{"id":63053,"date":"2021-04-26T06:43:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T06:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=63053"},"modified":"2021-04-26T06:43:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T06:43:39","slug":"a-tale-of-resistance-the-story-of-the-arrival-of-the-portuguese-by-michael-roberts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/a-tale-of-resistance-the-story-of-the-arrival-of-the-portuguese-by-michael-roberts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Resistance: The Story of the Arrival of the Portuguese-by Michael Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tale of Resistance: The Story of the Arrival of the Portuguese-by Michael Roberts<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

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Source:<\/span><\/strong>Thuppahis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

An ABSTRACT\u00a0of an article that appeared in print\u00a0in\u00a0Ethnos<\/em>, 1989, vol 54: 1 & 2,\u00a0 pp. 69-82\u2026.\u00a0available online for payment to Taylor & Francis.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This essay decodes a sixteenth century folktale which records the Sinhalese reaction to the arrival of the first Portuguese. Where the historiography has interpreted this tale as benign wonderment in the face of exotica,\u00a0a piecemeal deconstruction of the allegorical clues in the \u2018story is utilised to reveal how the Sinhalese linked the Portuguese with demons and with Vasavarti M\u0101ray\u0101, the arch enemy of the Buddha.<\/strong>\u00a0In this fashion the Portuguese and the Christian sacrament of communion were represented as dangerous, disordering forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The piecemeal reinterpretation of this short text, however, must be overlaid by a holistic perspective and the realisation that\u00a0its rendering in oral form enabled its purveyors to lace the story with a satirical flavour:\u00a0<\/strong>so that the Portuguese and Catholicism are, like demons, rendered both disordering and comic, dangerous and inferior\u2014thus ultimately controllable.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In contending in this manner that the folktale is an act of nationalist opposition, the article is designed as an attack on the positivist empiricism which pervades the island\u2019s historiography and shuts out imaginative reconstructions which are worked out by penetrating the subjective world of the ancient texts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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When this article first appeared circa 1989 its interpretation was directly challenged by my teacher, colleague and friend, Professor KM de Silva and there was a sharp debate in the local newspapers (see Biblio below). Kingsley de Silva was adhering to the empiricist tradion in which he was trained. I was (and still am) qualifying it with insights from other disciplines and experience in ethnographic fieldwork of a sporadic sort. Let me stress, here, that the imaginative reinterpretation of the arrival story\u00a0 developed when i spent about 15 months in Sri Lanka working on material which generated the book\u00a0People Inbetween<\/em>\u00a0(1989).<\/span><\/p>\n

While that tome is basically a library study (with aid from Percy Colin-Thome and Ismeth Raheem), the interpretation of the 1505 arrival story is presented at the start and\u00a0backed up by charts decoding Sinhala modes of assessment derived from the heat of colonial invasions and the progeny spawned therefrom: namely, the\u00a0kaaberi, landesi, karapothu lansi<\/em>,\u00a0et cetera.<\/strong>\u00a0These readings derived from my travels and casual encounters in the localities of Colombo, Kandy and Mawanella among other spots (and even from the response to one of my questions from a waiter from Negombo named \u201cGrigson\u201d [yes Grigson!!!) at the Orient Club in Colombo.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Note of Caution:<\/strong>\u00a0The reference to \u201cnationalist opposition\u201d does not mean that the inspirations and thinking of the Sinhala-speaking people was infused with the ideology we identify as \u201cnationalism’\u201d in the 19th to 21st centuries \u2013an ideology informed by the transformation of thought generated by the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the technological transformations arising from the Industrial Revolution. The reference is to what can be gloassed as an old-fashioned \u201cpatriotism\u201d linked to monarchs and territories. Tambiah\u2019s writings on \u201cgalactic polities\u201d and the\u00a0mandala<\/em>\u00a0concept are pertinent here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Positivism<\/strong>:\u00a0 \u201cis a philosophical theory that states that \u201cgenuine\u201d knowledge is exclusively derived from experience of natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, as interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge\u201d \u2026\u2026\u00a0Wikipedia.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0A<\/em>borigines greeting Captain Cook and his tribe<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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An EMAIL COMMENT re this item from CR De Silva in USA, 22 April 2021:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cUp to the 1980s most of us regarded the Rajavaliya account of the arrival of the Portuguese as a story of wonder and amazement amoung the locals at the Portuguese, their clothes, demeanour and armaments. When Michael originally advanced the possibility of interpreting the story as a \u2018Tale of Resistance,\u2019 I recall that I was initially skeptical. In time, after reflection, I began to accept that Mike\u2019s interpretation was a plausible and useful alternate, though I continued to question some of the details of his interpretation. I am glad that he has drawn the attention to it. It was a valuable contribution enhancing our critical understanding of Sri Lankan sources.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

