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



343 



themselves, and when they did they avoided them as 

 dangerous. 



Both the wild and village Veddas rank with the Vellalas 

 (the highest Sinhalese caste). When the more civilised 

 Veddas go to the house of a district chief of the Vellala caste, 

 they receive water out of an earthen pot with a spout to it, a 

 privilege that belongs only to the Vellalas. 



The men among the wild Veddas are still more scantily 

 clad than their neighbours, for they wear no cloth, but only 

 a small apron of plaited leaves. The women are scarcely 

 ever to be seen. They remain in the deepest recesses of the 

 wood, or among the rocks in the hill country, and are as 

 naked as the men. 



The hill Veddas speak a language that is not understood 

 either by Sinhalese or Tamil, but some few words of the 

 Sinhalese language are to be recognised in it.* They hold no 

 intercourse with their more civilised neighbours, and it is, 

 as above stated, considered dangerous to go near the places of 

 their resort. They are quite migratory in their habits and 

 mode of life, remaining but a day or two at a time in one 

 place. They have no huts, but take shelter under large trees 

 or rocks. They have a fire constantly burning, which they 

 produce by the friction of one piece of wood upon another. 

 They live solely on what nature affords them, on roots, fish, 

 and the game they kill with their bows and arrows. t They 



* Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, I believe the 

 Vedda language to be merely a patois of the ordinary Sinhalese. Many 

 of their words can even now be traced to a Sinhalese origin, such as, for 

 instance : — 



To drink — diya-kanmm—ixi Sinhalese, to eat water. 

 To sleep — nidenawa—m. Sinhalese, nidagannaiua. 

 Snake— polongo=in Sinhalese, polonga. 

 Lightning — gini zoe£w»a=Sinhalese, fallen fire, &c. 



Considering that they have no knowledge of letters, no literature of 

 any sort, nothing to arrest the constant change in their spoken language, 

 it is remarkable that any indication of the affinity of this patois to Sinhalese 

 should have remained. 



f The constant change in their residence is due to their search after game. 



