An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies: Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living There, and of the Author's Miraculous EscapeKnox, Robert
History
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies: Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living There, and of the Author's Miraculous Escape
Knox, Robert
Sri Lanka -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Sri Lanka -- Social life and customs
[Wild-men.] Of these Natives there be two sorts, Wild and Tame. I will
begin with the former. For as in these Woods there are Wild Beasts so
Wild Men also. The Land of Bintan is all covered with mighty Woods,
filled with abundance of Deer. In this Land are many of these wild men;
they call them Vaddahs, dwelling near no other Inhabitants. They speak
the Chingulayes Language. They kill Deer, and dry the Flesh over the
fire, and the people of the Countrey come and buy it of them. They
never Till any ground for Corn their Food being only Flesh. They
are very expert with their Bows. They have a little Ax, which they
stick in by their sides, to cut hony out of hollow Trees. Some few,
which are near Inhabitants, have commerce with other people. They
have no Towns nor Houses, only live by the waters under a Tree,
with some boughs cut and laid round about them, to give notice when
any wild Beasts come near, which they may hear by their rustling and
trampling upon them. Many of these habitations we saw when we fled
through the Woods, but God be praised the Vaddahs were gone.
[By an Acknowledgment to the King.] Some of the tamer sort of these men
are in a kind of Subjection to the King. For if they can be found, tho
it must be with a great search in the Woods, they will acknowledg his
Officers, and will bring to them Elephants-Teeth, and Honey, and Wax,
and Deers Flesh: but the others in lieu thereof do give them near as
much, in Arrows, Cloth &c. fearing lest they should otherwise appear
no more.
[How they bespeak Arrows to be made them.] It hath been reported
to me by many people, that the wilder sort of them, when they want
Arrows, will carry their load of Flesh in the night, and hang it up
in a Smith's Shop, also a Leaf cut in the form they will have their
Arrows made, and hang by it. Which if the Smith do make according
to their Pattern they will requite, and bring him more Flesh: but if
he make them not, they will do him a mischief one time or another by
shooting in the night. If the Smith make the Arrows, he leaves them
in the same place, where the Vaddahs hung the Flesh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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