THE VEDDAS

CHAPTER IV

FAMILY LIFE

THE family life of the wilder Veddas centres round the rockshelters which are truly their homes, and even among those Veddas who practise chena cultivation, but have not formed permanent settlements, these rock-shelters play an important part, the movements of the community or family group from shelter to shelter being regulated according to season and available food supply. Our experience leads us to believe that the wilder Veddas so greatly prefer rock-shelters to huts that they seldom build the latter, preferring rather to face the inconvenience of travelling some distance daily in search of food, and even to camp for the night under some temporary shelter. Except in this particular Nevill's description of the movements of a Vedda family still holds good if it be remembered that he applies the term "Village Vaedda" to any Vedda who makes even the roughest chena. "The Forest Vaedda forms a home two or three times a year, as the season demands. Thus in the dry hot months when brooks and ponds dry up, the game collects in the low forests around the half dried river beds. He then takes his wife and children, aged parents or crippled relatives, and settles them in a hut close to a place where water can be got. From this he makes his hunting forays, and returns to it with his game. The rain sets in however, and the iguanas, deer, pigs, etc. are scattered over the country; the elk then seek rocky hills, and are followed by the Vaedda. The little household goods, the children, and family party, again are moved up to the high ground, avoiding the malaria that now hangs as a shroud over the forest-clad lowlands. Here, if possible, a cave is chosen for the home, and improved by a slight roof in front, if too exposed, and around this the food winner ranges…. Besides his high-ground residence, and his low-ground residence, if a tract of forest burst suddenly into flower that attracts vast swarms of bees, or into useful fruit, the family will make a little pic-nic party, and go there for a week or month, if it be too far from the home for daily visits. He cannot, however, be called 'nomadic,' any more than the European who has a town house, and country house, though the climate during the dry season calls for so trifling a shelter, that a permanent house is not required….

"The village Vaedda was originally, and indeed is still, distinguished as one who had added grain cultivation to hunting, honey collecting, and yam digging. When he moved into summer quarters, he set to work and felled a suitable lot of forest and burned it off, in the intervals of hunting. When the rain approached, he put up a hut that would keep his family dry, on this cleared space, and scattered grain seed over the charred surface. Leaving such food as they had stored for use then, in charge of his family, he would go off for days together to the high ground in search of elk, lodging as before in caves. When the weather cleared, and the grain ripened, they collected it, paid away small shares to other less provident clansmen, who had during the wet season sent the family little presents of flesh, while the father was away, and then away they went to another dry season division of their territory, where the mininnas and iguanas abounded. There is thus little difference between the forest and the village Vaedda, except that the latter makes his dry season home sufficiently substantial to keep out rain as well as dew, and that he leaves his family there, and does not take them to the high ground. He has never yet learned to make his clearing into a field or garden, or his six months' hut into a permanent home. We now come to the dwellings themselves. Where an overhanging rock can be found, it is of course sufficient. Otherwise any rock is chosen, and some sticks being laid sloping in front of it, it is roughly thatched with twigs, rushes, and large pieces of bark. A few elk hides, if not bought up by pedlars, will form a screen at one end. If it is only to exclude dew a very few branches or bits of bark suffice^[1]."

The protection from the weather offered by the majority of rock-shelters (for they are all so shallow that they scarcely deserve the name of caves) is somewhat scanty, and the drip ledges often cut in their rock walls show how fully this was realised by the Sinhalese who formerly lived in them. Nor are they in any sense capacious, as the plans of Pihilegodagalge (figure 2) and the Bendiyagalge caves (figure 1) show. In the former the shelter was constituted by the weathering back for about five feet of a horizontal stratum softer than the rest of the rock mass. The shelter thus formed was about five feet high at its front and three feet at its back, and from personal experience we can testify that it afforded comparatively good shelter from the wet. This can hardly have been the case with such caves as Bendiyagalge which appear to have been formed by the weathering of a stratum with a dip of about 45 degrees, or by the oblique tilting and subsequent weathering of a rock mass such as appears to have formed Uhapitagalge (Plate XVII, figure 2). Indeed we were told that such shelters as Punchiammagalge and Bendiyagalge sometimes became uncomfortably wet. Plate XVII, figure 1, is a view taken to show as much as possible of the rock mass in which the Bendiyagalge shelters are formed, and this figure and that of Uhapitagalge when examined in connection with the plan of Bendiyagalge will give a good idea of the possibilities of a Vedda rock-shelter as a home. As will be seen from Plate XVIII, figures 1 and 2 of Pihilegodagalge (Sitala Wanniya), no care is taken to keep the cave clean. At Bendiyagalge we noticed an unpleasant odour about the cave due to the lack of sanitary precautions taken by the members of the comparatively large community then living in these caves. Plate XIX, figure 1, shows the general appearance of these caves including the steps (Plate IX) hewn in the rock between the lower and upper caves and the worked edge of the upper cave forming a drip-ledge. Plate XIX, figure 2, is an early morning scene in the cave, and was taken soon after its occupants had awakened.

