page_title: Vanni chieftaincies
section_title: Northern chieftaincies
hierarchical_section_title: Vanni chieftaincies / Northern chieftaincies
caption_attribution_description: English: "Coylat Wanees Country", an engraving of Sri Lanka, as drawn in Robert Knox's 1681 map, published in London in his book An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon. Engraving published by Wilhem Broedelet in 1692. Nederlands: "Coylat Wanees Land", waer in de Malabaren woonen
context_page_description: The Vanni chieftaincies or Vanni principalities was a region between Anuradhapura and Jaffna, but also extending to along the eastern coast to Panama and Yala, during the Transitional and Kandyan periods of Sri Lanka. This land was a collection of chieftaincies of principalities that were a collective buffer zone between the Jaffna Kingdom, in the north of Sri Lanka, and the Sinhalese kingdoms in the south. The emergance of these chieftaincies were a direct result of the breakdown of central authority and the collapse of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa in the 13th century, as well as the establishment of the Jaffna Kingdom in the Jaffna Peninsula. Control of this area was taken over by dispossessed Sinhalese nobles and chiefs of the South Indian military of Māgha of Kalinga, whose 1215 invasion of Polonnaruwa led to the kingdom's downfall. Sinhalese chieftaincies would lay on the northern border of the Sinhalese kingdom while the Tamil chieftaincies would border the Jaffna Kingdom and the remoter areas of the eastern coast, outside of the control of either kingdom.
  The chieftains, who were known as Vanniars, would function like feudal lords in their territories.
context_section_description: Among the medieval Vanni chieftaincies, those of Panankamam, Melpattu, Mulliyavalai, Karunavalpattu, Karrikattumulai, Tennamaravadi and Trincomalee in the north of the island were incorporated into the Jaffna Kingdom. Hence the Vanni just south of the Jaffna peninsula and in the eastern Trincomalee district usually paid an annual tribute to the northern kingdom instead of taxes. The tribute was in cash, grains, honey, elephants, and ivory. The annual tribute system was enforced due to the greater distance from Jaffna. The arrival of the Portuguese to the island caused a brief loss of some of Jaffna's territory. Queirós, an historian of Portuguese origin, says of the Jaffna kingdom: 
  "This modest kingdom is not confined to the little district of Jaffnapatnam because to it are also added the neighboring lands and those of the Vanni which is said to be name of the lordship which they held before we obtained pocession of them, separated from the proceeding by a salty river and connected only in the extremity or isthamus of Pachalapali within which the lands of Baligamo, Bedamarache and Pachalapali forming that peninsula and outside of it stretch the lands of Vanni. Crosswise, from the side of Mannar to that of Triquillemele, being separated also from the country of Mantota in the jurisdiction of Captain of Mannar by the river Paragali; which ends in the river of the Cross in the midst of the lands of Vanni and of others which stretch as far as Triquillemele which according to the map appears to be a large tract of country".
   which indicated the kings of Jaffna just prior to capitulation to the Portuguese had jurisdiction over an area corresponding to the modern Northern Province of Sri Lanka and parts of the northern half of the eastern province and that the Portuguese claimed these based on their conquest. Following Portuguese defeat by the Dutch, the Mannar, Jaffna islands and the Vanni lands were reincoporated into the Tamil Coylot Wannees Country by the early 18th century.
caption: 1692 engraving by Wilhem Broedelet of Robert Knox's 1681 map of northern Sri Lanka.
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