No. 33,-1886.] THE VEDDAS OF CEYLON, 



359 



belong to the same race. In this all later observers entirely 

 agree. Hence, for the study of their physical condition 

 we may without hesitation unite the two groups, so far as 

 they are not already united ; but for the observation of their 

 social and psychical conditions we must hold the two 

 groups strictly apart : of course in the latter respect only are 

 the forest or jungle Veddas of any interest to us. I shall 

 therefore speak mainly of them ; nevertheless we may not 

 venture quite to set aside the village Veddas, since their 

 actual settlement and civilisation has succeeded only very 

 imperfectly as yet. 



As a matter of fact, all attempts to bring the Veddas into 

 fixed abodes and to raise them to a higher culture have 

 suffered shipwreck in far greater measure than the efforts 

 to civilise the Australians. Government officials and mis- 

 sionaries have been active among them many years, but 

 their success has been wholly external. Rev. Mr. Gillings 

 states that up to 1844, in Bintenna, 163 men, 48 women, and 

 85 children had been baptised — since then very few ; and 

 adds, " but almost all of these have gone back again to their 

 former habits and follies : what they formerly heard they 

 have forgotten." The Veddas have remained on the whole 

 nomadic heathens, and heathens without any developed 

 form of religion. "They are a horde of 'Free-thinkers,'" 

 said Wolf,* " following the impulses of their bad and savage 

 natures." Whether they actually have any conceptions of 

 God or God-like beings is, to say the least, very doubtful. 

 The only thing that is proved is a lower kind of demon 

 worship among them, which here and there assumes the 

 form of a worship of their ancestors. If Mr. Taylorf desig- 

 nates this as animismtis, and therefore " their religion, " as 

 corresponding to that of the barbarous tribes of India, we 



* Joh. Chr. Wolf. Reise nach Zeilon. Berlin u Stettin, 1782. Th. I. S. 

 Die omfange der cultur iibers. 



f Edward B. Taylor. The Beginning of Culture. Translated by Spang 

 u Poske. Leipsic, 1873. Bd. I. S.. 51. 