The love of the wilder Veddas for their rock-shelters, as well as their disregard for climatic conditions, is well illustrated by a remark made by Handuna the oldest and most influential man among the Sitala Wanniya Veddas, "It is pleasant for us to feel the rain beating on our shoulders, and good to go out and dig yams and come home wet and see the fire burning in the cave and sit round it."

Such a remark is in itself evidence of a cheerful disposition^ and before going any further we must describe the Vedda temperament. Travellers have called the Vedda morose, and stated that he never laughs; this belief has doubtless been strengthened by the disagreeable behaviour of the "show" Veddas (see p. 50), yet Veddas have told us how they throw leaves in the air and laugh and dance for joy. Nevill was certainly right when he said, "They are a merry people, delighting in riddles, songs and jests. Mr Hartshorn observed some Vaeddas who never laughed in his presence. They must have been either terrified, or sulky and offended, for those I have seen, of all clans, laugh often and merrily, a habit very strongly contrasted with that of the Sinhalese, who scarcely ever go beyond a smile. They burst into a verse of song, now and again, apparently from sheer exuberance of spirits, and any ludicrous incident amuses them^[2].

At Bendiyagalge we were particularly well situated to observe their behaviour, our camp being out of sight of the Vedda cave but within 200 yards of it, here we could listen to their unrestrained chatter and laughter which was especially noticeable at sunset. It is true that their faces express no emotion of pleasure or gratitude when they are given exactly what they expect. Thus, white cloth, which the men like to wear, is well known to them, they buy it themselves from the Moormen pedlars, it is the usual present for a European to make to Veddas, and they receive it with perfectly stolid faces, and are hence dubbed sullen. We had an excellent example of this at Henebedda when we gave a piece of white cloth to Poromala the senior of the group, whom we knew well and who had frequently smiled and laughed in our presence. When, however, a sharp pruning knife was given him his face beamed like a schoolboy's, he ran his thumb along the blade and tried its edge on pieces of grass. Things new to them which we showed them often provoked peals of laughter; to see the eldest and most venerable man solemnly have his thumb nail pressed by a brass machine (algometer) was particularly amusing to the rest of the community, one man actually rolling on the ground with laughter. The old man took it all in excellent part and smiled indulgently. Doubtless Veddas vary much in character, but all except the "show" Veddas are genial and courteous, and have always been rightly considered truthful. At Sitala Wanniya Handuna was the most intelligent man, keenly interested in all the new things we showed him; he obviously ruled the community by force of character, coupled with the fact that he was a shaman. Nila, however, was also a shaman, but he was obviously not so strong a man as Handuna, to whose opinion he deferred, and naturally took second place. Vela, half-brother of Handuna, was extremely shy but by no means stupid, he generally tried to get out of doing things, professing inability, but when urged by Handuna did everything as well as the other men. Kaira, baena (son-in-law) to Handuna, was intelligent and talkative and inclined to be boastful. Pema, baena to Nila, did not speak much, chiefly we thought because he was a young man and had not much to tell, for although he did not chatter like Kaira he smiled and did not hang his head when addressed, as Vela did.

Whether staying in a "private" or "communal" cave the family life continues in much the same manner. If in a communal cave, each family keeps strictly within its own limits, the women may always be seen at exactly the same spot, and when the men come in they sit or lie beside their wives, keeping to that part of the cave floor that belongs to them as carefully as though there was a partition dividing it from that of their neighbours. Figure 2 is a plan of Pihilegodagalge showing the actual division of floor space. Food is frequently cooked by one woman and shared by all the members of the community, in fact, although it might be cooked separately, it did not seem that any food was private property. One other fact was very noticeable in communal caves, namely, that men never kept their bows and arrows in their own division, but always put them all together in a particular place. The "arsenal" at Bendiyagalge is well seen in Plate XIX, figures 1 and 2, while at Pihilegodagalge all the bows and arrows were rested on an old ant heap in the centre of the cave.

Though men do sometimes dig for yams, hunting is essentially their work, and yams were usually dug by the women who also do the cooking. This is of the simplest kind; yams are roasted in ashes, in which way meat may also be cooked, while practically everything else is boiled in a pot over three stones. Many Veddas also know how to cook curry, and deer's flesh is dried on a rack and smoked. A rack is built usually in a sunny place, the meat is put on this and a smoky fire kept burning beneath it, the flesh is thus dried in the sun and smoked simultaneously. This process is usually superintended by men. Plate XVII, figure 1, shows a rack built to smoke meat on the top of the Bendiyagalge rock-mass.

