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1. 49
No. 141 — November 2011
Michael Bourk
Abstract
The Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 brought widespread loss of life and destruction
to most of the coastal communities of Sri Lanka. Communities attempting to make
sense of the natural disaster and subsequent destruction struggle to describe
such unusual and cataclysmic events, which can transform benign physical local
environments into disaster zones. Natural disasters force people to rethink the
relationship between culture and nature, often using the bricolage of available
signs and concepts. This case study uses data from Sri Lankan English-language
newspapers, in-depth interviews and a focus group to identify prominent themes in
the recollections of the tsunami and its aftermath. Four themes are drawn primarily
from oral narratives of a small coastal community near Galle in the south: monster
and monsterisation of victims; metaphysical reciprocity; reconsideration of mythical
events; and unique corporeality. Arguably, these themes resonate to varying degrees
with descriptive and explanatory force to facilitate psychological recovery for those
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sense of traumatic events through descriptions and narratives that give symbolic
and/or ideological agency to events in an effort to rationalise them and restore
order to people’s lives and place in the universe.
On 26 December 2004 at approximately 8.40 a.m., a wave surge between 5 and
6.5 metres struck the northern, eastern and southern coasts of Sri Lanka around a hundred
minutes after a major earthquake rocked the coast off Sumatra. A second wave struck
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the tragedy identify 30,527 deaths, 3884 missing, 15,686 injured and 773,636 displaced; the
tsunami damaged nearly two-thirds of Sri Lanka’s coastline – over a thousand kilometres
(Department of Census and Statistics, 2005). Both waves travelled up to 3 kilometres
inland in parts.
The tsunamis came without warning at a time when most were enjoying the combined
holiday festivities associated with Christian and Buddhist sacred days. Apart from the
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to Buddhists across the nation. The purpose of the study is primarily to explore and
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devastation to their community years earlier, and to compare them with the media narratives
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‘A Makara-like wAve cAMe crAshing’:
sri lAnkAn nArrAtives of the Boxing
DAy tsunAMi

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Media International Australia
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This article explores and analyses how, through their narratives, close-knit communities
make sense of human tragedy brought on by disaster. These narratives were accessed
through interviews with survivors, discussions amongst a focus group and reference to
stories found in the Sri Lankan English print media. Sinhala, Tamil and English are the
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through to the completion of secondary education. Consequently, the media narratives
incorporated into this research are mostly taken from national daily and weekly English-
language papers, the Daily News, Sunday Times and Sunday Observer. The Daily News
is a state-owned broadsheet, although the Sunday Observer boasts the largest circulation.
However, exact circulation details are unpublished. The data collected from the respective
newspapers came from publications dated between 1 January and 7 February 2005. The
media data collection included a systematic search of the newspapers across the period,
guided by any stories or pictures presenting eyewitness accounts or reactions to the events.
The news narratives of the event are used to supplement and reinforce the interview
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The oral narratives that inform how the participants made sense of the disaster were
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interviews and a focus group situated near locations where the tsunamis came ashore, nine
people relayed their stories of the disaster. The participants were Sinhalese living in the
city of Galle and surrounding beach areas in the Southern Province. Galle is a major port
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a beachside restaurant in Hikkaduwa and a public service manager from Galle.
The process included questions initially in English, which were translated into
Sinhalese, with responses translated back into English. All nine participants gave their
consent to record the personal and focus group interviews to facilitate transcription. The
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from the village of Kathaluwa, which was partly destroyed by the tsunami. Following the
tragedy, the government relocated the focus group participants of this study 3 kilometres
inland from the coast. The village meeting house provided a familiar and natural setting
for the focus group interviews.
In common with all qualitative data-collection methods, the media artefacts and
personal narratives do not claim to be representative of how Sri Lankans frame the event.
However, by employing multiple data sources, a thick description (see Geertz 1973) is
constructed, which allows us to gain insights into how one group of coastal dwellers
made sense of the tsunami.
theorising narrative and disaster
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qualitative narrative approach (see Burke 1945; Fisher 1985, 1987; Riessman 1993). The
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situations they describe and analyse. Consequently, the theoretical perspective adopted
complements the particular focus of the research.
