AN ITINERARY OF THE VEDDA COUNTRY. 155 



AN ITINERARY OF THE VEDDA COUNTRr' ^ ' ^ 



By C. G. Seligmann, M.D., and Brenda Z. Seligma^Bt/^ '^a s 



"DEFORE describing the route followed and some of the incidents 

 -*-^ that occurred during a recent sojourn in the Vedda country, it 

 is perhaps worth while to refer, for the benefit of others who may be 

 engaged in similar work in the East {e.g., in the Malay Peninsula), 

 to the great assistance derived from a preliminary survey of the 

 country conducted from a motor car and without going further on 

 foot from the main road than ten miles. Opinions at Colombo and 

 Kandy varied greatly as to the prospect of successful work among 

 the Veddas ; two views were generally held : the first asserted that 

 there were no genuine Veddas left — half-breeds and Village Veddas 

 there were, and with these it would no doubt be possible to make 

 friends ; the other view referred to the extreme shyness of the hosts 

 of Veddas who, clad only in leaves, still roamed about the wilder 

 parts of the Island. It was pointed out that not only should we be 

 unable to find these, but that this was really as well, for should we 

 chance to surprise them we might expect to be riddled with arrows. 

 As might have been anticipated, the truth as to the existence of 

 " wild " Veddas lay between these two extremes, and it was by 

 quickly visiting a number of settled Veddas by means of a motor 

 car, and ascertaining the direction from which they had come, that 

 a route was plotted which enabled the greater number of existing 

 Vedda groups to be visited, and ultimately led to satisfactory inter- 

 course with a number of the few Veddas uncontaminated by recent 

 Sinlialese or Tamil influence. 



After leaving Bandarawela the first halt was made at Bibile, 

 where, among a number of coins and pebbles collected by the rest- 

 house keeper and brought by him for sale, there was noted a moder- 

 ately good example of the type of quartz implement discovered by 

 Messrs. Green and Pole. An early start the next morning permitted 

 of an interview with a number of the Veddas and half-breeds settled 

 on the big chena at Rerenkada in the neighbourhood of Kallodi ; of 

 fifteen folk seen here only one man and woman appeared to be even 

 moderately pure-blooded Veddas : the woman was only 53-J inches 

 tall, while the man measured 63 inches. The next stop was made 

 a few miles further on at Maha-oya, and the afternoon was spent in 

 talking to three Veddas from Omuni ; these men were too poor to 

 pay the tax of a rupee and a half due from each of them; and had 

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