A Vedda will never sleep on the ground if there is any rock upon which he can lie. If he has a deerskin or a piece of cloth he will lie on it, if not he does not seem to object to the cold rock, and so avoids contact with the ground damp from the heavy dews. He always keeps a small fire burning beside him; this was noticed by Nevill, who says: "A Vaedda never sleeps without a smouldering fire by his side. I am assured, should accident oblige them to do so, they have usually died from a fever caught by the omission^[3]."

The Veddas are strictly monogamous, and we were able to confirm Bailey's observations as regards their marital fidelity. "Their constancy to their wives is a very remarkable trait in their character in a country where conjugal fidelity is certainly not classed as the highest of domestic virtues. Infidelity, whether in the husband or the wife, appears to be unknown, and I was very careful in my inquiries on this subject. Had it existed, the neighbouring Sinhalese would have had no hesitation in accusing them of it, but I could not obtain a trace of it^[4]."

The only case of suicide of which we heard took place in connection with a breach of the common rule of conjugal fidelity. Tissahami, the husband of Kumi, younger sister of the headman of the Bandaraduwa Veddas, carried on an intrigue with his naena, an unmarried girl named Kirimenike. When his wife who was not one of his naena discovered the intrigue, she scolded her husband most unmercifully, "Why go to another woman while I live?—better to have gone to your mother than her." Although his intrigue with Kirimenike was of old standing, Tissahami was so upset with the disgrace of publicity that he killed himself in the compound outside his own hut early one morning. He had a gun, and holding the muzzle to the suprasternal notch, he pulled the trigger with his toe. The dead man's relatives were very angry with Kumi for driving him to desperation but they did not threaten her, nor in any way molest her. Kumi and Kirimenike belonged to the same waruge (Morane) but were unrelated. Kirimenike subsequently married a Vedda, and went to live at Syringawala where she remained until she died.

In every respect the women seem to be treated as the equals of the men, they eat the same food; indeed, when we gave presents of food the men seemed usually to give the women and children their share first; the same applies to areca nut and other chewing stuffs. The women are jealously guarded by the men, who do not allow traders or other strangers to see them, and those at Sitala Wanniya were too shy to visit our camp, though they welcomed us to their cave, and the dances performed for our benefit took place in the dense jungle so that the women might be present and partake of the food offered to the yaku. We had offered to clear a space by our camp where the light would have been better for photography; however, the men explained that though the ceremonies themselves might be performed anywhere the women would not come to our camp, so the dances must take place at the usual dancing ground in the jungle. The day after hearing the phonograph at our camp, the men came to us to request that we should take it to the cave as they had told their wives about it, and they all wanted to hear it too. From these examples the position of Vedda women will be understood.

Writing in 1887 Nevill notices a similar state. "As a rule, among the purer Veddas, the younger women are rigorously excluded or rather protected from contact with strangers. They occupy, however, an honourable and free position in the society of their relations. I only once saw the good-looking girls of the pure Vedda family. My guide was then ahead of our party with me, and abruptly, without explanation further than the word 'my house,' dived into the forest, beckoning me to follow. We had only gone a few hundred yards from the path, when we reached a glade with a little shed. Here a party of girls and women and children were collected, and at sight of us the younger women began to slip away into the woods, but at a word from my guide stopped. They then advanced and one by one stepped up to me with graceful courtesy, each making a Sinhalese bow with both hands when quite close to me, and then stepped aside, with or without a few words of simple welcome. There was no haste or reluctance, nor any approach to curiosity shown. I stopped talking with some of the elder women for a short time, and then went on. Three or four of the women had most exquisite figures, like statues of Psyche, and a clear brown skin. They were bare to the waist, and from the knees down. I never saw Vaedda women at all comparable to these, and then only did I realise the stories I had heard from Sinhalese, of the former great beauty of the Vaedda women. On our return, the clan met us by official appointment; but these girls, and one equally statuesque young mother, were conspicuously absent, and I saw it was understood I should regard my interview as a confidential honour, intentionally arranged to make me feel I was personally trusted and distinguished.

"It is probable good-looking women have often been kept back by others who had not equal confidence in me^[5]."

Veddas are affectionate and indulgent parents, never refusing a small child anything it wants and giving it always of the best. We have frequently seen men save for their children food which had been given to them and which they considered specially good, such as bananas or coconuts. The babies are generally happy, but should they cry their wishes are immediately gratified by either parent. We saw a naked boy of about two and a half years strut proudly up and down outside Pihilegodagalge with his father's axe hung on his shoulder, he was extremely happy and all went well until he threatened one of the dogs with the axe, then his mother was obliged to interfere and the child tried to hit her with it; the father seeing this got up and tried to coax the child into giving up the axe, but the boy was now excited and would not give it up, at last he flung it at his father and hit his leg. The man was obviously annoyed and threw the axe from him into the jungle, but he did not attempt to scold or punish the child who was now howling with rage, indeed, after a little while some food was given him to pacify him.

