Forest People of Sri Lanka

December 31, 2004 8:02 AM

Veddas (or Wanniya-laeto): the ancient and presently endangered forest-people of Sri Lanka. (more: 1, 2, 3, 4)
"...the surviving Wanniya-laeto community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival."
posted by moonbird (6 comments total)

Terrific and timely post, moonbird. The Veddas are a fasinating people and it's sad to see such an ancient culture disappearing.
posted by LeeJay at 10:42 AM on December 31, 2004

Good post. On a side note, the Andaman and Nicobar islands are home to various anthropologically distinct and endangered tribes, some with populations of less than 100. But they seem to have pulled through this disaster.
posted by ch3ch2oh at 11:28 AM on December 31, 2004

An excellent post. Some of the linked pieces seem to exaggerate the allegedly primordial and unchanged nature of Vedda life (understandably in tourist accounts); this short article gives a more balanced account. One loss that makes me particularly sad is that of their language; as far as I know, there is no trace of it remaining (they have spoken a dialect of Sinhala for generations now).
posted by languagehat at 1:01 PM on December 31, 2004

Yes, very interesting post.

languagehat sort of answers a question that immediately popped up in my head when reading the articles, namely what language family they belong to, i.e. whether they speak a Dravidian language or something entirely different.

The articles sound like they pretty much managed to retain their traditions and value system, but if they replaced their language entirely with a dialect of Sinhala, doesn't that imply much greater interaction with and assimilation to the other people on the island?
posted by sour cream at 3:52 AM on January 1, 2005

Exactly. But "primordial" sells better. Remember that Indonesian (?) tribe that allegedly had never seen a white man before? Turned out they lived in a nearby village where they wore Western clothes and watched TV, but somebody got them to dress up in frond skirts and pretend to be stone-age. Made all the papers till it was debunked.
posted by languagehat at 7:57 AM on January 1, 2005

A friend of mine took a great series of photographs of the indiginous people of India (the Adivasi), from what I have read there are many similarities.
posted by milovoo at 2:23 PM on January 2, 2005