That itch to twist...

It was not very instructive for the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to claim, once upon a time, that Baila was handed to us by the Portuguese. Wickremesinghe got his history confused, not once but twice, first when he made that by now notorious gaffe about the Sinhala growing chillies in filled up rice paddies.

But, Baila is a distinctive dance music from Sri Lanka, described as upbeat and latinesque. The genre originated centuries ago among the Sri Lanka Kaffir communities, and was influenced by African and European instruments and rhythms. Its not therefore Portuguese, but an intermix that is indigenous to the country.

In recent decades, baila became quite popular in Sri Lanka and among Sri Lankan expatriates of all classes, and has been featured in many popular songs with English, Sinhalese and Tamil lyrics.

Baila has its roots in the colonies and outposts established on the coast of Sri Lanka by the Portuguese traders of the 16th century. The Portuguese settlers brought with them slaves from the West Coast of Africa. Baila music developed among the descendants of mixed marriages between the Portuguese, Africans, and Sri Lanka natives, who became the Kaffir community of Sri Lanka. So biala is a Sri Lankan hybrid, and its primary source is the kaffirs - - the African slaves who were transported here by the Portuguese.

Baila combined the Portuguese instruments, such as guitar and ukulele, with African rhythms and Sinhalese lyrics.

The Kaffirs (English) or cafrinhas (Portuguese) are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are partially descended from 16th century Portuguese traders and the African slaves who were brought by them, as well as local Tamil and Sinhalese people.

These Kaffirs spoke a distinctive creole based on Portuguese, which became the Sri Lanka Kaffir language, now extinct. Their cultural heritage includes the dance styles Kaffringna and Manja.

The name "Kaffir" is an obsolete English term once used to designate African natives in general, especially from the western and southern coasts. (It is now used in South Africa as a pejorative term for black people). "Kaffir" derives in turn from the Arabic kafir, "infidel", which was used by the Arab slave traders to refer to those natives.

It is not clear whether the Portuguese name cafrinha was derived from English "Kaffir" after the English took over Sri Lanka, or came directly from the Arabic kafir in the 16th century, when the Portuguese were buying slaves from the Arab traders.

Kaffir communities are still found mainly in the northwest province of Puttalam in this country. There was some contact between the Kaffir and the Burghers, communities of partly European ancestry in the east coast of Sri Lanka.

Following the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian peninsula, the Portuguese started a vigorous program of sea exploration. By 1444 they had reached the west coast of Africa and become involved in the African slave trade.

The descendants of the freed African slaves are still a distinctive community near Puttalam in the Northwestern province of Sri Lanka. They interacted with the Burgher communities, descendants of Europeans and native Sri Lankans, at Trincomalee and Batticaloa on the east coast of the island.

The Kaffirs developed a Portuguese creole, and in a certain translated manuscript, is contained the gamut of 'Portuguese Songs of Batticaloa', 'Songs of the Portuguese Kaffrinha Portuguese Negro Songs' and 'The Story of Orson and Valentine'.

Batitloloa became the cultural homeland for the Burghers and the Creole community. The roots of their songs are preserved in this manuscript.

The Kaffirs have formed a cultural homeland near Puttalam in the Northwestern Province. Modern Kaffir songs can be traced to this manuscript But there are also speakers of the Kaffir language among the Kaffirs, descendant of African slaves, in the Northwestern province, in Puttalam (Mannar). In the village of Wahakotte near Galewala, in central Sri Lanka, there is a small community of Catholics with partial Portuguese ancestry, where the language was spoken until two generations ago.

The language is facing extinction, as it is now only used at home and few are able to speak it well. Many of its speakers emigrated to other countries. There are still 100 Burgher families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that speak the language.

An early sample of the language was collected by Hugh Nevill, a British civil servant stationed in Sri Lanka in the late 19th century. Among his large collection of oriental manuscripts is the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript, containing over a thousand verses and a long text in prose.

Baila originally consisted of vocals with a guitar and handclaps or otherwise improvised percussion. Baila remains at the roots of modern Sri Lankan music, but it now includes electric guitars, synthesizers and other modern developments. Baila stars of the 20th century include Paul Fernando, Desmond de Silva and Voli Bastian.

Says Micheal Robersts that "hybridity" usually refers to cultural practices drawing on numerous sources in syncretic ways. In this sense both "world music" and "baila" are hybrid cultural expressions, even though baila is so inscribed in Sri Lankan 'byways' that it may be seen as indigenous in form. But "hybridity" also can refer to mixed ancestry and thus to "creole" populations, who at the same time may sustain a syncretic language style deemed "creole" as well. One's ancestry, however, is often obscured by time.

If all those who deem themselves Tamil or Sinhala today could trace their ancestry with precision, then, surely we are all hybrid in bloodline, he says..

So as surely as Baila is not Portuguese, we are not all unalloyed "Sinhalese' or 'Tamils.''

(Sources: Wikipedia,etc)