Veddahs of Ceylon

c. 1880s

Veddahs of Ceylon, c. 1880s. Scowen & Co. (British, active Ceylon, 1876–1895), or Skeen & Co. (British, active 1860–1920). Albumen print; image: 21.3 x 28.1 cm (8 3/8 x 11 1/16 in.); paper: 21.3 x 28.1 cm (8 3/8 x 11 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the Karl B. Goldfield Trust 2018.222 The Veddahs or Veddas are an indigenous minority in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) that may have been the island’s earliest inhabitants. These men are dressed in typical scant Vedda male garb for the 19th century—loincloths tied with a rope at the waist. The Veddahs were originally animists who believed that plants and inanimate objects had souls.