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The Vedda are an indigenous people of Sri Lanka (an island off the coast of India, see map below). They are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the island, their ancestors arriving around 40,000 years ago. Today, the Vedda live scattered in tiny settlements in the Hunnasgiriya hills in central Sri Lanka up to the coastal lowlands in the island's east. However, long before Indo-Aryans – who are now the dominant Sinhalese-Buddhist people – came to Sri Lanka from India around 543 BCE, the Vedda lived all around the island. However, after the Veddas now make up only around 1% of the population of Sri Lanka. For centuries, they have been stigmatized and marginalized by the Sinhalese (the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka). They were called derogatory names like "wild men" and "forest barbarians." The word "Vedda" is often used derogatorily in Sri Lanka to refer to anyone who lives an unsettled or rural way of life. The Vedda culture is disappearing as the government takes land for irrigation projects and forest reserves, and many Veddas have had to assimilate into "modern" life. Some Vedda women are also tricked into sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the Vedda way of life and culture is facing extinction.
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Subsistence & Social Organization
Subsistence & Social Organization
The Veddas are hunter-gatherers, foraging, hunting and living in close-knit groups in caves in the dense jungles of Sri Lanka, relocating from one cave to another when someone from the group dies. However, they have lost much of their ancestral homeland as the government has attempted to develop the land and relocate the Veddas to farming villages. They use bows and arrows to hunt game, harpoons and toxic plants for fishing and gathered wild plants, yams, honey, fruit and nuts. They also fish. Veddas are famously known for their rich meat diet, eating venison, rabbit, turtle, tortoise, monitor lizard, wild boar and the common brown monkey. Another Vedda delicacy is dried meat preserve soaked in honey. One of the staple foods gathered by the Vedda is wild honey, which they collect by climbing trees where the hives are and burning dry leaves to ward the bees away. Every year around June, they go on a two-month long honey hunt, taking only rice and chilli with them. Everything else they eat is gathered or hunted. Their ability to preserve and store meat provides a ready source of food in case of times of scarcity. The early part of the year (January–February) is considered to be the season of yams and mid-year (June–July) that of fruit and honey, while hunting takes place throughout the year. The Vedda have lived in cave shelters as well as in huts of thatch and clay.
They have considerable time to spend doing leisurely activities and derive their entertainment from their traditional ceremonial dances and the songs that are sung to invoke the spirits. Songs are also sung as charms, as lullabies, and also for amusement.
Social relations within Vedda Villages are structured mainly by rules of kinship. In Vedda society, women are in many respects men's equals. They are entitled to similar inheritance. Monogamy is the general rule, though a widow would frequently marry her husband's brother for support and comfort. The Vedda typically marry within their own social group, sometimes marrying cousins. When two people are married, the bride ties a bark rope around the groom's waist, symbolizing her acceptance of the groom as her life partner. Male elders are typically the leaders in Vedda villages, along with the tribal chief.
A Vedda Chief
Vedda men in the forest
Religion & Beliefs
Religion & Beliefs
The Veddas are animistic (animism), meaning they believe that each object, place, and creature possesses a unique spiritual essence. One of the most distinctive features of Vedda religion is the worship of dead ancestors . Tribal shamans speak with the spirits of the dead to make decisions and advise the chief. They also have a close connection to nature and their ritualistic songs are like a communication with the elements. After death, the Veddas consider it important to promptly bury the body, wrapping it in cloth first. They lay the body between the scooped out trunks of trees before burying it and covering it with leaves and dirt. Personal possessions like the bow and arrow, betel pouch (for storing betel nuts, a sign of friendship), were also buried. The contents of the betel pouch of the deceased were eaten after his death. Coconuts and cacti were also often placed around the grave.
Preparing for a ritual
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