Uruwarige Wanniyalaththo
I’m just a tribal man who was born in this jungle. I don’t think what I say will be accepted by the World.
We should teach our children how to plant a tree anywhere on this earth with their tender hands, and should teach them to love that plant like they love their own sibling.
I’m a sixty-five year old man now. Within my life span I’ve witnessed a lot. I can remember everything I experienced crystal clearly from my very young age.
The world which I lived in as a child and an adult has a vast gap.
Today, we don’t see the same Sun which shone in our past. It’s not the same Sky we see today. It’s not the same people we meet today. When I compare these two eras, I feel as if I’ve lived in two different worlds. Yet our ancestors lived and died in one World.
Within this short time span of sixty years, everything has been turned upside down, because our heads are filled with all sorts of rubbish.
In the past, as we entered the forest, we never forgot to hang a bough on another branch. Because that’s how we paid homage to our dead ancestors, and that’s how we took permissions to step into the forest.
Those days, if we wanted to cut down a bough, we used to honor the tree by greeting it, prior to cutting it down. Prior to ploughing the earth or sowing grains, we used to seek permissions from the Earth by greeting it.
Those days, we used to call the Sun as ‘Sun God’. We revered the Moon. All natural forces like rain and wind were venerated. We made offerings to the demons who possessed the rivers, mountains, streams and canals. Though we don’t see them with our naked eyes, they have an utmost power. Because as we venerated them, they in return, protected us. That protection was highly felt by us.
In the past, not only did we get our food and security easily, but we also were happy all the time.
That happiness was so spontaneous and almost effortless. Therefore, we had a very carefree life. But today how much we tire ourselves to find happiness! Those days, we never exploited the forest. Prior to hunting, we used to carve a sign of a bow in a row of trees which demarcated the area we chose to hunt, gather bee honey or unearth yams. We were greatly satisfied by engaging in such activities.
We never chose mountaintops, slopes, or areas near springs, water courses, footpaths or the earth with loosened sand to cultivate. We never cleared long stretches of patches in the woods to make numerous chenas. We were always careful to spare a patch of land which had a hooting distance between two chenas. Another year, we never used the same chena to cultivate our crops. We would always find a new place for it. We came back to the old one after a seven year lapse.
We had our own ways of hunting. We never hunted a disabled animal, a pregnant beast or a cub. We never hunted an animal while it was mating, drinking or grazing. Not even when it were playing. We never killed an animal that was more than our meal’s requirement. Our best target often was a grown up male.
We knew that nothing in the jungle was owned by us. They belonged to animals and nature. Whatever we earned from the jungle, the first share was offered to the demons. It’s believed that if what we gained from the jungle exceeded our specific requirements, we would become victims of the demons’ anger. So we wouldn’t get anything for our survival and they inflict sufferings and pain on us with the help of beasts in the jungle. Sometimes, they go to the extent of killing us. The knowledge of these things was passed down from generation to generation.
Not only our relatives, even the people who had scattered far and wide beyond the Sea knew about these things. They also had similar customs and beliefs like us. But later, they forgot and ignored them. People began to embrace greedily whatever they gained from the woods selfishly. Even the Sun, Rain and the Wind. They demarcated boundaries on their freewill and chopped down trees unscrupulously. They began to kill so many animals and called the act ‘development’. I often listen to this word with full disdain and disgust. Because it’s the enemy who destroyed not only our customs and virtues, but even us. Those who befriended with this evil destruction called development could find their own strategy to keep themselves away from its immediate harm, yet letting us to be affected by it mercilessly.
A great tribe that was born independently and died independently, has now become a mendicancy squad ultimately. At times, we have to accept slavery. That’s what we got from this so called ‘development’. Before this happened, we had rain in time, sunshine and wind in time. We could make predictions by observing the movements of the Moon , the Stars and the Trees so that we could very well make adjustments.
But today the opposite has happened. When we yearn for the Sun, it’s the Rain we get. When we yearn for Rain, it’s the Sun we get. We can’t predict anything like we did in the bygone time.
Those days, we used to love beasts. We used to cuddle them; we used to protect them. But now, man sees them as his enemies. People have always tried to keep themselves away from beasts. Now they have wrapped their entire body in clothes and hide in cool compartments. Instead of real beasts, their images have been pasted on the walls. After chopping down the trees, now they have kept synthetic trees indoors. They sprinkle poison on the earth calling it ‘manure’ and kill thousands of tiny creatures to yield one paddy grain.
I never imagined of a this kind of world. Those days, we protected our crops performing the ritual called ‘kirikoraha’. But today, we are made to beg for our meal from the very same people who ruined us. So how can we keep faith in them, when they send their own parents off to elders’ homes?
I’m just a Veddha born in the jungle. I never think that the world will accept what I say. But I should tell what I know, feel and think. Everything has been destroyed now—trees and beasts. Next will be man.
Now we experience peculiar winds. Mountains come down; the Sea rushes into the Island. Rivers, streams, canals overflow. Unknown ailments spread. There’s nothing here to be astonished t. All these things are mere ill effects of what people have done to the world.
Now it’s pointless to reprimand each other. At least we should tell this truth to our children. We should tell them that we are not real adults but first-class under-heads and we should tell them that they mustn’t repeat the blunder made by us. We should tell them to live a simple life. We should teach them how to spare the World for the future generation.
Let’s ask them to grow a sapling or a seed, anywhere on this earth and shower them with the love they give to their sibling or a friend. Let’s teach them how to love the Sun, the Moon, trees, flowers, rivers, canals, forest pools etc. Let’s teach them how to respect coolness, warmth and winds.
If we do so, even with much difficulty, our children will build up this world.
Though we will not be fortunate enough to see the World they build up, we can at least be happy today, thinking our children will be able to enjoy the happiness we enjoyed as children.
(Translated from Sinhala by Sunethra Aluthdunne. Source: Bandarawela Eco-Solutions.)
[Uruwarige Wanniyalaththo is a Sri Lankan Tribal Chief, and the text above is a speech by him.]
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