Sri Lanka

People and Ethnic Groups

Yakkas & Nagas	Veddhas	Singalese
Tamil	Muslims & Moors	Malay - "Ja Minissu"
Burghers	Colombo Chetties	Ceylon Jews
Nittevo	Caste System in Sri Lanka	Rodi
Naming Conventions & Genealogy	Sri Lankan Personalities	Gypsies

According to the estimates, in 1995, there were 18,112,000 people living in Sri Lanka. The poulation density was 289 Per Sq. Km. Average annual growth rate was 1.37% and the average life expectancy 67.5 years (males 66 years, females 69 years. The population consists of multi ethnic groups: Sinhalese 74%; Tamil 18%; Moor (Muslims) 7%; others (Burghers, Eurasians, Malay, Veddha) 1%. Largest ethnic group divided into low-country Sinhalese (subjected in coastal areas to greater colonial acculturation) and Kandyan Sinhalese (more traditional upland dwellers, named after Kingdom of Kandy, which resisted European encroachments until 1815-18). Tamils divided into Sri Lankan Tamils (on island since early historic times) and Indian Tamils (brought in as plantation labor in the nineteenth century). The Sinhalese moved from north India and conquered the island, in the 6th century; Tamils arrived in the 11th century (Ceylon Tamils) settling in the northern and eastern sections of the island; and Arabs came in the 12th and 13th centuries (Ceylon Moors). The British imported more Tamils (Indian Tamils) from south India in the late 19th century to pick tea on their estates in the central highlands.

Yakkas,  Rakshasas & Nagas - ( Yakas , Yakos, Naagas )

• Yakkas - The Ancient Sri Lankans ( These Expert Horsemen Developed Hydrolic Civilization in the Country )
• The original inhabitants of Lanka: Yakas & Nagas  (Sri Lanka is said to have been inhabited by Yakkas (demon-worshippers) , Rakshasas and Nagas (snake-worshippers) before the arrival of Vijaya and his men who colonized the island. They were totemic tribes not supernatural beings. There is in north-east India today a state called Nagaland the home of the Naga people.)
• RAKSHASAS (During Ramayana period, rakshasa settlements were present in central India and Srilanka. Rakshasas had their own kingdom under the King Ravana with Lanka city as the capital, situated over Nuwara Eliya Hills (6.59 N 95.00 E ) of the present Srilanka. Nearly 80,000 rakshasas headed by Ravanas two brothers Khara and Dhushana, and Ravanas sister Surpanakha, settled in the forests (Dandakaranya) of central India. Rakshasas lived up to Mahabharata period, which was nearly 3000 years ago according to some historians.)

Veddhas - Sri Lankan Aborigines 

"I was born in the forest. My ancestors come from here. We are the forest beings, and I want to live and die here. And even if I were reborn only as a fly or an ant, I would still be happy so long as I knew I would come back to live here in the forest." - Uru Warige Tissahamy