Another time a woman who had been cutting yams with a knife put this down, when her baby snatched it up, and although she was obliged to watch lest he hurt himself, she allowed him to play with the knife. Yet when a child is old enough to wear a little rag in the way of clothing, possibly from six to eight years old, he is expected to behave himself properly and strange to say he does so. One day it was raining heavily, and we were all sitting in the rock shelter at Pihilegodagalge; at the further end of the cave we noticed a lad of seven or nine years old having a heated argument with his mother, suddenly he turned round and went out into the rain, when he returned he had controlled his temper; later we remarked on this and were told that the lad was considered old enough to behave as a man; a boy of this age would not hit his mother as a little child might do and yet be excused. It may here be mentioned that children of both sexes go naked until about six or seven years old, though perhaps the general age for the assumption of clothing is younger in the case of girls than boys. The boy assumes a piece of rag attached to a string in the same manner as men, while girls wear a piece of stuff fastened round their hips like a sarong. A child's first cloth is put on by its mother without any ceremony. The only toys seen were bows and arrows, and these are possessed by every male child. We never saw a little girl play with a bow and arrow, but mothers make them for the baby boys while these are still crawling about. Such toys of course are small and roughly made, but bigger boys of five years old and upwards make quite neat little bows, and shoot with them tolerably well; they do not feather their arrows. Other children were seen playing with clay and sticks; and girls frequently play with broken pots with which they pretend to cook.

As women take the children with them when they go out to dig for yams, little girls soon learn to do this, and boys would begin to be taken out hunting when about ten years old. It was difficult to find out whether the fathers' or mothers' brothers took the greater part in training the boys and it seemed that a lad eager to go out hunting would be taken by any grown man, who in the very small community is usually a relative. Lads would be encouraged by their elders to shoot at a mark with their bows and arrows, and later they would stalk small birds and shoot fish^[6].

When a child tells a lie he may be told "Go away, I do not believe what you say," but it appeared that even young children were usually truthful. One thing is taught the lads systematically, that is the method of collecting honey from the combs of the rock bee. Whenever the caves are conveniently situated a ladder of creepers is suspended from a tree in the jungle above and hangs over the end of the face of rock which forms the cave. On this the youths play at "honey getting." At Pihilegodagalge the lads were quite willing to demonstrate to us how it was done, and the elder men showed clearly that this was a game which they encouraged. A lad of about thirteen collected some green leaves and tied them together with creeper, then taking an arrow, a toy masliya, and a broken gourd tied with creeper, which hung over his arm, for a maludema, he set fire to the leaves and climbed the ladder^[7]. While lowering the smoker and letting the smoke blow into the crevice in the rock where the comb was supposed to be, he pretended to cut round its sides with an arrow and thrust at it with his masliya (figure 3), from which he transferred the honey into the gourd. As he descended from the ladder he beat his chest and sides as though driving off the bees, and directly he reached the ground rushed into the jungle to escape from them, all the smaller children imitating him with great glee. Obviously this was a wellknown and favourite game, for even the elders took part in it, throwing their cloths over their heads and running into the jungle.

At Henebedda (which we visited before Pihilegodagalge) there were no children present when we spoke about honey getting, but four young men were eager to show us how it was done and acted the scene with great spirit. They took from our camp a piece of white and a piece of brown paper, and fastened them with some wax to the roof of their cave, then as there was no tree above the cave around which to fasten a creeper, one man crouched on the top of the rock and held the ends of the ladder in his hands, another stood above and lowered a smoker of green leaves while a third climbed the ladder and collected the honey from the white paper and the grubs from the brown. Afterwards the collector divided the spoil equally and amid much laughter they all sat down and pretended to eat, one actually going through the pantomime of washing his hands after the meal. They eat the grubs as well as the honey. They eat the grubs as well as the honey.

As regards clothing, pedlars have brought them cloth for so long that no Vedda living knows what was done when they could not buy it, but it is generally stated that they made bark cloth of the riti (Antiaris innoxia) of which material the Sinhalese still make rice bags. Men wear a rag of "white" cotton about 9 inches wide passed between their legs, and held in place by each end being passed over a waist string. This cotton material they prefer to anything else for two reasons, firstly, it very soon becomes a dull brown, and hence is less obvious when hunting than a coloured cloth would be, secondly, it is thin machine-made material from which they can easily tear narrow strips for tinder, when they make fire. The women wear coloured cotton cloth of the kind that is woven at Batticaloa, it is a strong material and is not easily torn. A single width forms the length of their skirt from waist to knee and is fastened round their waists like a sarong. Thus, the men's preference for "white" and the women's for coloured cloth is purely economical, depending on the kind of material it has been the pedlar's habit to bring. These pedlars visit the wilder Veddas once a year after the honey collecting season; they never approach the caves, but when within about a quarter of a mile of them they shout till a Vedda comes to them, then they expose their wares and the Vedda returns to the cave to fetch as many pots and gourds of honey and as much dried flesh as he is willing to exchange. The "silent trade," mentioned by Knox^[8], is now a legend among the Sinhalese of which no tradition lingers among the Veddas. We have Bailey's evidence that it had ceased before 1863, and the old Kandyan we met (see p. 31) remembered it only as a tradition in the days of the rebellion in 1818. "They are not now, nor have they been for very long, so shy as to be prevented from bartering freely enough with the Sinhalese, although, unless for the purpose of barter, they avoid intercourse with strangers. Their wants, however, are so few, that they rarely emerge from their forests^[9].

