CR De Silva: Basic Sources on the Advent of the Karava & Salagama Castes in Sri Lanka

CR De Silva in Memo responding to a Query from Shihan De Silva in UK

The evidence as to from what parts of India the KSD (Karava, Salagama, Durawa) castes arrived in Sri Lanka is not totally clear, but there are some indications in Portuguese sources. I have no data on the origins of the Durava.

However, here is what I have traced on the Salagamas. It suggests that the Salagamas came from the South Indian Malabar or Kerala coast and that the Karavas migrated from the eastern shores of the South Indian coast (currently Tamilnadu). Given that caste identity was connected to occupation, we should note that changes in occupation could have enabled some individuals to move from their caste identities especially during migration.

SALAGAMA

1) Fernão de Queyroz writing in the late seventeenth century reports that the Salagama or chaleas, as he calls them, themselves claimed that they came from the South Indian port of Chale. See Fernão de Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, trans. S. G. Perera, Colombo, 1930, p. 1018.

Chaliyam is a village situated at the estuary of River Chaliyar or Beypore in the Khozhikode (district of Kerala.

2) Duarte Barbosa writing in the early sixteenth century mentions the chaliyas of Kerala who had practiced weaving as their chief occupation although they also bore arms and fought in war. See Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, London, 1918-21, 2 vols., Vol. Vol. II, p. 59.

KARAVA

On the Karava, please look at Shanmugarajah Srikanthan, “A Study of Embedded History of Karaiyar of Jaffna Peninsula(Sri Lanka) and Coromandel Coast (India),” South Asian Anthropologist, 2014, 14(1): 89-100 (https://www.mukpublications.com/resources/14-1-11.pdf). He discusses the theories relating to their origins.

The evidence in the Portuguese tombo of 1614 that many careas pascadores or karava fishermen rarely held land can be taken to indicate that they were recent immigrants.

34. a) In Madampe, they had not as yet obtained paddy land although the tombo of 1614 records them as having obtained garden land planted with coconut. The sixteen karava families at Galamune and Galahitiyawa possessed sixteen gardens with a total of 1300 coconut trees. See C. R. de Silva, “Lancarote de Seixas and Madampe: A Portuguese Casado in a Sinhalese Village,” Modern Ceylon Studies, II (I), 1970, pp.18-34.
35. b) The tombo of 1614 records only 17 karavas or careas holding land in Negombo, although it also records 70 fishing nets and 25 inshore fishing boats. C. R. de Silva, “The Challenges of Writing the History of Localities that were under Colonial Rule in the Early Phase of European Expansion: An Investigation into Writing the History of Negombo (Sri Lanka) in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” University of Colombo Review (Series III), Vol. 5 (1), 2024, p. 19. 36.

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ALSO NOTE

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44148017

Bopearachchi, O., 2008 “Tamil Traders in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Traders in Tamil Nadu,” International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Goa

Are there any reasons why historic Asian sailing ships looked so differently from the sailing ships of the rest of the world?
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