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| Sunday, 21 December 2003 |
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Christmas celebrations of yore Traditions and food fare popular today were introduced by Portuguese, Dutch and the British by Jayanthi Liyanage How would have been the celebration of Christmas in early Ceylon when it was inhabited by people which Rev. James Cordiner called
"the Cingalese"? A people which he described as poor, harmless, unwarlike and remarkable for equanimity, mildness and timidity? This query comes to mind on reading A Description of Ceylon, written by Rev. Cordiner, a British Chaplain who was in Ceylon from 1799 to 1804 during the British occupation. For him, the then Ceylonese was made up of Cingalese on the coastal south of the country, Candians shut up in the hills and Malabars in the Wanny which bordered Jaffnapatam. Christmas was to Britishers "the season of the small and the intimate" in contrast to "the vast, the public and the impersonal" (Lord Elton), and was also essentially "a festival of children". Hazy narratives of then Christmas happenings remain in sources which are equally unsure of their authenticity, and it is left to historians to presume where tangible evidence has not been unearthed. Frederick Medis, an independent researcher in Sri Lankan history, agrees that no documentary evidence exists of the early Christmas celebrations in Ceylon, but our own conjecture that this was observed on a simple restrained manner. "Christmas was regarded as the pious celebration of the Mass of Christ (the birthday of Jesus), the festival of offering of Christ. And the Epiphany (manifestation) which followed a week later was the Feast of revealing Christ to the Gentiles (heathen)." Medis presumes that with Portuguese conversions of locals into Catholicism, the customs of Europe (Spain and Portugal) involving the decoration of churches with coloured streamers, ribbons and flowers would have taken root in Ceylon. "Merry-making was in both churches and homes. Catholic villagers in the Western coastal belt took part in stageplays of scripture narratives while artisans and carpenters carved figures of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds," says Medis.
"The idea of gift-giving came mainly from the Dutch, for whom Christmas was more a season of gift giving. St. Nicholas, the 4th century Byzantine Bishop of Myra, was the universally accepted idea of Santa Claus or Sinterklaas, the secret giver of gifts, specially to children." Some Dutch Ceylon Burgher families were believed to have celebrated the traditional Sinterclaas day of December 5, as recent as 30 years ago. Have you ever thought of following the lineage of the Christmas fare laid on your festive table? If any of the local Christians still follow the British dining custom of roast turkey, mince pie, white Bordeaux wine and "plum pudding" which evolved in 1595, here is a juicy anecdote from The Ceylon Fortnightly Review Christmas Number of 1958. How familiar are you with the superstition that "as many plum-puddings as you eat so will you have as many happy months in the coming year, and lucky is the man who eats 12 puddings." The Review says that in 1664, Puritans banned this symbol of "British generosity, taste and enterprise" as a "lewd tradition" unfit for "God-fearing people"! But it was the Portuguese and the Dutch who introduced to us many sumptuous fare which has become an inseparable part of the local mainstream celebrations. The Portuguese gave us the lavishly experimented-on "cake", bibingkang (Bibikkan) and Doosi. The Dutch brought Aasmi, Koekges (kokis), Viskiringa, Thole-thole (dodol), and of course, Love Cake, which is believed to be found only in Sri Lanka, being a concoction of the Dutch Ceylonese. "The earliest notice of Christianity in Ceylon is that of Cosmas Indopleustes, an Egyptian merchant," records Sir James Emerson Tennent in his Christianity in Ceylon, published in 1850. In Christian Topography, Cosmas wrote of his belief of a community of Christian believers living in Ceylon, made up of Persian traders, with a Presbytarian appointed by Persia and a Deacon conducting a full ecclesiastical ritual in a chapel. The Mahavamsa mentions of King Pandukabhaya setting aside a special area for foreign merchants near the Western Gate of capital city, Anuradhapura, in the pre-Christian era before the Portuguese. (H.W. Codrington - A short history of Ceylon). Medis calls it an Ionagathasabha or residences of the Ionians or Greeks. "Iona has been interpreted to mean foreigners or Arabs and it is known that foreigners and Jews were also present here around 6th century AD. Some of them were polytheists who had accepted the Christian religion." The discovery of a Nestorian cross found in the area fuels the presumption that Nestorian Christianity was here, brought by Persian and Syrian traders as early as 500 AD. Research by Medis points out