Fisher’s narratology is arguably one of the more inclusive (Littlejohn, 1987: 169), and
is used to support his conviction that all expressions of human rationality are expressions
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events to which listeners assign meaning’ (1987: 169). Consequently, Fisher challenges
the distinction traditionally made between storytelling and argumentation. For Fisher, all

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No. 141 — November 2011
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culturally grounded and shaped by human personality’ (cited in Littlejohn, 1999: 169).
The grounding process refers to the context of other texts embedded in a story, which is
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inclusive application of narrative to all forms of sequentially described, intertextually
inscribed phenomena to which meaning is ascribed by listeners (Littlejohn, 1999: 169)
is the principal narrative theory informing this study.
Consequently, narrative presents a unique approach to represent, construct and analyse
the diverse frames of meaning found in public records, the media and other accounts
of a disaster and its aftermath. Hoffman (2002: 121) observes that experiencing natural
disasters actually upturns our social constructs of the relationship between culture and
nature – it challenges our technological quests to tame, control and civilise nature, or at
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Similarly, our symbols of nature denoting the maternal provider clash with the
material reality of immediate experience. In the attempt to reconcile our need to solve
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cultural attributes, using symbolic bricolage from our limited reservoir of signs. Hoffman
argues that some resolve the cultural dilemma by constructing a bifurcated nature through
references to monstrous offspring (2002: 125–35). The monster is a powerful concept drawn
from folk history that reconciles acts of cruel destruction with our cultured construct of
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and its actions, and natural disasters. The traits are embodiment, resistance to capture,
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Each emerges from a challenge to normative perceptions of nature’s function and essence.
For example, nature as mother is embodied and maternal. In contrast, the monster – such
as Shelley’s Frankenstein or Grendel from Anglo-Saxon mythology – is natural yet at
the same time unnatural. It has shape but is misshapen. Both have corporeality – albeit
manifested in different forms. Hoffman, applying the features from Cohen’s Monster
Theory ± DUJXHVWKDWWKHPRQVWHULVDµ³UHVLVWDQWRWKHU´NQRZQRQOWKURXJK
process and movement, never through dissectable analysis’. Both monsters and natural
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also have ontological liminality in that what forms them, or brings about their appearance,
is unknown by those affected (Hoffman, 2002: 129). Similarly, why natural disasters occur
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but why should a tsunami form at this time and not from other underwater earthquakes
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present’ (2002: 129). Similarly, monsters and natural disasters complicate temporality, in
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trait discussed here that is shared between natural disaster and monster is the attraction
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object of desire and fascination. Similarly, so is natural disaster. The power of destructive
force raises curiosity and the sheer strangeness of the phenomenon beckons us forward.
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to pick up their lucky windfall until swept away when the sea returned with devastating
force several minutes later.

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Media narratives
The monster metaphor is used directly in one survivor’s account to the media, where he
describes the sea as producing a giant makara, or dragon:
Suddenly we heard a monstrous sound coming from the sea and a huge blackish-
grey wave like that of a makara [dragon] rose high above the coconut trees,’
0U .DUXQDWKLODNH VDLG VKXGGHULQJ DV KH UHFDOOHG WKRVH GHDGO IHZ PRPHQWV
(Attygalle, 2005: 5)
Karunathilake was the senior train conductor on a train struck by the waves. The monster
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The account includes other features of the monster myth, such as huge blackish-grey wave
denoting strangeness, its sudden appearance, and a reference to cruel acts of fate in the
lead paragraph. The monster metaphor is indicative of the bricolage used by survivors to
make sense of the traumatic event, combining mythological description with abnormal
size and colour in schematising the unusual wave.
The reciprocity between metaphysical forces resident in, or external to, nature and
human communities is a prominent explanatory narrative evident in both media and
personal accounts of the event. For example, one newspaper carries the picture of a child
LQDSUDHUIXOSRVLWLRQEHVLGHDVLQJOHZRUGKHDGOLQHµ:K¶ Sunday Times, 2005). On
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amongst the ruin of secular material wealth. One explanation was offered by a Buddhist
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has given them some punishment because they are not following the path of the Lord
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The narrative of divine judgement has an historical parallel in Sri Lankan sacred texts,
as indicated in a feature appearing in the Sunday Observer three weeks after the tsunami
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giant wave as judgement on the king who ordered the death of a pious monk. The gods
spared the innocent princess and later caused conditions that led to the death of the cruel
NLQJ7KH VWRU UHWROG E 0DKHQGUD LV WDNHQ IURP WKH Mahavamsa, a national cultural
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the epic history of Sri Lanka that interlaces references to historical events with mythical
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anthropological sense that describes how cultural groups assign metaphysical meaning and
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such as the timing of dotting the eyes of a Buddhist statue brought about the unforgiving
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oral narratives
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From the descriptions of eyewitnesses, it is evident that people experienced the event
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experienced the tsunami as a threat, appearing in multiple physical forms. The physical

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differences were due to variances in the marine and coastal topography and their interaction
with the seismic forces behind the waves. The monster had many forms. It exhibited
diverse corporeality. Consequently, a photo or story depicting the tsunami does not resonate
with the same meaning for the participants. Furthermore, none of the participants made
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some responded that they were preoccupied with survival issues and adjusting to life
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most communication and transport infrastructure was damaged. Survivors used various
metaphors and descriptions as skilful bricoleurs to construct their own narratives of the
tsunami and its diverse manifestations.
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popular vacation destination of Hikkaduwa Beach, just north of Galle. From inside his
premises, which open on to the beach, he observed that the water had completely blocked
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further unusual behaviour by withdrawing hundreds of metres offshore, exposing muddy
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on to a shop rooftop across the road before the second, much larger wave struck 20
minutes later.
In contrast, a few kilometres south in Galle, the waves killed most of Anil’s family
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year-old adopted daughter and his mother at home and began walking to a friend’s place.
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a nearby house. The water burst into the building as he lifted them up on to the roof
from a cavity inside.
He recalls that at the time his thoughts went to his family, particularly his young
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second wave approaching, terrifying in its size and appearance. He described the colour as:
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fear and can’t describe anything more about its appearance. The wave was at
least the height of that palm tree [pointing to a palm tree approximately 6 metres
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from a neighbour that his daughter had been taken to a nearby house where the survivors
gathered the dead and critically injured. She appeared lifeless, with a swollen belly distended
from swallowing large quantities of water, and his only inclination was to expel it by
squeezing her. Surprisingly, she spluttered, leading him to intensify his efforts and apply
resuscitation methods until he could transfer her to a hospital. He panicked when she
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recovered the bodies of his wife and mother. Gradually, his mother underwent a grotesque
transformation. By dusk, her body had bloated and her distended facial features took on the
DSSHDUDQFHRIDµyakka’ (devil). The vivid descriptions of Anil’s daughter’s and mother’s
physical transformation from the tsunami describes a monsterisation process, where the
characteristics of the tsunami are inscribed on its victims, creating revulsion even in those
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Media International Australia
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A similar sense of reciprocity resonates in the comments from the focus group in
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most of the villagers survived the tsunami waves. They attribute their survival to being
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statues. Similarly, their children survived certain death because of the Poya, which kept
them from the coast-side school that day. Because the waves struck in the morning, many
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KDYHEHHQVLJQL¿FDQWOJUHDWHUKDGWKHWVXQDPLVWUXFNLQWKHHYHQLQJ8QOLNHPRVWUHFRUGV
of the tsunamis, many of the villagers did not describe a monstrous wave but rather an
explosion of water that burst from the sandbank:
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The wave didn’t come from the sea – it shot up from the beach, you know where
our children play. (F, aged 37)
There was no sound, [we] saw the water and [then heard] the sound of water
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For many in the focus group, events described in the Mahavamsa took on a new
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sceptical of the possibility of giant waves beyond the size of occasional but regular high tide
activity, coming far inland in the way described in the record of Princess Devi. However,
PRVWQRZH[SUHVVHGEHOLHILQWKHQDUUDWLYH6LPLODUOWKH¿OP2012, and associated media
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calendar, are now treated with less scepticism than before the events of Boxing Day 2004:
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to believe … But before we wouldn’t believe it … before the tsunami. But now
I am scared. (F, aged 37)
:HKHDULFHPRXQWDLQVDUHPHOWLQJ«:KHQZHKHDURIWKHVHWKLQJVZHDUHVFDUHG
In the news and all over the world we hear of disasters. (F, aged 50)
The reconsideration of the status of myth and belief ascribed to improbable historic
and contemporary events indicates the social and cultural impact of the tsunami. As a
consequence, most of the focus group participants expressed a sense of uncertainty and
unease concerning the future. Like those who survive an encounter with a monster, they
weren’t sure when it would reappear and upturn their lives. They now live in a heightened
sense of impending disaster, and as a consequence keep copies of important documents
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The preparedness is not without reason, as a tsunami warning twice caused the
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villagers participating in this study, after earthquakes struck off the coast of Sumatra on
two occasions – 13 September and 25 October 2010. In response to the latter occasion,
they left for the meeting place on higher ground at 1.00 a.m. and didn’t return to their
homes for three hours.
