Commemorating May as a month of peace and trust Insight into indigenous Veddha community of Sri Lanka as peace bearers

A member of the Henanigala Aadi Vasi community gestures while singing an indigenous lullaby

This article marks our second feature this year promoting May as a month commemorating peace and trust; where one uniform manner in memorialising 18 May emerges, celebrating national unity, life and the right to mourn battlefield death of all beings

Dambana Yakadaya

The word peace to the Veddhas is synonymous with earth protection

By Surya Vishwa 

Gune Bandila Aththo and his brother Loku Bandila Aththo are members of the Rathugala-based Veddha community. They are in their early sixties but maintain a youthful visage. They can no longer hunt as their ancestors did in the adjoining wilderness and their children have moved away from the simple lifestyle of the forest. Cast into the monetary theatrics of modernity elders of the Veddha clans across the country have one commonality; being forced, coerced, lured or brainwashed into adopting the commercialisation that has ruined lives of city dwellers. 

The Rathugala Aadi Vasi elders and youth like many of their brethren in other territories eke out a living being absorbed into the tourism industry. They perform the ancient rituals and dances as required by those that employ them. This provides these indigenous communities a much needed income and also links them to the flickering memory of how these rituals were once a sacred everyday reality. A reality that enabled them to be an authentic integral part of the eco system in its non-adulterated wholeness. 

“They say we are not educated. That we are not civilised. Even our children think this. This is what they are taught in school. As for ourselves our school was the forest and this was so for our parents and grandparents. It is because of what we learnt from the forest that we cannot comprehend the need for killing in order to share the mother that is the earth,” states the Rathugala Veddha community member Guna Bandila. 

Vakarai was once an area in the East that was seriously impacted by the civil war. The Rathugala Veddhas although not very close in proximity to the area nevertheless did have a habit of travelling to the fringes of the forestry in the locale for activities such as extracting bees honey. 

What did they think of violent conflict breaking out in this country generally considered a paradise? Were they ever caught in the crossfire between the militants or the military? What do they think of the past 16 years that meandered in the aftermath of the conflict? How could the ending of such a saga be commemorated best?

These questions when asked from the indigenous Veddha members from Dambana as well as the Henanigala and Rathugla, elicit the same innocent smiles accompanied by the hapless look of being asked very difficult questions. 

Karma of killing a fellow human

They cannot grasp the Karma of killing a fellow human to be able to cohabit the earth. To them the only taking of life that they have been involved in was for survival and concerning only the animals of the wild, following a strict set of hunting rules as taught to them by their forefathers. 

When we begin talking to them about the difficult stage the country underwent, the automatic response that is received is non-verbal – a look of guilelessness that one hardly sees in adults in our overcrowded cities. No, they have never faced any situation where they were entangled in the hostilities. The answer we receive is the same whether it is from the Rathugala, Dambana or the Henanigala clan of Aadi Vasis. 

“Although we were not affected we know many died and when human beings around us die we feel impacted as well. There is a sorrow that stings us. Therefore we think of the past 16 years as a relief from death and restoring the right to life. We the Veddhas were brought up to consider life as sacred and even when we hunted we did so with this understanding – we never killed for sport – or to inflict suffering. We only killed as needed to survive. Our primary diet is vegetation from the forest and not meat. When we were asked to take to poultry farming so we can rear chicken and kill them for meat we refused. We cannot feed and rear animals only to kill them. We have grown up venerating the earth and to drench this earth with the blood of fellow beings just to share the earth is a sacrilege for us,” says the Dambana based strongman of the Veddha community known as the Dambana Yakadaya. 

Whether it is Dambana, Henanigala or Rathugala, their empathy to their city attuned brethren is tied with the common suffering faced by the Veddha community. This is related to the sorrow of being unable to live the life their ancestors were used to, surrounded and inveigled in the sacredness of the forest. They are trapped in the circumstances that modern policies have created just as we in the rest of the country are trapped in the blindness of what development should be. As we have pointed out previously many of them have taken to alcoholism. Many of the indigenous community members are victims of fatal non communicable diseases such as cancer. In Henanigala, where chemical induced farming is carried out by many of the households almost every family has a patient. 

