Hidden Hunter-Gatherers of Indian Ocean. with appendix. Sergey Marlenovich Gabbasov

Coastal Veddahs have no distinct features that would immediately distinguish them from village Tamils, they speak the local dialects and do not possess any knowledge of the Veddah language (de Silva 1972). Unlike many indigenous groups, the Veddahs are proud of their culture and heritage and seek to preserve it unless circumstances are clearly unfavorable, hence the integration can be attributed to the natural evolution of the Veddahs, rather than any external factor. Many of the Veddahs of the older generation were proud of the fact that they were in fact Veddahs and referred to themselves as Vardar. However, the younger generation seems less inclined to acknowledge the essence of their forefathers and preferred to call themselves Tamils as opposed to Vardars. Very few old men know the names of some of the Veddah warige.

      The folk that we consider as Coastal Veddahs also dislike being identified with the indigenous people. This can be mainly attributed to the caste hierarchy prevalent in the eastern and northern regions of the country. The Tamils lay a lot of emphasis on the caste of an individual and to modern days certain practices which discriminate individuals according to their caste are prevalent. The Veddah community is considered the lowest of the regional castes and is shunned by persons of higher castes. As a result, there has been a tremendous loss of heritage and roots for the Coastal Veddah people.

      The Coast Veddahs are expert fishermen and make and use of various forms of nets including a cast net. They also spear and shoot fish, using a bifid iron spear-head, which they have adopted from the Tamils. For shooting fish, they use the usual Veddah bow, but the arrow has become a harpoon with a shaft as long as the bow into which the iron with its running line fits loosely (Storey 1907).

      The ancestors of the current community were Veddah hunters with the bow and arrow and other traditional weapons. Despite the non use of traditional weapons, the modern days Veddahs don’t seem to have forgotten their ancestral customs – they have hunter dogs and use them to hunt animals such as monitors and rabbits, sometimes wild boar, killing it by spears.

      The Verdars are darker, taller and more stoutly built than the inland Veddah (Wanniyala-aetto). Coastal Veddahs build comfortable huts in small clearings, usually within a mile of the sea. They cultivate maize and pumpkins round their houses and in patches of clearings in the surrounding jungles. They have plenty of pots, baskets and fishing gear. Their mode of life differs but little from that of the poor and low caste Tamils who are their neighbours. The religion of the Coast Veddahs is strongly tinged with Tamil customs and beliefs.

      Some of the Coast Veddahs know the names of the warige to which they belong, and a few know the names of some important warige of the Veddas inland. Uru warige appears to be the clan to which most of the Coast Veddahs who remembered their ancestral warige belonged, very few stated that they belonged to Ogatam, Kavatam, Umata (Umatam), Aembalaneduwe and Aembala warige (the last one is probably the same as the inland Aembala warige). At the time of Seligmanns’ research very few can remember Morane warige and fewer know Unapane (Seligmann 1911).

      AHIKUNTIKA

      Very interesting people are still living today in the Eastern part of the country. This is “Kuravar” (in Tamil), so-called “Sri Lankan gypsies”. They are known as “ahikuntika” in Sinhala.

      The Ahikuntikas are mostly confined to the generally arid parts of the north central and eastern parts of the island.

      One of the earliest references made by a European was by Phillip Baldaeus, who wrote “among the inhabitants of the coast of Coromandel, and the Cingalese and Malabars are certain follows who possess the art of making serpents stand upright and dance before them which they perform by enchanting songs” (Baldaeus 1992).

      Emerson Tennett in his “Natural History of Ceylon” described the use of a “snake stone” used by snake charmers (Tennett 1999).

      John Davy in his record of his residence in Sri Lanka wrote: “during my residence in Ceylon, by the death of one of these performers, when his audience had provoked to attempt some unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra, it bit him on the wrist, and he expired the same evening” (Davy 2005).

      J.Bennett provided an excellent description of an early 19^th century performance by an iterant snake charming due from India, and a cautionary tale on buying cobras for those few, daring souls (such as himself) who wished to keep them as a pets (Bennett 2009).

      The Ahikuntikayas were never accustomed to have permanent shelters. They built their huts usually on elevated grounds but necessarily near a river bank or a tank bund. The roof was always constructed either in the shape if a triangle or in a curvature with palm leaves or grass. Since each family needed a hut, the number of huts in a “colony” was always determined by the number of families moving in a given caravan. Such a collection of Ahikuntikaya shelters was called a “Kuppayama” which in its traditional Sinhala meaning is “a colony of social outcasts”.

      These shelters always betrayed their semi-permanent character and had limited utensils. These included a knife (maskan), grinder (rolu), basin (traale), coconut scraper (iraman), pots (kadawa), saucepans (kunda) which were essential in every shelter. Dogs and donkeys also accompanied them in every journey. Nowadays this is rare due to the constraints of moving such animals through modern settlements even in rural settings (Widyalankara 2015).

      The Ahikuntikas observe a custom of holding an annual conclave which is called “Varigasabha” (“meeting of clans”). Future plans of the community, nuptial bonds between clans, common problems encountered in maintaining their customs and livelihoods were the main items of concern.

      There are also different sub-communities (kula): babaloru (barbers), kumbaloru