A Gurunnanse — master of ceremonies — holds out a pouch of flammable powder for dancers to light their torches. Fire dancers bend backwards as they lower flaming torches into their mouths, brightly costumed performers in fearsome, elaborate masks and a Yakka devil, all dancing and moving to the music and rhythmic beating of Yak Bera drums — these are the sights and sounds of the Devil Dance, known as the ‘Daha Ata Sanniya,’ a carefully crafted ritual with a history reaching far back into Sri Lanka’s pre-Buddhist past.

The Daha Ata Sanniya is a traditional dance ritual that combines mythical ideas held for the exorcism of 18 types of diseases from the human body, employing deft psychological manipulation, as exorcists wear masks depicting the demons thought to be responsible for a person’s ailments.

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