Discussion
Arguably, one or more of the four themes drawn from the media and oral narratives emerge
in the stories of survival following any major disaster – natural or otherwise. Reciprocity

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cognitive need to attribute cause and effect to the tsunami and its destructive impact.
According to Cashman and Cronin (2008), a community is thrown into psychological as
well as physical crisis when disaster strikes (2008: 408), which can also be described as a
µFRVPRORJHSLVRGH¶ :HLFNFLWHGLQ Bainbridge and Galloway, 2010: 100). Consequently,
meaning and purpose must be restored to assist recovery. One way is to employ what
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principle’, which attributes all action to intentionality, similar to relations among humans.
The origin may be monstrous or religious. Of course, none of the participants believed the
waves were evil personalities incarnate. However, their language indicates the symbolic
bricolage required to describe and make sense of the phenomenon, as well as to internally
narrativise it. Similarly, bulldozer blade, explode from the sands and destroyed everything
indicate agency, or action with purpose – necessary components of Burke’s narratology
(Littlejohn, 1999: 64). However, agency requires an agent that exercises the action.
Consequently, the anthropomorphising of environmental phenomena can also facilitate
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phenomenon creates a setting to embed other texts – such as allusions to mythical creatures
or metaphysical forces – into the narrative.
8QOLNH WKH makara allusion in the media, the tsunami as monster is implicit rather
than explicit in the oral narratives, with the possible exception of Anil’s narrative that
described direct monstrous effects on his family. The descriptions dark, black, poisonous
water and very smelly all evoke strangeness and danger in contrasted reference to the
normal appearance and action of the sea. The abnormal size of the waves is a prominent
characteristic of monstrosity, as indicated in fable and fairytale narratives. The liminal and
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time’ (Hoffman, 2002: 129) reinforces the village’s continuing sense of anxiety as community
members wait for its reappearance. In this sense, although the tsunami warning system put
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reawakens old anxieties when activated. As a result, the a heightened sense of uncertainty
and anxiety linked to the system’s operation has a cumulative effect on the community.
The tsunami’s monsterisation of its victims is a prominent theme in Anil’s narratives
RI WKH WVXQDPL¶V HIIHFW +LV GHVFULSWLRQV RI EORDWHG ERGLHV DQG KLV PRWKHU¶V GLV¿JXUHG
IDFH WKDW ORRNHG OLNH D µyakka’ describes the monstrous activity that leaves its mark on
its victims. Riri Yakkas are demons from Sri Lankan mythology, with bulging eyes and
grotesque grimaces. Another reference to the green slime purging from his daughter’s
body also describes a unnatural, unclean impact by the tsunami on the innocent.
