of her sister's
gentleness in Hinnihami. There was, added to the strangeness and
wildness which she derived from Silindu, a violence of feeling far
greater than his. You could see this in her eyes, which gradually lost
the melancholy of childhood, and glowed with a fierce, startled look
through the long black hair, which hung in disorder about her pale brown
face. The village women, who never tired of following Nanchohami's lead
in jeering at Karlinahami and Punchi Menika, soon learned to respect the
passionate anger which it was so easy to rouse in Hinnihami.
And the passion of her anger was equalled by the passion of her
attachment to Silindu and Punchi Menika. The women soon learned that it
was as dangerous to abuse in her presence her father or her sister, as
to risk a gibe at the girl herself. It was always remembered in the
village how, when Angohami once, worked up by the bitterness of her own
tongue, raised her hand against Punchi Menika, Hinnihami, then a child
of eight, had seized the baby which the woman was carrying on her hip
and flung it into the tank water.
Hinnihami had taken no part in the discussion about her sister's
marriage. But when Babun took Punchi Menika to live with him in the hut
which he had built, she felt an instinctive dislike towards him, a
feeling that she was being robbed of something. Her father and her
sister were everything to her: for she had never felt for Karlinahami
the blind affection which she felt for them. She could not understand,
therefore, how Punchi Menika could turn from them to this man whom she
had scarcely known the day before.
She saw and understood her father's anger and unhappiness, but she could
not turn against her sister. Something had happened which she did not
understand: 'an evil had come out of the jungle,' as such evils come. If
any one could be blamed, it was the stranger Babun; but as her sister
desired to go to him, she put on one side her own feelings of anger
against him. She watched in silence the new house being put up, and she
watched in silence Punchi Menika leave the old hut for the new. She felt
as if she were losing something; that her sister was going away from
her, and that her life had greatly altered. She turned with an increased
passion of attachment to her father; she refused to allow Karlinahami to
cook his food for him; if he went out alone in the jungle, she would sit
for hours in the compound watching the path by which she knew he would
return; and whenever he would allow her, she followed him on his
expeditions.
The marriage of Punchi Menika and Babun created a great sensation in the
village. The headman and his wife did not at first hide their anger, and
the thought that they had been crossed was not unpleasant to many of the
villagers. Moreover, Babun was liked, and in many ways respected. The
contempt in which the veddas had been held could no longer be shown
towards a compound where he had married and where he lived. The compound
was no longer avoided; the men entered it now to see Babun, and the
women began to come and gossip with Punchi Menika.
It was not in Babehami's nature to remain long openly an enemy of any
one. His cunning mind was inclined to, and suited for, intrigue. He
understood how much easier--and more enjoyable--it is to harm your
enemy, if he thinks that you are his friend, rather than if he knows you
are his enemy. He was, however, too angry with Babun for any open
reconciliation. He hid his anger; and though he never went into Babun's
compound, nor Babun into his, when they met in the village paths, they
spoke to one another as if there was nothing between them. But he often
thought over the reckoning which he was determined one day to have; and
it was Silindu and his family who, he made up his mind, would feel it
most heavily. He was a man who never forgot what he considered a wrong
done him. He could wait long to repay a real or imaginary injury: the
repayment might be made in many divers ways, but until it was repaid
with interest his mind was unsatisfied.
As time passed Silindu's family began again to enter into the ordinary
village life. It was natural, therefore, that the hesitation which the
villager might have felt to take a wife from the family died down before
Babun's example. People who live in towns can hardly realise how
persistent and violent are the desires of those who live in villages
like Beddagama. In many ways, and in this beyond all others, they are
very near to the animals; in fact, in this they are more brutal and
uncontrolled than the brutes; that, while the animals have their
seasons, man alone is perpetually dominated by his desires.
Hinnihami, both in face and form, was more desirable than any of the
other women. It was about a year after Babun and Punchi Menika began to
live together that proposals began to be made about her. There lived in
one of the huts, with his old mother, a man called Punchirala. He was a
tall, thin, dark man, badly afflicted with parangi. The naturally crafty
look of his face had been intensified by an accident. When a young man
he had been attacked by a bear, which met him crawling under the bushes
in search of a hive of wild bees which he had heard in the jungle. The
bear mauled him, and had left the marks of its teeth and claws upon his
cheeks and forehead, and partially destroyed his right eye. The drooping
lid of the injured eye gave him the appearance of perpetually and
cunningly winking. He had some reputation in the village as a vederala
or doctor, and also as a dealer in spells. The result of his quarrel
with his brother had made him feared and respected. They had cultivated
a chena in common, and a dispute had arisen over the division of the
produce. Punchirala considered himself to have been swindled. He went
out into the jungle and collected certain herbs, leaves, and fruit. He
put them in a cocoanut shell together with a lime, and placed them at
night in the corner of his brother's compound. The next morning his
brother was found to be lying unable to speak or move. The wife and
mother came and begged Punchirala to remove the spell. He denied all
knowledge of the matter, and in three days his brother died. The
brother's share of the chena produce was handed over to Punchirala, as
no one else was inclined to run the risk of the curse which appeared to
attach to it.
Punchirala was about thirty-eight years old. The woman who had lived
with him had died about a year previously, and the marriage of Babun had
directed his attention towards Hinnihami. His first proposals were made
to the girl herself. He was astonished by the fury with which they were
rejected, but he was not discouraged. He watched for his opportunity;
and some days later, when Hinnihami was not there, he went to Silindu's
compound. He found Silindu sitting in the shadow of the hut.
'I heard,' he said to him, 'that you have an ulcer in your foot. Let me
see. Aiyo! caused by a bad thorn! Here are some leaves. I brought them
with me. They will do it good.'
Silindu had been unable to walk for some days owing to the swelling and
pain. He was very glad to show the foot to the vederala. Punchirala sat
down to examine it, and Karlinahami and Babun came out to see what was
going on. This was exactly what Punchirala wanted. He heated the leaves
by putting them in hot water, which he made Karlinahami fetch. He tied
them on with much ceremony, and then the whole party squatted down to
talk.
'This medicine I learned from my father,' he told them. 'It is of great
power. It will draw the evil and the heat out of the foot into the
leaves, and to-morrow you will be able to walk.'
The power of medicine and spells was a subject which never failed to
appeal to Karlinahami.
'They say your father was a great man, and that in those days people
came to the village from all sides for his medicine.'
'Ah, but he was a great man, and I have all my knowledge from him. Now
the Government builds hospitals, and makes people go to them, and gives
them Government medicine, which is useless. And so our work is taken
from us, and people die of these foreign medicines. But my father was a
great man. He knew of many charms: one which would bring any woman to a
man. There is a tale about that charm. In those days there lived a
Korala Mahatmaya by the sea, a big-bellied man, a great lover of women.
Down the coast, beyond his village, was a village in which only Malay
people live. The Malay women are before all others in beauty, very fair,
with eyes shaped like pomegranate seeds. They are Mohammedan people, and
no Sinhalese can approach their women; for the men are very jealous, and
also strong and fearless. They are bad men. The Korala Mahatmaya used to
go to the village on Government work, and every time he walked through
the street, and saw the women peeping at him from the doorways--and he
saw their eyes shaped like pomegranate seeds, shining beneath the cloths
which covered their heads--he was very troubled, and longed to have a
Malay woman. At last he could bear it no longer: so he lay down in his
house, and sent a message to my father to say that he was very ill, and
that he should come to him at once. Then my father went three days'
journey to the Korala's house; and, when he came there, the Korala
Mahatmaya sent all the women out of the house, and he made my father sit
down by his side, and he said to him, "Vederala, I am very ill. I cannot
sleep: I have a great desire day and night in me for a woman from the
Malay village along the coast. I can get no pleasure from my own women.
