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by Derrick Schokman

"This for certain I can affirm that of times the devil do cry with an audible voice in the night."

I was intrigued when I first read that in Knox's writings of his 20 years captivity in the Kandyan kingdom during the 17th century.

I contained to be intrigued for several years until the meaning was made clear to me on a hunting trip.

We had just retired for the night when suddenly a series of shrieks rent the air and died off in an eerie 'hoo', like someone was being strangled.

Ulama

Our tracker explained that it was the ulama, a bird of ill omen that haunted the jungles from time to time. He had heard it several times before but had no idea what it was except for what he had been told.

It appears that a jealous husband, suspecting the fidelity of his wife, had killed her infant in her absence and made a curry of the flesh. Dipping a spoon into the curry to serve herself the woman came across a finger of her infant.

Realising what her husband had done the demented woman ran out into the jungle screaming mai lamaya coo... (where is my child).The coo being the equivalent of the long drawn out 'hoo' in the cry of the ulama or devil bird, which she had become soon after committing suicide by driving the handle of the spoon she still clutched in her hand into her head.

Controversy

When I returned to Colombo after the hunting trip, I made several enquiries about this so-called devil bird, and learned that much controversy surrounded its identity.There were some authentic facts, but a great deal of verbal embroidery and irrelevancy had to be disentangled before three contenders finally emerged for the title of devil bird. Namely the forest eagle owl (Buba nipalensis blighi) the crested hawk eagle (Nisaetus cirrhatus Ceylonensis) and the crested honey buzzard (Pernis Ptilorhynahus ruficollis)

All of them had been heard making the devilish sounds they were shot and identified. They also had a crest or tuft of feathers on the head, representative of the handle of the spoon the demented woman had thrust into her head.

The consensus was that any one of them could be responsible for the characteristic shrieks and hoo sounds made by the so-called devil bird, with subtle variants between them.

Yet for many years more the issue remained in doubt, because these very birds held in captivity in the zoo had not at any time given voice to the cries that earned them their demoniac name.

And so the mystery might have continued had not more positive evidence been reported in the 1960s and 1970s by game rangers in the Wildlife Department confirming the forest eagle owl as the culprit making the devilish noises. One of them had even seen this bird in full cry in the light of his torch.

These reports more or less confirmed what the well known ornithologist GM Henry had said in his "Guide to the Birds of Ceylon" (1955):

"All real evidence as to the identify of the devil bird points to the forest eagle owl as the author of the dreadful shrieks and strangulation noises.

It is possible that other birds at times produce some of the various cries attributed to the devil bird, but I believe that the authentic gurgling shrieks etc are nothing more than the mating love song of the forest eagle owl this would account for the rare and sporadic occurrence of these cries."

It seems such an anticlimax that the fearful "ulama" or devil bird of ill omen turns out to be no more than a harmless owl serenading his loved one.

But at least it provides a credible explanation of the demonic cries that Robert Knox, had heard in our jungles as far back as five centuries ago.

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