Sri Lanka's indigenous inhabitants, the Veddas - preserve a direct line of descent from the island's original Neolithic community dating from at least 16,000 BC and probably far earlier according to current scientific opinion.Even today, the surviving Vedda community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival.
With the impending extinction of Vedda culture, however, Sri Lanka and the world stand to lose a rich body of indigenous lore and living ecological wisdom that is urgently needed for the sustainable future of the rest of mankind.
In the course of history, uncounted thousands of these original inhabitants of the Vedda have been more or less absorbed into mainstream Sinhala society (as in the North Central and Uva provinces) or Tamil society (as on the East Coast). Today only a few remaining Veddas still manage to preserve their cultural identity and traditional lifestyle despite relentless pressure from the surrounding dominant communities.
Vedda Expedition, an exercise to witness and experience their authentic l lifestyle by visiting their dwelling. To make the expedition spicy we have added an half a day Safari in Maduru Oya National park which is 45 minutes away from Vedda Camp in Dambana. Dambana is a very remote village in Sri Lanka which is about five hour drive from capital city, Colombo.