More on postal runner Kalua of Bimbanda and another jungle walk

by Frederick Medis

(Continued from last week)

The postcript to this episode was that by some strange coincidence in the year 2000, as many as 53 years after my first meeting Kalua, I was recounting my experience one evening to a group of friends in Matale. There Mrs Punyakanthi Wijeratne of Matale, startled me when she described Kalua in detail, even to the missing joint of his little finger. She had been a Miss Aluwihare and came from the walauwa (stately home of the chieftain) at Rattota, where Kalua was the family’s trusted servant and factotum. She and her brother were children at the time, and whenever there were long distances to be covered over uneven roadways, it was Kalua who took them pick-a-back across his ample shoulders.

There came a time when her father arranged for his regular employment as a tappal – or postal-runner from Rattota post office to the jungle villages beyond Laggala, but he was provided with a small outhouse built for him near the walauwa. He was given food and shelter, and was cared for in his old age until his death about 20 years ago. Mrs Wijeratne remembered him with nostalgia and showed interest in knowing that I had met him in Rattota in 1947. She extracted from a family album of photographs a snapshot of a young boy, who was a cousin of hers, standing beside a puppy and the squatting Kalua. It was the identical Kalua I had met over a half century ago.

Incidentally, I believe I am now the only living person to have had the privilege of accompanying a tappal-runner through the jungles.

Estate bungalow

In the estate bungalow, after a late lunch, there was plenty of time to spend in conversation. Freshened after a sleep of two hours, followed by a wash, I moved to the dining room for tea and further pleasant conversation. The servants lit the large Hinx kerosene lamp with its round opaque glass globe, as well as smaller lamps in the hall and the rooms. There was no electricity, and in those days nobody bothered about refrigeration and the cold storage of food. Outside, in the distance, could be heard the howling of jackals and the hooting of owls.

We reassembled at dinner, which was a simple meal that was much appreciated. I expressed the wish to move into the jungle villages further on. My hosts were insistent that I should rest the next day after my long and tiring trek. They said they would arrange a tracker the day after. At the following day’s dinner, I was informed that a tracker has been arranged for the trip.

Another jungle walk

The next day, I was ready after an early breakfast when the tracker, whose name was Bimbanda, arrived. He was about 40 years old. He was given the necessary instructions. I had never used a gun before, but I was told it was needed for protection. Accordingly, I was given five minutes of direction in its use. My friends, who provided me with sandwiches, some sweets and a flask of tea in the haversack, saw me off.

We walked for about half a mile, and then left the rough and boulder-strewn road where it ended and entered the jungle. It was apparent the tracker was following an animal footpath. He assured me that within a few minutes we would emerge into easy terrain.

Childbirth

Soon we came across a human footpath, and in about half an hour we heard human voices. Then we saw them, a party of about 40 people, half of them being women. Bimbanda said they were Gam Veddhas from the villages. All the men had their long hair tied up in knots. They wore what I guessed were banians or vests or loose jackets.

The women wore short sarees about eight inches above the ankles. Nearly all of them, except the younger ones, had no blouse or jacket, but in the presence of men they threw the saree fall across their shoulders.

They were all of small build, with their hair parted in the centre. Some wore crudely fashioned gold-plated ornaments. On their hands they wore silver, twisted bangles with a 25-cent coin soldered in the centre.

The women carried on their heads heavy pillowcases filled with food and other pilgrim paraphernalia. These were balanced horizontally. They were apparently the beasts of burden, for the men swung their hands freely without any encumbrance, except when they carried a staff or short stick.

They had already cleared a small portion of a hillock under a large tree, and what was in effect a mattress had been made by spreading clothes over layers of leaves on the ground. I noticed a rope hanging from a low branch of the tree. A clay pot of water was being boiled on a tripod of sticks.

The tracker quickly got into conversation with the men, and I did likewise, but I needed his help, as certain words they used were strange and unknown to me. An old woman

and her son told us that they had halted in their trek from a distant village to Rattota, from whence they would take bus to Matale and then to Kandy to worship at the Dalada Maligawa, and witness the perahera.

This was an emergency stop, for a woman in the group was in labour, and until the child was born, they could not proceed. This old man and woman, after consultation, invited me to be of assistance. Probably my khaki uniform made them confuse me with a Health Department official. My only qualification was a war-time ARP (Air Raid Precaution) St. John’s Ambulance Brigade First Aid Certificate from London.

By now, under the tree there was much activity, and the older women stood round like a protective screen. There was whimpering, followed by subdued shrieks. The tracker and I together with the old woman and her son moved towards the ring of women. When we approached, they made way for us. Diffidently I moved into the ring. On the make-shift mattress, was a middle-aged woman in labour crouching on her elbows and knees. It was evident that the rupture of the amniotic sac had taken place.

I was informed that it was her fourth child. I noticed Bimbanda walking out of the group, while I remained with the old couple. The woman in front of us was obviously in pain, but the noises she made were stifled and restrained. She was naked and perspiring profusely. Even though in a prone position, in her hands she grasped with difficulty the knotted end of the rope. The tree-branch shook with her purposeful bearing-down, urged on by a frail, wizened old woman with her hair falling over her face.

She knelt beside the pregnant woman and muttered the same incoherent words over and over again, all the while running her scraggy fingers in a downward movement along the patient’s belly. The sight of coagulated blood and the stained cloth made me somewhat sick. I joined Bimbanda, who was outside, and we chatted with a group of men for a few minutes. The women, who were with them, did not speak, probably without permission from their men.

