Indian Antiquary Vol 08

SR No.: 032500
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 356

316
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and arrowheads from the Moors who live in the villages adjacent to that part of the country which they inhabit in exchange for hides or beeswax, but the system of secret barter to which Sir Emerson Tennent refers is unknown at the present day. The long iron arrow-heads are similarly obtained from the Moors, and are regarded as heirlooms, descending from father to son, and being regarded as possessions of great value by reason of their scarceness, and indeed the arrow not unfrequently consists of merely a sharply-pointed piece of wood with the usual feathers of the wild pea-fowl attached to it.
The general appearance of the Weddas may be described as distinctly non-Aryan. The comparative shortness of their thumbs and their sharply-pointed elbows are worthy of remark, as well as their flat noses and in some cases thick lips, features which at once distinguish them in a marked degree from the oriental races living in their vicinity. Yet their countenances are not absolutely devoid of intelligence, but their coarse flowing hair, their scanty clothing, and their systematic neglect of any kind of ablution present a picture of extreme barbarism. The women wear necklaces and, in common with the men, ornaments in the ears, for which purpose beads are highly valued as well as empty cartridge cases, with which they appear to be greatly pleased, but they have no fondness for bright colours or appreciation of their differences, and it is to be noticed that there is no word in their language for any one of the colours.
They habitually refrain from the use of water except for drinking purposes, upon the ground that the washing of themselves would make them weak, and whilst they speak in an excessively loud and fierce tone of voice, and wear an expression of great unhappiness, it is a remarkable circumstance that they never laugh. They have, nevertheless, that which Juvenal called the finest element in the human character, for they are tender-hearted and can give way to tears. This absence of any disposition to laughter has not been noticed by any one who has yet written upon the Weddas, and it is odd that such a peculiar characteristic should not have been hitherto recorded, for it is a fact well known to the intelligent Sinhalese in the Kandyan districts, and it is certainly deserving of attention. The causes
Ceylon, vol. I, p. 568; vol. II., p. 440. "Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur
Que lacrymas dedit; hæc nostri pars optima sensus." Sat. xv. 133.
• Διάτι αὐτὸς αὐτὸν οὐδεὶς γαργαλίζει ; Η ὅτι καὶ ὑπ' ἄλλου ἧττον ἐὰν προαίσθηται, μᾶλλον δ ̓ ἂν μὴ ὁρᾷ ;
[NOVEMBER, 1879.
which provoke laughter are doubtless different in different individuals, but every conceivable method for arousing it has been tried upon the Weddas without success, and it was found that the sight of another person laughing produced in them a feeling of unmistakable disgust; upon being asked whether they ever laughed, they replied, "No, why should we? What is there to laugh at P"
There does not seem to be anything in their physical structure or conformation which accounts for this abnormal temperament. It is possible that constant disuse may have caused a certain atrophy and want of power in the muscles of the face which has increased in successive generations, and is analogous to the exceptional development of the strength of the left arm, but from a psychological point of view it may be that their wild habits of life and the total isolation from the rest of the world to which they have been subjected for countless generations have completely deadened in them a susceptibility to external influences, if indeed laughter is exclusively referable to princi. ples of empirical and sensuous nature.
The philosopher Hobbes ascribed it to a feeling of superiority or self-approbation, the result of an act of comparison; and Aristotle seems to have thought that it arose from a sense of something incongruous, unexpected, or sudden. The peculiar test which he mentions was applied to a Wedda, but without success. It may be borne in mind that as a rule all Oriental nations dislike laughter, and that there is no instance of a happy or good-natured laugh recorded in the Bible; and it is noticeable that it is a common practice of the Kandyan Sinhalese to cover their mouth with their hand or to turn away when they laugh, as if they were ashamed. The general subject of laughter has been very fully and ably discussed by Mr. Darwin in his last work, The Expression of the Emotions. "It is," he says, "primarily the expression of mere joy or happiness;" and, although the most prevalent and frequent of all the emotional expressions in idiots, it is never to be observed in those who are morose, passionate, or utterly stolid."10
Instances have been known in which the muscle designated zygomaticus minor, which is one of those which are more especially brought into play by the act of laughing, has been entirely absent from the anatomical structure of the human
ὥσθ' ἥκιστα γαργαλισθήσεται, ὅταν μὴ λανθάνη͵ τοῦτο πάσχων. Ἐστί δὲ ὁ γέλως παρακοπή τις καὶ ἀπάτη δια ὁ καὶ τυπτόμενοι εἰς τὰς φρένας γελῶσιν, οὐ γὰρ ὁ τυχὼν τόπος ἔστιν ᾧ γελῶσιν-τό δε λαθρᾶιον ἀπατητικόν. Διὰ τουτο καὶ γίνεται δ. γέλως καὶ οὐ γίνεται ὑπ ̓ αὐτοῦ— Aristotle, Problems, xxxv. 6.
10 The Expression of the Emotions, p. 198, and cf. also Bain on the Emotions and the Will, 1806, p. 247.