Birds on the Rampage.--Familiar Nuisances.--Silver-Spoon
Thieves.--Doctrine of Metempsychosis.--Various Nationalities
forming the Population.--Common Languages.--Tamils are the
Wage-Earners.--The Singhalese Proper are
Agriculturists.--Queer Belief in Demons.--Propitiation!--The
Veddahs.--Attacking Wild Elephants.--Serpent
Worship.--Polyandry.--Native Singhalese Women.--Dress of
Both Sexes.--Streets of Colombo on a Gala Day.--An English
Four-in-Hand.--Mount Lavonia.
After becoming weary of the snake exhibition, it was suddenly
remembered that we had been cautioned to close the windows upon
leaving the sleeping apartment, so we hastened thither to see if all
was as it should be. Upon entering the room, we were greeted by the
presence of a score of dark-feathered creatures,--crows or rooks,
whichever you please to call them,--handsome, familiar, notorious
birds, whose black, shining plumage was daintily shot with blue,
disposed here and there in cool, unblushing possession of the
premises. Each exposed article of dress had been duly overhauled and
pecked at, then dropped in utter confusion upon the bed or floor. A
few soft biscuit, which had been left in a plate upon a table, had
utterly disappeared, while a sugar bowl which had accompanied the
morning cup of coffee was overturned and the contents devoured. One
pillow-case had been relieved by some means of its contents, and hung
from the top of the bedpost like a flag of truce, as though the enemy
wished to stay all hostile proceedings. In short, the room had been
raided by the rooks. They understood the first movement made to drive
them away, and sailed gracefully from the room through the window,
quite calm and unruffled.
There is any number of these dark-plumed free-booters all about the
streets and dwellings, eagerly on the lookout for just such a chance
to impose upon thoughtless strangers. They fly in and out of open
doors, lighting confidently upon the back of one's chair at mealtime,
trying curiously the texture of his coat with their sharp bills. No
one molests them or makes them afraid. They are far tamer than our
domestic fowls, as they are never killed and eaten like hens and
chickens. A Singhalese's religion, as has been said, will not permit
him to take animal life. All animals are sacred to a Buddhist; even
snakes and vermin have nothing to fear from him. As to these Ceylon
crows, one regards them with a full sense of their audacity, but the
birds themselves do not seem to be at all annoyed by such scrutiny.
Cocking their heads on one side, parrot-like, they coolly proceed to
look you out of countenance. Their mischievous and vicious activity is
temporarily suspended during your presence, but no sooner is one's
back turned upon them than their reckless antics and thieving
propensities are resumed with increased vigor.
One of their favorite tricks is to purloin silver spoons, being
attracted perhaps by their brightness, and as they are not able to
consume them, though like the ostrich they can eat almost anything,
they seek some unfrequented piece of ground and dig a hole with their
sharp claws, wherein they bury the stolen property from sight. The
employees of the Grand Oriental Hotel are obliged to keep a sharp
lookout for their table-ware, as anything small and bright at once
challenges the curiosity of the crows, and is liable to be stolen by
them. They are most adroit thieves, and watch with cunning precaution
for a chance to perpetrate any sort of mischief.
There is another reason besides that of a religious prompting which
leads to the protection and toleration of the crows in this island.
They are the recognized scavengers of the city of Colombo, just as
vultures are permitted in Vera Cruz, where they are protected by law,
for a similar purpose. Not a scrap of carrion escapes the voracious
appetites of either species of these birds. All such matter cast into
the street instantly disappears, while, if left exposed to decay in
the hot sun, it might prove pestilential. It is remembered that the
question seriously suggested itself at Vera Cruz, which was most to be
deplored, the presence of the uncleanly, disgusting vultures, or that
of Yellow Jack, as the prevailing epidemic is called in southern
Mexico.
"Why don't they kill these nuisances?" asked one of our fellow
travelers of another, while he impatiently drove away a crow from the
back of his chair in the hotel at Colombo.
"They have too much respect for their dead relatives," was the reply
of a companion.