• Who are Veddhas? (Sri Lanka's indigenous inhabitants, the Veddas -- or Wanniya-laeto ('forest-dwellers') as they call themselves -- preserve a direct line of descent from the island's original Neolithic community dating from at least 16,000 BC and probably far earlier according to current scientific opinion.)
• VEDDHAS: The Unspoiled Children of Nature
• Sri Lanka's Indigenous Wanniya-laeto: A Case History (Report to Sri Lankas National Committee for the International Year of the Worlds Indigenous People submitted by Cultural Survival of Sri Lanka)
• The ways of the Veddhas (The true vedda is extinct now. Yet Handuna still bore the picture of a true vedda. There were groves of jak and mango trees in their gardens together with a few coconut palms. Inside the hut there were two deer skins which served as quilts for Handuna and his wife Mah Thuthie.)
• Veddas - now only a household name ( According to anthropoligists, Dr. Seligman and his wife, Brenda who researched our aborigines in 1910 the Veddas descended from the Australoid, Negrod Indian races as described in their book, 'The Veddas (1910). Prior to the coming of Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers, Lanka as it was then called was inhabited by two fierce tribes, the Nagas (cobra worshippers), Yakkas (demon worshippers). The former confined to the coastal belt while the latter to interior of the jungles.)
• Vedda Burials ( The traditional burials of the rock veddas (Gal-Veddas) who lived in rock caves and hunted game were to leave them dead in the cave covered with leaves and branches and this occupy a fresh cave and return to the cave where the body was abandoned after a lapse of a year or two )
• The Kirikoraha Vedda Dance ( The Kiri Koraha ceremony was a bizarre dance, to appease the evil spirits of the night and day, that haunted their silent forest )
• The story of the seven Vedda brothers ( Seven vedda brothers, armed with bows and arrows and short axes slung across their sinewy shoulders had set out hunting along well known game trails of the jungle fastness )
• In Search of Characters of Dr. Spittel's 'Savage Sanctuary' ( Deep in the heart of a dense jungle infested with wild beasts in the Gal Oya Valley lived in complete seclusion the last son of the famous Tissahamy )
• The Veddha Sanctuary ( The true story of Kombi - daughter of jungle outlaw Tissahamy of 'Savage Sanctuary' )
• Idambowa the santuary of outlaw Tissahamy ( Idambowa means, 'productive land'. Dr. Spittel in his 'savage Sanctuary' describes Idambowa: ''They wandered Tissahamy and Menike, eating whatever they came by and resting under the trees ).
• Veddha Cave Drawings (Vedda cave drawings such as those found at Hamangala provide graphic evidence of the sublime spiritual and artistic vision achieved by the ancestors of today's Wanniyala-Aetto people.)
• Let Veddahs be Veddahs ('Stop trying to convert us into cultivators and let us be!' is the plea being issued by Veddah patriarch Tissahamy and tribal leaders including Kalu Appu and Sudu Bandiya.)
• Modern Veddhas ( Caught up in a world of commercialism, a once proud people, the Veddhas have virtually turned into mere exhibits selling their culture to both local and foreign tourists )
• Dr. R. L. Spittel: Surgeon of the wilderness ( Caught up in a world of commercialism, a once proud people, the Veddhas have virtually turned into mere exhibits selling their culture to both local and foreign tourists )
• The Wanniyala-Aetto ("forest beings") Home Page (support Sri Lanka's indigenous people in their struggle for survival.)
  
• Vedda language: Distinct speech or dialect of Sinhala? ( The language of the Veddas has aroused much debate in learned circles ever since the early twentieth century when detailed records of their speech were being published in works such as the Seligmanns' Veddas (1911) and Wilhelm Geiger's Der Sprache der Vaddas (1914).).
• Vedda language: A regional dialect of Sinhala ( The purpose of my article is to show that Vedda language is only a regional dialect of the Sinhala language and that there was no separate Vedda language.).
• Are veddas being romanticised? ( The public has a romanticized view of the Veddas as ancient people with an archaic life-style that is threatened by the cultural transformations of recent centuries.).

Sri lankan Gypsies:  Ahikuntika

• Ahikuntika: Sri Lankan gypsy clan (Gypsies or Ahikuntikas, are among the few isolated communities in the country like Veddahs and Rodiyas, say experts.)
• The gypsy who stayed (Gypsies were always around in Anuradhapura during Poson and Vesak when pilgrims flocked. Their women walked around tunelessly singing their signature song)
• Gypsies yet trying to be abreast with the world (" Sir, we also like to dress like you, and live in beautiful houses," A community of 25 gypsy families with a population of about 100 persons speaking Thelingu language has encamped on the banks of the Mahakanadarawa tank at Mihintale during the New Year season. Their homes cannot be called houses, huts or tents but something beyond that)

Sinhalese

• The People of the Lion - by K.N.O. Dharmadasa ( SPUR web site )
• Ancient Sinhala Civilization ( by Sydney Karunawardena )
• Origin of the Sinhala race ( by Rohan Jayetilleke )