But if I be seen even talking to a Malay woman, the men of the village
would rise and beat me to death. The desire is killing me. Now you, I
know, have great skill in charms. You must make me one therefore which
will bring a Malay woman to me to a place of which I will tell you."
Then my father said, "Hamadoru! I dare not do this. For I must go and
make the charm in the compound of the girl's house. And I know these
Malay people: they are very bad men. If they catch me there, they will
kill me." But the Korala Mahatmaya said, "There is no need to fear.
There is a house at the end of the village standing somewhat apart from
the others. There lives in it a young girl, unmarried, the daughter of
Tuwan Abdid. I will take you there on a moonless night, and you will
make the charm there. And if the next night the girl comes to me, I will
give you £5."[21] Then my father thought, "If I refuse the Korala
Mahatmaya, he will be angry, and put me into trouble, and ruin me; and
if I consent to his wish I will gain £5 which is much money, and
possibly a beating from the Malay men. It is better to risk the
beating." So he agreed to make the charm on a moonless night. Then the
Korala Mahatmaya gave out that he was very ill, and that my father was
treating him. And for three days my father lived in the house, preparing
the charm. On the fourth day the Korala Mahatmaya and my father--taking
cold cooked rice with them--set out from the house, saying they were
going to my father's village for the treatment of the Korala with
medicines in my father's house. But after leaving the village they
turned aside from the path, and went secretly through the jungle to a
cave near the Malay village. The cave was hidden in thick jungle, and
they lay there through the day. When it was night and very dark they
crept out, and the Korala showed the house to my father. My father stood
in the garden of the house, and made the charm, and buried it in the
earth of the garden, and returned to the cave with the Korala Mahatmaya.
All through the next day they lay in the cave, and ate only the cold
rice, and the Korala Mahatmaya talked much of the Malay women, and their
eyes, which were shaped like pomegranate seeds. And in the evening, at
the time when the women go to draw water, the girl came to the cave, and
the Korala Mahatmaya enjoyed her. Then he sent her away, and he called
my father who was sitting outside in the jungle, and told him that the
girl was cross-eyed and ugly, and not worth £5, but at the most ten
rupees. He gave my father ten rupees, and told him he would give the
other forty some other time--but the money was never paid. Next day they
went back to the Korala's house, and told a tale how the Korala
Mahatmaya had got well on the way to my father's village, and so they
had returned at once. But the girl had seen the Korala Mahatmaya in the
village, and she recognised his black face and big belly, and she told
her mother how she had been charmed to go to the cave. The mother told
the Malay men, and they were very angry. Next time that the Korala
Mahatmaya went to their village, they set upon him, and beat him with
clubs and sticks until he nearly died. Then they put him in a
bullock-cart, and tied his hands together above his head to the hood of
the cart, and took him twelve miles into Kamburupitiya, to the Agent
Hamadoru, and said that they had caught the Korala Mahatmaya with a bag
on his back stealing salt. And there was a great case, and the
magistrate Hamadoru believed the story of the Korala Mahatmaya, who had
many witnesses to show that on the very day on which the girl said she
had gone to the cave they had seen him on the road to my father's
village. So the Malay men all were sent to prison; but my father got a
great name; for all the country, except the magistrate Hamadoru, knew of
the charm by which he had brought the girl to the fat Korala Mahatmaya
in the cave.'
'Did your father teach you the making of the charm?' asked Karlinahami.
'Am I not a vederala and the son of a vederala? The learning of the
father is handed down to the son.'
'Yes, I remember hearing my mother speak of him: there was no one in the
district, she said, so skilled in charms and medicines as your father.'
'Yes, he knew many things which other vederalas know nothing of. He had
a charm by which devils are charmed to become the servants of the
charmer. He learnt it from a man of Sinhala,[22] who lived long ago in
the neighbouring village. This man was called Tikiri Banda, and he
wanted to marry the daughter of the headman. The headman refused to give
her, and Tikiri Banda being very angry put a charm upon a devil which
lived in a banian-tree. And the devil took a snake in his hand and
touched the headman with it on the back as he passed under the tree in
the dusk, and the headman's back was bent into a bow for the rest of his
days.'
'Was that the village called Bogama?' asked Silindu, who had listened
with interest. 'Where the nuga-trees[23] now stand in the jungle to the
south? The last house was abandoned when I was a boy, but the devil
still dances beneath the nuga-trees.'
'Yes, it was Bogama. It was a village like this in my father's time, and
in your father's time. I can myself remember houses there near the
nuga-trees.'
'Of course,' said Karlinahami. 'Podi Sinho's wife Angohami came from
there. Aiyo! when the jungle comes in, how things are forgotten!'
'Well, well,' said the vederala, 'the devils still dance under the
trees, though the men have gone. The chena crops were bad, and every
year the fever came; it is the same now in this village. The old
medicines of the vederalas are no longer used, but people go to the
towns and hospitals for these foreign medicines. But they die very
quickly, and where there was a village there are only trees and devils!'
The little group was silent for a while; nothing could be heard but the
sigh of the wind among the trees for miles around them. Then the
vederala began to speak again:
'Yes, that was a wonderful charm. The headman walked bow-backed for the
rest of his life because he would not give the girl. Aiyo! it is always
the women who bring trouble to us men, and yet what can a man do? A man
without a wife, they say, is only half a man. There is no comfort in a
house where there is no woman to cook the meal.'
'There is no need to use your charm, vederala,' said Karlinahami, 'if
you want one for yourself.'
'There is only one unmarried woman in the village now,' said the
vederala, 'and she is Silindu's daughter.'
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the listeners. Karlinahami and Babun
looked at Silindu, who remained silent, his eyes fixed upon the ground.
The vederala's intentions were very clear, and the point of his previous
stories very obvious now. Punchirala turned to Karlinahami:
'I was thinking but yesterday that it is time that the girl was given in
marriage. Babun here has taken her twin sister, and it is wrong that a
woman should live alone.'
'It is not for me to give the girl. She is her father's daughter.'
Silindu's face showed his distress. The vederala was a dangerous man to
offend, but too much was being asked of him. He began in a low voice:
'The girl is too young; she has not flowered yet.'
Punchirala laughed.
'Did you bring the girl up or only filth, as the saying is? They are
called twins, but the one has been married a year and the other has not
flowered yet!'
'Vederala! I would give the girl, but she is unwilling. She told me last
night that you had spoken to her. She is of the jungle, wild, not fit
for your house. She was very frightened and angry.'
For a moment Punchirala was disconcerted that his rebuff was known. But
anger came to his rescue.
'Am I to ask the girl then when I want a wife? Can the father not give
his child? So the child is angry, and the father obeys! Ohé! strange
customs spring up! You are a fool, Silindu. If you tell the child to
obey, there is no more to be said.'
'The girl is a wild thing, I tell you. I cannot give her against her
will.'
The vederala got up. He smiled at Silindu, who watched him anxiously.
'You will not give the girl, Silindu?'
'I cannot, I cannot.'
'You will not give her? Remember the man of Sinhala, who taught my
father.'
