Women behing he weave

It is now a way of life in the south rather than just a job, judging by the number of 'shops' dotting the Galle Road between Galle and Weligama. The only controversy is when and how the threads of this delicate craft came to be interwoven with the lives of the southern womenfolk.

Records indicate that intricate and time-consuming beeralu weaving came with the Portuguese to these Maritime areas of then Ceylon. But the humble folk engaging in this traditional work think otherwise.

"Did you see the lace rock?" asks M.M. Gilbert and then goes on to relate the legend behind beeralu. Even though it is recorded that the Portuguese introduced beeralu to Sri Lanka after 1505, the story goes that in ancient times a Yaakshaniya used to sit on a rocky, island, full of snakes, just off the coast of Weligama, weaving beeralu. "A rock with another smaller one precariously balancing on it is believed to be the beeralu kotte(pillow) that she used," says Gilbert. With stories of Kuveni sitting at a spinning wheel when first sighted by Prince Vijaya, one cannot scoff at these legends about the beginnings of beeralu.

Gilbert who has recently retired from his job at the CTB should know the legends and myths because he has a special interest in this craft. For, his wife had made a fine art of beeralu and even trained more than a thousand girls from fishing families in the area so that they could earn a livelihood.

But his wife is no more. L.H. Laini or Maddu Akka as she was known in the area had died suddenly of a heart attack. Guilbert does not want the family business to go to rack and ruin. So he has mobilised the help of his sister-in-law and her two daughters to carry on the craft. 

Maddu had played with the beeralu kotte when she was a little girl because her grandmother was engaged in this craft. "My wife was the driving force behind the family business which has been handed down from generation to generation. She was famous and busloads of tourists used to come and watch her at the beeralu kotte. I'm continuing it in her memory," sighs Gilbert looking at the many photographs of her hung on the wall of their home on Galle Road in Weligama.

In the front garden of Gilbert's home is the small stall where Maddu engaged in her work. Now six girls are seated at beeralu kottes, overseen by Gilbert's sister-in-law Dulcie Ratnaweera. Explaining this complicated craft, Dulcie says the patterns are drawn on strips of paper and tiny holes indicating the pattern pricked by a needle. The paper strips with the 'punctured pattern' is fixed on to the kotte with pins. Pairs of beeralu are then used to weave the pattern. Dulcie's two daughters, one of whom draws the patterns for the designs, started off as young as 12 to sit at the beeralu kotte.

The girls employed by Gilbert work between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. after an initial training of six months. E.J.P. Kamani (24) has been at her kotte for five years and her fingers move briskly, with the beeralu making a clicking sound as she concentrates on the pattern.

Middle-aged Ranjanie from Humbalgama is the sole breadwinner for her two children. Her husband has taken another woman so she weaves beeralu to feed her family. "There's nothing else you can do in this area. The men go out to fish. The womenfolk have to do some odd job," she says. But trade is slow these days. 

"Sri Lankans don't use beeralu that much because it is very delicate and fragile. It is not for everyday use. We sell our products mainly to foreigners. The season should have started, but the airport bombing has affected us badly," laments Gilbert pulling off a thick white sheet covering a bulge on his large dinner table. We see a heap of unsold beeralu.

His lament is echoed by Yasawathie Manawadu, 52, in Magalla, who has been in this traditional business for 15 years. No longer is it lucrative. "The tourists don't come. Those days I earned around Rs. 10,000 to 15,000 a month during the season. Not any more."

Her woes are many. She became a widow having to feed four children when her husband, a CTB employee, was electrocuted one Vesak when he touched a wire accidentally. "I don't get a pension. All my children have passed their ALs but have no jobs. We live on the money sent by my youngest son who is working as a mechanic in Saudi Arabia."

She is worried now that her earnings from beeralu are petering out. She remembers her grandmother wearing the special kaba kuruththuwa hetti with touches of the beeralu rende, sitting at the beeralu kotte for hours on end. Her mother too did the same. Those days there was no sales outlet like now at their home on the Galle Road. Her mother and even her grandmother took the beeralu laces to the Galle Fort and haggled with foreigners over the price, on the ramparts. 

"Magallema urama wechchi deyak" (It is a legacy from the area), she says, wondering whether she will have to give up the family tradition of beeralu and find another source of income.