"I need not say that they are very simple and primitive in their habits. The 'wilder sort' have had too little communication with Sinhalese to have acquired the vices of civilization. The few necessities of life which the forest does not supply, such as steel and iron for their arrowheads and axes, and the very scanty clothing which they wear, they obtain by barter, their wax, and honey, elk flesh and ivory, being eagerly sought after by the neighbouring Sinhalese, or 'the ubiquitous Moors'^[10]."

There are no puberty ceremonies for either sex, except among certain Veddas who have been much influenced by Tamils or Sinhalese, among whom the girls are isolated for a short time at puberty. Thus although the following ceremony is observed at puberty by the Uniche Veddas, there is no doubt that it has been borrowed from the local Sinhalese who have a similar ceremony, though according to our information the latter people do not break the pot. When a girl becomes unwell for the first time one of her naena places a pot of water on her head and goes with her to some place where there is a nuga tree. Here the naena takes the pot from the girl's head and dashes it on the ground so that the pot breaks. The girl is then secluded in a specially built shelter in which she stays until the end of the period, when she washes and returns to her parents' house. During her seclusion she is attended by a girl, always one of her naena, who brings her food in a vessel set apart for this purpose but which is not cooked at a special fire. Among the wilder Veddas no special measures are taken when a woman menstruates, she is allowed to eat the ordinary food, and to sleep in the cave as usual. But among all the village Veddas, and most of those who have mixed at all with the Sinhalese, the menstruous women are strictly isolated, a little shelter being built for them a few paces from the family hut (Plate XX). At Bendiyagalge, where the Henebedda and Kolombedda people were staying at the time of our visit, menstruous women stayed apart at one corner of the cave, they were fed from the pot in which the food for the community was cooked, but we do not think they would touch it or assist in any way in the cooking. At Omuni a menstruous woman is isolated under a rough shelter where she is waited upon by a younger unmarried sister or cousin who, it was stated, should not herself have attained puberty. During her seclusion she may eat any food cooked at the ordinary fire, but a special platter is kept for her use. The girls who look after her suffer no restrictions. This happens every time a girl or woman menstruates.

Marriage takes place at an early age; it was said that girls sometimes married before puberty, and as we heard of this at Henebedda, Bandaraduwa, and Omuni, we see no reason to doubt the truth of the statement^[11]. At Omuni it was pointed out that a certain amount of breast development was necessary before marriage, so that it is probable that connection does not antedate puberty by more than a short time.

With regard to the frequency of such child marriages, we can only say that we never saw any very young girls with babies. Perhaps at the present day prenuptial connection is more common than marriage between the very young, though it is obviously difficult to decide when prenuptial love-making between individuals destined for each other gives place to marriage, among people whose marriages are accompanied with but slight ceremony. It must be remembered that the marriage gift of landed or personal property to a son-in-law, which was formerly customary, is obsolescent at the present day, and this not only makes it more difficult to determine whether marriage has taken place, but probably actually tends to make the exact time of the assumption of the married state less clearly defined.

On account of these considerations we are unable to express any definite opinion as to the frequency of prenuptial connection, the few instances we heard of were between individuals occupying the relationship of hura and naena, who would in any case marry each other. Thus Kaira of Henebedda and his wife grew up in the same group, and as they had played together as children so they came together as they grew up. The community came to know of what had occurred, the couple were considered married, and now go about together. We were told that no resentment was felt or expressed by the girl's parents or the community, and there was no formal giving over of land or property to Kaira by his father-in-law, because, as was pointed out, the fathers of Kaira and Hudi both belonged to the same group and together moved about over the same land.

We think it may be said that among most Veddas at the present day, especially such as have come in contact with the Sinhalese, there is no violent feeling against prenuptial connection of the sort here described, but we believe that formerly public opinion was definitely and strongly against the practice, though on this point we do not attempt to dogmatise. There was no doubt as to the attitude of public opinion towards connection between people who were not allotted to each other. This was, and still is, strongly disapproved, and there is no doubt that in the old days the guilty parties risked their lives. It was, however, clear that intrigues of this sort did sometimes occur, and we heard of two instances of what are regarded as incestuous unions which occurred among the Kovil Vanamai Veddas some fifty or sixty years ago. In both cases the girls cohabited with their mothers' sisters' sons, and in both instances the guilty parties were promptly killed by the outraged group. The men were set upon in the jungle, their own fathers it was said taking a prominent part in the assault, while the girls were killed in the huts in which they were living^[12].