'Aiyo! how can I do this?'
'And the headman of Bogama, and the devil that still dances beneath the
trees.'
Silindu's face worked with excitement.
'Ask anything else of me, vederala. I cannot do this, I cannot do
this.'
Punchirala walked away. The others watched him in silence. When he got
to the fence of the compound, he turned round and smiled at them again.
'And don't forget,' he called out, 'to tell the girl about the Malay
girl who came to the Korala Mahatmaya in the cave. A black-faced man and
big-bellied, but she came, she came. I am an ugly man, and the bear's
claws have made me uglier; a poor bed-fellow for a girl! And so was he,
black as a Tamil, and a great belly swaying as he walked. But she came
to the cave, to the calling of my father's charm. Oh yes, she came, she
came.'
Punchirala walked away chuckling. Silindu was trembling with excitement
and fear. Karlinahami burst out into a wail of despair.
'Aiyo! what will become of us, brother? He is a bad man, a bad man; very
cunning and clever. There is no protection against his charms. He will
bring evil and disease upon the house: he will make devils enter us.
What have you done? What have you done? Aiyo!'
Babun was not as excited as the other two, but he was very serious.
'It would perhaps have been better to give him the girl,' he said. 'The
man is not a bad man if you do not cross him, and the girl is of age to
marry. Even the bravest man does not go down the path where a devil
lives.'
'Only the fool struggles against the stronger,' said Karlinahami. 'What
the vederala says is medicine, is medicine. It is not too late, brother,
to undo the evil. To whom else in the village can you give the girl?'
Silindu turned upon them in his anger and fear:
'Have you too joined to plague me? Evils come upon a man: it is fate.
What can I do? The girl is unwilling: am I to throw away the kurakkan
when the rice is already stolen? Am I to help the thief to plunder my
house? I am a poor man, and the evil has come upon me; I can do nothing
against it. His devils will enter me, and I shall waste away. But as for
the child, what else is left to me? I will not force her to go to this
son of a----. Go into the house, woman, and cry there; and you, Babun,
is it not enough that you have stolen from me one child that now you
should join with this dog to steal the other from me?'
The other two were frightened by this outburst of Silindu; they saw that
to argue with him would only increase his excitement. They left him. He
remained squatting in the compound, and as his anger died down fear
possessed him utterly. He had no doubt of the powers of Punchirala over
him: he knew that he had delivered himself into his power, and the power
of the devils that surrounded him. He had no thought of resistance in
such a case. The terrible sense of a blank wall of fate, against which a
man may hurl himself in vain, was upon him. He sat terrified and crushed
by the inevitableness of the evil which must be. When Hinnihami
returned, he told her what had happened, and she shared in his terror
and despair.
The charms of the vederala did not take long to act upon Silindu. He
felt that he was a doomed man, and his mind could think of nothing but
the impending evil. The banian-trees of the ruined village of Bogama
obsessed his mind: he knew that ruin waited for him there, and yet a
horrible desire to see them was always present with him. He could no
longer remain in the hut or compound: he wandered through the jungle,
fighting against the pull of the desire: his wanderings became a circle,
of which the banian-trees were the centre. He tried to go back to his
hut, where he felt that there was safety for him, and found himself
walking in the opposite direction. Darkness began to settle over the
jungle, and the life, which awakes only in its darkness, began to stir.
Voices mocked him from the canopy of leaves above him; dim forms moved
among the shadows of the trees. Suddenly a blind terror came upon him,
and he began to run through the dense jungle. The boughs of the trees
lashed him as he ran down the narrow tracks; the thorns tore him like
spurs. He lost all sense of direction; vague shapes seemed to follow him
in the darkness; enormous forms broke away from the track before him, to
crash away among the undergrowth and trees. The throbbing of his heart
and throat became unendurable, but still his one idea was to run. As he
ran the jungle suddenly became thinner; the thorny undergrowth had given
way to more open spaces. Even here it was very dark. He stumbled against
the knotted root of a tree; a long, straight, swinging bough struck him
in the face; a wild, derisive yell came from above. The blood seemed to
rise and drown his eyes: he felt about vaguely with his hands. He
recognised the root-like, stringy trunks of the banian-trees: he heard
the cry ring out above his head, and he fell huddled together among the
roots of the trees.
Silindu did not hear again the cry of the devil-bird from the tree-tops.
He lay unconscious throughout the night. When dawn broke he came to
himself stiff and cold. He dragged himself slowly to the hut. There was
no necessity to tell the others what had happened. The pale yellow of
his skin, his sunken glazed eyes, his shivering body told them that
Punchirala's charms had already begun their work, and his devils had
already entered Silindu. He lay down on a mat within the hut to wait for
the slow sapping of his life by the spell.
For the next two days Silindu lay in the hut, very slowly letting go his
hold of life. A kind of coma was upon him, as he felt life gradually
slipping from his body. From time to time the women began a shrill wail
in the compound. Babun went to expostulate with Punchirala; but the
vederala, after listening with a malignant smile, replied that he knew
nothing, and could do nothing, in the matter. Babun returned to lounge
moodily about the compound.
On the second day Karlinahami determined in despair to go herself to the
vederala. She found him sitting in his compound.
'You have come about your brother, no doubt. But I can do nothing; I'm
only a poor vederala. There is the Government hospital in Kamburupitiya,
and a Mahatmaya in trousers, a drinker of arrack, a clever man; he will
give you Government medicines free of charge--just a fanam or two for
the peon who stands by the door. You should take your brother there. It
is only three days' journey.'
'Vederala! my brother lies in the hut dying. He has covered his head
with his cloth, and he will neither eat nor speak. Life is slipping from
him.'
'The doctor Mahatmaya will say it is the fever. He will give you a
bottle of fever mixture--free of charge. A clever man, the doctor
Mahatmaya. Yes, you should take him to the hospital and get the
medicine--free of charge. It is a good medicine, though unpleasant to
the taste, they tell me.'
'Aiyo! what is the good of going to the hospital? Why do you talk like
that, vederala? You are laughing at me. We know that it is the devils
that have entered my brother, and that you alone have power to save
him.'
'Devils! what do I know of devils? No, they tell me the doctor Mahatmaya
keeps no medicine in the hospital against devils. 'The Government says
there are no devils. Surely it is fever, or fire-fever,[24] or
dysentery. It is for these that they give Government medicine. No, it is
no good going to the hospital for devils.'
'Vederala! I have brought you kurakkan here; it is all I have. And I
will talk to the girl for you, yes, and to my brother if he gets well.
But take the spell from him, vederala; take the spell from him, I pray
you.'
'I know nothing of spells. I am a poor village vederala with a little
knowledge of roots and leaves and fruits, which my father taught me.'
'Vederala, you yourself told us of the charms and spells. Your skill is
known. Charm the devil to leave my brother. He meant no harm; he is a
strange man--you know that, vederala. He never meant to injure you. The
girl will come to you, I will see to that--only take the spell from my
brother.'
Punchirala sat and looked at Karlinahami, smiling, for a little while.
Then he said, 'Is the woman mad too? What do I know of charms and
spells? I can work no charm on your brother. But I have some little
knowledge of devils--my father taught me. Well, well, let me think now.
If a devil has entered the man, and is slowly taking his life from him,
perhaps there is a way. Let me think. Do you know the village of
Beragama?'
'No, vederala, no. I have heard of it, but I do not know it.'
