THE VEDDAS

CHAPTER XI

ARTS AND CRAFTS

IT is not our purpose in this short chapter to attempt to describe systematically the crafts of the Veddas, this has already been done by the Sarasins and we shall, therefore, limit ourselves to touching on matters which especially interested us, or concerning which we have unrecorded information.

The arts and crafts of the Veddas are of the simplest nature, their belongings are few, and there is no certain attempt at ornamentation on any of these. Even personal adornment is so lacking that it may be disregarded. The highest artistic attainments of the Veddas seem to be their songs and invocations, and these, with their ceremonial dances, in which they may be said to have specialised, seem to have absorbed all that part of their mental energy which remains after providing for their daily necessities. There is no reason to believe that their artistic development was ever any higher than it is at the present day, when the only form of decorative art in which they indulge for its own sake, is rude drawing on rocks which we shall now describe^[1].

ROCK DRAWINGS.

Figs, 1 and 2 of Plate LVI show rock drawings made by the Veddas of Sitala Wanniya at Pihilegodagalge and another cave near it. Since our return we have ascertained that other Veddas make drawings^[2], but unfortunately we did not pay attention to this matter until we had seen Pihilegodagalge.

This was due to the frequent occurrence of rough drawings and scribblings made by Tamil gall-nut collectors in some of the rock-shelters sometimes used by the Henebedda Veddas. The Veddas obviously had nothing to do with these, and they denied that they were responsible for the only other drawings that we saw, namely those of an elephant and two men in Punchikiriammagalge.

Probably drawings are made in many of the sloping rock-shelters and are habitually washed away by the monsoon. Indeed this view was put forward by the men of the Sitala Wanniya group who stated that all Veddas could make pictures.

Pihilegodagalge was, however, specially well situated for the preservation of the drawings, and the pictures on the back wall of the cave were never touched by rain. The drawings were usually made by women, who said they did them when they were waiting for the men to return from hunting, apparently merely to amuse themselves. We feel confident that no magical import attaches to these pictures, the usual subjects of which are men and women, various animals and the hide vessel maludema (Sin. hangotu) in which honey is collected. Ashes were mixed with a little saliva in the palm of the hand and streaked on to the rock with the forefinger of the right hand, the spots of the leopard being put in with a charcoal paste prepared in the same manner.

Plate LVI, fig. 1 shows on the right a maludema, a vessel made of deer's hide in which rock-honey is collected. The radiating lines which make this drawing appear like the sun's disc, represent handles made of loops of creeper, while the spots inside indicate the honey. The maludema (a photograph of which is given in Plate LXV) is a favourite subject and occurs in a number of rock paintings. Below the maludema on the right is a dog and below this a leopard is represented. On the left the two long figures which might be taken for centipedes really portray the big monitor lizard (Varanus bengalensis) the vertical lines representing ribs.

Plate LVI, fig. 2 shows on the right a leopard and dogs while on the left men and women are seen. This illustration does not show very clearly the difference between men and women which was pointed out to us. Lines pointing upwards were drawn from the heads of women to show that their hair was tied in a knot. This distinction is very difficult to understand. The hair of both men and women is equally unkempt, the women certainly tie theirs into a knot behind, but this is quite frequently done by men also as a matter of convenience; and to the uninitiated these lines radiating from the head rather give the appearance of loose hair than the reverse.

The drawings in Plate LVII, fig. 1 are the work of a man, the grandfather of Handuna, the leader of the group. He is considered to have been an exceptionally good draughtsman. He was once obliged to go to Batticaloa the official headquarters of the province, the reason was difficult to follow, but it appeared to have been connected with a murder which had taken place. On his return to the cave he made a picture of what had impressed him most, namely, "the white man on horseback." Two representations of this are seen on the left, on the right there is a group of men and women surrounding a man who holds a bow above his head. The lower horizontal line represents the bow while the upper is the string and the vertical line the arrow. The dots scattered around the arrow represent its feathers.

Plate LVII, fig. 2 represents a number of drawings of maludema in a cave near Sitala Wanniya.