As already mentioned the correct marriage among the Veddas, as among the Sinhalese, is for a man to marry his father's sister's daughter. The children of two sisters or of two brothers could not marry, and such a connection would be considered incestuous. The man goes to his future father-in-law with a present of honey, yams, grain or dried deer's flesh tied to his unstrung bow which he uses as a carrying stick. Whether he generally repeats this visit or receives his bride immediately was not clear, and probably the custom varies in this particular. Handuna of Godatalawa told us that he did not take his bride away until he had twice taken a present of food to his mother's brother (father-in-law). The bride gives her spouse a waist string of her own making which he never removes until it is worn out, when he replaces it with another made by his wife. In these particulars the marriage ceremony was essentially similar fifty years ago when it was described by Bailey. "The bachelor Veddah who meditates matrimony, himself selects the lady of his choice, wisely preferring his own judgement to that of others; and providing himself with the greatest 'delicacies of the season,' for example, a pot of honey and a dried iguano, proceeds to her father's hut and states the object of his visit. There being no objection to the proposed alliance, the father calls his daughter, who comes forth with a cord of her own twisting in her hand. She ties this round the bridegroom's waist, and they are man and wife. The man always wears this string. Nothing would induce him to part with it. When it wears out it is the wife's duty to twist a new one and bind it round him^[13]."

When a girl married, her father usually made over to his son-in-law a tract of land, generally a hill known to be inhabited by colonies of the bambara or rock bee (Apis indica), or gave him a piece of personal property such as a bow or one or two arrows. The instances in which land was given are described in the section on land transference, so that here it is only necessary to mention instances in which personal property was given. Handuna received a bow and one arrow from his father-in-law who when presenting them accompanied his gift with the remark "With this bow you must get food for my daughter." Sometimes a dog is given, and Knox was certainly right when he said "For portions with their Daughters in marriage they give hunting Dogs." Among the village Veddas of Bintenne we heard that an axe or catty was sometimes given, though the Arachi of Belligala, who has been much in contact with the Dambani Veddas, stated that these sometimes presented land to their sons-in-law.

In one settlement of village Veddas, Bulugahaladena, we were told that the bridegroom takes a first present to the bride's father and leaves his bow and arrow in his hut until his second visit with further presents some four days later. At the same place the waist string is sometimes charmed to ensure constancy. Among many of the village Veddas the custom of the gift of the waist string is dying out, and the bridegroom gives the bride a cloth as is the custom among the Sinhalese.

Another custom now dying out appears to be the gift from the bridegroom to the bride of a lock of hair, presented at the same time as the food to the girl's father.

We discovered at Bendiyagalge that it is a common practice for women to wear false hair. Here we were told that it was merely worn in order to make the knot look important, but only by married women. It is improbable that the habit should have arisen among a people so careless of personal appearance as are the Veddas had it no other significance than adornment, for it must be remembered that these folk never brush or oil their hair, or even wash it; indeed, some consider the last operation extremely dangerous, so that the ornamental value of a very small wisp of hair may reasonably be doubted. Extra locks of hair are worn by Sinhalese women, and we have seen some hanging in the verandah of a mud hut in a small jungle village, but among them it is a very different matter. They are usually, and very rightly, proud of their masses of long glossy hair, which they comb and oil carefully. A naturally large knot is considered a beauty, especially when stabbed with a jewelled pin, and girls as well as married women will wear an extra lock to produce this effect, but that the custom should have been introduced from the Sinhalese with no other object than that of personal adornment, about which the Veddas seem to care so little^[14], seems as improbable as does the hypothesis that it should have arisen among them solely for that object.

We believe that a lock of hair, either from his own head or from his sister's, was a customary present from the bridegroom to the bride, and therefore to be considered part of the wedding ceremony. The evidence obtained at Bendiyagalge, though not directly bearing out this point of view, supports the hypothesis when considered in conjunction with the information given us at Sitala Wanniya. The wife of old Poromala at Bendiyagalge wore a piece of hair which Poromala had given her. He had not cut it off his own head but had saved the hair which had come out when combing his hair with his hands, and Handi his wife considered this tail of hair as a valuable possession and said she would leave it to her eldest married daughter when she died. She told us that a woman would burn her lock of hair if she had no daughters. She also said that women would only wear hair from their husbands' heads and laughed at the idea of a man wearing an extra piece of hair, although the men usually wear their hair in the same way as the women.

At Sitala Wanniya each married man was questioned separately.