'Well, it lies over there to the east, five days' journey through the
jungle, beyond Maha Potana and the River of Jewels. Do you think you
could take your brother there?'
'Yes, vederala, we could go there.'
'There is a great temple there, and the great Beragama deviyo[25] lives
in it. He is a Tamil god, so they say; but Sinhalese kapuralas[26] serve
him in the temple. My father used to say that he is a very great god.
His power is over the jungle, and the devils who live in it. The devils
of the trees obey him, for his anger is terrible. If a devil has entered
a man, and is harming him, and taking his life from him, the man should
make a vow to the god, so my father used to say. Then he should go to
the temple at Beragama at the time of the great festival, and roll in
the dust round the temple three times every day, and call upon the god
in a loud voice to free him from the devil. And perhaps, if he call loud
enough, the god will hear him and order the devil to leave him. Then the
devil will be afraid of the god's power, and will leave the man, who
will be freed from the evil. Now the great festival falls on the day of
the next full moon. Perhaps if your brother makes a vow to the Beragama
deviyo, and goes to the great festival, the devil will be driven out by
the god. You and the girl might take him there; and perhaps I will go
too, for I have made a vow myself.'
Karlinahami fell at the vederala's feet, salaaming and whimpering
blessings on him. Then she hurried home. It took a long time to make
Silindu understand that there was hope for him. At first he would not
listen to their entreaties and exhortations. At last, when he was
prevailed upon to believe that it was Punchirala himself who had
suggested the remedy, some spirit to fight for life seemed to creep into
him. He took some food for the first time, and sat listening to the
plans for the pilgrimage. It was decided that they should start on the
next day, and that Babun should accompany them.
The next day the pilgrims set out on a journey which, with the enfeebled
Silindu, would they knew take them at least six days. Their road the
whole way led them through thick jungle; villages were few, and what
there were consisted only of a few squalid huts. The only village of any
size through which they were to pass was Maha Potana, an agricultural
village, one day's journey from Beragama, which had sprung up around a
vast tank restored by Government. They carried their food with them, and
slept at night on the bare earth under bushes or trees. Every day they
trudged, straggling along in single file, from seven to eleven in the
morning, and from three to six in the evening. Silindu was dazed and
weak, and often had to be helped along by Babun. The women carried large
bundles of food and chatties,[27] wrapped up in cloths, upon their
heads. It was the hottest time of the year, when the jungle is withered
with drought, the grass has died down, the earth is caked and cracked
with heat; the trees along the paths and road are white with dust. The
pools had dried up, and the little streams were now mere channels of
gleaming sand. Often they had to go all day without finding a pool or a
well with water in it. For twelve hours every day the sun beat down upon
them fiercely; the quivering heat from the white roads beat up into
their faces and eyes; the wind swept them with its burning gusts and
eddies of dust. Their feet were torn by the thorns, and swollen and
blistered by the hot roads. As Hinnihami followed hour after hour along
the white track, which for ever coiled out before her into the walls of
dusty trees, the old song, which Karlinahami had sung to them when they
were children, continually was in her mind, and she sang as she walked:
'Our women's feet are weary, but the day Must end somewhere for the
followers in the way.'
Two days' journey from Beddagama they joined a larger and more
frequented track. Here they continually met little bands of pilgrims
bound for the same destination as themselves. The majority of them were
Tamils, Hindus from India, from the tea estates, and from the north and
east of the island; strange-looking men, such as Hinnihami had never
seen before; very dark, with bodies naked to the waist; with lines of
white and red paint on their shoulders, their foreheads smeared with
ashes, and the mark of God's eye between their eyebrows. They wore
clothes of fine white cotton, caught up between the legs, and they
carried brass bowls and brass tongs. Their women, heavy and
sullen-looking, followed, carrying bundles and children.
There were, however, also little bands of Buddhists, Sinhalese like
themselves, and to one of these bands they attached themselves. Four of
them were a family from a village only twenty miles north of Beddagama,
and jungle people like themselves. They were taking a blind child to see
whether, if they called upon the god, he would hear them and give him
sight. There were a fisher and his wife from the coast; they were
childless, and the woman had vowed to go to the festival and touch the
heel of the kapurala, in order that the god might remove from her the
curse of barrenness. Last, there was an old man, a trader from a large
and distant village of another district; he wore immense spectacles, and
all day long he walked reading or chanting from a large Sinhalese
religious book, which he carried open in his hand. The rest of the party
did not understand a word of what he read, but they felt that he was
acquiring merit, and that they would share a little of it. He had been
brought up in a Buddhist temple, and at night after the evening-meal he
gathered the little party round him and preached to them, or read to
them, by the light of the camp-fire, how they should live in order to
acquire merit in this life. And at the appropriate places they all cried
out together, 'Sadhu! sadhu!' or he made them all repeat together aloud
the sil or rules; and as their voices rose and fell in the stillness of
the night air, Karlinahami's face shone with ecstasy, and a sense of
well-being and quiet, strange to her, stole over Hinnihami. Even in
Silindu there came a change; he joined in the chant:
'Búddhun sáranam gáchchamí,'
with which they began and ended the day; he became less hopeless and
sullen, and the look of fear began to leave his eyes. In the evenings,
when the air grew cool and gentle after the pitiless heat and wind of
the day; as they sat around the fire by the roadside; and the great
trees rose black behind them into the night; and the stars blazed above
them between the leaves; and up and down the road twinkled the fires of
other pilgrims, and the air was sweet with the smell of the burning wood
and the hum of voices; and the vast stillness of the jungle folded them
round on every side; and they listened to the strange words, but half
understood, of the Lord Buddha, and how he attained to Nirvana;--then
the sufferings of the day were forgotten, and a feeling stole over them
of peace and holiness and merit acquired.
And one evening, at Babun's suggestion, Karlinahami told them a story
which had always been a favourite with the village women. At first the
old man with the book and spectacles showed signs of being offended at
this usurpation; but he was soothed by their saying that they did not
want to tire him, and by their asking him to read to them again after
the story was finished. In the end he was an absorbed listener as
Karlinahami told the following story:[28]
'The Lord Buddha, in one of his previous lives, met a young girl
carrying kunji[29] to her father, who was ploughing in the field. And
when he saw her he thought, "The maiden is fair. If she is unmarried she
would make me a fit wife." And she thought when she saw him, "If such a
one took me to wife, I would bring fortune to my family." And he said to
her, "What is your name?" Her name was Amara Devi, which means
"undying," so she replied, "Sir, my name is that which never was, is,
nor will be in this world. Nothing," he said, "born in this world is
undying. Is your name Amara?" She answered, "Yes, sir." Then the Buddha
said, "To whom are you taking the kunji? To the first god. You are
taking it to your father? Yes, sir. What is your father doing? He makes
one into two. To make one into two is to plough. Where is your father
ploughing? He ploughs in that place from which no man returns. No man
returns from the grave. Is he ploughing near the burial-ground? Yes,
sir." Then Amara Devi offered the Buddha kunji to drink, and he accepted
it, and he thought to himself, "If the maiden gives me the kunji without
first washing the pot, I will leave her at once." But Amara Devi washed
the pot first, and then gave the kunji. The Buddha drank the kunji, and
said, "Friend, where is your house that I may go to it?" And Amara Devi
answered, "Go by this path until you come to a boutique where they sell
balls of rice and sugar; go on until you come to another where they sell
kunji. From there you will see a flamboyant-tree in full blossom. At
that tree take the path towards the hand with which you eat rice.[30]
That is the way to my father's house." And the Buddha went as Amara Devi
had directed him, and found the house, and went in. Amara Devi's mother
was in the house, and she welcomed the Buddha, and made him sit down.
