Folk History at Koggala

Norny and I visited the Martin Wickramasinghe folk museum near Koggala recently. There is a really great collection of traditional crafts and Sri Lankan everyday items there, so definitely well worth a visit.

Here are a few examples:


This 50cm tall puppet, made for travelling shows, represents a king from the Kandyan era. The pale skin of hill country people is admired by other Sri Lankans, as are their hats.




These are ancient Sinhala texts written on ola leaves. Before paper was available in Sri Lanka, this was the only way for the people to record religious or historical documents. The leaf would be written on with a knife-like stylus, and the indentations filled with ink. Many examples have survived for hundreds of years.





A crab trap woven from reeds. Many traditional techniques are still in use in Sri Lankan fisheries, though plastics and fibreglass have made many traditional materials redundant.






These hand carved masks show what people thought of the British policemen who patrolled Sri Lanka during the colonial era. Clearly they couldn't take the sun...




And this is a devil mask, crowned with cobras. In some parts of Sri Lanka the masked "devil dance" is still performed to ward off evil spirits and treat people with mental health problems.