Experience in field research and collecting work in the Sinhalese environment in the 21st century

Abstract

The Sinhalese people, the main population of Sri Lanka, have a rich and original culture, the study of which remains an interesting and urgent task. The author focuses on the experience of her field research in the Sinhalese milieu in the 1970s–80s and, in more detail, in the 21st century, when she made three expedition trips to Sri Lanka (in 2009, 2013 and 2014). Most interesting for her it seemed to uncover the possible innovations in everyday life, in material culture, in people’s mood. In addition, the author (partly in collaboration with colleagues from the Russian Ethnographic Museum and the State Hermitage) achieved some specific goals. In 2013, it was the search for the latest data on the status of the Veddas, the descendants of the island’s autochthons; in 2014 — a thorough acquaintance with the Sinhalese traditional handicraft production. This task was facilitated by the appearance in Sri Lanka of certain novelties interesting for the ethnographer — special original locations for studying and popularizing the Sinhalese folk culture and life, in particular, in the form of the “Ape Gama” Museum (Our village) and the ecological and ethnographic center “Gama Gedara” (Village House). The author also notes the significant assistance of her scholarly Sinhalese colleagues (historians, archaeologists, philologists) and some Buddhist monks. In the final part of the article, she shows how traditions and innovations coexist in the modern Sinhala craft (as visualized in the exhibits donated by her to the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS).