Colonial Histories and Vädda Primitivism
Part Two: Vädda Heterogenity and Historic Complexity
An adventure while gathering honey: Leap or Starve. The Graphic, November 26, 1887.
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This picture of Vädda primitivism is not entirely false and it is no doubt the case
that small groups of hunters, both Vädda and Sinhala, did live in the
conditions depicted by colonial historians. Yet the popular idea of the Väddas
as a homogenous primitive group of hunters and gatherers living in Bintanna, a
heavily forested area when the Seligmanns did field work, would have been
dispelled if they ventured into the Anuradhapura district. We now know from James Brow’s pioneer study Vedda
Villages of Anuradhapura (1978) that here were different kinds of Väddas,
living in about sixty communities, practising agriculture, just like their
Sinhala neighbors. They were also formally Buddhist and yet their
self-identification was not Sinhala but Vädda and interestingly they thought
that their professional identity was that of "hunter," even though hunting was
no longer their main occupation.25
The best place to reexamine Vädda primitivism is Bintanne which Knox and everyone
else believed was the habitat of the wild Väddas. In early British times
Bintanne was a desolate place and the famous stupa at Mahiyangana was in
disrepair. But let us go back into the corridors of time and memory and have
another look at Bintanne in the early 17th century when it was mostly known as
Bintanne-Alutnuvara in both indigenous and Dutch colonial texts. When the two
names are conjoined, the term does not refer to a wilderness region but to the
important city of Alutnuvara. The term Bintanna means "the plains" or "the flat country"
and is etymologically equivalent to Mahiyangana. But why, one might ask, the
name Alutnuvara?
Alutnuvara means "the new city" and is an alternative capital of the kings when the "the
old city" of Kandy was threatened by the Portuguese and later the Dutch. The
Kandyan kings had several such alternative residences such as
Diyatilaka-nuvara, now known as Hanguranketa, and Nilambe near Galaha but the
major alternative capital was Alutnuvara.26 Dutch accounts from
around 1602 show it as a place where "the old Emperors used to hold court as it
is a beautiful city where there are many large streets, beautiful buildings and
wonderful pagodas or heathen temples and among others there is one whose base
is 130 paces round, extraordinarily beautiful, very tall .... In it is also a
beautiful and large palace of the Emperor full of beautiful buildings within. Here
the best galleys and sampans of the Emperors are made. Here are also many shops
but no market, stone monasteries and a great many bamboo [bark?] houses which
stretch for a mile or two in distance along the river.27 Another
says it is "one of the most beautiful cities of the entire island where
everything that one thinks of can be obtained." Then, as well as now,
Bintanna-Alutnuvara was a place where Väddas met Sinhala Buddhists, but Väddas
were probably the dominant population here. Because it was an alternate capital
Alutnuvara was a way station for embassies from the east coast ports,
especially Batticaloa and Trincomalee, traveling to Kandy. Hence another
account from such a Dutch embassy gives a vivid description of the temple
rituals and processions including bare-breasted women dancers whom I suspect
were Vädda women associated with the Saman devale and honoring their own
deities housed therein. "The most beautiful maidens, ere the procession goes
out and comes in again, perform many wondrous feats with dancing; they are all
with naked bodies bare above, the arms, hands and ears half adorned with gold
and precious stones; below they have handsome embroidered clothes."28 The
Saman devale at Ratnapura had a tradition of dancing women which was first
recorded by the Portuguese historian Femao de Queyroz in 1630; from his
castigation of the "profanity of heathenism" and "that shameful practice" one
might justifiably infer that the dancers were bare-breasted (which is nothing
unusual because in everyday life women at that time were bare-breasted anyway).29
When the need arose the kings sent their families to Bintanna-Alutnuvara to be
guarded by the Väddas of that region because of their fierce loyalty. Rajasinha
II, one of the greatest of the Kandyan kings, was born here, as attested both
by Knox and also in the last book of the Mahāvamsa.30 It
is not likely that the Väddas, at least those who served the king, were the
shirtless savages of the European and bourgeois imagination. There is at least
some confirmation of well-dressed Väddas from de Queyroz writing in 1688:
Though these people are so wild, in no other has the King
of Candea greater confidence, for in men left to their own nature, where
shrewdness grows there grows malice. The Bedas of Vilacem [Vellassa] have in
their keeping the treasure of that King, for which he chooses twelve of these
men, and as a distinction he given them twelve ear-rings of silver and canes
with ornaments of silver with garments different from the others, that they may
be known and respected; and they come by night to speak with the King on what
concerns his service. In the straits of war, as on the occasions when the
Portuguese entered Candea, the Kings entrust to them their wives, and they have
made for them houses in their fashion in these jungles and woods, very clean
and with many flowers; and as they have little elegance, they must have done it
on the instruction of the same Kings. For a space of twelve leagues of
inaccessible thickets from Vilacem to the first Chain of mountains of
Baticalou, they must have built about fifty houses, on thwart the other, where
our arms neither reached nor were able to cause any damage, because of the
careful watch they kept, and because of the incredible ruggedness of those
places, sought for and varied on purpose.31
It seems that twelve was the standard number for such groupings; a Dutch account
of 1762 mentions "two Adigar brothers [visiting Kirinde in Ruhuna] together
with a few minor Kandyan chiefs ... were escorted by twelve Väddas and fourteen
other bowmen composing the bodyguard of the Adigars."32 And other
accounts substantiated Queyroz’s view that Väddas had easy access to the king
and familiarly referred to him as "cross-cousin" or massina:
Once a year the Vedas send two deputies with honey and
little presents to the king. When they arrive at the gate of the palace, they
send word to his majesty that his cousins wish to see him. They are immediately
introduced. They then kneel, get up, and inquire of the king, rather
familiarly, about his health. The king receives them well, takes their
presents, gives them others, and orders that certain marks of respect be shown
them on their retiring form the palace.33
Lest
you imagine that well-dressed Vädda soldiers were an exclusive Kandyan period
phenomenon let me refer you to their regiment in the army of Parakramabahu 1
(1153-1186): "He [the king] trained many thousands of hunters [vyādha,
that is, Väddas] and made them skilled in the use of their weapons, and gave
them swords, black clothes and the like"34
End Notes
- For details see James Brow, Vedda Villages of
Anuradhapura, pp. 3-39.
