“WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OUR ISLAND’S ABORIGINES?â€ÂÂÂ
Posted on March 19th, 2011
Terrence B De Silva Riyadh, KSA
It is interesting to read on and off and hear of claims by our majority races the Sinhalese andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Tamils depending on which nationality the writer belongs that they came first to the island of Sri Lanka (Lankadipa, Serendib,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ etc.,whatever it was called in ancient times)-ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ justƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ like the proverbial question ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-What came first the chicken or the egg?ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚but whatever happened to our islandƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s aboriginesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the Veddahs, Nagas, and Yakkas?
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Have they just been absorbed into the general populous, of the majority streams of Sinhala and Tamils or perhaps the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-RodiyasƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ which I believe is only a gypsy clan or caste.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ While the veddahs still exist in someƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ very sparsely populated areas such as Mahiyangana – the Yakkas & Nagas have gone into oblivion or do we have to believe that they can disappear and re-appear at will.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It is sad that no known authority has recorded the history ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ these aborigines of the island.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It would be very interesting if there still exist some who couldƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ claim heritage roots to King Ravana, Queen Kuveni (of Yaksini royalty) or the Nagas.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Would some knowledgeable historian even at this day and age shed some light on our islandƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s aborigines.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Hopefully in the future the leaders of our land would not have to apologize publicly to our aborigines for any neglect as did the Australian P.M. toƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the Australian aborigines ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ last year..
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Terrence B De Silva
Riyadh, KSA
March 19th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Terrence,
Are you mad ?
Australian wheite man’s crime are as recent as yesterday. They are still doing it despite the apology. Tasmanian aboriginies became extint as recent as 1960s,1970s. Indians may have killed some original Srilankans and some obviously mixed with them. Whatever it is where do you find crime and the people who were subjected crime in Sri lanka ?
I think those missioneries, arabs, tamils etc should be apologising to present sinhalese for systematically trying to distroy Sri lankan way of life.
March 19th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Terrence,
Sinhalese and Tamils were there from the very start of history. I don’t think any one of them came before the other. But Tamils were naturally ingrained into the Sinhala community. This happened until recently. It changed when the Tamil population was artificially jacked up by illegal mass migration fron Tamil Nadu during colonial times. Their numbers became so larger artificially that the slow natural process of integration was too slow to catch up.
Sinhalese have their origins in Yakka, Naga, Raksha, Deva, etc. tribes and Bengali, North Indian, South Indian, Arabic, Malay, Chinese, Persian migrants as well. Sinhalese are the result of the melting pot effect – an ethnic and linguistic group unique to the island.
Australia, USA or Cananda type of a situation never happened in Sri Lanka. However, Sri Lanka hasn’t done enough to protect its modern day aboriginal minorities – Veddha, Rody, etc. groups. That is partly because all minority concerns have been hijacked by the Tamil minority. The multi million dollar Tamil minority industry has silenced the extremely poor and voiceless minorities.