An analysis of Portuguese colonial representations of Sinhalese women

The history of Sri Lanka until recently has been written mostly as the history of men in the country. This has been particularly true of the early modern period, for which existing records are mostly those of visiting colonizers who were mostly men, writing about their dealings with those in power or with those from whom they could gain profit. This article is an attempt to collect and analyze the admittedly limited data on how the Portuguese who gained political authority over parts of the coastal areas saw local women. It is limited to the women of the majority community because data on minority women is very limited. Using data relating to land ownership, marriage practices and pictorial representations, as well as accounts of Sinhalese women who held positions of power, this study attempts to widen our vision of the past. While the evidence we can gather indicates that some Sinhalese women were seen as able to hold and inherit land and wield influence by developing autonomous spheres of activity in specific domains, the prevalence of such limited agencies should not obscure the asymmetry of power under which they operated, both in respect of gender and of colonial dominance.