SOME REFERENCES \u2026. incomplet<\/strong>e<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Kingsley de Silva\u00a0<\/strong>1990a \u201cThe Burghers in Sri Lankan history,\u201d\u00a0Daily News<\/em>, 19 September 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kingsley de Silva\u00a0<\/strong>1990b \u201cWhy the Burgher exodus?\u201d\u00a0Daily News<\/em>, 20 September 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n

Malalgoda, Kitsiri 1997\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c1505 and All That: Varied Views of a Frist Encounter<\/strong>,\u201d\u00a0International Social Science Journa<\/em>l, Sept. 1997, No 153, pp 227-49.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nugent, Maria and Gaye Sculthorpe 2020<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cEarly Indigenous\u00a0 Accounts of Captain Cook\u2019s arrival paint a diffferent picture to history,\u201d 26 \/April 2020,\u00a0https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2020-04-26\/indigenous-oral-accounts-of-captain-cooks-arrival\/12183584<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a01989a<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cA tale of resistance: the story of the arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka\u201d, Ethnos, 55: 1-2: 69-82.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>1989b \u201cPejorative phrases: the anti-colonial response and Sinhala perceptions of the self through images of the Burghers,\u201d in Swedish in Lanka. Tidskrift om Lankesisk Kultur (Uppsala), vol 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>1990 \u2018The migration of Burghers,\u201d\u00a0The Sri Lankan<\/em>, April 1990, page 5-6.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>1991 \u201cPeople inbetween and Professor K. M. de Silva\u2019s diehard history,\u201d\u00a0Daily News<\/em>, 21 March 1991.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2000a \u201cLanka without Vijaya. Towards the new millennium,\u201d\u00a0Lanka Monthly Digest<\/em>, Jan. 2000, vol. 6: p. 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2000b \u201cHistory as dynamite,\u201d\u00a0Prav\u0101da<\/em>, vol. 6, no. ?, pp. 11-13. Also published in the Island Special Millennium Issue, 1 Jan 2000, pp. 43-44.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2000c \u201cThe Sri Lankan identity,\u201d\u00a0Lanka Monthly Digest,<\/em>\u00a0November 2000, vol 7: 4, pp. 43-44.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2001a \u201cDakunen s\u00e4di kotiyo, uturen golu muhudai,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0[Wicked-cum-vile Tigers to the south and the turbulent sea to the north],\u00a0Prav\u0101da<\/em>, vol 6, no. 11, pp. 17-18.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2001c\u00a0Sinhala-ness and Sinhala Nationalism<\/strong>, pamphlet, Colombo: Marga Institute, A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, No.4.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2002a \u201cVijaya: Interpreting the Civilizational Myth.\u201d Sunday Observer, 1 September 2002.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0<\/strong>2002b \u201cPrimordialist Strands in Contemporary Sinhala Nationalism in Sri Lanka: Urumaya as Ur,\u201d Colombo: Marga Institute, A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, No. ?.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tambiah, S. J,<\/strong>\u00a01986\u00a0Sri Lanka. Ethnic fratricide and the dismantling of democracy<\/em>, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Young, Richard<\/strong>\u00a01995 \u201cThe Carpenter-Pr\u0113ta: An Eighteenth-Century Sinhala-Buddhist Folktale about Jesus,<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0https:\/\/nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp\/nfile\/140<\/a>, Meiji Gakuin University, Yokohama.<\/span><\/p>\n

Young, R. F. and G. S. B. Senanayaka<\/strong>\u00a01999\u00a0The carpenter-heretic. A collection of Buddhist stories about Christianity from 18th century<\/strong>\u00a0Sri Lanka<\/em>,Colombo: Karunaratne & Sons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2020-04-29\/captain-cook-landing-indigenous-people-first-words-contested\/12195148<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n