A little later, when I gained composure, I went back to the “emergency ward”. Before I entered, I could see at a respectable distance, two men who had come from the far side of the jungle. Another old woman met them and took the green and yellow bamboo branch which they held out to her. They helped her cut it into a strip about a foot long and slit it up to the node. She held it in both her hands over her head and walked in with the old man and me, all the while muttering some kind of incantation in a low tone.

Parturition had already taken place, and the infant, pink and slimy, was lying almost under the mother. Two women knelt down and held the child. The woman with the bamboo twig widened the split below the notch and placed it below the umbilical cord, after the two ends had been tightened with a creeper or twine (I could not see what it was). The severance took place cleanly and speedily.

The mother now assumed a supine position, while one woman applied light pressure on her abdomen, another gently moved the child to and fro till there were prolonged choky squeals. While one woman applied some medicinal preparation off a small glass bottle, they swathed the mother around the waist and the pelvic region with two or three folds of cloth. We then saw her face as she gave a frightened, primitive-looking smile.

Journey continued

Bimbanda and I did not want to stay longer. Besides we were getting late, and had a long way to go. On our return journey, we saw something moving clumsily into a narrow-mouthed hole close to the path we were treading. Bimbanda told me it was a kaballawa (scaly ant-eater), which moved like a monitor lizard except for its tightly curved tail. This, I learnt later, was an unusual sight even in the dense jungles.

Soon there were signs of a human habitation. We heard the thud of a flattening and levelling wooden implement, known as tappe mole, being used to strengthen the floor of a mud hut. Lying by the side was a much-worn hide of a spotted deer, with a coir rope attached for dragging on the ground. This was used to haul mud and stones for building purposes.

We had now come to a village of about 20 huts, where all were of wattle and daub except one, which had tall, white walls and a red-tiled roof. This was Illukkumbura post office. I was overjoyed, for philately, as well as coin collection, was my first love from the age of six years. My desire, therefore, was to meet the postmaster of the jungle village of Illukkumbura.

Just as the post office building was incongruous to the village, the postmaster too was different from others in the village. He told me he was the postmaster in this remote outpost for more than three years, and that he was lonely and far-flung from his small family. He readily obliged by applying the date-stamp cancellation marked “Illukkumbura” to a self-addressed 3- cent King George VI, green-stamped post-card he sold me. This was to add to my collection of out of the way post marks. He promised to send it in the tappal-runner’s bag the next day.

Along with the postmaster, we paid a visit to the headman. In the course of the conversation, he told us that Muslim traders came to the village every three months all the way from Matale and Rattota. They brought sugar, dried fish, salt, coconut oil and cloth on tawalam harak or pack oxen, which push their way through the jungle undergrowth. These traders used to barter their goods for poultry, eggs, dried venison, kurakkan and bees’ honey.

We left the headman and visited some huts in the village. The wells were open and unprotected. Stones and planks, usually of kumbuk , were placed in the far side of the well, away from the house. It was considered unlucky to draw water with one’s back to the house.

In an adjoining village, an elderly man explained the reason for this practice. In lonely village houses, he said, while the men folk and the older children were engaged in work in the chenas and fields, only older women were left to tend the infants and toddlers and prepare the food. So when they drew water from the well, it was advisable that they faced the house. This would enable them to overlook and protect the little ones against any outsiders and wild animals, such as serpents and monkeys. I noticed that there were no doors in all the huts we saw.

An hour’s walk brought us to Makumbura, which was a larger village. We had lunch consisting of rice and curry. As it was getting late, we moved on to Pallegama, which was a large village with some tiled houses. When we left Pallegama, we were again in dense jungle. It was dark and gloomy under the trees. Whenever there was a rustling noise, Bimbanda cocked his gun, ready to shoot. I had to restrain him many a time from putting an end to several hare, a miminna (mouse deer) and even a young spotted deer.

The sun had set in when we reached the estate and came to the bungalow, where my friends were waiting expectantly in the yet unlit verandah. I thanked Bimbanda and promised to meet him in the morning. Soon darkness covered us, and a hot bath was the best refreshment before fellowship and conversation at dinner.

Conclusion

I am thankful to many persons for this short jungle interlude in my life. It gave me a new perspective and opened up new vistas of experience where I came directly in contact with wild terrain and its concomitant forests and natural features.

I am now aware that Laggala is believed to be the scenario of an early civilization in our country’s pre- or even proto-history. However, that appears to me too far away from the present reality. Last year, in 2001, I travelled on the same route in a high-powered vehicle with friends from Matale and Kandy. I recalled the earlier scene as I traversed the broad, winding macadamised road through the still majestic and bewilderingly beautiful hilltops.

But now the land is cultivated and concreted with townships full of shops and rural banks, with the blare of radios and the screech of motor vehicles echoing through the dust. What matters to me now is that more than half a century ago, I was privileged to share the company of simple people like the pot-bellied headman, the wrinkle-browed postmaster and the unsophisticated village folk who had their homes in the unspoilt forest.

Above all, I am conscious of the part played by Kalua, Bimbanda and many others I met who are now resting forever in the soil under the shadowy trees of their beloved homeland – the jungle. To them, I shall always remain grateful.

(Excerpted from Jungle Journeys in Sri Lanka edited by CG Uragoda)