"Dead relatives?" queried the first speaker. "What has that to do with
it?"
"Very much. These Singhalese are believers in the doctrine of
metempsychosis."
"Who?"
"Metempsychosis; that is, in the transmigration of the soul from human
bodies into animals."
"Don't see where that idea comes in," said the obtuse querist.
"Why, if a fellow killed one of these impertinent rooks, don't you
know, he might be murdering his dead grandmother!"
These Buddhists of Ceylon believe that departed spirits who have
behaved badly in human shape reappear in the form of domestic animals
or birds, and those who have done well are turned into wild animals.
The most dreadful fate is held to be the reappearance in life in the
body of a woman, a sad and significant reflection upon the treatment
to which they are universally subjected.
The Singhalese and Tamils are the most numerous among the population
of Colombo. Mohammedans, Malays, and Parsees, as intimated, are also
here in considerable numbers, mingled with representatives of other
nationalities. The Mohammedans are best known as Moormen. Though in
the far past of the island's history Ceylon was so long and so
intimately connected with the Celestial Empire, the author did not
even chance to see a Chinaman on the island, though at the north and
elsewhere in the several provinces these Mongolians are to be found.
In their migrating westward, the race cease to establish a foothold in
numbers beyond Penang. This latter island, as well as that of
Singapore, is dominated by them, the small trade of both places being
wholly in their hands. But beyond the Malacca Straits, they have not
made their way westward to any considerable extent.
The Singhalese language, which is soft and flowing, is founded on the
Sanskrit, an evidence in itself of the antiquity of the people. Tamil
is the language of southern India, and is used here by the Moormen as
well as by the Tamils proper. There is a Portuguese patois still
spoken by European descendants and half-breeds, while the Dutch
language is quite unknown, though that people remained here nearly a
century and a half after the Portuguese were driven out of the island.
The English tongue is becoming more and more common in all populous
centres like Colombo, Trincomalee, Kandy, and Point de Galle. The
Singhalese are nearly always Buddhists, while the Tamils, as a people,
are Hindus. The latter, as we have said, are the wage-earners of the
country, working alongshore at the wharves, loading and unloading
ships, belonging to the coal barges, and the like. The Singhalese
proper take higher rank; the sort of occupation accepted by the Tamils
would not on any account be adopted by a Singhalese. Caste is
imperious and imperative, though it is strictly discountenanced by the
religion of the people, and especially so by the English government,
which does not fail to exercise its influence against it.
The Tamils, being light of body and used to laborious occupations,
make the best jinrikisha men,--the small, man-propelled
chaise,--trotting off in their almost naked condition with the speed
of a horse, while drawing the vehicle and its occupants behind them.
They rival in fleetness the little gigs or hackeries, as they are
called, propelled by small and active brahmin bulls, gayly decked with
tinkling bells. Some of the zebus, with their humped necks, deep
dewlaps, silky hides, and deer-like limbs, are really handsome
creatures. These gigs with their peculiar animals, and the jinrikishas
drawn by Tamils, are striking and novel features to a stranger when he
first lands at Colombo, unless he comes from the East. The idea of the
jinrikisha is borrowed from Japan, but that of the small bullock cart
comes from India, where they are common all over the country. It is
surprising to see with what ease and speed these little creatures will
trot along the smooth roads, guided by reins attached to a ring which
passes through a hole in the cartilage of their nostrils. There is a
larger breed of cattle which are imported from India for farming
purposes, but most of those in common use are the small ones we have
described. Both are of the zebu breed. A certain number of the larger
ones, like elephants, are kept in the temples of India and worshiped
as sacred animals. It will doubtless strike the reader that there is a
certain degree of inconsistency in using these cattle as beasts of
burden, twisting their tails to elicit a high degree of speed, and in
kneeling solemnly before the same creatures as sacred when they are
kept within the walls of the temples.
