Who is “mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs“?
Kataragama surfaces in 1939 novel Finnegans Wake
For uncounted generations of Sri Lankans, such a phrase as “mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs” naturally evokes combined heroic and comic associations that bring forth smiles of recognition from knowing listeners of all ages and backgrounds. For the phrase evokes the moment when the comic god or superhero simply called Kataragama turns the tables on his ambushers, who get the surprise of their lives.
This is precisely the theme of god Kataragama in Sinhala, Tamil and Veddah folklore alike. It is a story set in the Stone Age, without any modern elements or implements beyond a bow and arrow.
The Kataragama region (Kataragama Kaele, literally ‘Kataragama god’s own jungle’) was until modern times populated by Veddahs, whose ancestors had developed bow and arrow technology at the Fa-Hien Lena cave, Sri Lanka already by 48,000 BP. Kataragama is considered to be the place where the god Kataragama met and married a local tribal girl, Valli, who in Sri Lanka is believed to have been a Veddah.
The peculiar phrase itself, however, is lifted from the enigmatic 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, who never visited Ceylon, as the island-nation Sri Lanka was called until 1972.
So what does the phrase refer to? And how did it work its way into Finnegans Wake?
This pithy phrase from page 85 of Joyce’s famously dense comic novel Finnegans Wake—as Sri Lankans of all ages and backgrounds know—can only plausibly refer to a climactic moment at Kataragama, Sri Lanka when one of the Veddahs (“one of the uddahveddahs”), having emerged from the darkness to ambush the Kataragama god with bow and arrow aimed just as he is about to cross the temple seemā (threshold) and set foot in their forest to pay a clandestine night time visit to their (underaged) princess (and his sweetheart) Valli Amma who is, indeed, yearning to elope with this character—whoever he is!
A case of mistaken identity? Unapanawarige Bandiya (with bow & arrow) studies the intruder’s party closely while his kinsmen bow in reverence. Photo courtesy: Ruhunu Maha Kataragama Dewalaya
Valli’s father already suspected that the strange visitor was in reality a rogue making advances at his daughter by the way the mysterious stranger and Valli exchanged furtive glances. Under no circumstances would he or the Veddah tribe allow a rascal to run off with his twelve-year old daughter. They were hunters, after all, who knew how to lay ambushes for animals and humans alike. So they laid a night time ambush to catch the rascal…
To this day, only an authorised member of Sri Lanka’s shrinking Veddah community may “stop the perahera” by emerging from the shadows at the last moment to perform a ritual ambush, during which time the god’s tusker and all his entourage halt still.
Why is the god “mistakenly ambushed” in the nightly perahera?
Because, in virtually all versions of the original Neolithic story, the Veddahs set an ambush to catch God Kataragama, before the ‘old man’ could seduce and elope with their princess Valli. The ambush backfires, the tradition tells us, and the Veddahs find that the mysterious visitor is neither a rascal nor a holy man, but the Kataragama god himself, in person. The comic episode has been celebrated and re-enacted ever since, even amidst Covid restrictions.
Mistakenly Ambushed? Unapanawarige Bandiya (at left with drawn bow), is the son of Bosaniya, who was the Veddah authorised to stop the Kataragama Perahera before him. Here Bandiya single-handedly halts the Perahera. Aiming an arrow straight at the god, he silently and fearlessly reenacts the moment of high drama when the god is “mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs”. Photo courtesy Xavier Zimbardo ©1991
The Esala festival lasts a fortnight from the new moon of July and culminating in the full moon ‘wedding’ night. I know this for a fact, having attended twenty of the two-week Esala festivals between 1972 and 2007. In 2021, I actually saw it streaming live even as I was writing this!
Devalaya officials must pay tribute to Wanniyal-aetto, the original parampara holders. In olden days payment was in gold and silver. Tribute was fixed at Rs 500 in five rupee coins. The Lekham Mahattaya or Temple Secretary pours tribute coins upon the red cloth at right. Photo courtesy Xavier Zimbardo ©1991
Eureka! Now I get it. The phrase “mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs” refers not only to Kataragama Deviyo and party who are ‘ambushed’ over and over every evening, but ALSO refers (like most of Finnegans Wake) to the book’s protagonist. The question throughout is: “Who is this guy, anyways?”
As an entire band of Dambana Veddahs kneels and bows deeply to God Kataragama, His entourage of Rajakariya servants including the Lekham Mahattaya and Alathi Ammas watch as the god’s Prime Minister (the Basnayake Nilame) is obliged to pay tribute nightly to the Veddas. In the olden days, it is said, tribute was paid in gold and silver. Nowadays, as seen here, the Basnayake Nilame or the Lekham Mahattaya (Secretary) offer a bag of five rupee coins. Screenshot from live streaming Perahera of 18 July 2021.
The author James Joyce never left Europe. And there are no detailed written accounts of Kataragama except those oral traditions known to every Sri Lankan in one formulation or another. Joyce collected snippets of text or conversation from wherever he found them.
The theme of the mistaken ambush or comic reversal resonated with Joyce and his ‘Work in Progress’ so much when he heard it (likely from a Ceylonese acquaintance) that he enshrined it, like a gem in a midden heap.
Nowhere else does the fractal character of Finnegans Wake display itself as it does here. In an instant, what was lowly and despised becomes the embodiment of divinity—the Veddah god of Kataragama. It is the same familiar theme of the cosmic hero’s need to return in disguise—and the surprises that it entails.
I find it interesting that, of all his mentions of things Lankan, it is this moment at Kataragama only that an age-old famous episode is encapsuled within a pithy musical phrase: mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs. It is as old as humanity and as fresh as this instant!
NOTE: The pejorative term ‘Veddah’ broadly referring to Sri Lanka’s indigenous forest-dwelling people, was still current in James Joyce’s time in the 20th Century but has since then dropped in favour of the indigenous people’s own terms Wanniyalaetto (‘beings of the forest’) or Vedar (Tamil: ‘hunting tribe’).
For more about the Veddahs and other indigenous peoples of Sri Lanka, visit www.vedda.org.