Focus on Books:
Uncovering insights to an extinct tribe
Prof. Sunanda MAHENDRA
Book: Handsome Beggars, the Story of the Ceylon Rodiya
Translation: Ratnavalliyage Daruwo: Rodi Jana Puranaya
Author: M. D. Raghavan.
Translator: Chandra Sri Ranasinghe
Publisher: Visidunu Publishers
Page count: 241
Price: Rs. 400
The well known scholar and anthropologist M D Raghavan had been one
of the pioneer contributors of a wealth of research material to the
field of history, literature and anthropology of our country.
To his credit he had been a field surveyor into the life and
structures of clans and tribes of early settlers in the relevant field,
which had resulted in various findings which could have been updated by
the later scholars and researchers.
 It is always a happy aesthetic experience to find a book that equals
in essence and performance the virtues of its subject. Any translator in
his own right obliges into the truthful or honest nature of
understanding the original work. However versatile he or she may be, as
a translator, the function should reach the reader for a grip of the
original source value.
This translation of the study of Rodiya people or a conventionally
regarded tribe of low castes (or outcasts) by a well known
anthropologist who had served the subject as a researcher into
anthropology both in our country and in India, enters into the
bookshelves of the Sinhala reader at a time when the said subject is
rediscovered as worthy of reintroduction in terms of new knowledge.
At a time when most of the local scholars with the exception of few
of the local scholars had failed or missed to conduct a study of the
said tribe Raghavan had this courage and patience to bring out his
research material initially as a monograph, which was eventually
enlarged into a book.
He has presented field findings roaming in several specific village
communities scattered in the country to address several basic
anthropological issues. As such the study as it had appeared in English
is categorised into 16 chapters with a short introduction and two
appendices.
The researcher Raghavan in his opening chapter cites several folk
historical and classical sources where the term ‘Rodiya’ occurs and lays
down several significant references that makes the study look
anthropologically serious.
As the tribe known as ‘Rodiya’ were seen as a human group in
extinction, he has tried his best to collect some of the demographies
pertaining to the study, such as the places of stay distributed district
wise. Some of the references a re alluded to census from 1901 to 1911.
The legends pertaining to the origins of the human tribe ‘rodiya’ are
called from historical sources as well, attributing their genesis to
some of the well known royal legends of the country, with several other
adages such as ‘Sadol’, ‘Kinnara’ and ‘Gadi’.
The third chapter mainly deals on matters related to the social
structure of Rodiya community. In this chapter Raghavan points out that
the particular tribe had been pulled down to the lowest strata of a
discarded lot, where the very sight for the so called upper class of
humans had despised their very sight.
Despite these social disparages the group of people known as
‘Rodiyas’ had managed to live with their meagre necessities as an
alternative members trying to exhibit their own identities in their
respective skills.
One salient discovery is the fact that the ‘Rodiyas’ too had their
own categories of mutual attachments to each other via their ranks of
existence and behaviour patterns.
Some of them had been farmers who had been toiling the soil as
cultivators and some other had been hunters and herdsmen, where they had
managed to build their own cultural outlook from others. The habitats
they were rooted in the beginning had been shifted making them trotters
of a sort.
In this manner the group or tribe known conventionally as ‘Rodiya’
had taken several face-lifts and changes in the aculturisation process.
Raghavan also shows the types of ‘Rodiya’ family lineages with their
respective leadership attributed to seniority of the clan.
Then the reader comes to know of their social manners, customs as
well as their ceremonial and ritualistic performances, which had seeped
into the fields of social heritage.
As an anthropologist Raghavan’s findings gradually throw light to the
gradual urbanisation process which happens to be inevitable effect on
their life style. Here the reference is made to weddings, social
gatherings, funerals and other similar events, interlinked with their
economy as well.
In this direction special study is shown as to their artistic skills
such as weaving, pottery, sewing, darning and above all their charms and
witchcrafts.
Raghavan too goes to expose various linguistic patterns and verbal
communicative forms in their day to day life. This area, I presume, is
quite interesting for linguistic studies as sensitive insights to the
use of sub cultural language. The translator Chandra Sri Ranasinghe has
taken extra care to present the original sources in order to make the
work more homely.
The translator Ranasinghe is more homely and closer to the reader in
places where he inserts the original Sinhala classical and folk sources,
instead of directly translating from Raghavan. The instances happen to
be the Jataka tales, folk poems, and folk tales.
This I felt is an attempt to ascertain the value of the original
source. As such I observe this as a translator Ranasinghe too had taken
care to study the primary sources referred to by Raghavan.
This is really a plus mark for the translator.
But I felt that a page or two would have been devoted the explanation
of some of the glossarial terms used in the study of cultural
anthropology.
This effort, if it was taken seriously and mindfully would have
benefited many a general reader and students undertaking courses in the
subject area of social sciences.
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