Funday Times

World of Indigenous people
First known inhabitants of a place
By Nadia Fazlulhaq
Today we live in a modernized world where technology has developed in leaps and bounds. Yet in each and every corner of this world there are groups of people who have their own way of living, their own cultures, their lands inhabited by ancestors. These people are known as Indigenous people, the first known inhabitants of a place.

For many years these indigenous people were on an endless struggle for survival in this rapidly developing world. In the early 20th century various organizations began the preservation and the study of the indigenous people.

Today many nations in the world consider that these indigenous and tribal people and should have an identity of their own and have taken steps to protect the rights of these people. As a result of this The United Nations declared of August 9 as the "Day of Indigenous People"
Let's find out "who are these indigenous people?"

According to the English wikipedia indigenous people are referred to as * People living in an area prior to colonization or annexetion or *People living alongside other cultural groups during the formation of a nation-state
In some instances they were also known as: Aborigines, Primitives, Savages, Barbarians and Uncivilized, A Franco Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau stated that indigenous people are " Noble Savages".

Mother Nature has given a special place to the Indigenous people and tribal communities when it come to Human beings, because these people depend mostly on nature and have a great care and a better understanding of the value and the importance of protecting the nature. Indigenous people have many survival tactics when it comes to natural disasters. For instance, while many deaths were reported by the recent Asian Tsunami waves, there were less death reported from the tribes in Indonesia and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The house below is a local traditional Indonesian house; build nearly a century ago that survived from the Tsunami waves while a six-year-old brick house swept away without a trace.

Sri Lankas' Indigenous people - The Wanniyalaeto
The indigenous people called "Yakka" who lived in the Neolithic community, dating back to at least 16,000 B.C in Sri Lanka are believed to be the ancestor of the Wanniyala-aetto (forest-beings), also called the " veddhas", a small community of around 2500 survivors from the Sri Lanka's total population of 20 million.

It is known that the Veddha Lullaby is the oldest known lullaby in the world, it is said that Kuvaini, the yakka queen of King Vijeya sang this lullaby to put her children to sleep. Wanniylaeto cave drawings are found in caves such as Hamangala cave.

Though many of the Wanniyala-aetto have been absorbed into the Sinhalese society or the Tamil society over the past centuries, some of them are still in a struggle to protect their humble "hunter-gatherer" life in the tropical forests in SriLanka. The Wanniyalaetos' non-violent resistance in their kingdom is definitely a lesson to all the so-called " Civilized" people.
"I was born in the forest. My ancestors come from here. We are the forest beings, and I want to live and die here. And even if I were reborn only as a fly or an ant, I would still be happy so long as I knew I would come back to live here in the forest."
-Uru Warige Tissahamy, 97-year old elder Wanniyala-aeto wisdom keeper-

Some Indigenous people
1. Aborogines -Australia, Tasmania, Eastern Amazon rain forest, Brazil
2. Bushmen - Kalahari Desert, Bostwana, Namibia
3. Hawaiianns-Hawaii, United States
4. Inuit -Russia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland
5. Native Americans-United States of America, Canada
6. Negritos-pygmy sized people of the Andaman Islands,The semang of Malay Peninsula, Philippines, New Guinea
7. Pygmy people-Central and Western Africa
8. Sami-Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Siberia
9. Tibetans - Central Asia
10. Veddas or Wanniyalaeto -
Sri Lanka

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