The Vedda ( ; (Vēḍar)), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become completely assimilated. Most speak Sinhala instead of their indigenous languages, which are nearing extinction. It has been hypothesized that the Vedda were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since before the arrival of other groups from the Indian mainland.
The Ratnapura District, which is part of the Sabaragamuwa Province, is known to have been inhabited by the Veddas in the distant past. This has been shown by scholars like Nandadeva Wijesekera. The very name Sabaragamuwa is believed to have meant the village of the Sabaras or "forest barbarians". Place-names such as Vedda-gala (Vedda Rock), Vedda-ela (Vedda Canal) and Vedi-Kanda (Vedda Mountain) in the Ratnapura District also bear testimony to this. As Wijesekera observes, a strong Vedda element is discernible in the population of Vedda-gala and its environs.
Etymology Ethnonyms of Vedda include Vadda, Veddah, Veddha and Vaddo. "Vedda" is a word that stems from the Tamil word Vēdan meaning "hunter".
Genetics Groups ancestral to the modern Veddas were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka. Their arrival is dated tentatively to about 40,000–35,000 years ago. They show a relationship with other South Asian and Sri Lankan populations, but are genetically distinguishable from the other peoples of Sri Lanka, and show a high degree of intra-group diversity. This is consistent with a long history of existing as small subgroups undergoing significant genetic drift.
In one study on maternal (mitochondrial DNA) haplogroups in Sri Lankan populations (the Vedda, Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka, and Sinhalese), the Vedda were found to carry predominantly haplogroups U and R and to carry maternal haplogroup M at about 17%, unlike the Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka and many mainland Indian peoples, among which haplogroup M is predominant. The Vedda people and Low-country Sinhalese showed frequencies of haplogroup R at 45.33 and 25%, respectively. The Vedda were found to be distinct but closer to Sinhalese than to other South Asian groups. It was determined in the study to be likely that the branches of haplogroups R and U "found to be particularly prevalent in the Vedda, were derived from ancestors on the Indian subcontinent."
Another study on maternal haplogroups in Sri Lankan groups (also the Vedda, Sri Lankan Tamil, and Sinhalese) found similar results, with the Vedda belonging predominantly to the mitochondrial haplogroup N (which "exists in almost all European, Oceanian, and many Asian and Amerindian populations.") and its subgroups U and R (with those comprising about two thirds of their maternal lineages), differing from other South Asian groups (such as the Sri Lankan Tamil, Sinhalese, and several Indian peoples ) among whom haplogroup M is predominant. The study also found that "South Asian (Indian) haplogroups were predominant" in the three Sri Lankan groups (including the Vedda) but that the Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamil, and Vedda populations also "had a considerable presence of West Eurasian haplogroups." One phylogenetic study on mitochondrial DNA hypervariable segments HVI and part of HVII showed the Vedda to be "genetically distinct from other major ethnic groups (Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils) in Sri Lanka." Another study on alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein allele frequency showed the Veddas and Sinhalese to be more biologically related to each other than to most other ethnic groups in Asia.
A 2024 genetics study using high-resolution autosomal and Mitochondrial DNA analysis found that the Veddas were genetically closer to the Pallar caste of India, Santhal, Juang, Irula and Paniya peoples than to the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils. The study concluded that the Veddas were "a genetically drifted group with limited gene flow from neighbouring Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamil populations" and that the maternal Haplogroup M mediated their initial settlement of the island. Other studies have shown the Vedda share genetic components with the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils as well as genetic affinity with the Irula, Kota and Mulla Kuruma of India, the Semai and Senoi of Malaysia and tribal groups of Upper Myanmar. A 2025 study revealed significant allele sharing between the Veddas and East Asian-related populations, including Austroasiatic- and Tibeto-Burman-speaking populations. It was concluded that the East Asian genetic affinity can be partially explained due to high levels of Basal Asian AASI ancestry, which is genetically related to ancestral East Asians found in the Veddas.
Language
The original language of the Veddas is the Vedda language, which today is used primarily by the interior Veddas of Dambana. Communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas, who do not identify themselves strictly as Veddas, also use Vedda language for communication during hunting and or for religious chants. When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, it was determined that the language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana. In the 1990s, self-identifying Veddas knew few words and phrases in the Vedda language, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially, there was considerable debate among linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect of Sinhala or an independent language. Later studies indicate that it diverged from its parent stock in the 10th century and became a Creole and a stable independent language by the 13th century, under the influence of Sinhala.
