SINHALA WEAPONS AND ARMOUR

Abstract

THE Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for December 1942 contains an article by P. E. P. Doraniyagala on “Sinhala Weapons and Armor”. The work of the Sinhalese armourers seems to have elicited great praise from Europeans of the seventeenth century, but one may legitimately doubt whether tempering swords in blood or milk made them any better as weapons, unless it were that they gave greater confidence. The Sinhalese court went in, apparently, for gladiatorial shows; fencing was taught, and foils (or singlesticks) were used in mock combat. The weapons illustrated include the boomerang, both of horn and of wood, and it is worth noting that the Koli name for it is katariya: very suggestive of the Latin name for it- cateia. The prevalence of the leaf-shaped sword is striking. It is interesting to find in use the feathered javelin, if one can so describe it when the 'feather' was made of metal. Possibly the flat metal vanes were derived from vanes of pandanus leaf such as are used both for crossbow bolts and for javelins in the Assam hills.