And he, seeing the poverty of the house, said, "Mother, I am a tailor.
Have you anything for me to sew?" And she said, "Son, there are clothes
and pillows to mend, but I have no money to pay for the mending." Then
he replied, "There is no need of money; bring them for me to mend." So
the Lord Buddha sat and mended the torn clothes and pillows; and in the
evening Amara Devi came back from the fields carrying a bundle of
firewood on her head, and a sheaf of jungle leaves in the folds of her
cloth. And Buddha lived in the house some days in order to learn the
behaviour of the girl. At the end of three days he gave her half a
seer[31] of rice, and said, "Amara Devi, cook for me kunji, boiled rice,
and cakes." She never thought to say, "How can I cook so much out of
half a seer of rice?" but was ready to do as she was told. She cleaned
the rice, boiled the whole grains, made kunji from the broken grains,
and cakes from the dust. She offered the kunji to the Buddha, and he
took a mouthful and tasted the delight of its sweetness, but to try her
he spat it out on the ground, and said, "Friend, since you do not know
how to cook, why do you waste my rice?" Amara Devi took no offence, but
offered him the cakes, saying, "Friend, if the kunji does not please
you, will you eat of the cakes?" And the Buddha did the same with the
cakes. Then Amara Devi offered him the rice, and again he spat out the
rice, and pretended to be very angry, and smeared the food upon her head
and body, and made her stand in the sun before the door. The girl showed
no anger, but went out and stood in the sun. Then the Buddha said,
"Amara Devi, friend, come here," and she came to him, and he took her as
his wife, and lived with her in the city in the gatekeeper's house. And
she still thought he was a tailor, and one day he sent two men to her
with a thousand gold pieces to try her. The men took the gold pieces,
and with them tempted her, but she said, "These thousand gold pieces are
unworthy to wash my husband's feet." And three times she was tempted,
and at last he told them to bring her to him by force. So they brought
her to him by force, and when she came into his presence she did not
know him, for he sat in state in his robes, but she smiled and wept when
she looked at him. The Buddha asked her why she smiled and wept, and she
said, "Lord, I smiled with joy to see your divine splendour and the
merit acquired by you in innumerable births; but when I thought that in
this birth you might by some evil act, such as this, by seducing
another's wife, earn the pains of death, I wept for love of you." Then
the Buddha sent her back to the house of the gatekeeper, and he told the
king and queen that he had found a princess for his wife. And the queen
gave jewels and gold ornaments to Amara Devi, and she was taken in a
great chariot to the house of the Buddha, and from that day she lived
happily with him as his wife.'
The other pilgrims, except the fisher, who had fallen asleep, were
delighted with Karlinahami's story, and they wanted her to tell them
another. But she was afraid to offend the old man again, so she refused.
The old man read to them a while, and gradually, one after the other,
they dropped off to sleep. And in the morning they started off again
down the long white road; and at midday, when they were hot and
footsore, the wall of jungle before them parted suddenly, and they came
out into a great fertile plain. The green rice-fields stretched out
before them, dotted over with watch-huts and clumps of cocoanut-trees
and red-roofed houses, and the immense white domes of dagobas gleaming
in the sun. Beyond shone the pleasant sheet of water through which the
jungle had yielded the smiling plain; the dead trees still stood up
gaunt and black from its surface; great white birds sat upon the black
branches, or flapped lazily over the water with wild, hoarse cries; its
bosom was starred and dappled with pink lotus-flowers. And beyond again
lay the long dark stretch of jungle, out of which, far away to the
north, towered into the fiery sky the line of dim blue hills. It was the
tank and village of Maha Potana; and when the weary band of pilgrims
suddenly saw the monotony of the trees and of the parched jungle give
place to the water, and the green fields, and the white dagobas, the
shrines built by kings long ago to hold the relics of the Lord Buddha,
they raised their hands, salaaming, and cried aloud, 'Sadhu! Sadhu!'[32]
They picked lotus-flowers, and went to the great dagoba, which is called
after an ancient king, and laid the flowers upon the shrine as an
offering, and walked three times around, crying, 'Sadhu! Sadhu!' and
thus acquired merit. Then they went into the bazaar which was crowded
with pilgrims, Hindus and Buddhists, and Indian fakirs and Moormen.
Innumerable bullock-carts stood on the road and paths and open spaces,
and the air rang with the bells of the bulls, which lazily fed upon the
great bundles of straw tied to the carts.
And the old man, who had noted the poverty of Silindu and his family,
bought them rice and curry and plantains. So they sat under the shade of
a great bo-tree, and ate a meal such as Hinnihami had never eaten
before. Her eyes wandered vacantly from thing to thing; she was dazed by
the crowd perpetually wandering to and fro, by the confused din of
talking people, of coughing cattle, and jangling bells. In the evening
they went to another dagoba, and then returned to the bo-tree and
lighted their fire. All about them were other little fires, around which
sat groups, like themselves, of pilgrims eating the evening meal. They
ate rice again and cakes, and Hinnihami grew heavy with sleepiness. A
great peace came upon her as she heard Karlinahami tell of how she had
before come on pilgrimage to the great Buddhist festival at Maha Potana,
when the crowds were tens of thousands more. And the old man told of a
pilgrimage to the sacred city of Anuradhapura on the great poya day,
when hundreds of thousands acquire merit by encircling the shrine; and
the merit to be acquired by climbing Adam's Peak, or by visiting the
ruined shrines of Situlpahuwa, which the jungle has covered, so that the
bears and leopards have made their lairs in the great caves by the side
of Buddhas, who lie carved out of rock. The air was heavy with the smell
of cooking and the pungent smell of the burning wood; the voice of the
old man seemed to come from very far away. She covered her head with a
cloth and lay down on the bare ground. For the first time the bareness
and fear and wildness of life had fallen from her; she fell asleep in
the peace of well-being, and the merit which she had acquired.
Next morning, to the regret of all, they had to leave the pleasant
village and resting-place of Maha Potana, and face again the suffering
and weariness of the jungle. For two days their path led them through
low thorny jungle, where there was little shelter from the sun. The
track became stony and rocky; great boulders of grey lichen-covered rock
were strewn among the thick undergrowth; at intervals could be seen
enormous rocks towering above the trees. In the afternoon of the first
day they caught their first glimpse of the sacred Beragama hill, which
rises into three rounded peaks above the village and temple. Next day,
towards evening, they had reached the high forest, which, starting from
its foot, clothed the hill almost to its peaks.
Then, once again, the jungle parted suddenly, and they stood upon the
bank of a great stream. The banks were deep, and enormous trees, kumbuk
with its peeling bark and the wild fig-tree, shaded them. The season of
drought had narrowed the stream of water, so that it flowed shallow in
the centre of the channel, leaving on either side a great stretch of
white sand. Up and down stream were innumerable pilgrims, washing from
them in the sacred waters the dust of the journey, and the impurities of
life, before they entered the village. They followed the example of the
other pilgrims, and performed the required ablutions; after which they
put on clean white clothes, and climbed a path on the opposite bank
which led them into the village.
