Web of Life

A typical sharing of resources as vehicular traffic follows the train as it moves in and out of the bridge.

The bridge connects lands across the Mahaveli river, which, due to the prolonged drought, is no more than 6 inches in many areas but not fully dried up, it never has been according to a few people who use its waters for bathing, cooking and drinking.

Looking down from the bridge is a spectacular sight of three dogs running hither and thither in the water chasing a brown and white crane. Whether they were preying on the bird or not, I could not perceive but it soon flew away due to the persistance of the mongrels.

Yet another feature of the bridge is that over a period of 48 hours well over 200 trucks were transporting between 5000kg and 7500kg of paddy from Ampara and Akkarapattu toward Polonnaruwa and beyond. During the period of my visit well over 1.2 million tons of paddy was moved out of the growing area and this was only during 48 hours of observation. How much more was available and what its effect on the price of rice is a matter for the future.

Manampitiya is also blessed with a large growth of cane shrubs which has grown wild, no planned cultivation is seen, the shrub grows wild but is used for production of baskets and similar items.

Bird life is plentiful and the nests of the weaver bird is a fascinating sight from across the railway lines and no more than 10 feet away.

The Kotaliya Bridge situated at the 166 1/4 mile post on the railway line is above waters that are inviting, but villagers warn visitors not to bathe here as it is crocodile infested and two to three persons are carried away each year, never to be seen again.

In close proximity to the Manampitya Bridge is a Hindu temple known as Gange Devale. T. Udayakumar, a member of the temple committee of management said that the temple was over 300 years old having been built in the 1700’s.

He said that according to their belief, the entire area was fertile paddy fields. It is said that one day an old man came walking through these fields trampling the plants. He is said to have been severely reprimanded by the people of the area and came and sat under a large tree where the temple stands. This old man had told some villagers who were passing by that he was found fault with but those who abused him are now unable to see.

The old man gave some water to these villagers to be sprinkled on the eyes of those who were blind and their sight was restored. Immediately afterward all these people came back looking for the old man but he had disappeared having only a "Vel". The villagers believe that it was God Kataragama who visited them in the form of the old man. They have preserved a block of rock which they claim are the footprints of God Kataragama.

Manampitiya is not far from Kolakanawadiya, where some of the Veddahs live even to this date. The Veddah community has been assimilated into the neighbouring society and we did also have the first Veddah public servants. Two Veddahs, named Sinna and Kannah, worked for the Railway Department for 30 to 35 years and also received a pension from the government.

Probably they are the first Veddahs to do so. At the time of my visit, one of their nephews, Thangarajah, was working as a permanent employee at the Manampitiya Way and Works office. He said that he was the son of Kaluwaage Selliah and Kannipuli. Both he and his sister were born under the shade of trees in the forest since there were no hospitals at that time.

They were taught by a teacher who wrote everything on the ground with a stick as there were no slates and pencils at that time.

A very interesting incident was a visit to the garbage dump close to Gallella, about two kilometres away from the Manampitiya bridge. At the time of our visit, two large elephants were lazily swinging their trunks around and doing nothing else in particular. A tractor loaded with sand passed by about the same time and asked us if we wanted to take photographs. He asked us to wait a few moments and then stopping his tractor raised the engine revving it for a few minutes. The elephants reacted immediately, the two elephants who were about 100 feet away began walking towards the tractor and two more appeared quickly from behind the shrub jungle.

On making inquiries it tranpired that these elephants numbering about eight including a baby depend on the contents of the garbage tractors that are unloaded at the dump yard everyday.

In fact when the garbage tractors arrive the elephants unload the dirt with their trunks and do not harm the drivers.

By regular contact with humans these animals are less wild but not tamed by any means. The sand tractor driver deceived these animals to come out into the open but being intelligent creatures they are bound to attack sand tractors if they are cheated for too long, neighbours said.