Editing Vedda (section)

===Cult of the dead===
The Veddas practice what is referred to by Western ethnologists as "a cult of the dead".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Seligman |first1=C. G. (Charles Gabriel) |url=https://archive.org/details/veddas__00seliuoft |title=The Veddas |last2=Seligman |first2=Brenda Z. |date=1911 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=Robarts - University of Toronto}}</ref> The Vedda perception of the world when originally studied in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries was not divided into polarities as life and afterlife or living and dead. At that time when asked whether the dead lived on as spirits they found that "they did not consider whether the departed were living or dead, they were just spirits...all spirits were alike neither good nor bad".<ref name=":1" />

In the words of John Bailey studying this population in 1853: "the Veddahs have a vague belief in a host of undefined spirits, whose influence is rather for good than evil...they believe the air is peopled by spirits, that every rock and every tree, every forest and every hill, in short every feature of nature, has its genus loci;but these seem little else than nameless phantoms whom they regard with mysterious awe than actual dread".<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=John |date=1863 |title=An Account of the Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon: Their Habits, Customs, and Superstitions |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3014327 |journal=Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London |volume=2 |pages=278–320 |doi=10.2307/3014327 |jstor=3014327 |issn=1368-0366}}</ref>

In addition to this experience of the world often referred to as "animism" they have a belief that after death every relative is a spirit "of those who watches over the welfare of those left behind. These, which include their ancestors and their children, the term their 'nehya yakoon', kindred spirits. They describe them as ever watchful, coming to them in sickness, visiting them in dreams, giving them flesh when hunting".<ref name=":2" />

The Vedda behavior at the time of these original ethnological studies regarding the recently dead is quite different from our behavior toward the dead.
"When a person dies it is the hetha that killed him; and the hetha of the dead one remains by the corpse and haunts the vicinity for years."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Spittel |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2tM-AAAAIAAJ |title=Wild Ceylon: Describing in Particular the Lives of the Present Day Veddas |date=1924 |publisher=Colombo Apothecaries Company, Limited |language=en}}</ref>

The majority of the Vedda tribes studied at that time held what is referred to as a "kirikohraha ceremony". This was often held "to present an offering to the newly dead within a week or two of their decease...The yaku of the recently dead....are supposed to stand towards the surviving members of the group in the light of friends and relatives, who if well treated will continue to show loving kindness to their survivors, and only if neglected will show disgust and anger by withdrawing their assistance, or becoming actively hostile."<ref name=":1" />