The Singhalese proper make very good mechanics, and can imitate a
delicate model when submitted to them, equaling the Chinese, whose
fidelity in this respect has passed into a proverb. They are specially
expert in the manufacture of wooden boxes from choice material, inlaid
with ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, and the like; but above
all else they pride themselves as a people upon being agriculturists,
a planter's occupation being considered as fitting for the highest
caste to engage in. It is in the cultivation of broad rice-fields that
the Singhalese is seen at his best. This occupation he fully
understands. A predilection for it seems to have been born in him; his
forefathers have followed the business for centuries, and success in
this line of occupation means to him independence and plenty. All
classes of the natives of Ceylon are full of superstitions, and
support hundreds of demon-priests, who thrive upon the foolishness
and fears of the masses. Incantations of the most extravagant
character are the principal means used by the priests, who are also
called doctors, and who pretend to relieve sickness and pain by
barbarous means, such as hideous dances, beating of tom-toms, blowing
of horns, wearing hideous masks, and other devices. All this nonsense
is popularly supposed to drive away the evil spirits who cause the
sickness.
The Singhalese believe that all ills in life are inflicted as
punishment, and that evil spirits are the agents of Providence to
apply the same. They think that they are under penalty not alone for
sins committed during their present lives, but also for their
wrongdoing in some previous state of existence. They may have been
"rogue" elephants, thieving crows, vicious buffaloes, or vile cobras,
all of which is quite in accordance with their creed as promulgated by
the Buddhist priests.
They seem to have no skill whatever in the treatment of the most
simple illness. The author has never, even among the most barbaric
tribes, quite isolated from contact with white men, known a people so
deficient in this respect. Some few of the Singhalese planters
regularly set aside a small portion of their rice-fields, and leave
them unharvested, for the use of the demons! It is intimated that the
priests manage to secretly reap these portions for their own benefit,
representing it to have been done by the evil spirits, whose good-will
has thus been secured in behalf of the credulous planter. The base and
groveling superstitions and credulity of the natives of Ceylon are
simply disgusting. There are said to be three thousand devil-priests
supported in the island, living with unblushing assurance upon the
ignorance of the masses. How closely akin is all this to the Roman
Catholic priests, who pretend "on liberal terms" to pray departed
souls out of purgatory.
Does it not seem extraordinary that the idea of worshiping or
propitiating some powerful evil spirit should prevail almost
universally among barbarous and half-civilized races? It is not the
force of example which inculcates such an idea, since the author has
met with it as a native custom among various tribes situated as far
apart as the poles. The Alaska Indians, the denizens of "Darkest
Africa," the Maoris of New Zealand, and the cannibal tribes of the
Fiji Islands, all yield more or less to this instinct. Nor were the
Indians of North America devoid of an equivalent custom when the
European settlers first came among them. It is only natural that all
people, civilized or otherwise, should be exercised by an instinct
leading up to the worship of a great Heavenly Father of mankind, but
the belief in the existence of an opposing and more important power,
which must first be propitiated, is certainly as singular as it is
universal among the barbarous races of both hemispheres. When visiting
the famous temples of Nikko, in Japan, the author saw a priest
sitting before a temple in the open air, beside a collection of
prepared pine chips with which he was feeding a small fire upon an
open stone slab, and accompanying the burning process by beating at
intervals upon a tom-tom. On inquiring as to the significance of this
singular ceremony, we were sagely told by the native guide that the
priest thus solicited the good-will of the god of fire, who was very
powerful and inimical to man, unless his favor was frequently sought
by such means.
"How terrible it would be," added the devout Japanese, "if he (the god
of fire) were to consume these sacred temples," pointing as he spoke
to the unique group of buildings so elaborately ornamented, which
contain such priceless hoards of rich bronzes, carved images, and
delicate lacquered ware.
The sacred temples of Nikko are in their way quite unequaled in the
world, having, with other remarkable attractions, the consecrating
influence of great antiquity. The oldest Japanese bronzes are valued
at their weight in gold; indeed, that precious metal forms a large
percentage of the material of which they are composed. Modern bronze,
as compared with that of ten centuries ago, in Japan, is a very
different and inexpensive compound.