Tamils

• Dravidian Settlements in Ceylon ( Excerpts - Karthigasu Indrapalan's PhD Thesis - University of London 1965 )
• Indian Origin Tamils of Sri Lanka ( 51 years into Independence )
• The Aryan and Dravidian myths (by V. Krishna Ananth)

Muslims (Moors)

There have been Muslims in Sri Lanka for well over a thousand years. Trading dhows plied the waters between the Middle East and the island known to Arab sailors - like the legendary Sinbad - as Serendib even in pre-Islamic times. The first Muslim merchants and sailors may have landed on its shores during the Prophrt Muhammad's life time. By the 10th century this predominantly Arab community had grown influential enough to control the trade of the south-western ports, whilst the Sinhalese kings generally employed Muslim ministers to direct the state's commercial affairs. In 1157 the king of the neighbouring Maldive Islands was converted to Islam, and in 1238 an embassy to Egypt sent by King Bhuvaneka Bahu I was headed by Sri Lankan Muslims.

• From where did the Moors come?  ( The origins of the Sri Lankan Moors is a matter that has aroused much controversy in academic circles. While it is generally believed that the Moors are descended from Arabian merchants who espoused local women, there are those historians who continue to argue that the Moors originally hailed from South India, mainly on the basis of their spoken language - Tamil. )
• Marakkala: the Sri Lankan Moors  ( The Arabs who came for trade did not settle down in Ceylon? )
• Moors or Muslims? who came first ?  ( The Mohammedans were Arabs and they came into Ceylon during the 8th century and landed at Jaffna and also settled down in Colombo, Beruwela, Galle and Trincomalee."Marakkalage" meaning the house which belongs to the man who came in a big wooden vessel.)

Thousands of Muslims in northern Sri Lanka were ordered to leave their properties by the LTTE in 1991. They were only allowed to take minimum of their posessions and limited amount of cash. Everything else got confiscated by the Tamil Tigers. This act is described by some as ethnically cleansing the North. Tamil Tigers later apologised to Muslims after it was heavily criticised by human rights activists. 'Tigers say Tamils are discriminated against by Sinhalese. But they did the same thing against Muslims,' said a senior peace envoy from Norway to the BBC Sinhala service.

• Forgotten Muslims of Sri Lanka ( Muslim refugees at the Norochcholai Alamkudah Mullaitivu B refugee camp are doubtful of a fresh start of a new life in Wanni.MS Abdeen, a refugee in Puttalam camp, said there future is uncertain as there is no civil administration in LTTE-controlled areas.)

Malay - "Ja Minissu"

• Sri Lankan Malay People - "Ja Minissu"( Sri Lanka's Malays are largely descended from political exiles including chiefs and nobles, soldiers, convicts and freed slaves from the Indonesian archipelago and the Malayan peninsula who were brought over to the island by the Dutch during the 17th and 18th centuries. )
• Malays in Sri Lanka: came with their women-folk( In 1813 more than 400 Madurese men and women and children embarked from Surabaya to join the Ceylon Malay Regiment, followed in 1818 by a shipment of about 228 Javanese Soldiers and their families, mostly recruited from North-Coast cities of Semarang and Gresik in Java-SLMA 7/118- Brownrigg to John Kendall, 8th August, 1818.)
• Sri Lankan Malay ( Malayu Bahasa, the Malay language traditionally spoken by the country's 60,000 - strong Malay community is under threat. It is today only in areas such as Kandy, Badulla, Gampaha, Kirinda, Hambantota and Slave Island where sizeable concentrations of Malays are found, that the younger generations speak Malay. In the other areas, it is largely restricted to the older folk who freely converse with one another in Malay.)
• Sri Lanka Malays in focus ( Malayu Bahasa, the Malay language traditionally spoken by the country's 60,000. Names of places such as Jawatte, Kartel (Slave Island) in Colombo, Jaela in the suburbs, Jayakachcheri (Chavakachcheri) in the North and names of streets such as Malay Street, Java Lane, Jalan Padang point to the fact that Malays have been living in the various parts of the country. )
• Malay community in Kurunegala (At present there are about 60,000 Malays in Sri Lanka. )

Burghers

When the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in 1505 they brought soldiers and other supporting staff. Those who settled down got married to local women and a new ethnic group was born. Soon, the Dutch and the British followed. The descendants of the union between the colonisers and the locals came to be known as Burghers.