the site of the Church of St. Thomas in Gintupitiya to have earlier borne one of the churches built by such Nestorian Christian Persians in the 6th century. "St. Thomas the Apostle came to India and was the founder of the Syrian Christian Chruch there," he writes in A comprehensive history of the ancient church of St. Thomas, Gintupitiya, Sri Lanka. "He is supposed to have visited Sri Lanka and preached on the hillock on which the Church now stands." This church is now believed to be the oldest existing church in Sri Lanka and one of the oldest in Asia. In the Dutch era, a church built on the site by the Portuguese fell into ruins, but the church yard continued to be used for three small cemeteries, one for slaves, one for natives and one for the heathen." Here the name of Santhumpitiya (Plain of St. Thomas) was changed into Gintupitiya (Plain of the heathen) derived from gentu, the Portuguese word for heathen. Medis mentions another little-known legend which says that an overlord of the Northern Region of Taprobane (Ceylon) was one of the three Magi (the wise men) who travelled overland through Hindustan (India) to see the Christ child at Bethlehem in Judea. Some claim him to be the black magus of Ceilao, Gaspar Peria Perumal, writes Carl Muller attacking Christmassy pseudo-historic clutter, in his book Firing at Random. This legend was recorded by Courtenay in his Historie du Christianisme a Ceylan. "There is also the tradition that one of the Magi who came to adore the Lord was a native of Ceylon. He was King of Jaffna and bore at home the name of Peria Perumal. This must be a Tamil name, for Perumal is a Tamil name, pretty common even to this day in South India and Ceylon." But Muller goes on to say that Fr. S. G. Perera has pointed out that Courtenay obviously took the story from another book by Johannes Petrus Maffei. Fr. Perera has pointed out most decisively, "All these legends of an ancient Christianity in Ceylon are wild statements." A common story goes that Christianity began when an ill-wind swept Lourenco d'Almeida, son of viceroy of Goa, to the Colombo habour near Sri Jayawardenapura, Kotte. When Christmas arrived a month later, Lourenco had already assumed cinnamon trade with the King of Kotte, breaking the trade monopoly the Moor traders had enjoyed in the island for so long. In a magnificent cathedral built here, the first Christian rites of the Roman Church were said to have been celebrated. Any way, the first Latin mass offered in Sri Lanka is believed to be that of Fr. Vincente d'Almeida in November 1505 on the shore below Galbokke (head island) which the Portuguese re-named Point St. Lawrence after their patron saint Lourenco d'Almeida. Christmas, which came here as an axis of piety and subsequently became submerged in commercialism is once again re-emphasising its central figure of the manifestation of Christ and its underlying theme of peace and reconciliation, says Fr. Thomas Kuriacose S.J., Executive Secretary, Conference of Major Religious Superiors in Sri Lanka. "If there is no reconciliation, the celebration of Christmas would lose its meaning." Are we seeking this spirit of manifestation in our Christmas activities in the true context of reconciliation? Such reconciliation has much to fall on in the indigenisation of Christianity which has continued without much fan fare, its material evidence being the church decorations of gokkola, coconut pandals and the jayamangala gatha style verses chanted at church festivals. The Pali version of the Bible was done by William Tolfrey of the Ceylon Bible Society, helped by the Pali scholar, Don Abraham de Thomas. Our first Sinhala Nadagama (play) is a legacy of the Portuguese. Named Rajathunkattuwa and made on the birth of the Christ, it was produced by M. S. Gabriel Fernando of Chilaw. The Goanese Fr. Jacome Gonzalves was the first adapter of carols to Sinhala. The popular Sinhala carol, "Devindu Upanneya Aho" is an adaptation of his. Fr. Marcelline Jayakody became the "Malpele Upan Pansale Piyathuma" (the Christian priest of the Buddhist Temple born in the native tabernacle) after becoming the first to compose a Sinhala carol, with his own words and music. Bulath hurullak aran, venda pudanna mavpiyan, varen Nattale, speaks of the enculturisation of Christmas embracing local customs and thinking patterns. But one Christmas carol written by Ven. Talawattegedera Ratanasiri Thera creates an ideal rendevouz for a reconciliation of religions. Its English translation goes as, "I will worship the Buddha with a flower picked from a tree growing in the church garden, and preach bana to heal a mind, sitting in the shade of the Cross: Moha is Darkness, Gnana is Light, Sin is a curse to everyone; God, Your purity of blood encourages my renunciation; The Lumbini Garden and Bethlehem calms and restores my mind, and I feel that a Kusinara was born near the Cross." |
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