No. 32,-— 1886.] THE VEDDAS OF CEYLON, 



339 



comes off victorious, though often severely lacerated, and 

 that usually about the face. 



They barter their deer skins, dried flesh, cotton, and honey 

 for rice, kurakkan, tobacco, salt, cloth, arrowheads, and axes. 

 They carry on this trade with the Sinhalese and Moormen in 

 their neighbourhood. They exercise no art or handicraft but 

 that of making their bows and arrows. The heads of the 

 latter are made by the Sinhalese blacksmiths. They all have 

 an axe, and some few of them possess a small hoe ; but they 

 make little use of the latter in the cultivation of their lands, 

 all they do previous to sowing the crop being to cut the 

 jungle and burn it. They are fond of salt, but as frequently 

 it is not to be had in their neighbourhood, the only season- 

 ing they have for their food is honey. 



They are passionately fond of tobacco, and would use betel 

 could they procure it. They, however, find a substitute for 

 it in the bark Of certain trees,* which they chew with their 

 tobacco. They do not practise smoking, they have no know- 

 ledge of intoxicating liquors, and drink nothing but water. 

 They never cultivate paddy, the reason they give for this 

 being that they are much fonder of hunting. They never do 

 and will not apply themselves to any sort of labour, except 

 now and then to a little high-land cultivation, and that never 

 exceeds a rood or two for each family. They keep no 

 domestic animals excepting dogs, and sometimes, but very 

 rarely, a few fowls. Their huts are constructed in a very 

 rude manner, some of them being a mere roof composed of 

 three or four sloping poles, one end of which is placed in the 

 ground, and the other end is supported by a cross stick placed 

 on two perpendicular ones. Others have a perfect roof 

 coming down to the ground on both sides, like the old military 

 tents. Their huts are generally covered with the bark of 

 trees, but sometimes with dried grass or straw. They never 



* It was while stripping- one of these trees of its bark that I first came 

 across them. 



