Hiṭihāmi the Giant

In the Wanni country, in the north-western quarter of the Island of Lan̥kā (Ceylon), there is a village called Andara-waewa. In that village a giant was born. His parents, cherishing him, reared the child.

While the child is at the age for playing seated, he eats about two quarts of cooked rice [daily]. At the walking age he eats about three quarts of cooked rice. While seven years of age he eats about four quarts of cooked rice.

Having gone with children who walked about for amusement, having caught hares and mouse-deer, and struck them on the ground, killing them, he brings them [home]. After he has brought them, his two parents ask, “Whence, son, are these?” Then the child says, “Mother, having gone running I seized them.”

Thus, having been living in that manner, at the age of about twelve years he said to his mother, “Mother, give me food [to enable me] to go to cut a chena.” So his mother gave him food.

The child having eaten the food, and gone to the jungle taking two bill-hooks, cut the chena that very day. Having cut it, and come home, he said to his mother, “Mother, I cut a chena. I don’t know the time for setting fire to it. Because of it, tell father to set fire to the chena.”

After that, his mother said, “Our son cut a chena. Set fire to it; son does not know the time for setting fire [to it].” After that, the man went and set fire to the chena.

Having come, he said to his mother, “Mother, place one and a half amuṇas of paddy in water [to cause it to sprout] for sowing in the tāwalla.” Afterwards his mother made the paddy sprout. This child took the one and a half amuṇas of paddy, and sowed it that very day. In the evening he came home.

Then certain men said, “At the village called Andara-waewa there is a man called Hiṭihāmi, who eats the cooked rice from seven [quarts] of rice. That man is good for wrestling with the Mallawa giant.”

After they said it, the Ministers went to Andara-waewa to seek the giant Hiṭihāmi. When they went there, the boy Hiṭihāmi was not at home; only the giant’s mother was there. They asked at the hand of his mother, “Where is now Hiṭihāmi?” Then his mother said, “My son went to the watch-hut at the tāwalla.”

After that, the Ministers went to the tāwalla to seek him. As they were going there they saw Hiṭihāmi sprinkling water for the tāwalla with his foot. Thereupon the Ministers went to the place where Hiṭihāmi was sprinkling water. Having gone, the Ministers asked, “Is it you they call Hiṭihāmi of Andara-waewa?”

Then Hiṭihāmi said, “Yes, it is I myself. What matter have you come about?” he asked.

After that, Hiṭihāmi having come home with the Ministers, asked at the hand of his mother, “Mother, haven’t you cooked yet?”

His mother said, “Son, I have not yet cooked. I have only boiled five quarts of menēri.”

Then Hiṭihāmi having [drunk] the milk taken from seven buffalo cows in the large cooking-pot, and having eaten those five quarts of boiled menēri, [after] washing his [right] hand and taking his betel bag also, said to the Ministers, “Let us go;” and Hiṭihāmi and the Ministers went.

At the time when they are going, there are a great many pumpkins at a chena on the path. Having seen them, Hiṭihāmi, plucking four pumpkins also and continuing to eat them, went to Kandy.

The Ministers who went with him said to the King, “Hiṭihāmi of Andara-waewa has come.”

The King told Hiṭihāmi to come near, and said, “Can you wrestle with the Mallawa one?”

Then Hiṭihāmi replied, “Putting one Mallawa person [out of consideration], should seven come I am not afraid.” After that, the King told him to go for the wrestling with the Mallawa one.

As soon as Hiṭihāmi went, he seized the Mallawa one. Then the bones of the Mallawa one were broken. The King said, “Ā! Kill not my Mallawa one!” So Hiṭihāmi let go. The Mallawa one having died, fell on the ground.

After that, the King was displeased with Hiṭihāmi. Having become displeased he said to the Ministers, “You must put Hiṭihāmi on the other bank of the river (Mahawaeli-gan̆ga).” The Ministers put Hiṭihāmi on the other bank.

Then the men said, “We have come together to cut a paddy kayiya.”

Hiṭihāmi said, “Are you willing for me also to cut the paddy plants for a breath (husmak)?”

The men said, “It is very good; let us cut.”

Afterwards, asking for the sickles from each one of the men, and having broken them, and thrown them down, and drawn out the betel-cutter that was in Hiṭihāmi’s betel wallet (bulat-payiya), taking it he began to cut the paddy plants. Only the paddy plants of two amuṇas of paddy (about four and a half acres) were ripe; there were no more.

He finished the two amuṇas of paddy plants, and because there were no [more] ripe paddy plants, cutting the fence of the upper field and having gone [there], he began to cut the green paddy plants.

Afterwards, the giant having come to the high ground [outside the field], when he came to the place where the men were near the tree, the men said, “Let us go to eat the kayiya.”

Then Hiṭihāmi said, “You go and eat the kayiya; I am going to my village.”

As he was coming on and on, having met with a wild buffalo it began to gore him. So Hiṭihāmi seized the two horns of the buffalo, and loosening the two horns, went to his village [with them].

Having gone [there], and given into his mother’s hand the two horns, he said, “Mother, having conquered in the Mallawa wrestling, at the time when I was coming back about sixty men had come together to cut the paddy plants in a rice field. At the hand of the men I asked, ‘What are you many men joined together there for?’ Then the men said, ‘We are [here] to cut a paddy kayiya.’

“As I was coming away, a wild buffalo came to gore me. Afterwards, loosening the buffalo’s two horns [I brought them away]. These indeed are the two horns.” He told her all the matters.

Then his mother said, “Son, except that you have said that word to me, do not say it for anyone else to hear;” and having cooked several kinds of cakes, and milk-rice, gave them to Hiṭihāmi the Giant to eat.

North-western Province.

This story differs from nearly all the others in being almost certainly based on a considerable statum of fact. Apparently, it is the exaggerated tradition about a very strong man who defeated a celebrated Indian wrestler at Kandy. The story also gives more details concerning the village cultivations than any others I have met with.

Perhaps it is not the only record of this Hiṭihāmi. Among the names of the deified chiefs of ancient times, termed Baṇḍāra, there is one called Hiṭi Baṇḍāra, who is said to have lived at a village called Gōkaraella, twelve miles north-east of Kurunāegala. It is possible that he is the hero of this story; but as the names of the villages are different there is considerable doubt regarding it. There was a village called Andara-waewa (in the Wanni Hat-pattu district of the North-western Province) which was abandoned some centuries ago, the field and village tank having become overgrown with jungle and forest.

As Kandy was founded early in the fourteenth century, according to the manuscript Pradhāna nuwarawal, the story may record events of the fourteenth, fifteenth, or possibly the sixteenth century, A.D.