Any person who has been at sea in a severe storm when there were
Chinamen on board the ship has seen the superstitious Mongolians throw
bits of "joss-paper" overboard, bearing certain inscriptions and
mysterious characters, intended to pacify the water-devil, as they
call the spirit of the storm.
A peculiar race of wild people, called Veddahs, inhabit the forest
fastness of Bintenne, a district situated southeast from Kandy forty
or fifty miles, and a hundred and twenty or thereabouts from Colombo,
in a northeast direction. The territory to which these people confine
themselves is known as Vedda-ratta, or country of the Veddahs, whither
their ancestors retired more than two thousand years ago, when their
Singhalese conquerors came to Ceylon from the north. Bintenne, which
gives its name to the district, transcends Anuradhapura in antiquity.
Long before the Wijayan invasion, it was one of the chief aboriginal
cities, and for centuries was the most important place in Ceylon.
During the Dutch dominion Bintenne was made a place of note, and is
spoken of by them as "the finest city in the island." It is now
remote, a circumscribed and secluded district; very few Europeans have
ever penetrated any great distance within its borders. Indeed, the
density of its jungles forbids access to those who know not its
solitary footpaths. The singular people of whom we write are now
inconsiderable in number, speaking a language understood only by
themselves, and are doubtless descendants of the aborigines of the
island, a race who lived here previous to any dates of which we have
record. The country which they inhabit is about ninety miles long by
half that distance in width, in the southeastern part of the island,
and extends towards the sea from the base of the mountain region of
the central province, commencing near the base of the Badulla hills.
There is abundant evidence connecting these barbarians with the
Yakkos, who were the oldest known race in Ceylon. They live mostly
upon the game which they kill with bows and arrows. They build no
regular habitations, live in caves, grass huts, and the open air, and
avoid intercourse with all other tribes, especially the English. They
are an undersized people, the men being only five feet in height on an
average, and the women still less. Their neglect of any sort of
ablution is a marked feature of their habits, while their intellectual
capacity is placed, by people who have taken considerable trouble to
inform themselves upon the subject, at as low a gauge as possible in
human beings. In the matter of cleanliness, the wild animals about
them are more civilized than they, their long, tangled, unkempt hair
adding to their weird, uncanny appearance. What little intercourse
they have with other people is almost entirely by signs, and they seem
to be either disinclined or unable to talk intelligently. They are
said to be wonderful marksmen with bow and arrow. As they practice
constantly from boyhood, this is but natural. With the exception of
the knife, the bow and arrow is their only weapon of offense or
defense. It is thought that there are not over a couple of thousand
Veddahs now in existence, an aggregate which is annually diminished.
They are still accustomed to the most primitive ways, producing fire,
when it is needed, by rapidly turning a pointed stick in a hole made
in perfectly dry wood, their bowstrings acting as a propeller in
twirling the stick. This is a sure but laborious way to obtain fire.
It is a fact which has been commented upon considerably, and which is
perhaps worthy of mention in this connection, that, in many important
particulars, these Veddahs are very like the wild native tribes of
Australia. This is not only evinced in certain physical resemblances,
but also in their hereditary habits, their unwritten tongue, and some
other particulars. Much is made of these facts by certain writers on
physical geography, who have a theory that in the far past Australia
was joined or was adjacent to Ceylon, notwithstanding the wide reach
of ocean which now intervenes.
These wild people of the district of Bintenne are divided into two
communities,--the Rock or Jungle Veddahs, and the Village Veddahs, the
latter living nearest to the settlements on the east coast, dwelling
in cabins built in the rudest manner, and cultivating some simple
grains and vegetables, while the former remain in the depth of the
forest, roaming hither and thither, and avoiding all contact with
civilization. They are said to have preserved this isolation and
manner of living from the earliest period of the island's history.
