In the ceremonial sphere British constructs were precise and to a large extent informed by a certain knowledge of what constituted the appropriate dress of different social groups of different ranks. The Gazette notification of 1935, in which instructions regarding the number of appointments for each ethnic group to the offices of headman, president of village tribunal or interpreter to the governor, and to honorary ranks such as Mudaliyar, Muhandiram and Adigar, were laid out in great detail, reads as a lesson in colonial wizardry.
Many of the honorary ranks mentioned-generally bestowed on occasions such as the (British) King's Birthday-did not have antiquity to commend them. The Tamil Muhandiram rank, for instance, was created--in the prosaic sense of the term--in 1935. It was the institution of a strict etiquette that brought legitimacy to these offices. For attendance at every public function, details of appropriate headwear, footwear, medals and swords were prescribed: a Tamil Muhandiram had to wear a white turban with silver lace and a Muslim Muhandiram had to wear a Turkish turban with white as the predominant colour. Uniforms were exotic exhibits of tile authentic indigenous cultures as the British perceived them. All office bearers were compelled to wear these identitarian uniforms anti photographs of die period are ample proof that natives abided by the strict etiquette set out for them. These costumes emphasized the specificity of each ethnic group, Low Country Sinhalese, Kandyan Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim. Did the wearer's self-perception as a member of a specific ethnic group increase by virtue of wearing an identitarian costume? For those who met and interacted with the officials the costumes and the differences between them were surely an indication if not a message of the way society was--in the official view.
Through the definition of this ceremonial sphere the gap between the Oriental and the Western was once again emphasized, which reinforced some of the perceptions common in the theatre and in Sinhala newspapers about what constituted an oriental culture. However, there was no clear cut rule about the introduction of non-oriental styles into the ceremonial dress of the natives. Western elements in ceremonial dress were accepted in some cases but not in others. If one were to discern a general trend, it seems, in the Kandyan dress, no foreign element was tolerated, while in the dress of the Low Country Sinhalese the assumption was they were already part of a hybrid culture and Western elements were prevalent. A description in the 1935 Gazette of the shirt of a Kandyan Sinhalese disawa in semi-dress exemplifies this tendency: 'Reli Kamise or shirt with frills (not to be European dress shirt)'. This added qualification suggests that the invented tradition for Kandyans was resolutely non-Western. Hybridity was not tolerated in any form in the dress of the community that embodied tradition as the British perceived it.
Like the Gazatte, other writings showed that Kandyan culture was perceived as pure, while Low Country Sinhalese culture was read as composite. Among the colonial writings that documented the 'authentic' in society as the British envisioned it. Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon stands out. The explicit purpose of this volume was clearly defined in the preface. It was 'to give a perfect microcosm of the colony or dependency treated'. It was 'the outcome of all enterprise designed to give in an attractive form full and reliable information with reference to the outlying parts of the Empire'. What this book did in fact was to chart the 'authentic' in Ceylonese society or what was worth museumising. In this operation the objects of the inquiry, namely the leading families in Ceylonese society, became willing subjects. The book is composed of a number of essays and illustrated with black and white photographs of men and women who belong to the traditional or the new elite, It purports to reach completeness and accuracy.
The photographs give a rational and ordered version of the diverse dress of the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim people. No judgment or opinion is offered. The description is purely informative. In the same way the costumes are timeless, unanchored and dehistoricised. When one sifts through this photograph album of solemn faces in their best costumes, what is conveyed is the author's mitigated respect for his subjects, either in their authentic dress or the most Fashionable Western outfit. The violence of the colonial gaze is absent, replaced with the inquiring search for the traditional and the elegant. In this four hundred page book/photograph album two pages of text are devoted to the dress of the Sinhalese, in which clear distinctions are made between, on the one hand, the dress of the Low country Sinhalese and the Kandyans and, on the other, that of the lower and upper classes.
The writer, who in many ways exemplified the colonial mind--the Low-Country Mudaliyar who on occasions 'assumed the European coat' and wore medals given to him by the colonial state, embodied modernity, while his Kandyan counterpart remained firmly entrenched in the traditional realm. The Low-Country man's costume was described as a mixture of East and West. The Kandyan costume, which seemingly drew solely from indigenous culture, was perceived as being more 'authentic'.
Of the Kandyan or highland Sinhalese, a colonial official wrote in the same book, ‘...they are the living examples of a remote antiquity and they are almost as fresh and original to us as the inhabitants of the coast of the island were to the early invaders’. Then comparing them with the Low Country Sinhalese he wrote: ‘...while the Low-country Sinhalese materially changed 'with the tide of each successive European administration and adapted themselves to western modes, manners and habits, the Kandyans remained in status quo’. It appears the Kandyans were thought of as museum pieces, as the epitome of the unchanging, slow-moving Orient.