Plates LVIII to LXI are photographs of pictures made for us on brown paper by several members of the Sitala Wanniya community. The upper part of Plate LVIII shows a leopard attacking a dog, this was made by Vela, below it is a row of men drawn by the wife of Handuna. On Plate LIX a maludema is depicted on the left, next on the right are three women, two drawn horizontally and the third vertically, but upside down; in all of them the body has been carried down too far, so as to project downwards between the legs: the radiating lines above the head were said to represent hair. In the lower part of the photograph in the centre is a dog. The next three figures represent a bow and arrow, a woman and a man, looking at them from above to below. On the right is a group of men. The lower figure in this plate shows a sambar deer in the centre and four dogs, two men and a woman. Plate LX shows a leopard, a dog and several men and women.

The figures of elephants and a man with a bow and arrow on Plate LXI were drawn on grey millboard and were so faint that it was necessary to blacken them before reproduction. The carelessness with which the trunk is put in is noteworthy.

The only other occasions on which we saw pigments used were at the Bambura Yaka and Rahu Yaka ceremonies described in Chapter IX, black and yellowish-brown marks being made on the properties prepared. The black marks were made with charcoal paste, the brownish marks with turmeric.

PANTOMIME.

The only other art practised by the Veddas is that of pantomime from which they undoubtedly derive real pleasure. Within the limits of their daily experience they are good actors, and will most faithfully portray their own method of doing things. The zest with which a number of Henebedda Veddas spontaneously prepared the properties for a pantomimic exhibition of honey gathering, and then enacted the scene at Bendiyagalge caves, was very striking and has been referred to in Chapter IV.

Another piece of pantomime which we never saw enacted spontaneously but which was performed at our request, was the stalking of game. Directly the object to be "stalked" had been indicated, the stalker fixed his eyes on it, and then approached noiselessly and warily, with body bent and head forward, every muscle ready for instant action, till within a few paces of the object when he would straighten his body and return to the rest of the party at his usual easy pace.

LEGENDS.

There is an extraordinary absence of legend among all groups of Veddas who have not been greatly influenced by Sinhalese. Concerning the origin of men, natural features, and things the Veddas seem absolutely incurious, nor do their songs refer to any of these subjects. There are no stories of talking animals or of how their rock-shelters were formed; they have not even a tale of their own origin. Apart from a few accounts of the origin of particular yaku and the deeds they performed (e.g. the pig-hunting of Bambura Yaka) the following two legends were all that we could hear though the most diligent inquiry was made.

The Origin of Fire.

There was a man who had fire; he distributed this to animals, trees and stones, but a little remained to him at the end and this he swallowed. His name was Wasawatiya. "We cannot say whether he was a Vedda. Because he swallowed this fire we all get hungry, for we all have fire within us. There were men before Wasawatiya but they could not talk; otherwise they were as ourselves. Wasawatiya made and sent the first dog to those people, and the dog barked at them; so that those people feared greatly and stammering and stuttering began to talk, and the first words were ballakai, ballakai—'dog will bite.'" Handuna of Sitala Wanniya was our informant and he also gave the following account of the rainbow.

The Rainbow.

When there is rain there is a "kind of yellow bow" (rainbow) in the sky. One of our women made a bow of wood like it and that is all.

How the hill Yakagala came by its name.

The following story was told by Wannaku of Uniche; a variant occurs as a song at Sitala Wanniya and is given in Chapter XV. Once upon a time two families of Veddas lived at Aralu Talawa about two miles east of Peria Pillumalai in the Eastern Province on the Badulla-Batticaloa road. Now these Veddas possessed elephants and cattle, so that when two Moormen pedlars came and saw the Veddas living well and in comfort, they thought how good it would be to kill them and take their goods. The Moormen asked the Veddas to barter honey with them, and Moormen and Veddas went to the hill now called Yakagala, for there were bambara colonies among its rocks. The Veddas went down ladders of creepers to the combs, but before they could take the honey the ladders were cut by the Moormen and the Veddas were dashed to pieces. The Moormen came back to the settlement and when the Veddas' wives questioned them as to the whereabouts of their husbands the Moormen said they were bathing in a stream close by. The women did not believe this and, suspecting foul play, went to look for their husbands and found the bodies at the foot of the precipice. They went back to their houses, let loose the cattle and fired their houses, for they determined to kill themselves. The elder sister saw the Moormen running towards them, so standing on the edge of a precipice she called her young sister to her saying that her bangle was broken. As her younger sister stood near her she suddenly grasped her round the body and jumped over the cliff. The yaku of these women and of their husbands still remain in the neighbourhood of their old dwelling-place which because of them looks clean, as if folk still lived there. The rock bee still lives on this hill to which the Veddas resort to take honey.

