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

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1879.
ings of the unreflecting and subjective will, not regulated by law nor conditioned by experi- ence. They think it perfectly inconceivable that any person should ever take that which does not belong to him, or strike his fellow, or say any. thing that is untrue. The practice of polygamy and polyandry which still exists to some extent amongst their neighbourg. the Sinhalese, is to them entirely unknown. Marriage is, nevertheless, allowed with sisters and with daughters, but never with the eldest sister, and in all cases they are remarkable for constancy to their wives and affection for their children. The practice of marrying sisters is not yet extinct, as Mr. Bailey supposed, amongst the Weddas of Bintenna, for in the year 1872 there was a living instance in the person of one named Wanniya, who had married his sister Latti; he was about twenty years of age, and had one child. It appeared that no one but Wanniya himself, and not even his brother, was ever allowed to go near his wife or child, or to supply them with any food.
A marriage is attended with no ceremony beyond the presentation of some food to the parents of the bride, who is not herself allowed the exercise of any choice in the selection of her husband, and in this respect, as in some others, the subjection of women is complete. A woman is never recognised as the head of a family, nor is she admitted to any participation in the ceremony attending the offering made to the spirits of the dead. The eldest male Wedda is regarded with a sort of patriarchal respect when accident or occasion has brought together any others than the members of one family, but all the rest are considered as equals, and the distinctions of caste are not known. The Kandyans universally agree that they all belong to the royal caste, and it is said that they used to address the king by the now obsolete title Hura, or cousin, the term which they applied to myself in conversation.
Their language is a subject which demanded the most particular care and attention, but I reserve for the present any full account of it. It unfortunately possesses no written characters, and, owing to its limited vocabulary, which em- braces merely the most elementary concepts, as well as to the difficulty of communicating with
people so singularly unintelligent as the Weddas, the results which have been obtained may perhaps not be considered thoroughly conclusive or satisfactory. Their charms or folk-lore show & resemblance to Elu, but they are extremely difficult to translate, and their precise object and signification is for the most part undefined. The list of proper names contains, as Mr. Bailey has observed, some which are in use among the Sinhalese, but high caste and low caste names are indiscriminately jumbled together; others are names common to Tamils, while a large number are entirely unknown to Sinhalese or Tamils, and of these a portion are in common use in Bengal, and belong to Hindu deities or personages mentioned in the Purdnas. Besides the words which indicate an affinity with Sinhalese, there are others which are allied with Pali and with Sanskrit, and an important residue of doubtful origin; but it is worthy of remark that from beginning to end the vocabulary is characterized by an absence of any distinctly Dravidian element, and that it appears to bear no resemblance whatever to the language spoken by the Yakkas of East Nepål. A similarity may indeed be traced here and there between a Wedda word and the equivalent for the same idea in modern Tamil, Malayalam, or Telugu, but the cases in which comparison is possible are sq rare that these apparent coincidences may be fairly considered to be merely fortuitous. The signs of a grammatical structure are too faint to justify any inferences of comparative philological value, and upon an examination of those words which may be said to constitate the most fundamental and necessary portion of a language, no special conclusion is to be drawn. But an analysis or consideration of the Wedd a language may be more fitly postponed than dealt with at present, especially as the value of linguistio evidence is but slight in the determination of ethnological questions. Attention may, however, be drawn to the circumstance which has been pointed out by Mr. Taylor, and which invests the subject with peculiar interest, that the Wedd&s are the only savage race in existence speaking an Aryan language, for such it undoubtedly is, although the people can in no sense be classified ethnologically as Aryans themselves."
MISCELLANEA. AN EASTERN CHALUKYA COPPER-PLATE
| Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. XLII. A transGRANT
cription and translation of the grant, with reThe accompanying plates give a facsimile,from the original, which belongs to Sir Walter
marks, are given at Vol. VII., p. 185. The Elliot, K.C.S.I., -of Mr. Floet's Sanskrit and
date of the grant is about Saka 590 (A.D. 668-9). * Journal of the Ethnological Society, April, 1870.
Reprinted by permission from the Fortnightly Review vol. XIX. (March 1876) pp. 408-417.