Part V of our series on the environment with Studio Times

Leave the Veddas alone

By Charith Pelpola Pix by Nihal Fernando

"Let us leave the last of the Veddas alone, and not try to fashion them to our ways, for, that will kill them sooner. Let them die out, scattered in their lonely jungles, the hunters they have always been. A few decades hence and Veddas will be just a name."

R.L. Spittel, from Wild Ceylon, 1924.

Unresisting and unable to prevent the relentless tide of human progress, the Veddas lost their homelands in the Eastern and North Central Provinces to agricultural schemes and farming settlements. In the South East, the colonists following the promises of the Gal Oya scheme displaced them from Inginiyagala.

With the accelerated Mahaweli development programme, their jungle refuges were nearly all destroyed.

In turn, the Vedda way of life was also overwhelmed. With their forced introduction into the village community, the hunter-gatherers intermarried with the farmers, and the bloodlines began to dilute.

The patriarchal chieftain, Tissahamy of Dambana, oversees a people now drastically reduced in number and almost void of cultural identity. A tragic fate for a race with such a proud narrative.

Those Veddas who could not tolerate the change to unaccustomed village life, returned to the jungles bordering the national parks near Mahiyangana and in Maduru Oya. But their exploitation by settlers continued, and they were harassed for violating laws they did not understand - and at times, laws, they never knew existed.

Their presence on their ancestral lands became illegal, as did their entire way of life. Hunting, gathering of honey, plants and roots, all ensured sustenance and survival for the Vedda, but all were against park regulations.

The Veddas have received support and aid from non-governmental organizations and a handful of concerned parties. However, their appeal to be reinstated into ancestral homelands and continue a tradition of lifestyle and culture, has fallen on ears, now deafened by the clamor of development.

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