“Peace is a word that should not be used to describe the end of armed conflict alone. Peace is a word that should be synonymous with letting people live as per their customs, heritage and without sickness. How can there be peace when people are seriously sick? Are we the Veddha community at peace? We are not. We are not living as we should. We are like fish out of water. All people should be allowed to live according to how they are accustomed to. When this is not done, we believe it results in unhappiness. For us the word conflict is when it is linked to unhappiness. The first conflict begins when it is within the self,” says Dambana Yakadaya.

At a time when words such as peace, reconciliation, justice, unity and oneness spoken in the modern world often sound metallic, for the aborigines of Sri Lanka they are connected to the very foundation of human consciousness the same way the roots of each forest tree was once networked into their lived in awareness. 

To create peace we need to think of the forest

“When you ask us about peace, we cannot answer without thinking of the forest. The forest is our mind, our body and our soul. To be at peace or to create peace we need to think of the forest,” points out Uru Warige Loku Bandila Aththo of Henanigala, one of the elder Veddha leaders in that area.

It is imperative at this point to pause and reflect how the mindset of these people who lived so close to nature (until we separated this connection), is different to ours. If we accuse them of being like us and indulge in monetary acts such as charging fees for their performances in a manner of the modern world it is only ourselves we have to blame for making them caricatures of the city.

And when we talk of peace we often articulate it in terms of the city – we often omit the natural parallel the word peace has with the idyllic environs where plant-life thrives in accordance with the decrees of nature; usually called a jungle or woodland or forest. 

An example is that the discipline of peacebuilding and peace and conflict studies which are taught in many universities across the world rarely (or never) interweaves with the nature and the need to keep earth resources intact from man’s penchant towards destruction. 

Although we may have got it wrong in how we interpret and decode the word ‘peace,’ the Veddhas and aborigines of the world have not. An example is how the Kogi earth protectors from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in Columbia – the last surviving civilisation from the world of the Inca and Aztec link deforestation and the loss of indigenous plant life with negative neurological influencing that trigger humans disconnected from earth consciousness to behave as non-feeling robots.

“We believe the first unrest begins in the hearts of humans when they cut down forests. We understand that we are not permitted into the forests fearing we will harm it but this is not who we are. So when you talk of commemorating peace we can only recommend that it be done by making all humans closer to the soil, the trees; the entirety and complete diversity of the planet,” says Uru Warige Loku Bandila Aththo.

Commemorating national unity

As we converse further with these humans there are different ideas that come up that could be put to good use for innovating upon and conceptualising a framework that will help promote the month of May as a timeframe that commemorates national unity in a meaningful manner.

Therefore we list below the following recommendations where the protection of the earth, forests, water resource bases and indigenous medicinal plants are combined with promoting a holistic mindset that does not veer towards the diabolical. 

