VEDDAHS, or WEDDAHS (from

See also:

• SANSKRIT

Sanskrit veddha, "

See also:

• HUNTER, JOHN (1728-1793)
• HUNTER, ROBERT MERCER TALIAFERRO (r8o9-1887)
• HUNTER, SIR WILLIAM WILSON (1840-19oo)
• HUNTER, WILLIAM (1718–1783)
• HUNTER, WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1844-1898)

hunter ")  , a primitive people of Ceylon, probably representing the Yakkos or " demons " of Sanskrit writers, the true aborigines of the island . During the Dutch occupation (1644-1796) they were found as far north as Jaffna, but are now confined to the south-eastern district, about the wooded Bintenna, Badulla and Nil-gala hills, and thence to the coast near Batticaloa . They are divided into two classes, the Kele Weddo or jungle Veddahs, and the Gan Weddo, or semi-civilized village Veddahs . The Veddahs exhibit the phenomenon of a race living the wildest of savage lives and yet speaking an Aryan dialect . Craniometrical evidence strongly favours the theory, now generally accepted, that they represent a branch of the pre-Aryan Dravidians of southern India, and that their ancestors probably made a settlement in the island of Ceylon in prehistoric times, detaching them-selves from a migrating horde which passed through the island to find at last a permanent home in the continent of Australia . The true jungle veddahs are almost a dwarfish race . They are dark-skinned and flat-nosed, slight of frame and very small of skull, and average no more than 5 ft . Their black hair is shaggy rather than lank . They are a shy, harmless, simple folk, living chiefly by hunting; they lime birds, catch fish by poisoning the water, and are skilled in getting wild honey; they have bows with iron-pointed arrows and breed hunting dogs . They dwell in caves or bark huts, and their word for house is Sinhalese for a hollow tree, rukula . They count on their fingers, and make fire with the simplest form of fire-drill twirled by hand . They are monogamous, and their conjugal fidelity contrasts strongly with the vicious habits of the Sinhalese .

Their

religion has been described as a kind of demon-worship, consisting of rude dances and shouts raised to scare away the evil spirits, whom they confound with their ancestors . The Veddahs are not to be confounded with the Rodiyas of the western uplands, who are a much finer race, tall, wellporportioned, with regular features, and speak a language said to be radically distinct from all the Aryan and Dravidian dialects current in Ceylon . There is, however, in Travancore, on the mainland, a low-caste " Veda " tribe, nearly black, with wavy or frizzly hair, and now speaking a Malayalim (Dravidian) dialect (Jagor), who probably approach nearer than the insular Veddahs to the aboriginal pre-Dravidian " negrito " element of southern India and Malaysia . See Percival, Description of Island of Ceylon (1805); Cordiner, Description of Ceylon (1807); John Davy, Ceylon and its Inhabitants (1821); Stirr, Ceylon and the Singhalese (185o), Sir Emerson Tennent, Ceylon (1859); J . Baily, Trans. of Ethnol . Soc., New Series, vol. ii . (1863); Rolleston, Trans. of Brit . Ass . (1872); B . F . Hartshorne, Fortnightly Review, New Series, vol. xix. p . 406 .

The most elaborate monograph is that of

Professor Virchow, Ober die Weddds von Ceylon and ihre Beziehungen zu den Nachbarstammen (Berlin, 1882) . See also E . B . Tylor, Primitive Culture; A . Thomson, " Osteology of Veddahs," in Journ . Anthrop . Institute (1889), vol. xix. p . 125; L. de Zoysa, " Origin of Veddahs," in Journal, Ceylon Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, vol. vii .