By Darshanie Ratnawalli –

Darshanie Ratnawalli

I will call him Jayaseelan because I can’t recall his name (Preposterous but bear with me). Jayaseelan is a Tamil speaking Vadda who is an ex-LTTE fighter. Sometime after 2009, Sunday Divaina had done a story on Jayaseelan. It had captured a retrospective inner conflict going on within the man. Jayaseelan confessed to asking himself the question, “I am a Vadda. Why did I fight for a separate Tamil state?” However, that was not what made the story stick in my mind. Jayaseelan had a grandfather who, while recounting the history of their community in the area, had let drop, almost casually, that they were Bandara Vannia’s[i] people.

Sharing the Wanni like they did the Vaddas and Vanniyas intermingled in interesting ways. They married each other, transformed into each other, and became “ruler” and the “ruled over” to each other in unidirectional ways with the Vanniyas ruling over bands of Vaddas. They even came to resemble each other in ways that caused certain 19^th century British administrators to suspect a relationship[ii] (S. Fowler, Diary of 3^rd May 1887).

In Sinhala consciousness of living memory the term “wanniya” (closed vowel) is a geographic term inalienably bound-up with “wanaya” and “wanantharaya” (meaning forest). “Wanni wanantharaya”, “wanni mukalana”, “hadda wanniya”, “heethala wanniya” are colloquial Sinhalese usages carrying strong subliminal associations of the Vadda. The Vaddas are of course carriers of the name “wanniyalettho”, the present Vadi chieftain being “Uruwarige Wanniyalettho”.

For Sri Lanka, the period between the 13^th and 17^th centuries was a time of resurgence and recovery. In-migrations were orchestrated from Bengal and diverse parts of South India. There were irrigation works to restore and de populated regions to reclaim. “The involvement of the Sinhala-dominated states in this process of in-migration is demonstrated in several sources.”- (Roberts: 2004, p72). South India, the source of most of these in-migrations was a land which had a well established Vanniya tradition. The earliest references to the Vanniya in South India predate Lankan references and go back to the 11^th century inscriptions of the Colas. The earliest South Indian mention is the word “vanniya parru” occurring in the “inscription No. 556 of 1919, which appears to belong to the time of Rajaraja I (985-1014)”.-(Indrapala, 1970[iii]). “Vanniya-parru” means vanniya holding (ibid) and seems to find a corresponding echo in the Sinhalese term “vanni peruven” found in “Vanni Bandara Vitti Potak: Rate Attange Niti kandaya”. This manuscript, (Or 6606-182) in the Hugh Nevill Collection contains the Sinhalese folk historical tradition about the arrival of first immigrant group in the wanni region of Lanka and says that these seven “malavara” chieftains came from Kumara-valiyen (princely clan) ); Bndara-valiyen (from the families of dignitaries); and from Vanni-Peruven (Vanni class of Vanni land).-(D.G.B 1996[iv]).

The Malavar, by the way, were “chiefs of certain hill-tribes in the Karnata and Tamil areas of South India…Many Malavarayars find mention in the Pandya records of the thirteenth century”-(Indrapala 1965 thesis p296). Or 6606-182 uses a language throbbing with sentiment to describe the contribution of these seven chieftains from malavara desa; “Me Lankavata uruma vali-vahasi Vanni-rajje ayiti-kara Palamuvaniyonam me hat denaya” (these seven are the first possessors of the very own wanni kingdom belonging to this Lanka). “Mema Vanni rata elikara golla patkale me haddenaya…Kisivek nati avastavaka…rata elikara golla patkaleya” (It was these seven who cleared this vanni country and cut down the jungle at a time when there was no one else). “De himiyen –vada himiyen me Vanni rajjeta uruma valivahasi Karayoya” (By rights they are the real owners of this vanni kingdom).

The memory of these foremost owners is “retained to this day in the “Mutti-namima” ceremony observed in the Kala-balalu area to offer the first rice of the season to Aiyanayaka. The tasting of the first-lump of rice offered has to be performed by a Valivahasi karaya, a descendant of the original group of immigrant chieftains”- (D.G. B; 1996 referring to “Sirith Samgrahaya”, a collection of the oral tradition on Vanniyas and Rata Sabhas, C.L Wickramasinghe collection RASSL).