They supplement their other food with various edible roots, wild
fruits, and honey, adding lizards, roasted monkeys, and venison. They
are not Buddhists, and have no hesitation as to the taking of animal
life, or in eating the meat of bird or beast. It is said that they eat
freely of carrion, or decayed animal substances, with perfect
impunity,--like the Arctic races, who live largely upon putrid whale
blubber in the summer season; in winter, it freezes so solid as to
keep it from putrefaction. The wild elephant would seem to be too
powerful an animal for these poorly armed savages to attack, but it is
not so,--they do hunt him, and successfully. Their mode is to lie in
hiding near what is known as an elephant path until one makes his
appearance, and as he passes, at a favorable moment, when he lifts his
foot nearest to the hunter, a short steel-headed arrow is shot into
the soft sole. When the animal stamps his foot with pain, he only
drives the shaft still deeper into his limb. The poor beast soon lies
down, in his agony, and in this climate a wound festers with great
rapidity. The huge creature cannot bear his wounded foot to the
ground, and sinks upon the earth, after great suffering, in a helpless
condition. The Veddah huntsman then approaches, and with a well-aimed
spear, thrust where the spinal marrow and the brain unite, the
creature's misery is ended, and he quickly breathes his last.
It is said by those who are well informed about these wild people,
that their best huntsmen are less cruel and equally successful. The
plan they adopt is to lie in wait near a spot frequented by the
elephants, probably some watercourse where they come to drink. At a
favorable moment, the huntsman, being only a few yards off, sends a
steel-headed shaft into the brain of the huge beast by aiming just
upward behind the ear, whereupon the elephant falls lifeless upon the
ground.
At certain seasons, these people bring honey and dried venison to the
frontier, with an occasional elephant's tusk, and exchange them for
cloth, hatchets, arrowheads, and a few simple articles which they have
learned to use. They have no circulating medium like money; they could
make no use of such. They seem to have no idea of God or Heaven, and
erect neither temples nor idols, though a sort of propitiatory devil
worship is said to prevail among them, the real purport of which is
quite inexplicable. Like other tribes of whom we have spoken, they
appear to have an idea that some invisible evil power is antagonistic
to them and their well-being, and that their safety lies in offering
homage in some form to that power. Of any supreme influence for good,
they have no conception. They have heard of the white man's God, but
believe their Devil is far more powerful. Like the humbler class of
Italians, they have a mortal dread of something equivalent to the
"evil eye." Such was an explanation given to us by an intelligent
Buddhist at Kandy, who had once been a priest.
The worship of the serpent as an emblem of divinity has been
attributed to the earliest inhabitants of this island, but the Veddahs
have no such faith. One of the most ancient among the multiplicity of
names which Ceylon has borne is Nagadipa, or "snake island," in
reference, it is thought by some, to this special worship of the
aborigines. To the author, however, it seems much more reasonable that
the name may have arisen from the great number of these reptiles which
were, and which still are, found upon its soil. There are still some
tribes in Ceylon who reverence the serpent as an emblem, and who
actually devote temples to them, as the Hindus have done to bulls and
monkeys for ages.
The Veddahs are considered to be utter barbarians, but we very much
doubt if many of their customs are any more barbaric than some which
prevail among the Singhalese. Take, for instance, the revolting
practice of polyandry, which is still countenanced in Ceylon. This
custom, so strange and unnatural, has existed here for thousands of
years, and longer still in India proper, as well as in Thibet and
Cashmere. History tells us that this odious custom was common in
Britain at the period of Caesar's invasion. It is said to be dying out
in this island since the advent of the English. Let us at least hope
so, though the author was informed upon the spot that it was not
unknown among the natives of the Kandian district at the present time.
Conventionality has all the force of enacted law. Vice and virtue, it
would seem, are relative terms, both being amenable to latitude and
longitude. There is a custom among the Alaska Indians, deemed by them
to be simply a rite of hospitality, which would consign a person to
state prison if perpetrated in New England. Is there not also a
legalized system of social debasement in Japan, so utterly vile in our
estimation as to be absolutely unmentionable in detail?
We have not yet in reality departed from Colombo, concerning which a
few more words should be added before taking the reader inland to
"imperial" Kandy in the central province among the hills.