1. Commemorate May as a month of Peace and Trust alongside prioritising the protection and restoration of the soil and plant-life keeping in mind the latest global reports of the alarming reduction of oxygen levels in the atmosphere. 
2. The research findings from NASA’s NExSS project revealed early this year that our planet is fast becoming uninhabitable with plummeting Oxygen levels that could make human life extinct. 
3. Thereby we highlight that no nation, including this one, can talk of any policy – whether it is promoting human unity or economic wellbeing without integrating it to the conservation and preservation of bio diversity, clean air and attempting to link agrarian activity alongside forestry enhancing, changing the pattern where agriculture is looked at as a threat to forestry. 
4. The above mentioned can be carried out if concepts such as analog forestry is used as designed by world renowned Lankan ecologist Dr. Ranil Senanayake alongside practical urban home garden ‘forest’ models for vegetation abundance as cultivated by former FAO specialist Ranjit Seveviratne. 
5. Therefore we recommend creating a uniform way of commemorating the month of May across the country through the appreciation and cultivation of indigenous medicinal plants, trees and vegetation – without distorting the ecological balance of the earth with poisonous substances. 
6. It is recommended engaging with the senior most members of the indigenous groups in the country to learn ancient ways of caring for the earth while simultaneously bringing to a common platform the grievances of the indigenous communities in Sri Lanka so that relevant policy makers could take the necessary rectifying steps.
7. Initiate peace commemorating forest gardens in every school, aimed at creating thought patterns of sharing while identifying plants and herbs used by the Veddha aborigines, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities respectively, in both diet and traditional medicines. 
8. Introduce a concept where different schools from varied parts of the country are grouped together so that they can develop knowledge tours to diverse parts of the country they would not usually travel to, including the areas where the indigenous people live. 
9. The above mentioned point would encourage the intermixing between students of different ethnicities, through collaboration of schools polarised on religious and ethnic lines. This will help create a long term vision of creating a mindset of unity by discouraging insular attitudes. 
10. Identify deforested areas in the country and engaging children, youth and adults on a series of re-foresting efforts especially in the month of May; possibly with the assistance if the Tri-Forces, thereby including awareness of nature conservation with moulding national harmony. 
11. Create a series of events especially to be held every month of May connected to civic consciousness that pertain to maintaining the cleanliness of the country and responsible garbage disposal. This would include especially children, youth and teachers from different provinces uniting to carry out activities that will connect national responsibility with the idea of upholding and commemorating a peaceful and ethical society. 
12. Include the Aadi Vasi community in peace memorialisation every month of May where the voice of the aboriginal people of Sri Lanka is heard on how they see the qualitative value of peace and peace nurturing as linked to earth based values. 
13. Include the State military in the process of peace memorialisation in the month of May especially with attempts of tree planting and forest creation.
14. Promote the connection between military personnel and civilians across the country. 
15. Engage with provincial authorities in the North of Sri Lanka to set up a peace memorialisation forest that can be part of a peace tourism endeavour to showcase Sri Lanka in a positive light to the world.
16. Set up a national peace trail across Sri Lanka including the Aadi Vasi community linked areas that will engage the State military as well as Northern families where attempts are made to ferret out peace narratives; i.e. the positive steps taken by different communities to prioritise national harmony.
17. To allow May to be seen as a month of healing where any community is free to speak freely their thoughts on how they want their future shaped and how they have coped with the past. 
18. The facilitation of forest linked healing could be entrusted to the indigenous Veddha communities who can be guided to create nature based healing and restoration for the benefit of their own communities and the country at large.
19. It could be considered that there be a formal peace commemoration event every month of May in the Dambana Aadvi Vaasi area where their priorities of nature centric ideals are heard.
20. To include the rectifying of the grievances of the Veddha community within the endeavour of correcting policy errors that prevent any segment of citizens from rising to their full potential in accordance with their culture, customs and heritage.

FT Key Take

• Throughout the three-decade-long civil war in Sri Lanka, that ended on 18 May 2009, the Aadi Vasi – aboriginal Veddha community of this island nation remained the only set of people to be completely cut off from the bloodshed and suspicion that embroiled the rest of the citizenry
• Although one segment of the Aadi Vasis had their aboriginal links to the East of Sri Lanka which was alongside the North, and engulfed in hostilities, they remained completely unaffiliated with the conflict and totally non-partisan
• Despite the manner in which they once engaged with the wilderness being not permitted anymore, with laws that sought to protect the wildlife from them – this community could authoritatively teach modern man how to respectfully connect with the forestry and protect it, aligning human consciousness with the sense of calm that nature induces. It is obvious that living surrounded by the majesty of nature prevented these humans from abasing their humaneness and sullying it with the terror of violence
• This article is based on a series of interviews with the Veddha community members in Dambana, Henanigala and Rathugala
• In this feature we focus on what we can learn about inner peace and respect for life from the aboriginal people of Sri Lanka who themselves have lost all their rights to live the forest immersed existence that was once their birthright
• We thereby look at insights of how the word peace is conceptualised by the Veddha Aadi Vasis in order to learn how it can enrich us; the people of modernity whose values are disconnected from the natural world
• In many writings throughout the past years we have in this page highlighted the issues and concerns of indigenous aboriginal groups across this country
• Forced to become traders, chemical fertiliser based cultivators and with attempts to make them poultry rearing butchers, the Aadi Vaasi Veddha community of Sri Lanka, once had with them such versatile knowledge concerning not only the wildlife but also the cosmos. However they are today at the mercy of the horrific ‘lifestyle’ illnesses of the cosmopolitan competitive nightmare that we euphemistically call ‘developed life’
• Yet, the inner core of these indigenous people remains peaceful; devoid of bitterness and unfailingly loyal to the edicts of not taking the life of a fellow human; the ethic they stuck with for over 30 years as the rest of the nation engulfed in the flames of civil war. 
• We therefore look closely at how the Aadi Vaasi indigenous people of Sri Lanka considered conflict and bloodshed an abomination, internalising a childlike persona as the natural state of being. 
• Indigenous Veddha communities in Sri Lanka are spread across territories such as Dambana, Henanigala, Dalukkane, Pallebedda, Rathugala and Vakarai