They found themselves in a long, very broad street, on each side of
which were boutiques and houses and large buildings--resting-places for
the pilgrims. The street was thronged with pilgrims, idling, buying
provisions, hurrying to the temple. It was near the time for the
procession to start from the temple. The festival lasted fourteen days,
and every night the god was taken in procession through the village: it
culminated in the great procession of the fourteenth night, which falls
when the moon is full; and in the ceremony of the following morning,
when the kapurala goes down, accompanied by all the pilgrims, into the
bed of the river, and 'cuts the waters' with a golden knife. Silindu and
his party arrived in Beragama on the ninth day of the festival, so that
they would remain six days in the village, and take part in six
processions.
At either end of the broad straight street stood temples. The one at the
north end belonged to the Beragama deviyo: the temple or dewala itself
was a small, squat, oblong building, above which at one end rose the
customary dome-like erection of Hindu temples, on which are
fantastically carved the images of gods. Around the temple was an
enormous courtyard enclosed by red walls of roughly-baked bricks. Just
outside the wall of the courtyard on the east side was another and a
smaller temple belonging to the god's lawful wife. At the southern end
of the street stood another temple: it was a square, dirty white
building without a courtyard, but surrounded on all sides by a verandah,
in which, among a litter of broken furniture and odds and ends, lounged
and squatted and slept a large number of pilgrims. The only entrance to
the shrine itself was through a doorway in the front, which was screened
by a large curtain ornamented crudely with the figures of gods and
goddesses. No one was allowed to enter behind this curtain except the
kapuralas, for the temple belonged to the mistress of the Beragama
deviyo.
The solemnity of the pilgrimage was intensified in the minds of Silindu
and Karlinahami and the other pilgrims, who were villagers like
themselves, by the mystery which surrounds the god. On the road and
around the fires at night, in the streets of the village, and in the
very courtyard of the temple, they listened to the tales and legends;
and believing them all without hesitation or speculation they felt,
through their strangeness, far more than they had ever felt with the
Buddha of dagobas and vihares, that this god was very near their own
lives.
Who was he, this Tamil god, living in the wilderness, whom the Tamils
said was Kandeswami, the great Hindu god? These Buddhist villagers felt
that they could understand him; he was so near to the devils of the
trees and jungles whom they knew so well. He had once lived upon the
centre of the three peaks of the great hill, ruling over the unbroken
forest which stretched below him, tossing and waving north to the
mountains, and south to the sea. That was why every night throughout the
festival a fire blazed from the peak. But one day, as he sat among the
bare rocks upon the top of the hill and looked down upon the winding
river and the trees which cooled its banks, the wish came to him to go
down and live in the plain beyond the river. Even in those days he was a
Tamil god, so he called to a band of Tamils who were passing, and asked
them to carry him down across the river. The Tamils answered, 'Lord, we
are poor men, and have travelled far on our way to collect salt in the
lagoons by the seashore. If we stop now, the rain may come and destroy
the salt, and our journey will have been for nothing. We will go on,
therefore, and on our way back we will carry you down, and place you on
the other side of the river, as you desire.' The Tamils went on their
way, and the god was angry at the slight put upon him. Shortly
afterwards a band of Sinhalese came by: they also were on their way to
collect salt in the lagoons. Then the god called to the Sinhalese, and
asked them to carry him down across the river. The Sinhalese climbed the
hill, and carried the god down, and bore him across the river, and
placed him upon its banks under the shadow of the trees, where now
stands his great temple. Then the god swore that he would no longer be
served by Tamils in his temple, and that he would only have Sinhalese to
perform his ceremonies; and that is why to this day, though the god is a
Tamil god, and the temple a Hindu temple, the kapuralas are all
Buddhists and Sinhalese.
The god, therefore, is of the jungle; a great devil, beneficent when
approached in the right manner and season, whose power lies for miles
upon the desolate jungle surrounding his temple and hill. A power to
swear by, for he will punish for the oath sworn falsely by his hill; a
power who will listen to the vow of the sick or of the barren woman; a
power who can aid us against the devils which perpetually beset us.[33]
It was in this way that the pilgrims regarded the god, and they chose
well the time of his festival to approach him. For the god loved a hind,
and had made her his mistress, and had placed her in the temple which
stood at the southern end of his street. On each of the fourteen nights
of his festival the kapuralas entered his shrine, and covering the god
in a great black cloth, so that no one should look upon him, carried him
out, and placed him upon the back of an elephant. Then the pilgrims
called upon the name of the god, and with bowls of blazing camphor upon
their heads followed him in procession to his mistress's temple. There
the kapuralas, blindfolded, took the god, hidden by the cloth, from the
elephant, and carried him up the steps of the temple. Again, the
pilgrims shouted the god's name, and women pressed forward to touch the
kapurala as he passed, for in this way they escape the curse of
barrenness. The kapurala carried the god to his mistress, and then
retired. Amid the roar of tomtoms, the jangling of bells, the flaring of
great lights, and the passionate shouts of the people, the pilgrims
prostrated themselves. Then the kapurala, still blindfolded, again
slipped behind the curtain into the shrine, and brought out the god and
placed him upon the elephant, and the procession followed him back to
his own temple.
Silindu and the others reached the village in the evening, only a little
while before the procession started. They therefore made their way at
once to the great temple, and took their stand among the pilgrims who
crowded the courtyard. They had eaten nothing since the midday meal;
they were hungry and dizzy after the long days upon the road. Silindu
seemed too dazed and weak to take much notice of what was taking place
about him, and he had to be helped along by Babun. Karlinahami was awed
and devout: an old pilgrim, she knew the demeanour required of her.
The effect upon Hinnihami was different. Tired and hungry though she
was, even the great crowd in the courtyard excited her. As each new
pilgrim arrived he called aloud upon the god; and the whole crowd took
up the cry, which rose and fell around the shrine. She who had before
never seen more than forty or fifty people in her life felt the weight
and breath of thousands that jostled and pressed her. Her heart beat as,
under the flare of the torches, hundreds of arms were raised in
supplication, and to the crash of the tomtoms the name of the god
thundered through the air. The tears came into her eyes and ran down her
cheeks as time after time the roll of the many voices surged about her;
and when at last the great moment came, and the kapurala appeared
carrying the god under the black cloth, and over the sea of arms the
elephant lifted up its trunk and trumpeted as the god was placed upon
its back, she stretched out her hands and cried to, the god to hear her.
They followed in the rear of the procession, where men roll over and
over in the dust, and childless women touch the ground with their
forehead between every step, in fulfilment of their vows.
Silindu, with drawn face and vacant eyes, dragged himself along, leaning
on Babun: Karlinahami, devout and stolid, raised the ceremonial cry at
the due stopping-places. But Hinnihami felt the power of the god in her
and over them all: she felt how near he was to them, mysteriously hidden
beneath the great cloth which lay upon the elephant's back. She felt
again the awe which great trees in darkness and the shadows of the
jungle at nightfall roused in her, the mystery of darkness and power,
which no one can see. And again and again as the procession halted, and
the cry of the multitude rolled back to them, her breath was caught by
sobs, and again she lifted her hands to the god and called upon his
name. She formulated no prayer to him, she spoke no words of
supplication: only in excitement and exaltation of entreaty she cried
out the name of the god.
They were too tired that night to go into the shrine of the big temple
after the procession and see the ceremony there. They had lost sight of
the old man in the crowd, so that they had to make their meal off a
little food that they carried with them. Then, worn out by the journey
and excitement, they lay down on the bare ground in the courtyard of the
temple.
