Colonial Histories and Vädda Primitivism:
An Unorthodox Reading of Kandy Period Texts
Introduction1
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Let me start by saying that this lecture is a by-product of my current field-work in
the somewhat remote parts of Vellassa and Bintänna. I am working in this region
because it is little known anthropologically and historically and I have always
felt that a study of the small village shrines and ritual practices of this
area might help us understand the manner in which the Vädda worship of dead
ancestors, known as nä yakku (yakku having no negative connotation) is
articulated with the Sinhala Buddhist belief in selected ancestral heroes who
have been subsequently deified in what is sometimes known as the bandāra
cult, generally constituting a conglomerate of twelve major gods known as dolaha
deviyo. In addition, this was the region which saw in 1917-18 the first
major resistance against British colonial rule and hence Vellassa has special
significance in our historical annals. A large part of the Vellassa and
adjoining regions, for example the Monaragala district and the region south of
tea country of Namunukala, were known traditionally as vädi rata or even
as mahā vädi rata. However, there are no longer any Väddas in the vädi
rata; the residents there claim to be Sinhala Buddhists. Hence one of the
issues that I am investigating is whatever happened to the Väddas? In some of
the remoter areas of this region informants will volunteer opinions to say that
they were Väddas before they became Sinhala; and they have a plethora of myths
that relate to their origins in the Vijaya-Kuveni marriage and many others. I
am sure Dr. Mendis would have been delighted with this information because he
was one of the first historians to critically reflect on the early myths of the
Mahavamsa and examine their historical salience. Hence let me start off
with the Vijaya myth, which most of you know, and which records the origin of
the Väddas and vindicates their connection as well as separated-ness from the Sinhalas.
Vijaya, as we know from the Mahāvamsa but not from the older Dipavamsa,
married the demoness Kuveni who helped him to vanquish her own kinfolk, the yakkhas.
Vijaya later abandoned her for a legitimate union with a princess from Madurai in the Tamil
country. Kuveni herself was killed by her kinfolk; but her two children fled to
the hills near the fastnesses of the god Saman and it is from them that the Väddas
were descended. As for the Sinhalas they are a product of the union between the
Vijaya and his followers and the women of the Tamil country which of course
means, according to the Mahāvamsa, that the Sinhalas are a product
of a genetic intermixture between a possibly north or eastern Indian group of
men who landed in Sri Lanka and Tamil women from Madurai, an interconnection
that continued, with ups and downs, right through history.
After the origin myth of Väddas and Sinhalas the Mahāvamsa
is singularly silent about the former who seem to disappear from Pali
chronicles. And therefore I shall begin my account with the history which deals
with these forgotten and misunderstood peoples of our history, the so-called "aboriginal"
peoples living nowadays in rather poor conditions in the area of Bintanna and
Maha Oya. But surely these people had a past, a history if you want to call it
that. There are no "peoples without history" but only peoples whose histories
have been forgotten or ignored or simply impossible to reconstruct because of
the few records they left behind. I therefore want to practice what I call a "restorative"
analysis wherein I resurrect the Vädda voices from the past, to depict their
presence in history and the complexity of their life-ways prior to their final
and sad dispersal, and perhaps the extermination of some of them, during the
fateful rebellion against the British in 1817-18, and the less fateful but
nevertheless harsh confrontation with agricultural development in the Mahavmäli
zone. It is unfortunate that we know the Väddas only from their remnants in the
Maha Oya-Bintanne area and that is because as a thoroughly colonized nation we
have absorbed the colonial view of the primitive Vädda that in turn has set an
indelible stamp on our knowledge of them. Hence I want to initially deal with
what Friedrich Nietzsche would call the "genealogy" of the primitive Vädda.
- I want to acknowledge the help of my research
assistants, Mr. H.G. Daya Sisira and Ms. Aparna Fernando. I am also indebted to
Dr. Wimalaratne, Director of the Sri Lankan National Archives for the help he extended
to us; and to Ms. Ramani Hettiaracchi who first pointed out to me the palm leaf
manuscripts lying mostly unused in the University of Peradeniya library. The Vadivamsaya, which I mention in this paper,
is from that collection. I am also grateful for the Wenner Gren Foundation for
sponsoring my Vellassa field project and the International Centre for Ethnic
Studies in Colombo for supporting my study of "intermediate texts." I also want to apologize for being unable to systematically
employ diacriticals in this text.
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