- See also Valentijn in Francois Valentijn’s
Description of Ceylon, translated and edited by Sinnappah Arasaratnam
(London: The Hakluyt Society, 1978), pp. 152-53.
- In Sinnappah Arasaratnam, Francois Valentijn, p.
153. There is a puzzle pertaining to the shipbuilding industry in these Dutch
accounts. Donald Ferguson who translated "The Visit of Spilbergen to Ceylon in
May, 1602" in JRAS, CB, vol., XXX, has a footnote on p. 398 where he
says that these were "purely State and pleasure boats for local use, as they
would not have gone farther down the Mahaweliganga, and certainly not upwards."
Yet we do not know whether the river was not navigable downstream at that time.
In fact the author of the Dutch text (p. 371) says that the king of Matecalo
builds ships in the bay. Maybe there is a connection here. Alternatively, it is
possible that the Dutch mistook the nature of the shipbuilding. It might have
seen a sima, an area where Buddhist ordinations took place because
ordinations were sometimes held in "ships." This hypothesis seems plausible
when we consider that this was a place full of monasteries. The precedent for
such sima comes from the reign of Parakrama Bahu I: "Every year he
brought the Great Community to the river bank, made them take up their abode in
a garden there while he with his dignitaries paid them respect. Then after
firmly anchoring ships in the stream he had a charming mandapa of beautiful
proportions erected on them. Then when he had given to the bhikkhus costly
robes and all kinds of articles of use, the wise Prince made them hold the
ceremony of admission into the Order." Wilhelm Geiger, Culavamsa,
(Colombo: Department of Information, 1953), p.104.
- For more fascinating details see, Donald Ferguson, "The
Visit of Spilbergen," pp.379ff.
- Father Fernao De Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual
Conquest of Ceylon, vol., 1, trans., S G Perera, Colombo: Government
Printer, 1930 [1688], p.42.
- Here is Robert Knox: "Thirdly, The city [after Kandy and Nilambe] Allout-neur
on the North East to Cande. Here this King was born, here also he keeps
great store of Corn and Salt, etc, against time of War or Trouble. This is Situate
in the Countrey of Bintan, which Land, I have never been at.... In these
woods is a sort of Wild People Inhabiting, whom we shall speak of in their
place." The editor’s note says: "Raja Sinha was born (when the Portuguese
invaded Kandy,
twice within six months, Sept. 1611 and March 1612) and forced his parents to
flee to Alutnuvara." Robert Knox, An Historical Relation of the Island of
Ceylon (second edition), editor, J.H.O. Paulusz, Vol., 2, Dehiwela: Tisara
Press, 1989 [1681], pp.25-26.
This is confirmed in Mahavamsa chapter 96 (Wilhelm
Geiger, Culavamsa, part II, p.232 on Senarat fleeing from the
Portuguese: "Then he left the city [having sequestered the tooth relic in a
safe place in Dumbara]. Moveable goods, the sons of the former king and the
admirable Mahesi, excellent by wealth and virtue, who was pregnant, he took
carefully with him in a litter and betook himself to Mahiyangana. While he
sojourned in this town the Queen bore under a particularly favorable
constellation, a splendid son, dowered with brilliant marks."
- Father Fernao de Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual
Conquest, pp. 17- 18.
- Secret Minutes of the Dutch Political Council 1762,
Edited and translated, J H O Paulusz, Colombo: Government Press, August 1954, p.101
- Joseph Joinville, "Bedas or Vedas" In "On the Religion
and Manners of the People of Ceylon" Asiatic Researches, vol., 7, pp.434-35.
- I chose the translation by L C Wijesinha, The
Mahavamsa, part two, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1996 [1882]. Wilhelm
Geiger objects to Wijesingha’s translation of sattikalambara into satti-kala-ambara,
"swords, black clothes". His translation reads: "Many thousand Vyadhas too he
brought together, (men) who understood their task and gave them what was
fitting for them: spears, drums and the like." Culavamsa, trans.,
Wilhelm Geiger, 69: 10, pp.283-84. My translation of the Sinhala translation of
the Mahavamsa/Culavamsa by Sumangala and Batuvantudave reads: "Having
trained several thousand Väddas in [military] arts, they were given black
clothes and other things they desired." The Mahavamsa: From the
thirty-seventh chapter, translated into Sinhala by H Siri Sumangala and Don
Andris de Silva Batuvantudave, fifth edition, Colombo: Vidyadarsa Press, 1930, pp.141-42.
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