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Vedda - People: Sri Lanka Sinhala Indigenous Southeast Asia Sinhalese

The Vedda people were the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka prior to the 6th century BCE. They adopted the Sinhala language and were absorbed into the modern Sinhalese population, declining from 5,300 in 1911 to 800 in 1964. The Vedda had a simple material culture, living in caves, wearing bark clothing, hunting with bows and arrows, and gathering plants and honey. Their religion centered around ancestral spirits communicated through shamans.

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164 views3 pages

Vedda - People: Sri Lanka Sinhala Indigenous Southeast Asia Sinhalese

The Vedda people were the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka prior to the 6th century BCE. They adopted the Sinhala language and were absorbed into the modern Sinhalese population, declining from 5,300 in 1911 to 800 in 1964. The Vedda had a simple material culture, living in caves, wearing bark clothing, hunting with bows and arrows, and gathering plants and honey. Their religion centered around ancestral spirits communicated through shamans.

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RQL83app
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Vedda | people about:reader?url=https://www.britannica.

com/topic/Vedda

britannica.com

Vedda | people
3 minutos

Vedda, also spelled Veddah, people of Sri Lanka who were that
island’s aboriginal inhabitants prior to the 6th century bce. They
adopted Sinhala and now no longer speak their own language.
Ethnically, they are allied to the indigenous jungle peoples of
southern India and to early populations in Southeast Asia. They
have now been largely absorbed into the modern Sinhalese
population; in 1911 they were reported to number about 5,300,
by 1964 the government estimated their population at about
800, and by the 1970s they had virtually ceased to exist as a
separate community.

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Vedda | people about:reader?url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vedda

Britannica Quiz

Get to Know Asia

What is the longest river in Asia?

The aboriginal material culture and subsistence patterns of the


Vedda were extremely simple. They lived in caves and rock
shelters, wore bark-cloth clothing, hunted game with bows and
arrows, and gathered wild plants and honey. Their religion was
essentially a cult of the dead; ancestral spirits were believed to
enter the bodies of shamans, through whom they communicated
with their descendants.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kenneth


Pletcher, Senior Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

Sri Lanka: Ethnic composition

… (immigrants from western India), and Veddas (regarded as


the aboriginal inhabitants of the country) total less than 1
percent of the population.…

Bangladesh: Ethnic groups

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Vedda | people about:reader?url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vedda

The Vedda peoples were perhaps the earliest group to settle in


the area. According to some ethnologists, they were followed by
peoples from the Mediterranean and neighbouring areas,
particularly those who spoke Indo-European languages. During
the 8th century

ce
, persons of Arab, Persian, and Turkish origin…

C.G. Seligman

C.G. Seligman, a pioneer in British anthropology who conducted


significant field research in Melanesia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka),
and, most importantly, the Nilotic Sudan. Although educated as
a physician, in 1898 Seligman joined the Cambridge University
expedition to the Torres Strait (between New…

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