Handuna, the oldest man and our best informant, said that in former days a lock of hair was always given by the bridegroom to the bride, and if he did not offer it, the young girl might ask for it and insist upon having it. In that case the prospective bridegroom would have to cut it off his own head, if his sister happened to be away at the time or if he had no sister, for it was her duty to give one to her brother if she knew that he wanted it for a wedding gift. A man would always be loath to cut his hair, and there are special regulations against this for shamans, so if the girl is willing to accept him without his present, and he is unable to obtain it from his sister or naena, the gift will be allowed to lapse. This happened when both Handuna and Vela married. No man would give hair to anyone except his wife. Kaira gave his wife a lock of hair when he was married, and he obtained it in the following way. He said that when discussing the matter of his future marriage at home, and feeling sore at having no hair to give his bride, his younger sister said, "Don't be sorry, I will give you a lock of my hair." She cut a lock from her own head, which he kept until his marriage when he gave it to his wife while she was still at her father's cave. Then he took her to his own cave where she made him a waist string on the second or third day after marriage. To his sister who was then unmarried he gave an axe out of gratitude. Nila cut a lock from his head to give his wife, as his sister was away at the time he was married, otherwise she would have given him one. Pema did not give his wife any hair as her mother had given her some.

Among the village Veddas at Unuwatura Bubula the custom of giving hair as a wedding gift was not known, yet the shaman's wife had a lock which her mother had given her. She assured us that only married women might wear it.

Anything like a formal divorce is unknown, but we heard of one instance occurring three generations ago, in which a woman who had gone to live with her husband left him and returned to her parents. The daughter of a Bingoda man, whose nickname Kupunkarea is still remembered, was given to a boy nicknamed Kankuna "Sore Eyes." As he was lazy and took no trouble to support his wife, so that she was frequently obliged to go to her parents for food, they kept her with them. Kankuna was very angry, but he did not threaten violence or attempt to bring back his wife by force. Later she was given to a Vedda of Bandaraduwa and after his death she went to live with a Sinhalese. It was said that she was an unusually pretty girl.

It is quite certain that polyandry never existed among uncontaminated Veddas, but at Henebedda we met with one case that must, we think, be called by this name. Before relating this we may, however, call attention to the fact that polyandry is a tolerably common practice among the Sinhalese peasants of the Vedirata, as it is among the less educated classes in other parts of the island^[15].

The individuals concerned in the polyandrous marriage at Henebedda are Handuna (8), the Vidane Appuhami (4), and Kandi (10)^[16]. It will be seen from the genealogy that Handuna and Appuhami are the sons of a brother and sister, both have intercourse with Kandi, though the latter is nominally the wife of Handuna who is the older man. Kandi is an unusually pretty woman and considerably younger than either. We were told that Appuhami at one time lived with Badeni (11), his father's sister's grandchild, but was compelled to give her up on account of the jealousy displayed by Kandi.

We have already pointed out that a man spends much of his time with his father-in-law, i.e. with his wife's people, hunting and wandering with them and having perfectly free access to his father-in-law's hunting ground and fishing pools; at Sitala Wanniya we were told that after a few days spent in a shelter on the territory in the man's community to which the bridegroom carried his bride on first receiving her, the young couple should return to the bride's group. Even at the present day this is the case to a great extent, though among settled communities as at Bandaraduwa there is a tendency for the women to come to the man's community and stay there with him^[17].

Pregnancy is diagnosed after two menstrual periods have been missed. The change in the breasts is not noticed. Birth takes place in the cave (unless labour should come on suddenly and occur in the jungle); no screen is put up, and any woman will assist the parturient woman; the cord is cut with an arrow—the common tool used for all cutting purposes—and the afterbirth is thrown away. The umbilicus is treated with cloth and ashes, and the portion of the umbilical cord which drops from the navel is not preserved. We never heard of a case of twins.

During labour the patient leans back with one shoulder or side supported by an angle of the rock, and a woman behind her supports her and presses down upon her shoulders. The woman remains in the cave for three or four days after the birth. At Sitala Wanniya there are no food taboos, but at Henebedda a pregnant woman avoids madu, which fruits are said to produce diarrhoea and vomiting, and two kinds of yams which also purge and are believed to induce still-birth. A nursing mother must eat neither the fat of the monitor lizard nor rilawa flesh, as these are said to produce purging and would kill the infant. She may, however, eat the meat of the grey ape wanduru. The fat of the spotted deer also spoils the milk, and if the mother eats mora fruit the child will get worms. The Henebedda Veddas, who are partially cave and hut dwellers, say that if a birth occurs in the cave a screen is made round the parturient woman. Among all the settled Veddas, as among the rural Sinhalese, a special hut is built in which birth occurs. The afterbirth is commonly buried in the hut among village Veddas, and no Veddas seem to attach any special importance to its disposal.