The term Burgher was defined by Chief Justice of Ceylon, Sir Richard Ottley, in an authoritative pronouncement, when he gave evidence before the Commission which was appointed in connection with the  establishment of a Legislative Council in Ceylon in 1883. He stated that,
"The name Burgher belongs to the descendants of the Dutch, Portuguese and other Europeans born in Ceylon, and the  right to distinction must not be decided by the Country from which their father or paternal ancestor came. So whatever the number of generations through which  the family has passed in this Island, if the male ancestors were Dutch,  Portuguese and or other Europeans, whoever may have been the female parents, if the parents were married, the offspring would be Burgher. If the parents were not married, the country of the mother would  decide the question. If the right to be denominated Burgher be once lost by the legitimate father being a Cingalese or other Indian, it cannot be recovered."

• Who are the Dutch Burghers? ( The term "burgher" is of Dutch origin and is used in Sri Lanka to identify the ethnic group comprising the descendants of the Dutch who settled down in the island after the British took over the administration of its littoral )
• The rise and fall of Burgher population in Sri Lanka? ( In a census carried out in 1946 there were 42,000 Ceylonese who classified themselves as Burghers or Eurasians and they were 0.6% of a population of 8.1 million. More than half of the 1946 Burghers, their children and their grandchildren are no longer in Sri Lanka.)
• Forgotten Batticaloa Burghers ( Dutch Bar in Batticaloa is the area home to the Burghers. For over 500 years they have spent their time as masons, carpenters, barbers, and fishermen,living life to its fullest.)
• Dutch and French ancestors of Sri Lankan burgers ( Jean Francois Grenier was the French Commandant of the Star Fort in the south of Ceylon, in Matara. He had fought in the Seven Years War, reached the Corammandel Coast in the eighteenth century, took service under the Dutch V.O.C. and finally sailed away (on the outbreak of hostilities between the Dutch and the British) in the Bay of Bengal never to be seen or heard of again. Like Arthur Johnston, he too left one child behind, a son, Jean Francois Grenier, a Boekhouder in the Sea Customs at Jaffna.)

• The Colombo Chetties - who were they? (The advent of the Colombo Chetty community from Nagapatnam, India is well documented from 1663 during the reign of King Rajasingha 11 of Kandy, and the governorship of the Dutch Ryckloff Van Goens. With the arrival of the westerners in search of the riches of the east, the Chetties of India used the opportunity to further their trade. )
• "The Colombo Chetty community" (Book review: Chetty merchants were visiting Ceylon in their own sailing vessels carrying diamonds from Golconda, emeralds from Rajasthan, rubies from Burma and so on from various states of India from pre-Buddhist times. Their arrival here is documented in our history during the time of King Rajasinghe II and the governorship of the Dutch. Once they settled in Ceylon, these traders and money-lenders dropped out of the money-lending livelihood as it was considered repugnant and switched to the learned professions where they rose to great heights of fame. )

Ceylon Jews

• The Jews of old Ceylon (The Jews were a thriving community in this country till the beginning of World War II. We had a Justice of the Supreme Court in the colonial days who was a Jew, name of Schneider. Then came World War II and I lost sight and trace of the Jews. Perhaps they returned to Israel with the formation of that country in 1948.)

Sri Lankan Blacks

• Kaffirs : Descendants of enslaved Africans (The Kaffirs were brought to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, as a part of the naval force and for domestic work. Portuguese seafarers carried the first kaffirs to what was then Ceylon in the 1500s, most likely from Mozambique. Later, British colonists brought others to fight against Ceylonese armies in "kaffir regiments.")