First comes the heat. Burning swirling endless heat. Colors. Deep blues and reds and browns. Movement slows. Moisture builds. The next day there is an ocean.

Then stones, pits, chasms. Land. Then come the palms and the figs. Roots, stems, trunks, fronds, fruit. Caps and sponges. Wings and scales. Spotty flyers and buzzes and creepers.

Branches, bones, flesh, fur. Creatures. Calls, cackles and howls. The next day there is a forest.

Vast murmurs as winds make waves through the leaves, exposing a new shade of green to the sunlight and the moonlight for the first time again and again. Now there is music.

There are two of them now. The small and furry who chitter and chatter, and the taller ones who recently appeared. They knew each other in a previous age but have not forgotten how to listen to each other. They like to keep their children together.

First there is Kande. He sings and brings forth worlds. Then there is Wanniya and Bilindi. They are the Nae-Laetto. There are also Bambara and Pemba and all the others whose names are sung, whose spirits carry on through the people of the forest, the taller ones called the Wanniya-Laetto. And the smaller ones, called the Nittaewo.

The people of the forest sit and reminisce with the palms and the figs and the gum trees, and with the scaled ones and winged ones and furry ones, about all of their long-lost relatives who live across the ocean in lands that are sometimes cooler and drier and sometimes warmer and wetter. They all listen to each other with great interest and pass the information along to their families throughout the forest. The trees tell the people and the creatures of the forest which of their kin will help them grow strong and which will cure sickness and how to prepare meals and medicines.

The people make bows and arrows out of fallen branches. They make ropes and live in carved stone. They sing kingdoms into being and out of being as they travel with the creatures.

The Wanniya-Laeto are the people of Lanka, and their guardian spirits love and protect them forever. This is where my story begins.

Notes

1 The Wanniya-laeto practice ancestor worship (source) and honour great hunters and heroes/heroines who lived earlier. The most important hunting spirit is the spirit of kande Wanniya, a celebrated hunter who lived many generations ago. (source)

2 At Sitala Wanniya and other sites, Kande and Bilindi are known as brothers. Kande is invoked for good luck in hunting deer. Bilindi is a child spirit. Both are considered friendly and helpful spirits. (source)

3 The Nae are the spirits of the dead, they must report themselves to Kande as the chief spirit to obtain permission to help the living and accept their offerings. (source)

4 Bees in Sigiriya are a species known as Rock Bees or Giant Honey Bee scientifically categorized as Apis dorsata. Referred to as ‘Bambara’ in Sinhala, they feed on pollen and nectar of flowers. (source)

Bambara is also a people and a language in West Africa, particularly Mali (although there is no direct link suggested between this group and the Australoid migration). Bambarakanda Falls is the name of the tallest waterfall in Sri Lanka. (source)

5 A creator god of the Bambara people of West Africa. He descended to earth as an acacia seed (Acacia albida) which first grew to a mighty tree and then died. From the wood Pemba generated human souls and a female being whom he impregnated to engender all human and animal life. (source) Plants related to this tree are found in Sri Lanka.

6 Wanniya-Laetto translates to “forest-dwellers”. Their traditional activities were hunting and beekeeping. They did not originally practice chena farming, but were later forced to adopt it. At some point, those who gave up hunting to take up chena cultivation and eventually irrigated cultivation are said to have been called Handuruwa ('who left the hunt') before they became known as Goyigama. (source) Govigama is one of the largests groups in Sri Lanka. Govi, meaning paddy farmer, derives from the root word goyam, meaning paddy plant. (source)

7 The Nittaewo are described as a small, hairy tribe of people living in Sri Lanka. The Nittaewo were small hominids who stood about 3-4 feet tall. They lived in trees, caves and crevices and they are said to have lived in groups of 10 or 20 and their speech was like the twittering of birds. (source) The Wanniya-Laetto are said to have killed the last of the Nittaewo in the 18th century after the Nittaewo started stealing Wanniya-Laetto children. (source)

Excerpted from an unfinished, unpublished collection of myths made new called Near-Sighted Visions: A Collection of Teaching Tales from Around the World