NO. 61. — 1908.] AMONGST THE LAST VEDDAS. 



61 



new is very typical of their psychcal reaction, as also of the 

 paucity of their conceptions and sensitive faculty. Unusual 

 impressions are actually painful to them. 



I saw Veddas (Duni-gala Veddas) first in Bibile. But they 

 could not be reconciled to the surroundings, though they had 

 been in Bibile before. They did not realize the enormous 

 difference between the substantially built resthouse at Bibile and 

 their miserable huts ; they only felt that it was ' ' otherwise here " 

 than at home, and this " otherwise " was distasteful to them. 



Over and over again they gathered their belongings and 

 wanted to go home. They did not know, they said, what had 

 become of their wives and children in the meantime — three 

 days only. They were ill-humoured, depressed, stubborn, 

 and self-willed. How different were the same people when I 

 saw them in their own village, and how very much more lively 

 was their arrow-dance. Whilst they hardly looked at presents 

 at Bibile, they danced with joy in their own surroundings 

 when a trifling gift was to their liking. 



Much has been written about the religion of the Veddas. 

 I am firmly convinced — and my study of the Sakeis leads to 

 the same conclusion — that the genuine Veddas, like the 

 Sakeis, have no distinct conception of a God. What the 

 Tamilized and Sinhalized half- civilized Coast Veddas tell is 

 not to be considered as the Vedda creed, for under the influence 

 and following the example of their teachers they have made a 

 new creed for themselves. The absence of this conception is 

 explained by the insignificant serological cravings of such 

 aboriginal peoples. 



The notion of God, or (what at the first beginning is the 

 same) of an evil spirit, may be considered the outcome of 

 ignorance. Where our strong aetiological want was not 

 satisfied, there arose the conception of a supernatural power, 

 usually regarded as hostile. This has nothing in common 

 with the modern notion of God in the Aryan world, which 

 was formed in quite a different way. The Aryan notion of 

 God arose in a teleological way as an answer to the question : 

 " Why are things as they are," and is therefore the expression 

 of an already very complicated desire of causality, which wants 

 to know not only the origin but also the purpose. 



