Vedda Heritage Museum in Dambana honors Sri Lanka’s last forest-dwelling community by reconnecting ancestral artifacts, culture & identity.
Dambana Vedda Village and Museum D Dambana Vedda Village (Sinhala: දඹාන ආදිවාසී ගම්මානය) is an eco-tourism site located in Dambana near Mahiyangana in Badulla District, Sri Lanka. It reflects the culture and heritage of Veddas, an indigenous community who is considered one of the primitive human groups in the world and the first ethnic group that inhabited Sri Lanka (Semasinghe, 2021). History Vedda People The Veddas are the original community group in Sri Lanka (Riswan & Bushra, 2020). They inherits a long history and they are the linear descendants of prehistoric Neolithic people of the country (Semasinghe, 2021). They called themselves "Wanniyala-aththo" which means the forest dwellers (Riswan & Bushra, 2020; Semasinghe, 2021). There are three types of Veddas namely, forest, village, and coastal (Semasinghe, 2021). According to sources, these Veddas are in three main regional areas, the Bintenne, coastal and Anuradhapura (Riswan & Bushra, 2020; Semasinghe, 2021). The Bintenna Veddas inhabit the ar…