POTTERY.

The Veddas make very rough pots. A lump of dark coloured clay is taken, patted into the desired shape, left to dry in the air, and then baked. The Henebedda Veddas who made the pots shown in Plate LXII said that these pots were placed on the fire and covered with pieces of dried wood so as to be submitted to heat on every side. The less sophisticated Veddas of Sitala Wanniya stated that they simply placed the air dried pots on the fire, when they were soon baked hard.

In both communities it was said that men and women make pots, and of five pots bought at Bendiyagalge at different times three were said to have been made by men and two by women. Further, it was agreed that pots had been made for a very long time and our informants at Sitala Wanniya said that they were made in their grandfather's grandfather's time, the longest period we ever heard a Vedda mention. A small pot, the upper righthand pot of Plate LXII, made by Poromala of Bingoda, has a rough chevron pattern upon it; no importance or meaning was attached to this, which was avowedly copied from a pot obtained by barter. The thick open pot without a lip shown in the lower right-hand corner was made by Poromala (Walaha) who volunteered the information that the oldest pots were lipless. The large pot in the centre of the upper row was made by his wife. The pot to the left of this was made by Poromala (Walaha) and the pot underneath this by Randu Wanniya. It is worthy of note that though many fragments of wheel-made pottery were found in the upper layers of the floor of the Bendiyagalge caves, no trace of pottery was found in the deepest layer associated with the quartz implements figured in Chapter I.

TOOLS AND WEAPONS.

The bow and arrow with the axe are the only iron tools used by the Veddas for the chase, for fighting, and for general domestic use. The iron arrow and axe heads are obtained by barter, as are the areca nut-cutters and strike-a-lights which most Veddas now possess. To a limited extent the areca nutcutters are used as tools, for we have seen the final polishing and trimming of arrow shafts performed with these.

No spells are recited or other magic used when making axes or bows and arrows. At Henebedda the wood of the kobbevel (Allophylus cobbe) is used for the bow; a sapling is peeled and shaved down until the desired amount of flexibility is obtained, it is then stained black. The bow string is made of the bast of a tree called aralu (Terminalia chebula), the same is used to bind that part of the shaft of the arrow pierced by the tang of the arrow head, the binding being afterwards covered with gum or resin obtained from the timbiri tree (Diospyros embryopteris). The shaft of the arrow is commonly made of the wood of the welan tree (Pterospermum suberifolium). The arrow is still the almost universal cutting tool, as we had good opportunity of ascertaining at Henebedda. There was no knife in the community, and we noticed the skill with which a deer was skinned and cut up with an arrow. The Veddas certainly desired no better tool, and when we pressed a butcher's knife on one of them in order to see how he would handle the unaccustomed tool, it was interesting to note how slowly he worked and how poor the result was compared with that he obtained with an arrow, which he held just above the blade somewhat as a European holds a penholder. No less astonishing was the skill employed in removing the skull cap with a few strokes of the axe, not only was the brain lifted out and cooked entire, but it was removed so neatly and cleanly that the result was more suggestive of an anatomical preparation than a piece of butcher's work.

