An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies. Robert Knox

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СКАЧАТЬ in Tilling, so in their Harvest also; For all fall in together in reaping one man’s Field, and so to the next, until every mans Corn be down. And the Custome is, that every man, during the reaping of his Corn, finds all the rest with Victuals. The womens work is to gather up the Corn after the Reapers, and carry it all together.

      They tread out their Corn with Cattel.They use not Threshing, but tread out their Corn with Cattel, which is a far quicker and easier way. They may tread out in a day forty or fifty Bushels at least with the help of half a dozen Cattel.

      The Ceremonies they use when the Corn is to be trodden.When they are to tread their Corn they choose a convenient adjoyning place. Here they lay out a round piece Ground some twenty or five and twenty foot over. From which they cut away the upper Turf. Then certain Ceremonies are used. First, they adorn this place with ashes made into flowers and branches, and round circles. Then they take divers strange shells, and pieces of Iron, and some sorts of Wood, and a bunch of betel Nuts, (which are reserved for such purposes) and lay all these in the very middle of the Pit, and a large stone upon them. Then the women, whose proper work it is, bring each their burthen of reaped Corn upon their heads, and go round in the Pit three times, and then fling it down. And after this without any more ado, bring in the rest of the Corn as fast as they can. For this Labour, and that of weeding, the Women have a Fee due to them, which they call Warapol, that is as much Corn, as shall cover the Stone and the other Conjuration-Instruments at the bottom of the Pit.

      They will frequently carry away their new reaped Corn into the Pit; and tread it out presently as soon as they have cut it down, to secure it from the Rains, which in some Parts are very great and often; and Barns they have none big enough, But in other places not so much given to Rains, they will sometimes set it up in a Cock, and let it stand some months.

      How they unhusk their Rice.They unshale their Rice from its outward husk by beating it in a Mortar, or on the Ground more often; but some of these sorts of Rice must first be boyled in the husk, otherwise in beating it will break to powder. The which Rice, as it is accounted, so I by experience have found, to be the wholsomest; This they beat again the second time to take off a Bran from it; and after that it becomes white. And thus much concerning Rice-Corn.

      Other sorts of Corn among them.Besides this, tho far inferior to it, there are divers other sorts of Corn, which serve the People for food in the absence of Rice, which will scarcely hold out with many of them above half the Year. Coracan.There is Coracan, which is a small seed like Mustard-seed, This they grind to meal or beat in a Mortar, and so make Cakes of it, baking it upon the Page 12Coals in a potsheard, or dress it otherwise. If they which are not used to it, eat it, it will gripe their Bellies; When they are minded to grind it, they have for their Mill two round stones, which they turn with their hands by the help of a stick: There are several sorts of this Corn. Some will ripen in three months, and some require four. If the Ground be good; it yields a great encrease; and grows both on the Hills and in the Plains. Tanna.There is another Corn called Tanna; It is much eaten in the Northern Parts, in Conde Uda but little sown. It is as small as the former, but yieldeth a far greater encrease. From one grain may spring up two, three, four or five stalks, according as the ground is, on each stalk one ear, that contains thousands of grains. I think it gives the greatest encrease of any one feed in the World. Each Husbandman sowes not above a Pottle at a Seeds-time. It growes up two foot, or two foot and an half from the ground. The way of gathering it when ripe, is, that the Women (whose office it is} go and crop off the ears with their hands, and bring them home in baskets. They onely take off the ears of Coracan also, but they being tough, are cut off with knives. This Tanna must be parched in a Pan, and then is beaten in a Mortar to unhusk it. It will boyl like Rice, but swell far more; the tast not bad but very dry, and accounted wholsome; the fashion flattish, the colour yellow and very lovely to the Eye. It ripens in four months, some sorts of it in three. There are also divers other sorts, which grow on dry Land (as the former) and ripen with the Rain. Moung.As Moung, a Corn somewhat like Vetches, growing in a Cod. Omb.Omb, a small seed, boyled and eaten as Rice. It has an operation pretty strange, which is, that when it is new it will make them that eat it like drunk, sick and spue; and this only when it is sown in some Grounds, for in all it will not have this effect: and being old, none will have it. Minere, a small seed. Boumas, we call them Garavances. Tolla, a seed used to make Oyl, with which they anoint themselves; and sometimes they will parch it and eat it with Jaggory, a kind of brown Sugar. And thus much of their Corn.

CHAP. IV.

       Table of Contents

Of their Fruits, and Trees

       Table of Contents

      Great variety of Fruits, and delicious.Of Fruits here are great plenty and variety, and far more might be if they did esteem or nourish them. Pleasant Fruits to eat ripe they care not at all to do, They look only after those that may fill the Belly, and satisfie their hunger when their Corn is spent, or to make it go the further. These onely they plant, the other Fruits of Pleasure plant themselves, the seeds of the ripe Fruits shedding and falling on the ground naturally spring up again. They have all Fruits that grow in India. Most sorts of these delicious Fruits they gather before they be ripe, and boyl them to make Carrees, to use the Portuguez word, that is somewhat to eat with and relish their Rice. The best Fruits, where-ever they grow, reserved for the King.But wheresoever there is any Fruit better than ordinary, the Ponudecarso, or Officers of the Countrey, will tie a string about the Tree in the Kings Name with three knots on the end thereof, and then, no man, Page 13not the Owner himself, dares presume under pain of some great punishment, if not death, to touch them. And when they are ripe, they are wrapped in white cloth, and carried to him who is Governour of that Countrey wherein they grow: and if they be without any defect or blemish, then being wrapped up again in white cloth, he presents them to the King. But the owner in whose Ground they grow is paid nothing at all for them: it is well if he be not compelled to carry them himself into the bargain unto the King, be it never so far. These are Reasons why the People regard not to plant more than just to keep them alive.

      Betel-Nuts.But to specifie some of the chief of the Fruits in request among them, I begin with their Betel-Nuts, the Trees that bear them grow only on the South and West sides of this Island. They do not grow wild, they are only in their Towns, and there like unto Woods, without any inclosures to distinguish one mans Trees from anothers; but by marks of great Trees, Hummacks or Rocks each man knows his own. They plant them not, but the Nuts being ripe fall down in the grass and so grow up to The Trees.Trees. They are very streight and tall, few bigger than the calf of a mans Leg. The Fruit.The Nuts grow in bunches at the top, and being ripe look red and very lovely like a pleasing Fruit. When they gather them, they lay them in heaps until the shell be somewhat rotted, and then dry them in the Sun, and afterwards shell them with a sharp stick one and one at a time. These trees will yield some 500, some a 1000, some 1500 Nuts, and some but three or four hundred. They bear but once in the Year generally, but commonly there are green Nuts enough to eat all the Year long. The Leaves.The leaves of it are somewhat like those of a Coker-Nut Tree, they are five or six foot long, and have other lesser leaves growing out of the sides of them, like the feathers on each side of a quill. The Chingulays call the large leaves the boughs, and the leaves on the sides, the leaves. They fall off every Year, and the skin upon which they grow, with them. The Skins, and their use.These skins grow upon the body of the Tree, and the leaves grow out on them. They also clap about the buds or blossoms which bear the Nuts, and as the buds swell, so this skin-cover gives way to them, till at length it falls quite off with the great leaf on it. It is somewhat like unto Leather, and of great use unto the Countrey People. It serves them instead of Basons to eat their Rice in, and when they go a Journey to tie up СКАЧАТЬ