ON SECLUDED TRIBES OF UNCIVILIZED MEN. 339 



sionally use the feet in drawing the bow. This practice, he states, 

 has long ago been discontinued. Tennent had remarked that money 

 is worthless to them, but Bailey states that he had never known any 

 of them to refuse a rupee. 



All, however, who have had any opportunity of judging of the fact 

 agree in stating that their mental capabilities are of the very lowest 

 kind. They cannot count beyond five. A gentleman gave twelve 

 arrows to a head-man of the partially civilized Veddahs to divide 

 equally amongst four families, but he was unable to accomplish the 

 task. They have no names for days, months or years — no system of 

 medicine — no literature, in its lowest sense. Their language is 

 meagre — a sort of obsolete Singhalese, unenriched by Pali or Sanscrit, 

 and supplied with a number of words not to be found in any vocab- 

 ulary of eastern dialects. The same word expresses a bud and a 

 child. Por rice they have no distinctive appellaj;ion — it is merely 

 " small, round things." 



Morally, their condition is strange. They detest polygamy, 

 polyandry, (common enough among the Singhalese), and incest, save 

 by marriage with a younger sister. But this unnatural custom is 

 becoming obsolete. They are harmless, truthful, and honest ; fond 

 of their children, constant to their wives, but jealous. They will not 

 marry out of their own race, and divorce is unknown amongst them, 

 as well as infidelity amongst the wives. 



The Veddahs have a great personal resemblance to each other, as 

 might naturally be expected from their alliances. They are not a 

 long-lived race. In a population of 50 adults, only one was found 

 70 years old, and eight of the age of 50 years. In another of 175, 

 two were found 70 years old, and fourteen of the age of 50. Although 

 there is no infanticide amongst them, large families are almost un- 

 known, and the race is rapidly becoming extinct. There is not much 

 madness, and even less idiocy amongst them; but they are all exces- 

 sively stupid, and have a very vacant expression of countenance. 

 They claim to be of royal descent, but know nothing of their history, 

 and although they have no caste amongst themselves, the Singhalese 

 regard them as of high extraction. The wildest of them are the 

 fewest in number, and the smallest in stature. Each family lives by 

 itself, and there is an approach to social organization amongst them, 

 as their hunting grounds are apportioned, and the more settled class 

 divide themselves into little communities or septs. The village Ved- 