The situation was quite different in the case of the Low Country Sinhalese, The descriptions of the ceremonial costumes of the Maha Mudaliyar, Gate Mudaliyar or Muhandiram show many elements burrowed from the West. The coat. for instance, was undoubtedly Western black or dark navy blue in color with loops and buttons down the front and cuffs with 'Austrian knot' for the Mudaliyars. The footwear was also Western: black boots or black shoes. The implication was that in the early twentieth century Low Country Sinhalese customs were hybrid enough to incorporate any amount of western elements. Purity had been 'sullied' a long time ago.
The details pertaining to the wearing of shoes--in particular, what is referred to as the juta in the Gaz ette notification of 1935-gives some indication of the features of the authentic as it was conceived in the official mind. The Telegu name juta for the Kandyan shoe and its appearance during the reign of the Nayakkar kings seem to point towards a recent South Indian origin, But not only did the British consolidate the juta as the only authentic shoe, they also transformed it into the oriental shoe par excellence. Indeed it is interesting to note that in the Gazette of 1935 jutas are recommended not only for -thie Kandyan Sinhalese, but also for Muslim and Tamil officials if they choose to wear a sarong instead of trousers. For a Ceylon Tamil the recommended uniform gives the following details: 'With sarong: if shoes are worn, jutas without socks or shoes with socks and matching stockings.' This is followed by the important recommendation that juntas must be taken off in the presence of the Governor'.
So the juta lost first its South Indian character and then its regional/Kandyan character and, reinvented by the colonial administration, became the oriental shoe worn by Kandyans, Muslims and Tamils. It was also coded as a sartorial symbol of subjugation: its presence on the foot of a native official in the presence of the Governor was considered an affront.
British colonial policy on official footwear clearly shows the colonial riders' attempt to subsume the complexities of Sri Lankan cultures under tile unifying idea of the Orient. It also shows that in the colonial view Kandyans could remain pure even as they were south Indian jutas on their feet. Hybridity came with mixing East and West. When 'oriental' cultures mixed, they fused and merged into an acceptable whole, they did not become hybrid. Thus identities in Sri Lanka were predicated upon the notion of difference between the colonial and the native. The authenticities that were constructed were largely based on a British understanding of race and history that privileged ‘purity’ and age-old traditions.
Through their participation in the constructing of authenticities for various communities in the island, some British-there would have been internal differences within the colonial community--conceptualized the difference between Britain and the East in terms of gender too.
Colonial laws and administrative practiceses had elaborated a system of where people were or were not. They belonged somewhere with certainty, and proof of this belonging was visible. Cross-gender behavior was therefore troubling to British men accustomed to a clear demarcation of gender roles and appearance. For this reason the konde (hair tied up in a bun) of southern Sinhalese men caused them much worry. Why would self-respecting men keep their hair long and worse, tie it up in a bun over which a comb was fixed?
As late as 1887, in spite of the increase in commoditization men were killing themselves over the right of certain people to wear the comb. Men from an elite Oli family from South of Colombo planned to attend a marriage ceremony wearing combs in the Goyigama (traditionally highest caste) style. The local Goyigamas successfully prevented them from doing so and an Oli was killed in the affray. Governor Arthur Gordon opposed taking any action against them, for he believed that the Olis had provoked the riot by giving 'grievous offence’. In 1801 Cornelis de Alwis Vidane, Muhandiram of Galle, complained in a petition to Governor North that a Lieutenant Short had struck him on his head and broken his comb.
The operation of cutting off the konde, which became a quasi-obsession for the colonial rulers, was an integral part of the silent violence of colonial rule. To be fair, impressions of the konde were mixed among the British; but most would have approved the 1906 ruling according to which the colonial state specified that Volunteers in Ceylon should no longer wear a konde. This new law would affect thirty Sinhalese men. Until then long hair had not been considered a threat. The editors of the Ceylon National Review, a mildly radical magazine, sarcastically commented: 'We suppose it interferes in some mysterious way with the defense of the Empire, still we can't help wondering how.' They suggested these men should retire from service rather than comply.
In European culture cutting the hair of one's enemy signifies his total submission. Historical examples are many, from Julius Caesar who cut the long hair of the Gaulish chiefs to the scalping and eventual decimation of native Americans. For British rulers in Ceylon the sight of long haired men was a threat to their power. The Foucaultian notion of 'bio-power' and 'the body surface' offers some powerful tools for examining colonial visions of the body. In his later works, Foucault identifies a distinctive mode of modern power that produces its effects from within the sphere of the self through regulation, inhibitions and introspection--a mode that he calls bio-power. Accounts of the functioning of bio-power have all involved institutions and practices concerned with the regulation and 'inscription' of bodies--such as medicine, punishment and sexuality. In Ceylon district courts had the power to inflict punishment of up to one year in prison, fifty lashes, a fine of £100 or any of the two above. There was no formal limit to the punishment the Supreme Court could impose, though in practice the death sentence was passed only ill eases of murder. In the 1880s reforms led to a reduction of lashes to twenty-five. But this decision was overturned in the 1890s when magistrates were given the power to order corporal punishment for specific offences. 'Whippings in Sri Lanka were carried out with a cat-o-nine-tails mid flayed the back of tile prisoner scarring him for life’. Doing away with the konde was less hurt-fill than corporal punishment, but it remained a central part of the strengthening of colonial bio-power.
