Ranmanika, the heroic daughter of Kivulegedara Mohottala, wrote the last letter before her death...
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Wellasse wrote her last letter to us on December 18, 1818. I think she must have shed an ocean of tears when that day dawned.
Ranmanika's last letter was not written in a palm tree. On rough paper. Making such paper sheets was a cottage industry in Uva Wellassa. Pens were used to write letters on it. Various types of inks were used for writing, made from extracts of nuts and bark of trees.
If you were a true Sinhalese and read Ran Meniki's last letter at the same time, it would be sad for you. I leave this to you as she wrote it.
"relationship",
The rift has not yet erupted. The stars in the sky did not fall. The sea did not overflow. As for the damage done by the whites to Wellassa, it should have been all.
I have never begged anyone. I did not touch. I did not beg for mercy. But this time I beg you to shed a tear for me. I am asking because I have no more tears to cry.
I feel this may be my last post. I don't know if this will come into your hands. I write the article because I have to write it.
I am writing this in a cave at the top of a hill in the middle of the great forest, a little beyond our village in Kivulegedara. There are two more caves on both sides of this rock. One is a mother bear with cubs, the other is a mother bear. I am sorry to have hit Lena, who has blessed nature for their habitation. It's not like the whites took over our country, but I hit this cave because I had no place to stay. This fate happened to me because a bunch of aristocrats of our country betrayed the motherland.
My father's house, who stood against this, was burned to ashes. The mother was dragged into the yard, shot dead and thrown into the same fire.
I don't know where my Mahanama is who went to the battlefield. Malanu Tikiri is stranded. To escape from the guns of the whites, I went to the forest with my little daughter in my arms. Having inherited a land of freedom for thousands of years, I am now alone, a prisoner in a cave in my own land.
First of all, please forgive me if I have neglected my duties as a young woman for the Sinhalese freedom struggle of 1818.
I tell you that October 27, November 26, December 18, 1818 were very unfortunate days. You know that on October 27 Ellepola, my father-in-law and Kanitu Ellepola were killed by the white man's sword at the Bogambara torture ground. Also, you know that on November 26, Kappetipola Nilame and Madugalle Nilame were hanged by the same sword.
Now my father, Kiwulegedara Mohottala hero, has been chosen to be hanged today on December 18th.
Knowing about this incident in advance, I begged with my hands on the ground not to bring that day. The dead body of the father who died mysteriously because of the defeat of the battle is hanged at Suddan Badulla. I cannot bear the disrespect to the lifeless body of my father.
It is wonderful how my father-in-law killed the white man's sword. Every dream I sleep thinking about his boldness, I cry like a kneeling. Before taking the sword to his neck, he had said:
"I dedicated myself to win the battle with the utmost vigor, it was my responsibility, but because of the work of Molligodala and Eknaligoda, it was difficult to win it. Therefore, I was a failed person. Because I was unable to fulfill my mission, when I died, it is worth giving the body to Honorable Buhuman. No. Therefore my body must be cut into pieces and fed to dogs and crows.
relation,
This is the information I heard from the elder brother named "Handuna" about my uncle's Ehelepola. At the Bogambara torture ground, he kept his feet on the ground and bowed his head. When he struck the torturer's neck, he was hit by the sword and the blade of the sword broke into two, but he remained in the same position. Even when a stream of red blood shot from his neck into the sky like a water gun, he remained in the same position. His head was severed by the second sword brought by the white man. His neck was stronger than the white man's sword.
Wellassa was like big Kandy back then. There is nothing to call a house a door. There is no one to mourn. Piles of ashes everywhere, rotting corpses from toddlers to the elderly. Jackfruit, coconut, areca nut, orange and narang trees were cut and thrown on the ground. As if the demons danced. In the past, I only saw a man and a woman lying down.
They had told me that those who escaped from Vellass and went to the forest eat hummus clay, bark of trees, gadavil leaves, and ashes for hunger. Dogs and cats who did not know the law of war were killed on the road. The number of cows killed and burnt by the whites is incalculable. Due to the stench of cattle carcasses and human carcasses, the whole of Wellassa was a raw grave.
When my father, who came with the lost white child in his arms, saw that the whites had burned our house, sparks must have come out of his eyes. But the father, who was a fighter as well as a poet and an intellectual, also sympathized with the innocent white child. One day the father came to my cave with the white child.
"Ran Menika, this milk sucker has not had food for two days, he came to Magadiga drinking milk, please give him a sip of milk" he said.
What a noble man my father is. Aren't the descendants of this Kirisappaya insulting my father's dead body?
I decided that my left breast belongs to the white baby, and the right breast to the one born from my womb, do you think I am a human woman who loves children? Even if I forget everything and write the letter, the Father is remembered.
I tell my daughter
"Daughter, we are a nation that listened to Buddha's sermons, and while hunting beasts in the forests with their ancestors, we worshiped the sky high for Buddha. So I am not angry when Brownrig said that we are a barbaric nation."
"Drink your fill of milk, white boy, I am a virtuous Sinhalese mother. When you drink milk from me and grow up to be a big man, go among your people and tell them what kind of Sinhalese people they are."
The tears that once fell from my eyes the size of pears are now the size of cranes. Why don't the Molligodas who claim to be Sinhalese have a heart for Rathwattela and Ekneligodala?
"Here again the sound of the gun of the whites is heard". Brownrigg wrote to the Colonial Secretary General that Wellassa must be destroyed if the Sinhalese cannot rise again for several years.
They did it. All the houses were set on fire and people were killed, starting from the milking children to the old man who was walking in Haramitti, they hit the forest and killed the elephants, they destroyed the fields where the cattle were brought, and you can still see the burnt corpses near the burnt houses.
"Regarding, the sound of gunshots I told you before can be heard here and now."
Elks and deer run wildly around the rock cave, breaking through the bushes. The mother and her cubs were running in the nearby pit. Are they not afraid of death? For me, there is no place to run away from this stone cave. , Where should I go with two children? Can I take away the hidden rice, salt and pepper to satisfy my hunger?
These may be my last few words, white soldiers now surround my cave. Brownrigg's white soldiers point their guns at me, and another one sits behind and says "Shoot shoot" I have no more tears to shed.
Sadhana, shed a tear for me too..
Golden gem
Excerpts: Part of the article from Ashoka Premachandran's book "Wellasse Kadula".
Later, Mahanamayan, the master of Ran Meniki, took the white child when he went into the cave, and Ran Meniki and Adarani's daughter were shot and killed in the cave.