The origins of the Rodi who constitute the lowest ranking caste and the only 'untouchables' in traditional Sinhalese society is an interesting one. Although traditionally regarded as a Sinhalese caste, there is reason to believe that the Rodi are descended from an aboriginal tribe of eastern India who migrated to Sri Lanka during some remote period. This view, first propounded by M.D. Raghavan in his Handsome Beggars. The Rodiyas of Ceylon (1957), is supported by a number of historical and linguistic considerations, as well as Rodi tradition itself.

Origin legends

Origin legends one of the earliest notices of the Rodi was by Robert Knox who has narrated an interesting origin legend of this folk in his Historical Relation of Ceylon (1681), says Knox: "The predecessors of these people from whom they sprang were Dodda Vaddas, which signifies hunters, to whom it did belong to catch and bring venison for the King's table. But instead they brought man's flesh. Unknown; which the King liking so well, commanded to bring him more of the same sort of venison.

The King's barber chanced to know what flesh it was, and disclosed it to him. At which the King was so enraged, that he accounted death too good for them, and to punish only those persons that had so offended, not a sufficient recompense for so great an affront and injury as he had sustained by them.

Forthwith therefore he established a decree that both great and small, that were of that rank or tribe, should be expelled from dwelling among the inhabitants of the land, and not to be admitted to use or enjoy the benefit of any means or ways, or callings whatsoever to provide themselves sustenance; but that they should beg from generation to generation, from door to door, through the kingdom, and to be looked upon and esteemed by all people to be so base and odious, as not possibly to be more".

Here we are told that the Rodi had their origins in a group of people known as Dodda Vaddas or hunters.

Somewhat different is the Rodi tradition recorded by Hugh Nevill in the Taprobanian (The Gadi or Rodi Race. June 1887), Nevill relates: At Parakrama Bahu's court, the venison was provided by a certain Vedda archer, who during a scarcity of game, substituted the flesh of a boy he met in the jungle, and provided it as venison for the royal household.

The beautiful daughter of the King, discovered the deception, and fascinated by a sudden longing for human flesh ordered the Vedda hunter to bring more of the same sort of flesh. The vedda accordingly waylaid youths in the woods, and disposed of their flesh to the royal kitchen.

The whole country was terrified by the constant disappearance of youths and maidens. It happened that a barber who came to the palace to complain of the disappearance of his only son, while waiting, was given by the servants of the royal scullery, a leaf of rice and venison curry.

Just as he was about to eat, he noticed on his leaf, the deformed knuckle of the little finger of a boy. Recognizing it by the deformity as that of his son, he fled from the palace and spread the alarm that the King was killing and eating the youths of the city.

The facts then came to light, and the King, stripping his daughter of her ornaments, and calling out a scavenger then sweeping out a neighbouring yard, gave her to him as wife, and drove her out to earn her living in her husband's class.

In this tradition, we are told that the Rodi are descended from a scavenger and a daughter of Parakrama Bahu who was outcasted because of her cannibalistic instincts.

Although these legends do not tell us much as to the origins of the Rodi, they nevertheless suggest a connection with hunting and cannibalism, and by implication, human sacrifice.

Raghavan's contentions that the Rodi are descended from a Kali-worshipping, Austro-Asiatic tribe of Eastern India are largely based on the tribal organisation of the Rodi, their distinct speech and their invocations to their legendary ancestress Ratnavalli which seem to preserve memories of Kali worship and human sacrifice such as that prevailed in Bengal until fairly recent times.

Eastern Indian origins

Among the authorities cited by Raghavan is A.M. Ferguson Monthly Literary Register Nov. 1895) who has recorded an interesting tradition concerning the origins of the Rodi.

Ferguson says of the Rodi: "On a close examination it has been ascertained from several old and well-informed men of the caste, that according to a legend prevalent among them, their first ancestors were Veddahs or hunters and that they trace their origin to India.