Colombo is an especially well-regulated and well-governed town. No
reasonable fault can be found with its police arrangements, for
notwithstanding the singular variety of nationalities gathered
together within its limits, one witnesses no lawlessness; there are no
visible improprieties of conduct, but quiet reigns supreme, both in
the Singhalese and in the English quarter of the capital. The most
lawless element here is the crows, and one must admit that these
audacious creatures are irrepressible.
The native women of the middle class whom one sees in the city are
singular objects as regards costume, and appear as if engaged in a
constant masquerade, being decorated in the most striking manner.
They wear silver and brass rings thrust through the tops and bottoms
of their ears, through their nostrils and lips, their toes sometimes
being also covered with small gold coins attached to rings. Their
ankles, fingers, and wrists are decked with bangles and rings, while
their diaphanous dress is of rainbow colors. The author saw women, who
were acting as nurses to the children of European residents, wearing
all these gewgaws as described, the gross weight of which must have
been considerable. Some of these women would be good-looking, not to
say handsome, were they less disfigured by the cheap jewelry which
they pile upon themselves, without regard to good taste or reason. It
is an ingrained barbaric fondness for trinkets, which it would seem
that they never quite outgrow, as women old and decrepit indulge it to
the utmost limit of their means, thus thoughtlessly adding by contrast
to their worn and wasted appearance. As to their being employed as
nurses in the English officers' families, there is a certain degree of
fitness in that, for they are very faithful in this relation; they are
naturally loyal to their trust, and as a rule have excellent
dispositions, so that the children become very fond of them.
The men wear their jet-black hair long, done up with a circular shell
comb in front, which keeps at back from the forehead and temples, and
often have a high shell comb at the back of the head to keep the coil
together, all of which gives them a most feminine appearance. The
women do not wear combs at all, but braid their profuse ink-black
locks, and twist them into a snood behind the head, a certain quantity
being formed into puffs like bow-knots, and the whole kept together
with long metallic pins, having ornamental heads of brass or silver.
Like the Japanese women, their hair is so arranged as to be very
showy, and they take great pride in its appearance.
This passion for covering their persons with gewgaws is as old with
these people as the ancient city of Anuradhapura, where the same
custom prevailed among the Singhalese two thousand years ago. The
abundance and beauty of the precious stones found in the soil of the
island naturally led to their being mounted and worn by the wealthiest
people. This fashion was imitated, as usual, by the humbler classes to
the very limit of their means. If the latter could not afford the
genuine article, they were obliged, as they are to-day, to be
satisfied with cheap imitations.
The rank and file of the common people, clad in various colors, form a
brilliant panorama in the streets of Colombo on a gala day, mingled
with whom are itinerant exhibitors of legerdemain, snake charmers,
hustling dealers in gewgaws, peddlers of bonbons, native women bearing
baskets of fruit on their heads, and naked Tamil laborers,--living
bronzes,--on their way to the wharves. All phases of life are
represented. An occasional blind and decrepit native is seen, guided
by a small lad, who solicits pennies with which to purchase a little
rice and curry, as the boy says in broken English. The most persistent
beggars of all whom one meets in the thoroughfares are the Buddhist
priests, who extend a dirty brass dish for alms, while mumbling some
unintelligible gibberish. An occasional stranger and some humble
natives respond to his appeals by contributing a few pennies, but the
aggregate of his collection must be very small.
There dashes by us, while we watch the scene, a gay party of English
residents in a four-horse drag, bound to Mount Lavonia. This is a
pleasant resort five or six miles from Colombo, on the coast line,
where there is a very good public house, built originally for a
private residence by a former governor of the island. It stands upon a
promontory some fifty feet in height, which juts out into the sea,
washed on either side by the waves of the Indian Ocean. This hotel is
a conspicuous white building, and forms a familiar landmark for
inward-bound vessels. It is much cooler at Lavonia than at Colombo, as
the location is more open to the sea breezes, besides being upon an
elevation.
Let us also invite the reader to embark upon an excursion; but in
place of hugging the sea coast by means of a coach and four, we will
turn our faces inland by railway toward the olden capital of Kandy, in
the heart of the island.