From “Vanni Bandara Vitti Potak”, we learn that these Malavaras had been given Sinhalese names along with specific tracts of territories to administer upon their entry into the milieu of this country. Ramge Bandara getting Minneriya, Illangasimha Bandara Hurrulla, Kadugat Bandara Kala-vava, Vannisimha Bandara Kaluvila and Kalukumara Bandara Vilacciya. (DGB; 1998; p171). As for their interaction with the Vaddas, VBVP tells us that these Malavaras were met on arrival by the “Vadi samuhaya” (Vadi tribe) of the “Raja Vadi Vanse”, which tribe DGB de Silva surmises must be so named due to inhabiting the lands of Raja rata. Apart from confirming what we already knew; that the Vaddas were traditionally employed as guardians of boundaries, this manuscript has nothing to add regarding Vadda-Vanniya interactions.

For the story of a Vanniya family who got far more entangled emotionally and territorially with the Vaddas, we must leave the VBVP and go into “Kandure Bandaravaliya” (Or 6606-77 III) and “Kandure Bandarage Niti Pota: Kiravalle Raja-Mula” (Or 6606-132). These introduce us to the arrival and fortunes of another family of immigrant chieftains whose place of origin is somewhat obscure. There were three Kandure Bandaras who were “proper” and entered service directly under the king (Bhuvanekabahu) of Kotte and four Kandure Bandaras who went rogue. The rogue Kandure Bandaras forcibly occupied land belonging to “Vadi chieftaincies in the Bintenna-Vellassa area which Hugh Nevill thinks extended to the eastern littoral”. – (DGB: 1996, p169). The rogue Bandaras also married Vadi women “perhaps with a view to legitimizing the land they seized” and “to enlist the services of the Vaddas to take care of the land”.-(ibid)

The historical significance of “Kandure Bandaravaliya” rests on three things. First, it points to the existence of Vadi chieftaincies in the east. Secondly it “as observed by Hugh Nevill, is the first reference to the establishment of principalities by immigrant Vanniyas” in the eastern parts of the island. Thirdly it reveals “the importance that Vadda chieftains had acquired in the later centuries of the island’s history”.-(DGB, 1996). It’s not only that there had been inter-marriage between Vadi chieftain families and immigrant nobles, but according to the Kandure Bandara chronicles, the King Buvanekabahu of Kotte had intervened to transfer the forcibly seized land back to the Vaddas. The KB tells of how the king intrigued with one of the rogue Kandures, married his younger sister as a concubine and gave him alternate land in Tamankaduva and Nuvara Kalaviya. The brother of the new concubine happily “took his four Vadi wives and his brother in law Kairappu with him to his extensive territory in Tamankaduwa”- (DGB: 1996, p169). KB also tells us that the Vadi chiefs affected by these land juggleries were given alternate land in Velikerata and Sabaragomuva rata.

The Vaddas for whom all these considerations were accorded were somewhat different from the present day Vaddas, who are extremely marginalized. For one thing, “the Vadda population in the late middle period was considerably more” (Roberts: 2004) and they had teeth. Some Vadi chieftains were then “on par with the highest of the Sinhalese nobility by reason of their importance”.-(DGB: 1996). There is a record in the Matale Maha Disave Kadaimpota (Or 6606- 141) that “the Disava of Matale lodged with the Hulangamuve Vadda when he went to recruit troops in the district”. To insert an anecdote, Michael Roberts recalls how there was one very fair Hulangamuve with them in Peradeniya, who had Vadi ancestry[v].

However it “does not appear that all Vadi chieftains came from Vadi clans. Sinhalese chieftains as well as immigrant chieftains appear to have assumed authority over the Vaddas as their chieftains. Hugh Nevill speaking of the Malala nobles observes that they were ancestors of the Vanni chiefs of Hurulu-rata and the eastern coast who were “undoubtedly Nayakas, and always recognized as “rajas” or princes over the Vaddas there”. Vaddas had become so important during warfare that holding chieftainship over them seems to have been a very lucrative proposition. The ms. of Vanni Puvata has a passage which says that these chiefs collected a great retinue of Vaddas and became very wealthy”. – (DGB: 1996).