They first landed in the retinue which followed the transportation to Anuradhapura across the sea, of the sacred Bo-tree, by Sangamitta about 2,000 years ago". To the Rodi were evidently connected the Villi-Durayas, a group of people devoted to particular services to the Bo-tree. Ferguson observes in a footnote to his paper: "These Vil-li Dureas have relations in this district who inhabit several large and important villages such as Maduve, Malie-Elle etc., whose services to the King under the Kandyan government consisted in the supply of venison to the palace".

The mention of the supply of venison to the palace is significant as Knox refers to the Rodi as being descended from 'Dodda Vaddas' or 'hunters' whose duty it was to bring venison to the King's table.

The term 'Dodda Vadda' employed by Knox is no doubt the Sinhala Dada-Veddo or hunting Veddas. The epitaph dada seems to have been employed to distinguish them from the true Veddas, the country's aboriginal inhabitants. This is also supported by the distinction made by Francois Valetijn (Naamen der Inlandsche Bedienden Inde Dorpen Op Ceylon 1726) between 'Wanneweddas (Vana or forest Veddas) and 'Dadeweddas'(Dada or hunting Veddas). Also interesting is the fact that Nevill (The Mal Duraya, Wili Duraya, or Dada Vaedda Race. Taprobanian Oct.1887) connects the Dada Vaeddo with the Wili Duraya caste whose ancestors are said to have come to Sri Lanka with the sacred Bo-tree as part of its retinue.R.W. Iewers (Manual of the North-Central Province 1899) has observed that the Villi-Durayas asserted "that their ancestors came over with the Bo-tree which their descendants continued to protect from monkeys by their bows (villu)".

Interestingly, Ievers' observations may provide us with the reason why such a clan arrived here in the first place. As pointed out by Raghavan, the only evidence we have of a social group of hunters are the tribes referred to in the Mahavamsa as the Taraccha and Kulinga who formed part of the entourage that accompanied the Bo-sapling to the island during the reign of King Devanampiya Tissa in the third or fourth century B.C.

"The empire of Asoka including within its domains the hill country of West Bengal, the Southern Gangetic country, and the recesses of the Orissan hills, forming one extensive habitat of hill tribes, some of these hunters still living in groups of exogamous clans on traditional totemistic basis, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the exogamous clans that accompanied the Bodhi-sapling to Ceylon obviously represented some of the tribes who still have their homes in the hill country within the old Asokan Empire".

Raghavan has also cited the invocatory hymns sung by Rodi women to their legendary ancestress Ratnavalli, as evidence that the Rodi were votaries of the 'Black Goddess' Kali and indulged in human sacrifices to propitiate her. Consider the following verses addressed to Ratnavalli:

Ratna-tilaka-valli nama obinne

Rissa noyana toyilayi mama karanne

Vissa vayasa pasuvenakota bolanne

Mas aran misa pitipa noyanne

(The name Ratna-tilaka-valli befits you,

With rituals awe-inspiring I propitiate you,

And you whose twentieth year has passed,

You shall not go without the taste of flesh)

Another verse refers to Ratnavalli as one "who wears the fearsome strings of corals" and another has it that she would bring prosperity "with blood flowing like the river waters". Yet another verse requests her to "alight from the Telembu tree" formerly associated with sacrificial rituals. As Raghavan notes: "The references to her worship in a sacred grove of trees... the offerings of flesh and blood which would flow like the ganga, all these and more are unmistakable as associated with the ceremonial cult of Kali, the most active of the early cults of India.

The fearsome necklace of corals is the garland of human skulls round the neck of the awe-inspiring Kali".

It must here be pointed out that in India, statues of Kali are to this day depicted with a garland of human skulls. Added to this are the tales of cannibalism attributed to Ratnavalli in the traditions of the Rodi themselves. This tradition of human sacrifice that formerly obtained among the Rodi may well be the reason for their untouchable status, for as noted by Raghavan: "That a form of worship in which human offerings formed the essential ritual would have been anathema to the Buddhist way of life goes without saying; and it needs no stretch of imagination that any class of people in whom the cult prevailed or survived in an attenuated form, would have been pronounced by the Sangha as exiles from the social order".