Next morning Silindu was no better. He seemed weaker and more lifeless:
it was clear that the devil had not yet left him. Babun remained with
him, while Karlinahami and Hinnihami went down to the river to bathe.
The excitement of the previous evening had not died out of the girl, and
there was much going on around her to keep it up. The village was a
small one, and really consisted of little more than the one street of
thirty or forty houses, which were roofed with red tiles and had brown
walls of mud. Most of the houses were turned into boutiques during the
pilgrimage, and the inhabitants prospered by selling provisions to the
pilgrims. When Karlinahami and Hinnihami returned from the river,
hundreds filled the street, lounging, strolling, gossiping, and
purchasing. Every now and then the crowd would gather more thickly in
one quarter, and they would see a pilgrim arrive performing some strange
vow. There were some who had run a skewer through their tongue and
cheeks; another had thrust, through the skin of his back a long stick
from which hung bowls of milk. At another time they saw a man, naked
except for a dirty loin cloth, his long hair hanging about his face, and
a great halo of flowers and branches upon his head; thirty or forty
great iron hooks had been put through the skin of his back; to every
hook was attached a long cord, and all the cords had been twisted into a
rope. Another man held the rope, while the first, bearing with his full
weight upon it so that the skin of his back was drawn away from his
body, danced around in a circle and shouted and sang.
As Karlinahami and Hinnihami were making their way slowly through the
crowd, they suddenly heard a soft voice behind them say:
'Well, mother, has not the hospital cured your brother of his fever?'
They turned and saw the smiling face and winking eye of the vederala.
Hinnihami shrank away from him behind Karlinahami.
'Vederala,' said Karlinahami, 'I must speak with you. Come away from all
these people.'
They pushed through the crowd, and going down a narrow opening between
two boutiques found themselves in the strip of quiet forest upon the
bank of the river. The vederala squatted down under a tree and began to
chew betel. Karlinahami squatted down opposite to him, and Hinnihami
tried to hide herself behind her from the eye of the vederala, which
seemed to her maliciously to wink at her.
Punchirala leaned round and peered at the girl.
'Well, daughter,' he said, ironically emphasising the word 'daughter,
what have you come to the god for? Have you touched the kapurala's foot
and prayed for a child? Truly they say he is the god of the barren wife.
Chi, chi, she covers her face with her hands. Is the man dead then? What
has the widow to do in Beragama? Ohé! now, see. She has come to the god
for clothing and food,[34] as they say. May the god give her a man,
young and fair and strong, a prince with cattle and land. For the girl
is fair, even I, the one-eyed old man, can see that--and the god is a
great god.'
'Don't talk this nonsense, vederala,' broke in Karlinahami impatiently.
'You shame the girl and frighten her. The god is a great god, we know
that, and as you told me we brought my brother here. Aiyo! the long road
and the hot sun. We are burnt as black as Tamils, and look at our feet.
On the road the strong and healthy fall sick, and the sick, man grows
weaker. Have you sent my brother here to kill him? He lies now in the
temple with no strength in him. Last night we took him in the
perahera,[35] and called upon the god to hear us. I pray you,
vederala--you are a wise man, and renowned for your knowledge--tell me
what wrong have we done. The devil remains; the god has not heard us,
nor driven him out.'
'Be patient, mother. This fever is a hard thing to cure. Did I not tell
you that even in the hospital there is no medicine against it? And it is
hard for a man to find the lucky hour. The gecko[36] calls, and the man
starts from the house: the man does not hear the sign; he is saying,
"You there bring that along!" and, "You here, where is the bundle with
the kurakkan?" So he starts on the journey in an unlucky hour.'
'We heard no gecko, nor any other bad sign. But we had to start quickly,
for the time was short. We had no time to consult an astrologer to find
the lucky hour.'
'Yes, perhaps that is it. And it is no easy matter, as I told you, to
find a cure for these--fevers.'
'But, vederala, what are we to do now? The man's strength goes from him.
Even to take him back the long way to the village will be difficult.'
'Patience, mother, patience. You must call louder to the god nightly
until the moon is full. Perhaps even now the devil--the fever--is
fighting against him.'
'Aiyo! what help for the cultivator when the flies have sucked the
strength from the paddy? He sowed in an unlucky hour, and not even the
god can help him. Pity us, vederala. Will you not come with us and look
at my brother now?'
'Why should I see your brother?' said the vederala angrily. 'What good
can I do? Did I not tell you, woman, that I cannot cure your brother's
fever? Where the god fails, can the man succeed? O the minds of these
women! They say in the village'--here he looked round and smiled at
Hinnihami--'that even the little one is like an untamed buffalo cow.'
'Do not be angry with me, vederala. You are the only help left for us.
We are weary with walking, and in grief. How can the women of the house
not raise the cry when the brother and father lies dying within? If I
have spoken foolishly, pardon my words.'
Punchirala sat silently looking at Hinnihami. The girl was crying. The
memory of the great god, whom she had seen go riding by upon the
elephant amid the flames and the shouts, the wild god who ruled over the
jungle, and to whom the men crowned with flowers and leaves were now
dancing in the street, the god to whom she cried so passionately on the
night before, had left her: her excitement and exaltation had died out
as she listened to the jeering words of Punchirala. She hated him as she
had hated him when he approached her before; but as she listened to him
talking to Karlinahami, fear--the fear that she felt for unknown
evils--gradually crept upon her. She cried helplessly, and Punchirala
smiled at her as he watched her. Karlinahami watched his face
expectantly and anxiously.
At last Punchirala began again slowly:
'How the girl cries. And for her father too! I am thinking that there is
yet something for you to do. I am a poor vederala, and my powers are
small. But there is a man here, a great man, a holy man, who they say is
very skilled in medicine and magic, and knows the mind of the god. He is
a sanyasi[37] from beyond the sea, from India, and his hair is ten
cubits[38] in length. Perhaps if you take Silindu to him, and inquire of
him, he will tell you the god's mind. But you must take money for him.'
'Aiyo! what is the use of talking of money to the starving?'
Punchirala fumbled in the fold of his cloth, and drew out his
betel-case. From this he took a very dirty rag, in which were a number
of copper and silver coins. He made up the sum of ninety-five cents, and
handed it over to Karlinahami.
'Here you are then, a rupee. Even the gods require payment. You can pay
me three shillings in kurakkan when the crop is reaped. The sanyasi sits
behind the little temple under a banian-tree. To-day, when the sun sinks
behind the trees of the jungle, take your brother to him and make
inquiry.'
Punchirala got up and began walking away, followed by the obeisances and
profuse thanks of Karlinahami. The two women hurried back to the temple.
They found that the old man and the fisher and his wife had joined
Silindu and Babun. The whole party agreed that the only thing to do was
to consult the sanyasi. They waited, dozing and talking through the hot
afternoon, until the hour fixed by the vederala arrived.
As soon as the sun sank behind the jungle, and the shadow of the trees
fell upon the temple courtyard, they went in a body to the banian-trees.
They found the sanyasi sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree
with a brass bowl by his side. He was unlike any sanyasi whom they had
seen before. He had a long black beard reaching below his waist, a big
hooked nose, and little twinkling black eyes. He wore a long white
cotton robe, which was indescribably dirty, and an enormous dirty white
turban. As they approached him he unwound the folds of his turban, and
displayed his hair to the crowd which surrounded him. It was plaited and
matted into two thin coils upon the top of his head, and its length had
not been by any means exaggerated by Punchirala. The sanyasi spoke only
a strange language, unintelligible to the Tamils and Sinhalese in the
crowd, but there stood by him an old Tamil man who interpreted what he
said.