The Veddas we met were all bad or indifferent shots, and we have no doubt that game is seldom shot at a distance much beyond fifteen or twenty yards, the marvellous stalking of the Veddas enabling them to approach within this distance. The bow, to which the string is securely fastened at one end, is carefully unstrung when not in use. To string it, this end is placed upon the ground, the upper end of the shaft and the string being held in the hands, the sole of one foot is then placed against the middle of the shaft which is steadied, we might almost say gripped, between the great toe and the second toe. Much of the weight of the body is thrown against the middle of the shaft while the hands pull down the upper end to which the string is quickly secured, as is shown in Plate LXIII. Plate LXIV shows the position of the hands and arms immediately before the arrow is released. The bowman is Handuna of Henebedda, who is left-handed and who in spite of being the father of a large family remains the only left-handed individual in the community. The length of a bow collected at Henebedda was 172 cm., while four arrows also obtained at Henebedda varied from 88 to 105 cm. in length.

It appears that painted and lacquered arrows were sometimes presented to the Veddas by the Sinhalese kings as signs of gratitude or favour, just as ceremonial forms of other objects were presented to particular Sinhalese^[3]. Dr Willey told me of a lacquered bow and arrow which he heard of among a community of sophisticated Veddas, and which he was told ultimately found their way to the Kandy Museum. Among the peasant Sinhalese of Nilgala we heard of a lacquered arrow—said to have been lost recently—which, according to tradition, had been presented many generations ago to the Vedda ancestors of its last owner by one of the kings of Ceylon. With regard to the specimen in the Kandy Museum, the arrow is feathered in the usual Vedda style, the condition of the lacquer on it shows that it is of considerable age. The iron which is said to belong to it is loose, and it is entirely unlike any arrow head we have seen. Instead of having a tang it has a socket into which the end of the shaft must have fitted, and there is a shoulder or " stop" upon the iron. The bow shown us as having been acquired with the arrow was in much better condition and had a small band of silver or some metal resembling silver round it. According to the account given at the museum both specimens were procured from a priest who gave a history of the specimens which does not connect them with any Veddas^[4].

Traps and snares are unknown among the least sophisticated Veddas, but at Danigala we saw a small deadfall trap avowedly introduced.

HONEY.

The importance of honey in the Vedda diet has been mentioned in Chapter IV as well as the large part it plays in barter. The honey of the bambara (Apis indica) is taken in June and July, though at other times of the year small combs are taken from trees. Besides the bambara other species including the small stingless bee supply a considerable quantity. The first two months of our sojourn in the Vedda country (January and February) was at a time when honey was particularly scarce, and even at the end of March and in April it was not abundant, yet such was the courtesy of the Veddas that each community managed to make us a small present of honey, though this often entailed a long search and the combs were frequently full of grubs. In two communities only, which were better off than the others, namely Danigala and Kulukalaeba, were we given large pots of strained honey, the remains of the previous year's store.

The manner in which bambara colonies are regarded as property has been discussed in Chapter V. Writing in 1886 Nevill says, "Honey forms a great part of their diet. It is eaten fresh in large quantities, wax and all; combs with young bees in them being considered especially wholesome. It was also the practice formerly to store strips of dried meat in honey, filling in a cavity of some tree with it, the cavity being first lined with clay. At present they barter away their surplus meat and honey, during the hunting season, and keep no store for the rainy season. This often brings privation and is one cause of the rapid decrease in their numbers.

"They tell me their health is never so good as when their food largely consists of yams and honey.

"To procure honey they rapidly cut open hollow trees, even of the hardest wood; and to take the hives of the large black bambara bee, they make long ladders of cane, called 'rang kendiya,' by which they descend precipices, and cut off the combs adhering to their sides.

"They do this at night, generally, as the bees are not so savage then; and smoke them with a sort of resin. The hives are often cut off with a sort of wooden sword, made for the occasion. These frail ladders swing fearfully, and the task is so dangerous, only the boldest and most athletic attempt it. While engaged on the task they sing lustily, songs specially made, which appease the spirit of the rock, and prevent him from dashing the hunter off the ladder. They also go about the work with songs, so as to get up a certain degree of excitement, necessary to carry them through the task. A song is chanted, and a little honey sprinkled for the spirits, before the combs are cut off the rock^[5]."

