Courtesy - The Island - By Maureen Seneviratne
"Right" does not mean in this instance "Rightist" politics. (oh, how "involved" we, as a nation are with politics, anyhow!). It is simply the opposite of "wrong".Robert Knox, if not exactly a household word or in name, rather, rings a bell in many a mind. Mr. Knox a British Ships captain put in at Trincomalee from, where he was brought to Kandy. A prisoner of the Kandyan King in the 17th Century According to the custom of that time he was not incarcerated in a prison or kept bound and fettered in the Royal dungeons. He was placed in the midst of a Kandyan village and the villagers were responsible for his well being. They had to provide him with food, clothing and shelter, and medicines if he fell ill.
Mr. Knox, apart from a few minor ailments as would affect any middle-aged person, came from hardy stock and had been a sea-farer. His father was a ship’s captain before him. He did not fall ill. Instead, very soon he became accustomed to his fate and spent a great deal of his time studying the manners and mores of his captors. He soon decided that he had very little in common with their way of life and lived out those years in a constant search for an escape route.
moreHis curiosity being acute, he made it his objective to learn also about their ideas and attitudes and he was shocked that they were satisfied with so little. Ignorance was not bliss, in his opinion. He himself was an ambitious man and soon was in a position to be a lender, if not of money, of grain. He was unique a prisoner to whom many were indebted!
He might have been a Puritan in his Christian faith but it did not prevent him from taking interest on his "loans".
His book which he wrote on his voyage back to Europe after his escape, for escape he did after nineteen years of "captivity", is the "Relation of the Island of Zeylon" and gives a vivid picture of the Kandyan people holed up as they were in their forest Kingdom and in his opinion cut all from the mainstream of life even in their own island leave alone the world.
The world in the 17th Century was a world discovering its own potential. The New world of the Americas had been discovered and colonized. That process was to continue into the present day. People who felt threatened because of their " differences" from the majority and felt in danger of persecution sought, yet seek refuge in that vast Northern Continent.
But let us not forget that the "Pilgrim Fathers" as those first bold settlers were called, also had their own peccadilloes. They had been Puritans as they were dubbed in England and they rejected every form of Christianity expect their own rigorous one.
It seems from this point of time a harsh creed. They had created very little of that God who so loved the world that he gave his only son for the redemption of mankind. And who suffered a passion and death even into the cross.
But it is a far cry today, the American culture, from the ideals of the Pilgrim Fathers. The US is still the land of opportunity for all who strive to realise it. Many Sri Lankans have settled down there but it is a little pitiful to see them still preparing "kiri bath" (milk rice) for festivals and birthday breakfast and requiting visitors not to forget the seeni sambol and the Maldive fish when they come over. I carried both well wrapped up in my case through destinations in seven states and handed over the package, the seeni sambol as spicy and toothsome as it was when first made a month before. Not that they don’t make it over there. Big onions are plentiful but dried cod is no substitute for the Maldive fish nor are bay leaves for karapincha.
Robert Knox himself was astonished at the food turned out by the Kandyans with a few leaves or yams and little else. And in his time coconuts were a rarity in the fastness of Kandy, only brought over by merchants travelling by cart all the way from the coast at least from Kurunegala which was a part of the Kingdom. And lush "coconut country."
There is another particular trait about the people, still evident, which Knox most accurately described. That habit our village folks still have of solemnly discussing the wiles of politicians, in their time. They would have been the "king’s men", the members of the nobility who surrounded the king in his palace and had their own great houses in Kandy and their permanent homes must have been imposing enough to the populace deprived of nearly every luxury. Even salt had to be brought from the coast and it is interesting to trace this route today, from the deep South coast and places like Hambantota where the sea-salt pans glow silver white, to the interior highland villages and small townships, including the royal city of Kandy.
Is it significant that the kings always gave royal audience to persons of prestige, visiting him and his court at night-time. The walls, the lamps blazing, the braziers glowing with red-hot coals, the King enthroned in all his splendour, the chiefs in their finery on their knees around him, the scent of incense from the brass braziers, all around them. What a sight of majesty to awe even the most sophisticated Europeans the king of Kandy had deigned to notice. (Mr. Knox himself preferred to play it down. He never sought a royal audience preferring to live in splendid isolation in the village to which he was assigned). Many Europeans who were entertained by the unpredictable Rajasingha the second ended up in his dark dungeons.
Rulers have always been temperamental. For one thing they have been and are at risk from an enemy or opposing forces always engage spies to infiltrate into those spaces close to the ruler and many succeed. All modern governments have their spies. But, why reach up to governments? In practically every place I have worked whether in a newspaper office, private companies or government departments spies had their valued places. At least they were valued by the big bosses, especially when those bosses were partial and unfair and guessed they were intensely disliked by their employees.
"Kissing goes by favour" and to that, too, I can bear witness and certain persons who happen to have white skins (due to a flaw in the epidermis) are so patronising to those with black or coloured skins. They try to be hearty when they do not need to be so. They go beyond the extreme in being polite, which they are not to their white contemporaries. They spar and banter in a most artificial manner. And will "second" your election to a "Steering Committee" with reservations, expecting you to be agreeable and keep silent when the committee meets. They are not a little displeased if you express an opinion forthrightly and distraught if other (coloureds and blacks) say ‘Aye’ to your suggestions which are then "passed".
I have seen much of this at diverse committee meetings but it never daunted me from speaking my mind albeit very calmly and coolly and with prejudice to none.
A black (his mother a white woman though) has been elected as President of the United States of America (USA) and his wife, a fully black woman if we can call her now rule "Gods Own Country" as it was once known. Barack Obama’s father was a Kenyan and his mother a white woman from Chicago who lived in Hawaii (a State of the Union). But his wife, Michelle one of the best educated and confident of American women is descended from freed slaves in the USA’s North. How much at ease she is as one views her on television. How cool, how sophisticated and yet endearingly simple!
Going back to Mr. Knox and the Kandyan King, one is reminded of his opinion of the "Dekkuma". The "Dekkuma" was almost a rite in the Kandyan Kingdom in the relationship between the King and his Nobles. He ensured the respect and loyalty due to him by this means. They had to present themselves with their retainers and close family members at the Royal Court till they were summoned to his presence by their liege lord, having to move towards the King in a crouching position on all fours, thus expressing their humility and the debt they owed to their sovereign, their feudal lord by whose grace and favour they held those same lands and honours.
They also had to bring with them in heavily loaded bullock carts a portion of the produce of the fields of the lands given to them. Their stewards saw to it that the king’s portion was also sent at regular intervals during the year. It was not safe to rouse the ire of the kings. It is evident kings were more feared them loved. Robert Knox was seasoned enough to know it and felt keeping a distance was all for the best. As in most things he was right. We owe a feather debt to him for "carrying away the whole kingdom in his head" and write that great book which we value to this day.