At Uniche a pregnant woman would not eat venison or hare's flesh. The pains and danger of childbirth are so well recognised by the Veddas that a special ceremony is performed by the wilder Veddas, and a prayer offered for the safety of the young mother (cf. p. 251). We were assured at Sitala Wanniya that if this ceremony were omitted the mother and child would die. At Henebedda it was said that if a woman appeared to be dangerously ill in childbed, a Sinhalese katandirale (devil dancer) would be called in. Death during childbirth seemed rare, but a few cases were recorded. Except among those Veddas who have come most under Sinhalese influence connection is not avoided during pregnancy, or for any considerable period after childbirth, nor is chastity enforced before hunting or dancing.

Children are usually named within a month of their birth, the name being decided upon by their parents. At Godatalawa it was said that a child's name would be freely mentioned, but at Sitala Wanniya and Henebedda we were told that, although every child was given a name soon after birth, they were never called or spoken of by their names until they were at least four or five years old. Before this they were called Tuta (male) and Tuti (female), i.e. "little one," and these expressions may persist and replace their proper names which in many instances seem to be forgotten, so that some children appeared to have no name at all. Small babies may be called Goraka or Gorakki, because they are reddish in colour, and so resemble the gorakka fruit (Garcinia cambogia). Apparently these names are not applied for more than the first few months after birth. It was said that the reason the names of young children were avoided was that to mention their names might attract the attention of evilly disposed yaku who might make the child ill or even kill it. We did not ascertain what were the names of the yaku who it was feared might injure the children, but it must be assumed that these spirits belonged to the third stratum of the Vedda religion defined on p. 149, and are either foreign spirits who have been adopted without losing their dangerous attributes, or the spirits of remote female ancestors (kiriamma) who sometimes steal children.

At Bandaraduwa, where there was much foreign influence, we had an example of the belief in the inadvisability of bringing children too closely in contact with the yaku. This is recorded on p. 216.

At Omuni we were told that in the old days there was no fixed time for the naming of a child. The father and mother give the child its name, usually choosing that of an ancestor, for there is no harm in speaking or using the name of a dead relative when the name is given to a child; thus our informant, the headman of Omuni, calls his second child by the name of his own dead father, though in his lifetime he would have addressed his father by his kinship term. Our informant gave his father's name to his second child, not to his first, because his father was alive when his first son was born. A woman's name is generally given to a granddaughter born after her death. Children are also commonly named after their maternal and paternal aunts and uncles.

The following lists of the names of males and females were given me by Mr Bibile and Tissahami, the Vedda Arachi; they were all said to be good Vedda names, and many of them were avowedly the names of dead Veddas, but with the exception of those printed in italics, they are none of them common Vedda names, as tested by their occurrence at the present day.

Names of males: Poromala, Sulliya, Karakolaya, Nila, Käuwa, Boda, Mola, Pubbara, Kona, Dinga, Kaluwa, Hakkendaya, Hapuwa, Bammuna, Peruma, Gobira, Badena, Kaira, Kudahanniya, Naga.

Names of females: Bemmini, Tikki, Nagi, Suwadi, Mittu, Viyani, Tandi, Hendi, Pinchi, Kalu, Selli, Burati, Milalani, Kalumal nangi, Nilmal nangi, Kanni, Kalati, Poiomali, Aembali, Nambadi, Uri^[18], Kendi, Gobire, Badani, Kiri.

In addition to the above the following occur in our notes.

Males: Randu Wanniya, Sita Wanniya, Poromasaka, Handuna, Kanda, Wannaku, Vela, Rata(?), Tiki(?), Hereta(?).

Females: Kandi, Bevini.

Nicknames are common among men, but we did not learn of any instance in which a woman was given one. Nicknames generally refer to physical peculiarities of the individuals to whom they are applied. Poromala, the half of whose face had been torn away by a bear, is usually called Walaha, i.e. bear. An old man of Namadewa clan was called Ukusa, because his hair appears ruffled like the feathers of an owl (kusa), and Randunu Wanniya, the shaman of the Henebedda community, was nicknamed Uchia from the verb uchenawa, to raise up, because after falling down in the shamanistic dances in which he is protagonist he must be raised up by his fellows.

Other nicknames of the immediate ancestors of living Veddas we met were: Mahakata, "big mouth"; Ogapalua, "loud talker," literally, one who yells; Nakakuna, "stinking nose," applied to a man with ozæna; Nemma, "bent"; Kankuna, "sore eyes"; and Kapunkarea, "man who cuts down trees." Although nicknames did not altogether replace their owners' real names, men were often called by them, and the frequency with which certain names such as Poromala and Handuna occur, often made them a real convenience.

Adoption is not practised, for the custom of a near relative looking after children who have lost their parents cannot be called by this name.

Dances play no part in the domestic life of the Veddas, for, although Veddas may perform a few steps of a dance as a sign of pleasure, their dances are mostly if not entirely ceremonial.