Tribal folk

The social organization of the Rodi is also suggestive of a tribal origin. The conservative Vanni group, according to Nevill, comprised of twelve exogamous clans, namely, Alpaga, Napola, Wapolla, Mahappola, Tiringa, Mitangala, Talinna, Mangama, Galawela, Tammankada, Nuwaragama and Uwe. This is reminiscent of the clan system prevailing amongst the Austro-Asiatic peoples of Eastern India such as the Santals who are known to have been formerly divided into twelve exogamous clans. Another indication of the tribal origins of the Rodi is their distinct speech, which is neither Aryan nor Dravidian.

The language seems to be a survival of a Munda language such as is still spoken by primitive Austro-Asiatic tribes in Orissa and Bihar.

Among the peculiar Rodi words that have not known cognates in Aryan or Dravidian speeches may be included hidulu 'milk', dulumu 'fire', hurugu 'light', bakura 'god', lavana 'month', dagula 'hand' and bussa 'dog'.

Although a physical anthropological study of the Rodi has yet to be undertaken, a consideration of their physical features such as relatively dark skin complexion and physiognomy suggest that they represent an Austro-Asiatic stock with a heavy infusion of Sinhalese blood.

Sinhalese admixture would have been considerable, given the fact that in Kandyan times, and perhaps earlier, the handing over of high-born women to the Rodi as punishment was not unknown.

This has been alluded to by Knox who says: "Many times when the King cuts off great and noble men, against whom he is highly incensed, he will deliver their daughters and wives unto this sort of people, reckoning it as they also account it, to be far worse punishment than any kind of death".

Indeed, constant intercourse with the women of the Kandyan nobility may well account for the beauty and the stately carriage for which Rodi women are famous. It may also explain the claims of the Rodi to royal ancestry.

Considering the available evidence, it is very likely as contended by Raghavan that the Rodi are descended from an Austro-Asiatic, Munda-speaking , Kali-worshipping tribe of Eastern India who migrated to Sri Lanka sometime during the third or fourth century B.C.

Tribal designations

The appellation given to the caste by the Sinhalese, Rodi, may also indicate their tribal origins. The term is probably to be connected with the Sanskrit raudra and the Pali rudda or ludda 'hunter' as suggested by Raghavan. However, whereas the Sinhala term Rodi has retroflex (murdaja) d, such forms as the Pali rudda have a dental (dantaja) d.

The problem may however be surmounted if a by-form rudda with retroflex d in Eastern Prakrit derived from Sanskritic raudra is assumed. Celebralization or the change of dental d to retroflex d is pronounced in the Eastern Prakritic speeches so that this suggestion is quite tenable. Nevill observes that the Tamils called the Rodi 'Luddi' and it is likely that this is a corruption of some Prakritic loan such as ludda.

The term by which the Rodi designate themselves, Gadi, may also point to an affinity with the Munda-speaking tribes of Eastern India such as the Hos, Birhors and Santals. Raghavan was unable to trace the origin of the term while Nevill has attempted to derive the term from kada or gada 'red' to which he connects Magadha which he believes to be" a relic of an ancient name of the Red Mother, or goddess-mother of this race, a name perpetuated, though translated, in the Sembu-Natchi-Mar, the Red Chief-One of some Tamils of to-day".

This view however does not appear to be tenable. It is more likely that the appellation is connected to such terms as Hor, Horo and Kur-ku, used by the Munda-speaking peoples to designate themselves. The terms appear to have originally signified 'men'.

Thus the tribal appellation of the Mundas is horo'man' while that of the Santals is Hor-hopon 'children of man' and that of the Kurkus, Kur-ku 'men', being the plural form of koro 'man'. We have reason to believe that the prototype of the Munda term for man was something like kodo since forms with initial h such as Munda horo seem to have derived from an older form containing an initial k, while the older form of the peculiar Munda r was evidently a retroflex d. It is therefore possible that it was a form such as kodo that gave rise to the present Rodi term Gadi, especially since there is evidence to show that the Rodi dialect had softened k to g at some point in time.

Nevill notes: "In the Rodiya language each 'k' is replaced by a 'g' and ukku would then become uggu... Kiriya would be Giriya; Kirimalli be Girimalli".

by ASIFF HUSSEIN