The Veddas / by C.G. Seligmann and Brenda Z. Seligmann ; with a chapter by C.S. Myers ; and an appendix by A. Mendis Gunasekara.
- Charles Gabriel Seligman
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The Veddas / by C.G. Seligmann and Brenda Z. Seligmann ; with a chapter by C.S. Myers ; and an appendix by A. Mendis Gunasekara. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![different fashion from all other, and the Chingulays will not use them. “ 1 hey have a peculiar way by themselves of preserving Flesh. They cut a hollow Tree and put honey in it, and then fill it up with flesh, and stop it up with clay. Which lyes for a reserve to eat in time of want. “It has usually been told me that their way of catching Elephants is, that when the Elephant lyes asleep they strike their ax into the sole of his foot, and so laming him he is in their power to take him. But I take this for a fable, because I know the sole of the Elephants foot is so hard, that no axe can pierce it at a blow ; and he is so wakeful that they can have no opportunity to do it. “ For portions with their Daughters in marriage they give hunting Dogs. They are reported to be courteous. Some of the Chingulays in discontent will leave their houses and friends, and go and live among them, where they are civilly entertained. The tamer sort of them, as hath been said, will sometimes appear, and hold some kind of trade with the tame Inhabitants, but the wilder called Rarnba- Vaddahs never show themselves.” From Knox’s account it is evident that in his time or a little before this, some of the Veddas were in touch with the court and were even sufficiently amenable to discipline to be of use as an auxiliary fighting force, indeed, there is abundant evidence that long before this a part of the inhabitants of Ceylon, with enough Vedda blood in them for their contemporaries to call them Veddas, were politically organized and constituted a force whom the rulers of the island found it necessary to consider. Upon this subject we cannot do better than quote part of a letter from Mr H. Parker in which this authority states his views on this subject. “ At the time when Sinhalese history begins, a part of them [Veddas] had reached a far more advanced state than the others. They were politically organised, and according to the Mahavansa had a supreme king and subordinate chiefs 80 years after Wijaya became king1. 1 “He established the yakkhas Kalavela in the eastern quarter of the city [Anuradhapura]; and the chief of the yakkhas, Citta, he established on the lower side of the Abhaya tank. He (the king), who knew how to accord his protection with](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24851474_0038.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
