Forest walk with a Veddha Elder

In the afternoon, we took a stroll through the nearby forests belonging to the Veddha tribe with one of the tribal elders. He was a short man with a pot belly (nothing unusual there!) and bare, incredibly healthy-looking feet, with long white hair and beard, adorned in a loin cloth and an axe on his left shoulder. The elder showed us around an area of the jungle, pointing out plants with medicinal properties and describing how his ancient people used to live. The Veddha were hunter-gatherers that predated the Singhalese population by over 30,000 years. While this group used to be prevalent throughout the island, their population has now dwindled to less than 6,000 and live only in the least populated parts of the country.

The elder showed us various medicinal plants, showed how his people used to hunt, demonstrated how they start fires and played some music on his wooden flute.

The uses of the various plants he showed us were quite interesting - including for rope, for bandages, for paralysing fish and for medicines - though we could tell that Raj, our usually very enthusiastic nature guide, was not overly impressed and the tour felt very rehearsed and the interactions with the elder felt more transactional than genuine. Anyway..box ticked to learn about some indigenous history!Read more