The Devil Bird — Ulama
I've been a regular visitor to wildlife Parks in Sri Lanka since I was 3 years old and this is about stories I’ve heard and experiences I’ve had on the devil bird.
A popular folklore that is talked about in Sri Lanka and India, is about a mysterious creature in the jungle, that makes a bone chilling scream at night, which resembles a soul screaming in agony. People believe that the call of this creature is a sign of bad luck and will surely bring chaos to someone in the village, that would end in death. Because of these reasons, this creature is called by many names.
- යක් කුරුල්ලා — yak kurulla (devil bird)
- උලමා — Ulama (screamer)
- Banshee (Irish folklore, mixed later into India)
- Churail, Chudail, Churel (A ghost of a women , India)
Legend of Churail/Banshee
Believed to be the one of the most feared spirits in Indian folklore which takes the form of a woman whose feet are facing backwards, extremely ugly and hideous. She disguises herself as a beautiful woman to mesmerize and lure men into their doom, by either killing them or drain their life force until they become old. They believe that the scream of the Churail is so horrible, that it will bring disaster to the whole family, just hearing it.
Folklore in Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan folklore has a similar kind of woman spirit, but rather different story than the Churail.
A wife and her husband had a baby, and the husband was suspicious that, the child was not his. He was so angry that, one day when the wife was away, he killed their son, cooked it, and later served to his wife. The wife unknowingly eats her son’s flesh and later when she found out, she was so devastated and angry, flew into the jungle, never to return and curse everyone she encounter. People say that the call of the Ulama is the scream that the woman made, when she found out what happened to her son.
Call of the Ulama
The call of the Ulama is what all this fuss is about. The ‘true’ call of the Ulama as described by the villagers resembles a soul, possibly a woman crying in agony which will make hair stand in the back of your neck. Since it’s always heard at night, makes it more creepier to anyone who’s hearing it.
There are also debates going on about the ‘true’ cry of the Ulama as well. The cry is not something that we can put to words.
The popular wildlife writer and expert Jim Corbett in his book “Tales from the Indian Jungle” puts his thoughts about this cry.
It is possible to describe some sounds by a combination of letters or of words, as for instance the ‘cooee’ of a human being, or the ‘tap, tap, tapping’ of a woodpecker, but no words of mine can describe the call of the churail.
If i said it resembles the cry of a soul in torment, or of a human being in agony, it would convey no meaning to you, for neither you nor I have heard either of these sounds. Nor I can liken the call to any other sounds heard in the jungles, for it is something apart, our world that has the effect of curdling the hearer’s blood and arresting his heart-beats.
Who is the Devil Bird
The real identity of the devil bird has been a mystery for centuries. Even today, there is no video proof of the creature recorded while it screams. Hearing an Ulama scream is really rare and through my 25 years in the wild, I have heard the Ulama scream only in two occasions both in Yala National Park and I have never seen the screamer.
The popular and the accepted opinion among ornithologists is, this bird is the Forest Eagle Owl. But this is still in debate.
The Changeable Hawk Eagle and the Oriental Honey Buzzard are also contenders for being the devil bird, as they also resembles features described by eye witnesses.
A relation of mine who works in the army, heard the bird screaming from a branch of the tree he was resting under. He described the bird having a crest and the size of a medium eagle and screamed with it’s beak pointing towards the sky.
Jim Corbett, also described his encounter with the devil bird in “Tales from the Indian Jungle”. Even he has heard the bird call only three times in his entire life and the one time he could see the bird, was at night and he described the features as follows.
- Smaller than a golden eagle
- Stood upright on it’s rather long legs
- Tail was short, but not as short as an Owl’s
- Head was not big and round like an Owl nor it did have a short neck
- Could not see any crest or horns
- When it called — which it did at regular intervals of about half a minute — it put its head up facing the heavens and opened its beak wide
Further Research and attempts to film this bird while it screams is still going on and hopefully, if someone is lucky enough, we will get to see this bird screaming on a video.
