Ambalangoda Kolam and Sanni masks: Kaduru wood seasoning and pigment authenticity?
4 Answers from travellers
Authentic Sri Lankan ritual masks (Kolam, Sanni, and Raksha) are carved exclusively from the wood of Kaduru (Nux vomica / Strychnos / Alstonia macrophylla). Kaduru is lightweight, fibrous, and easy to carve, but susceptible to wood-borer beetles. Traditional carvers cure rough logs by smoking them above hearth fires in kitchen rafters (duma) for several months to drive out sap and destroy larvae. Historical pigments use makulu clay for white, cinnabar for red, orpiment for yellow, and lampblack for black, bound together with wild dorana oil (Dipterocarpus glandulosus) or tamarind gum.
Tourist souvenir shops along the coastal highway sell cheap, mass-produced masks carved from untreated albizia or plywood painted with synthetic gloss enamels that flake within a year.
Visit the Ariyapala Mask Museum in Ambalangoda to examine authenticated 19th-century specimens used in genuine 18 Sanniya curing exorcism rituals.
The 18 Sanniya masks correspond directly to ancient Ayurvedic diagnoses of specific neurological, psychological, and physical ailments personified as demons.
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