Babun led Silindu up to the sanyasi and dropped the money in the bowl.
He explained what he wanted to the old Tamil, who understood and spoke
(very badly) Sinhalese. The crowd pressed forward to listen. The sanyasi
and his interpreter muttered together. The old man then addressed the
crowd, and told them that the holy man could not consult the god, or
give an answer, with them pressing upon him. There was much talking and
excitement, but at last a large circle was cleared, and the crowd was
induced to move away out of earshot. Most of the people squatted down,
and, though they could not hear a word of what followed, they watched in
hope of some exciting development.
Babun and Silindu squatted down in front of the sanyasi. Karlinahami,
Hinnihami, and the others of their party stood behind them. Silindu,
weak and dejected though he was, for the first time for several days
seemed to take some interest in what was passing. It had been arranged
that Babun should explain the case to the sanyasi.
'Will you tell the holy man,' he said to the interpreter, 'that we are
poor folk and ask pardon of him? This man is my wife's father, a hunter,
a very poor man. There is also a yakka who lives in the banian-trees in
the jungle over there' (Babun made a sweep with his arm towards the
west). 'This yakka has entered this man, and his life is going from him.
Why has the yakka entered the man? There is another man in the village;
that man is skilled in charms and magic, and is angry with this man.
Therefore, he charmed the devil to do this. Well, then, when this had
happened, the woman went to him and prayed him to charm the devil away
again. Then he said, "Take your brother to Beragama, and pray to the god
there at the great festival." So we walked and walked to this place with
the sick man, and we went in the perahera and called to the god. But the
god does not hear us, and the man's life is going from him. Then the
woman went again to the man, for he too is here, and told him. He said,
"I can do nothing; take the man to the holy man who sits under the
banian-tree, and make inquiry of him." So we waited for the lucky hour,
and have brought him.'
The interpreter talked in the strange tongue with the sanyasi, and then
said to Babun:
'The holy man says that the offering is too small.'
'Father, it is all we have. We are very poor. Rain never falls upon our
fields, and we have no land. We pray him to help us.'
There was another muttered conversation, and then the interpreter
said:
'It is very little for so great a thing. But the holy man will help
you.'
The little group became very still; everyone watched the sanyasi
anxiously. He muttered to himself, fixed his eyes on the ground in front
of him, made marks in the sand with his finger, and swayed his body from
side to side. Then looking at Silindu intently he began to speak very
volubly. Silindu watched him, fascinated. At last the sanyasi stopped,
and the interpreter addressed them:
'The holy man says thus: it is true that a devil of the jungle has
entered the man. This devil is of great power. Why has this happened?
The man is a foolish man. There has come into the holy man's mind
another man, his face marked with scars, and one-eyed. He is a vederala,
very skilled in charms. You have not told why the one-eyed man is angry,
but the holy man knows because of his holiness and wisdom. The one-eyed
man came and said, "Give me your daughter," but this man, being mad,
refused and spoke evil. Then the one-eyed man was very angry, and went
away and made a charm over the devil, and the devil entered the man.
When the one-eyed man made the charm he said to the devil: "Unless she
be given to me, do not leave him."'
A cry broke from Hinnihami; she covered her face with her hands, and
crouched in fear upon the ground. The interpreter paid no attention to
her.
'Now even the one-eyed man cannot loose the charm, so he has sent you to
the god. The god is of great power over devils: he heard your prayer,
and he said to this devil, "Leave the man." But the yakka answered,
fighting against the power, "Something must be given." The master said,
"Unless she be given, do not leave the man. Am I to die for this foolish
man's sake?" Then the god said, "Yes, something must be given--either
the man or the girl." The holy man knows this, and says that you must
remain here, and take the man every night in the perahera until the
night of the full moon, and on the morning of the next day you must
return to the village. But on the evening of the first day's journey,
the one-eyed man will meet you in an open stony place beside two
palu-trees. Then you must go to him and say, "There is the girl; take
her." He will take the girl, and the devil will leave the man.
Otherwise, if you do not do this the man will die, for something must be
given--either the man or the girl. Remember, too, that the girl cannot
be given during the festival.'
Hinnihami pressed her body against the ground, but her eyes were dry
now. She was broken: tired and numb with fear and despair; she had
always known that it was she who was bringing death upon her father.
Instinctively, like a wild animal against a trap, she had fought against
the idea of giving herself to Punchirala. At the thought of her body
touching his, the skin seemed to shrink against her bones. Silindu was
everything to her, and she knew that now she was everything to him. At
first she had felt that she was being driven inevitably to sacrifice
herself; but when Karlinahami returned from Punchirala's compound, and
told them of the pilgrimage, hope came to her. The hardships and
excitement of the road, her ecstasy before the god, had driven away her
first feeling of despair. The god would certainly help them. But fear
had crept in again at the first sight of Punchirala, and as she listened
to his talk with Karlinahami her hope grew cold. Now she knew that she
must inevitably sacrifice herself. Had not the sanyasi known the truth
which Babun had not disclosed? She knew that not even the god could help
her; she had heard his words, 'Yes, something must be given--either the
man or the girl.' Once more evil had come out of the jungle.
The effect upon the other listeners had also been great. The holy man
had seen what Babun had hidden; they knew well that they had heard from
him the reply of the god. They walked back to the temple talking about
it in low voices. There was no suggestion of doubt in any one as to what
should be done. Even Silindu had given in. The god had spoken; it was
fate, the inevitable. The girl would be given.
The remainder of the festival passed slowly for them. They followed the
perahera dispirited, and called upon the god nightly. But there was no
hope or even doubt now to excite them. Silindu, listless, waited for his
release; Hinnihami was cowed and dulled by despair. The nights passed,
and the morning following the new moon came; and they went down
dutifully to the river to take part in the cutting of the waters. They
were a melancholy little group among the laughing, joking crowd, which
stood knee-deep in the river. And when the supreme moment came, and the
kapurala cut the waters, and the crowd with a shout splashed high over
themselves and one another the waters which would bring them good
fortune through the coming year, Hinnihami stood among them weeping.
The pilgrimage was over, and a line of returning pilgrims began at once
to stream across the river westwards. The old man and the fisher and his
wife said good-bye to them, for they felt that it was not right for
them, being strangers, to be present at what was to take place upon the
homeward journey. Then they too set out. They walked all that day
slowly--for Silindu was very weak--and in silence. When the shadows
began to lengthen the jungle became thinner, and the ground more stony.
They knew that they must be nearing the place. The track turned and
twisted through the scrub; the air was very still. They passed a bend,
and there before them stood the vederala under some palu-trees. They
stopped for a moment and looked at one another. Karlinahami touched
Silindu on the arm. He took Hinnihami by the hand and went up to
Punchirala. His eyes seemed to be fixed upon something far away beyond
Punchirala; he spoke very slowly:
'Here is the girl; take her.'
Punchirala looked at Hinnihami and smiled.
'It is well,' he said.
Silindu turned, and with Karlinahami and Babun walked on down the track.
Neither of them looked back. Hinnihami was left standing by the
vederala, her arms hanging limply by her side, her eyes looking on the
ground.