The parent Vedda language(s) is of unknown genetic origins, while Sinhala is of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European languages. Phonologically it is distinguished from Sinhala by the higher frequency of palatal sounds C and J. The effect is also heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes. Vedda words are morphologically divided into nouns, verbs and variables with unique gender distinctions in animate nouns. During its development as a Creole language, it has reduced and simplified many forms of Sinhala such as second person pronouns and denotations of negative meanings. Instead of borrowing new words from Sinhala, Vedda created combinations of words from a limited lexical stock. Vedda also maintains many archaic terms from Old Sinhala, prior to the 10th to 12th centuries, as a relict of their close contacts. It also retains a number of unique words that cannot be derived from Sinhala. Likewise, Sinhala has also borrowed from the original Vedda language words, and grammatical structures, differentiating it from related Indo-Aryan languages. So Vedda has exerted a substratum influence in the formation of Sinhala.
Veddas that have adopted Sinhala are found primarily in the southeastern part of the country, especially in the vicinity of Bintenne in Uva Province and in Anuradhapura District in the North Central Province (Anuradhapura Veddas).
Another group, often termed East Coast Veddas, is found in coastal areas of the Eastern Province, between Batticaloa and Trincomalee, where they have adopted Tamil as their mother tongue.
Cultural aspects
Language
The parent of Vedda language is of unknown linguistic origin and is considered a language isolate. Early linguists and observers of the language considered it to be either a separate language or a dialect of Sinhala. The chief proponent of the dialect theory was Wilhelm Geiger, but he also contradicted himself by claiming that Vedda was a relexified aboriginal language.
Veddas consider the Vedda language to be distinct from Sinhala and use it as an ethnic marker to differentiate them from Sinhalese people.
Religion The original religion of Veddas is polytheistic. The Sinhalized interior Veddahs follow a mix of traditional believes and nominal Buddhism; whereas the Tamilized east coast Veddahs follow a mix of traditional believe and nominal Hinduism with folk influences among anthropologists.
One of the most distinctive features of Vedda religion is the worship of dead ancestors, who are called nae yaku among the Sinhala-speaking Veddas and are invoked for the game and yams. There are also peculiar deities unique to Veddas, such as Kande Yakka.
Veddas, along with the Island's Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim communities, venerate the temple complex situated at Kataragama, showing the syncretism that has evolved over 2,000 years of coexistence and assimilation. Kataragama is supposed to be the site where the Hindu god Skanda or Murugan in Tamil met and married a local tribal girl, Valli, who in Sri Lanka is believed to have been a Vedda.
There are a number of less famous shrines across the island which are sacred to the Veddas as well as to other communities.
Rituals
Vedda marriage is a simple ceremony. It consists of the bride tying a bark rope (Diya lanuva) that she has twisted, around the waist of the groom. This symbolizes the bride's acceptance of the man as her mate and life partner. Although endogamous marriage between cross-cousins was the norm until recently, this has changed significantly, with Vedda women even contracting marriages with their Sinhalese and Moor neighbors.
In Vedda society, women are in many respects men's equals. They are entitled to similar inheritance. Monogamy is the general rule, though a widow would frequently marry her husband's brother as a means of support and consolation (levirate marriage). They also do not practice a caste system.
Death, too, is a simple affair without ostentatious funeral ceremonies where the corpse of the deceased is promptly buried.
Burial Since the opening of colonization schemes, Vedda burials changed when they dug graves of deep, wrapped the body in cloth and covered it with leaves and earth. The Veddas also laid the body between the scooped out trunks of the gadumba tree (Trema orientalis) before they buried it. At the head of the grave were kept three open coconuts and a small bundle of wood, while at its foot were kept an opened coconut and an untouched coconut. Certain cactus species (pathok, Opuntia dillenii or O. stricta) were planted at the head, the middle and the foot. Personal possessions like the bow and arrow, betel pouch, were also buried. This practice varied by community. The contents of the betel pouch of the deceased were eaten after his death.
Cult of the dead The Veddas practice what is referred to by Western ethnologists as "a cult of the dead". The Vedda perception of the world when originally studied in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries was not divided into polarities as life and afterlife or living and dead. At that time when asked whether the dead lived on as spirits they found that "they did not consider whether the departed were living or dead, they were just spirits... all spirits were alike neither good nor bad".
In the words of John Bailey studying this population in 1853: "the Veddahs have a vague belief in a host of undefined spirits, whose influence is rather for good than evil... they believe the air is peopled by spirits, that every rock and every tree, every forest and every hill, in short every feature of nature, has its genus loci; but these seem little else than nameless phantoms whom they regard with mysterious awe than actual dread".
In addition to this experience of the world often referred to as "animism" they have a belief that after death every relative is a spirit "of those who watches over the welfare of those left behind. These, which include their ancestors and their children, the term their 'nehya yakoon', kindred spirits. They describe them as ever watchful, coming to them in sickness, visiting them in dreams, giving them flesh when hunting".