What was often perceived as a 'distinctive mark of the Low Country Sinhalese' was according to popular tales, introduced in the eighteenth century by a Malay prince who was deported from java to Ceylon by the Dutch. Popular stories also claim that the custom of wearing a comb came after a Dutch governor had suggested to a native chief that a comb would keep his hair turned up in place, From then on headwear (hats) was no longer used among the Low Country Sinhalese who adopted the comb. The comb became part of 'tradition'.
The colonial rulers of Ceylon were unnerved by the comb, perhaps even more than the turban in India, because of its feminine character. By wearing combs Sinhalese men were in effect becoming women. The effeminacy' of Sinhalese men was part of the British rulers' general appreciation of men from India. As early as the 1750s Robert Orme spoke of the effeminacy of the inhabitants of Hindustan. Gender in Pact helped define the contrast between ruler and ruled and provided a way to order Britain's relations with its Indian and Ceylonese subjects. According m the powerful domestic ideology that developed in Britain in the early nineteenth century, it was innate and demonstrable biological distinctions that defined the fundamental difference between male and female. By their very nature women were fragile, passive and emotional, in contrast to men who were strong, active and intellectual. These differences in the structuring of the body in turn dictated differing patterns of behavior for men and women. Men were to be active in the public world, competing against each other the power and wealth; while women from the sanctuary of the home were to nurture their husbands and children.
The very nature of British imperial experience brought into prominence the 'masculine virtues' such as control and self-discipline, and de-emphasized the 'feminine' virtues such as tenderness and feeling which were expressive of the softer side of human nature. Sinhalese men were considered feminine as were men belonging to particular communities in India, such as Bengalis. However, the Bengali and Sinhalese situation differed because not only were men considered feminine by colonial observers in Ceylon, Sinhalese women were attributed masculine features.
Many Europeans arriving in the colonial worlds of the nineteenth century were interested in the sensual, physical and bodily nature of indigenous cultures, and the early ethnographic texts that often framed their interest in these subjects shared this preoccupation. Nineteenth century travel narratives about Ceylon define a very define specific conceptual domain. Among the more negative features highlighted by colonial minds was, in a positive manner, about the freedom enjoyed by women: 'The men are not jealous of their wives, for the greatest ladies in the land will frequently talk and discourse with any men they please although their husbands be in presence’. A British colonel in La Feerie Cinhaalese, a popular French novel, summed up the prevalent view about Sinhalese women in the early twentieth century: 'Curieux pays..tout y est beau, sauf les femms, A vingt ans, elles sonl fichues' (Strange country...everything there is nice, except the women, At twenty, they are finished).
Sinhalese women, it seems, troubled colonial minds just as Keralan women did. They did not conform to the idea which prevailed ill the Raj of the oriental woman as a person mysterious, beautiful but tragic, feeble and in need of protection. By challenging the traditional understanding of the relationship between anatomy and social roles Sinhalese women created a feeling of uneasiness, Hence the colonel’s cruel indictment.
The perceived effeminacy of the Sinhala men and the masculine features of the women were also linked to their attire: The only visible distinction between the sexes consists in the women wearing rather shorter jackets than the men, enjoying generally rather coarser features, and dispensing with the masculine appendages of combs and parasols? Captain Percival stated that women 'get old and haggard in their looks immediately after they pass twenty', while the Reverend James Cordiner declaimed: 'The women are lower in stature than the men and the greater part of them are not comely. According to Elisabeth Harris Sri Lankan women were neither romanticized nor praised by British men. One of the reasons was their dress was perceived as unbecoming. Dress was sometimes seen as inadequate, sometimes as simply plain. It lacked the exuberance colonial minds expected of oriental women and the simplicity of their attire puzzled many British males who were looking for some idealized oriental woman, Construing an authentic Sinhalese woman was therefore of no interest to colo-nial writers and officials. In sharp contrast to its role in gelling male identities through official costumes, colonialism had little impact on the formation of 'authentic women' of' different communities.
Official Ceylon, like official India, did not concern itself with women's attire. Colonial minds found more resources and inspiration in the willing group of men, chiefs and aspiring leaders whose claims to authenticity had, in their understanding, more right to support. A word of reservation is however necessary concerning the omnibus category of the 'colonial ruler'. There is no evidence of a single colonial consciousness~---mingling middle-class moralism, hyper-masculinity and guilt--that would include both the defenders of empire and the more passive middling participants, Difference is an attribute that needs to be tested for colonizers too.
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