Chap. VH.] FATE OF THE ABORIGINES. 371 



Notwithstanding the degradation of the natives, it b.c. 

 was indispensable to " befriend the interests " of a 1^"^- 

 race so numerous and so useful ; hence, they were fre- 

 quently employed in the mihtary expeditions of the Wi- 

 jayan sovereigns ^ and the earlier kings of that dynasty 

 admitted the rank of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in 

 tJiese enterprises. They assigned a suburb of the capital 

 for their residence ^, and on festive occasions they were 

 seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the 

 king.^ But every aspkation towards a recovery of 

 their independence was checked by a device less charac- 

 teristic of ingenuity in the ascendant race, than of 

 simphcity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. 

 The feehng was encouraged and matm-ed into a con- 

 viction which prevailed to the latest period of the Sin- 

 ghalese sovereignty, that no individual of pure Singhalese 

 extraction could be elevated to the supreme power, since 

 no one could prostrate himself before one of his own 

 nation.^ 



For successive generations, however, the natives, al- 

 though treated with partial kindness, were regarded as a 

 separate race. Even the children of Wijayo, by his first 

 Avife Kuweni, united themselves with their maternal con- 

 nexions on the repudiation of their mother by the king, 

 " and retained the attributes of Yakkhos," ^ and by that 

 designation the natives continued to be distinguished 

 down to the reign of Dutugaimunu. 



In spite of every attempt at concihation, the process 

 of amalgamation between the two races was reluctant 

 and slow. The earhest Bengal immigrants sought 

 Avives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of 

 India ^ ; and although their descendants intermarried 

 with the natives, the great mass of the population long 

 held aloof from the invaders, and occasionally vented 



' Malimvanso, ch. x. 



2 Bml, cb. X. p. 67. 



3 lUd., p. 06. 



* Joinville's Asiat. JR.es. vol. vii. 

 p. 422. 



^ Mahmvanso, cli. vii. 

 <5 Ihid., p. 53. 



B B 2 



