Crossword-Solution: VEDDA 5 letters, 7 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 10

The wavy-to curly-haired Australian race includes the Jungle Tribes of the Deccan, the Vedda of Ceylon, the Jungle Folk or Semang, and the natives of unsettled parts of Australia--all sometimes slumped together as "Pre-Dravidians." The straight-haired Mongols include those of Tibet, Indo-China, China, and Formosa, those of many oceanic islands, and of the north from Japan to Lapland.

The territory to which these people confine themselves is known as Vedda-ratta, or country of the Veddahs, whither their ancestors retired more than two thousand years ago, when their Singhalese conquerors came to Ceylon from the north.

CHAPTER XII THE PRE-DRAVIDIANS: JUNGLE TRIBES OF THE DECCAN, VEDDA, SAKAI, AUSTRALIANS The Pre-Dravidians--The _Kadir_--The _Paniyan_--The _Irula_--The _Kurumba_--The _Vedda_--The _Sakai_--The _Toala_--Australia: Physical Conditions--Physical Type--Australian Origins--Evidence from Language and Culture--Four Successive Immigrations--Earlier Views--Material Culture--Sociology--Initiation Ceremonies-- Totemism--The Family--Kinship--Property and Trade--Magic and Religion.

The true Vedda are a grave but happy people, quiet, upright, hospitable with a strong love of liberty.

Each section of the Vedda had in earlier days its own hunting grounds where fish, game, honey, and yams constituted their sole food.