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• The Transformation of Veddha Identity into a Modern Myth in Sri Lanka

  91-100

  Lakni Prasanjali Kumarasiri

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  0

  This article examines how the ethnic identity of the Veddha community in Sri Lanka has been transformed into a modern myth through dominant practices of representation. Based on Eriksen’s understanding of ethnic identity as dynamic and socially constructed and Barthes’s theory of modern mythology, the present study argues that Veddha identity is not inherently primitive or static but is actively reshaped through cultural, political, and symbolic processes. Tourism, media, and political discourse continue to portray the Veddha community as timeless forest dwellers belonging to the past, although they are integrated into the modern Sri Lankan society where they have access to formal education, wage labor, and everyday use of modern technologies. The article utilizes qualitative insights from fieldwork and textual analysis to show how political discourse uses Veddha identity as national heritage.  This hides the effects of development, conservation, and land dispossession. Similarly, media narratives depoliticize cultural change by framing it as a natural disappearance. Tourism promotes the staged performance and commercialization of specific cultural practices. These processes simplify history, erase power relations, and naturalize inequality. The article concludes that the Veddhas have become a modern myth not because of their lived realities, but because of how they are represented. It highlights the need to recognize them as a living ethnic community with agency, rights, and an ongoing place in contemporary Sri Lankan society.

• INEXPLICABLE BEINGS, PHENOMENA, AND EVENTS, CATEGORIZED AS MYTHOLOGICAL, AMONG THE PEOPLES OF THE SOUTH SLAVS: COLLECTIONS OF FOLK TALES, INTERVIEWS WITH STORYTELLERS AND MYTHOLOGICAL BEINGS IN MODERN NOVELS

  135-148

  Milena Medojevic

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  394

  This article contains the basic structural features of a same-named Ph.D. research thesis. The main tasks of the research are to identify three focal fields with mythological elements, whether they are phenomena, objects, people, or creatures that some believe and others doubt exist. These focal fields are found in various collections of folk stories, and contemporary literary texts as well as in interviews with storytellers. However, the focus of this article is primarily on the introductory story and on providing the background of the general idea. The goal is to acquaint the readers with the background that explains the origin of the mentioned stories among the people. It talks about death, man’s natural fear of it, and the world of the paranormal, religious, and mythological, which combined create inexplicable phenomena that contradict the rational reasoning of man. One of the hypotheses of the research itself is to understand why this phenomenon is still present in the human community and what benefits it brings. Furthermore, the methodology used in the research includes a comparison and contrast of information between folk stories and contemporary literary works. In addition, the most important research method used is the interview technique with the aforementioned storytellers with strategically selected persons who are assumed to possess quality information.