Before honey collecting as many pots as possible are made and old pots and gourds are overhauled. The wooden sword which Nevill mentions is probably the masliya (fig. 12). This is a stout stick about 2¼ metres long with four prongs at one end, which the Vedda carries hanging by a loop from his forearm and which he uses to detach the comb and convey it into the vessel called a maludema in which the honey is collected. This is also carried hanging from the forearm and should be made of deer's hide so that it may not be broken against the rocks as the honey collector swings to and fro. Plate LXV shows a maludema collected at Sitala Wanniya. An arrow is also carried and is largely used in detaching the combs from the rock.

Before taking the honey a bundle of green leaves is set alight and lowered in order to stupefy the bees. The smoker is called odiya (Sin. hula) and the creeper attached to it yotwella^[6]. Several men of the community join together to collect rock-honey, the whole spoil being equally divided without any special consideration for the owner of the land, though it seemed that the owner would decide when the honey should be collected. The women accompany their men to crags and gulleys where the bambara build their combs. They hold torches and sing while the honey is being collected.

Plate LXVI shows a gourd, used as a hive for a colony of the stingless bee, hanging outside one of the huts in the Morane chena settlement at Henebedda. It was shown us with pride by Handuna who said he was keeping it for his twelve year old son. He told us that in the old days the hollow branches, the homes of colonies of these bees, were frequently kept in the rock-shelters.

The ladder with the help of which bambara honey is collected consists of a greatly elongated loop of cane, apparently derived from a species of Calamus, across which rungs of creeper are stretched. In Plate LV (p. 290) there can be seen the bottom of the ladder some fifty feet long, used for training the young, hung from the top of the cliff across the face of the rock mass at Sitala Wanniya. In spite of the fact that honey is usually gathered at night the Veddas do not travel or hunt at night and know only two stars by name. One of these is a star or more probably a planet which often appears close to the moon and is called pantaru which, we were told, is the name by which the Sinhalese know it. The other named star appears soon after sunset, always in the same place and before the other stars, and is almost certainly Venus; this is called irabada tarua, i.e. "side of sun star." Although the Veddas hunt in the dusk of the dawn the idea that anyone would roam about at night seemed absolutely ludicrous to them (Sitala Wanniya), they roared with laughter at it, "why should one go into the jungle? it would be too dark to see to shoot, besides bears are about, absurd idea," they laughed again, in fact it was quite ten minutes before Kaira had forgotten the joke.

MASTICATORIES.

All Veddas chew eagerly, but as they can rarely obtain a supply of areca nuts they commonly use instead of these the bark of the demata tree (Gmelina asiatica) and the dawata tree (Carallia integerrima). Concerning the other plants that they use as masticatories Nevill says, "They occasionally chew the leaves of several aromatic herbs, particularly Anisochilus suffruticosus, a sort of sage that grows on rocks. The areca does not grow wild in the Eastern Province, but Veddas are very fond of the seeds of the lakada bush, Gardenia carinata, a beautiful species of Gardenia with fragant flowers and crimped laurel-like leaves. These seeds or nuts are astringent and to me resemble exactly in taste those of the areca palm. They are only an occasional luxury however. The bark which he chews is almost a necessity to a Vedda, the leaves or seeds a mere luxury^[7]."

It is not always that the Veddas can obtain lime, which they make by burning the shells of a land snail wantaeko (Cyclophorus involvulus). The shells are laid on red hot pieces of charcoal, more glowing embers are heaped around and upon them, and the whole is fanned with a tuft of green leaves for a few minutes, when the embers surrounding the shells are raked away and the shells allowed to cool before being crushed and dropped into the vessel in which the lime is carried. This is often a tin match box or it may be a brass covered cartridge case. Specially made lime spatulae do not exist, but one Vedda of Henebedda had a long broad nail with which he removed the lime from his tin match box.

The betel pouch is usually a roughly sewn bag of trade cloth, but the Henebedda Veddas also make pouches of monkey skin, one of which is shown in Plate LXVII. We omitted to inquire how the hair was removed, but probably it was singed off, the whole skin being subsequently scraped.