t Veddahs.
This man belongs to the first, who are the most barbarous of all. They
are omnivorous, eating carrion or anything that comes in their way--
roots, or fish, or wild honey, or any animals they can catch; but their
favourite food is monkeys and lizards. They live either in caves and
nooks in rocks, or on platforms among the boughs of trees. They hunt
the deer with bows and arrows, and dry the flesh, which they sometimes
barter for articles for which they have a fancy, such as cocoa-nuts,
arrow-heads, hatchets, cooking bowls, and coloured cloths. Each family
has a head man, who manages domestic affairs, but exercises very little
sway over them; their language is of the most limited description; they
have no religious rites, no knowledge of a superior being or idea of a
future state, and they do not even bury their dead, but cover them up
with leaves in the recesses of the forest. They have no names for
years, days, or hours; they can scarcely count beyond five on their
fingers, and they have no music, games, or amusements of any sort. The
Village Veddahs are a degree superior to them, as they live in huts, and
roughly cultivate the ground. The Coast Veddahs are somewhat less
savage than the first, and employ themselves in fishing and in cutting
timber. They have much gentleness of disposition, and though, as might
be expected, their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are
seldom committed. Our government have made most laudable attempts to
reclaim them, and in many instances, seconded by the devoted efforts of
the missionaries, have met with great success. When I said they have no
religious ceremony, I ought to have mentioned that when they are sick,
they fancy that they are affected by an evil spirit, and so they send
for a devil-dancer to drive it away. Something eatable is made as an
offering to the evil spirit, and placed on a tripod of sticks. Before
this the devil-dancer, who has his head and girdle decorated with green
leaves, begins to shuffle his feet by degrees, working himself into the
greatest fury, screaming and moaning, during which time he pretends to
receive instructions how to cure the malady. The Wesleyan missionaries
especially have laboured indefatigably among these wretched beings, and
notwithstanding the low state of barbarism into which they had sunk,
have succeeded in converting many hundreds to a knowledge of the
glorious truths of Christianity, and in bringing them wi