Bullock Cart Folksongs and Mapping the Memory of Routes

Kakulandala Vithanage Janitha Koshalee1,2* and Chandima Bogahawatta1

Sri Lankan folksongs are oral traditions passed down through generations, reflecting the lived experiences, mobility, landscape knowledge and cultural consciousness of ordinary people. Bullock cart songs, sung loudly during long night journeys, served multiple purposes: they helped drivers avoid sleepiness, relaxing their minds, eased fatigue and homesickness, warded off threats, and guided the bulls along their routes. Beyond their practical function, these songs preserve memories of locations, resting places, way stations, and travel routes – knowledge that has vanished mainly due to urbanisation and infrastructure changes. With the advent of motorised transport and large-scale spatial reconfiguration, many of these routes and locations have disappeared or undergone radical transformation, rendering the spatial knowledge embedded in the songs increasingly invisible. Drawing on an analysis of 86 bullock cart folksongs sourced from published and unpublished manuscripts, this study identifies, and maps place references embedded within the lyrics to reconstruct historical routes of mobility across Sri Lanka. By foregrounding song as a medium of memory transmission, this paper demonstrates how intangible heritage preserves spatial histories that are often absent from archaeological and archival records, contributing to broader discussions of heritage and memory-scapes and highlighting oral traditions as vital sources for understanding historical mobility, everyday landscapes, and community-based knowledge systems.