Sri Lankan "Vedda"

Sri Lankan 'vedda'

The terms Vedda and Wanniyala-Aetto are two terms most commonly used to refer to the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. Those who are not of the idigenous decent use the Vedda when referring to the group, but the people themselves use the term Wanniyala-Aetto forest dwellers. The Vedda immigrated to Sri Lanka from India at a time that is unknown. They claim to be the first inhabitants of the country. although there is little proof and much argument on who the first inhabitants actually were.The oroinal veddas lived in rock caves and survived off the land and the animals that they hunted. The original weapon of the Vedda was a bow and arrow, that they constructed themselves, but today the shotgun has replaced that. The veddas do not kill young or pregnant animals; they kill only what they need to survive. The food iis then shared with their family and others. In addition to the animals that they hunt the veddas also eat the fruit and honey that they gather from land. Many of the Vedda people alsp practice a type of agriculture called chena cultivation. It is a slash and burn method which the nw government sanction. Mass ceremonies were held to legally wed those who were already wed according to Vedda belief. It was also ruled that the woman had to take the man's name in marriage.With the new laws it has became very difficult to trace the decent of many of the Vedda people. Death like marriage is also made to be very simplistic. The veddas do not hold any large cremonies and their loved once are quickly placed in the groun. The bodies in a traditional burial covered with juices from the leaves jungle trees or a lime tree.

In the past, people farmed small areas of land in the forest, cultivating them a couple of years, and then letting them rest.The man both hunted and gathered wile the women were just gatherers. Often, the women supplied more food for the family because the man was not always succesful in his hunt The original diet of the Veddas developed over many years to be a vey balanced and nutritious one. However, the government made it illegal to kill wild animals and the most Veddas turned into vegetarians. With this turn illness and obesity were seen for the first time among the people. The group had also never used or abused alcohol until the new government regulations were set into place, then alcoholismand mental illness were also seen for the first time.The government restrictions also grought o ther big changes. Their culture and language slowly started to vanish, and today there is not an original Vedda language remaining, and there is at the most, only a few hundred Vedd people left that have not inter-married with other races and still practice the old ways of living. Many traditions and religeous rituals began to disappear. The original Vedda religion was actually a type of cult, based on the worship of ancestral spirits, known as Ne yaku. They asked for the blessings of the Ne yaku and other spirits in order to keep the spirits of their dead happy. They feared that the spirits would bring them tragedy. The Veddas believed that their deceased were always with them and they weren't actually deas untill everybody that knew them was also dead. The Vedda marriage ceremony was one of simplicity. It involved the woman trying a bark rope, that she had woven, around hey husband to be's waist to show that she accepted him as her mate. Vedda woman are in sevral ways considered the equals of man. In many cultures a person's is traced through he man but in the Vedda culture it is traditionally traced through the woman. When a man and a woman married they took her name.

The clothing of the Veddas has also changed. The traditional dress of the men wearing a loin and the oman wearing a piece of material that covered the area between their naval and their knees. The men now wear a sarong anf the woman wear a piece of clothing that covers from the breast-line to the knees. Almost all activities of the Veddas follow the changing of th seasons. The Veddas year is determined by two main monsoons. the first, lasts from June to August and covers the sothern and western coastal areas and the central hill country. The second, lasts from November to the end of January and covers the nothern and eastern parts of the island, which id the area where the Veddas live. The time spaces between the two major monsoons bring hunderstorm. It these rains do not come the Veddas experience rought and food becomes hard to come by. The Vedda culture has beendeeply affected by the goverment Sri Lankaand many one day cease to exits. The few original Vedda that are still out there have changed dramaticlly. They no longer speak their native tongue and many other aspects to their lives have changed due to the laws they were forced to live under. The Vedda culture is one of uniqueness ut may one no longer be here for us to study. It has already lost many of its original features and may soon lose them all.