For some in the Kathaluwa focus group, the reconsideration of mythological claims
LQYROYHG WKH UHFRQVWUXFWLRQ RI VDFUHG WH[WV ZKLFK ZHUH UHFODVVL¿HG QRW RQO DV KLVWRULF
texts describing events in exaggerated detail, but as more historically accurate than
previously thought. For many, after their tsunami experience, the giant wave associated
with the Princess Devi narrative from the Mahavamsa was no longer narrative hyperbole.
However, the reduced scepticism directed to cataclysmic mythical events also left the
villagers more susceptible to apocalyptic panics and media sensationalism in its varied
forms, bringing increased anxiety.
7KH ¿QDO WKHPH HYLGHQW LQ WKH PHGLD DQG RUDO QDUUDWLYHV RI WKH WVXQDPL VXUYLYRUV
is the diverse corporeality evident in descriptions of the tsunami. The monster took
different forms and shapes depending on where its victims were at the time. Embodiment
GHVFULSWLRQVLQÀXHQFHQRWRQOWKHSKVLFDODSSHDUDQFHRIWKHSKHQRPHQRQEXWDOVRWKH
WSH RI HQFRXQWHU H[SHULHQFHG 1HOVRQ ¿UVW REVHUYHG WKH VHD EORFNLQJ RXW WKH KRUL]RQ
$QLO¶V¿UVWZDYHODFNHGDFXUYHGSHDNEXWZDVÀDWOLNHDEXOOGR]HUWKDWLQGLVFULPLQDWHO
destroyed everything in its path; and although some in the Kathaluwa group experienced a

8. 56
Media International Australia
wave, most described the sand as simply exploding with water. They saw and experienced
their own unique monster – one arising not from the sea far away but from the sand
µZKHUHRXUFKLOGUHQSOD¶6RPHRIWKHROGHUFRPPXQLWPHPEHUVVWLOOUHIXVHWREHOLHYH
the phenomenon was a wave at all, as their experience contradicted all knowledge of
wave activity.
The intertextuality that embeds the media and oral narratives of the tsunami is also
found in other narratives from those struggling to make sense of cosmological events
WKDW FROODSVH WKHLU UDWLRQDO XQLYHUVH %DLQEULGJH DQG *DOORZD 0RQVWHU
PHWDSKRUVDUHRQHRIVHYHUDOJHQHUDOFKDUDFWHULVWLFVLGHQWL¿HGE.LWFKDQG+XPH FLWHG
LQHOO LQ WKHLU DQDOVLV RI PHGLD UHSRUWV RI QDWXUDO GLVDVWHUV LQ WKH 8QLWHG
6WDWHV6LPLODUOUHIHUHQFHVWRµ¿UHXQSUHGLFWDELOLW¶DQGWKHQDµPRQVWHU¿UH¶GHVFULEHWKH
FRQWDJLRQOLNH ¿UHVWRUPV WKDW GHYDVWDWHG9LFWRULD LQ DQG DVFULEH DJHQF WR QDWXUDO
events behaving unnaturally (Kissane, cited in Burns and Eltham, 2010: 93). However,
as Kissane observes, the characterisation can serve the political purpose of shifting focus
DZDIURPWKHQHHGIRUSUHSDUDWRUPHDVXUHVVXFKDVEXLOGLQJ¿UHUHIXJHVDQGHVWDEOLVKLQJ
adequate funding for areas with differing jurisdictional boundaries (2010: 93). Similarly,
media and community narratives associated with the tsunami potentially can divert
attention from the lack of warning systems, and the impact of the removal of mangrove
forests, haphazard construction, unplanned settlements and poor zoning regulations along
WKHH[SRVHGFRDVWOLQH 81(3 ,QWKLVZDQDUUDWLYHVGHULYHWKHLUPHDQLQJDQG
use from other texts, which politically transform the texts in which they are embedded
(Fisher, 1985: 358).
conclusion
Cataclysmic natural disasters that bring widespread devastation and loss of life force those
affected to rethink their relationship with the environment. The media and participant
narratives in this study are informed by acts of symbolic bricolage that construct a
µFRVPRORJLFDO HYHQW¶ LQ WKH FRQWH[W RI DYDLODEOH NQRZOHGJH EHOLHIV DQG H[SHULHQFH $
key feature of emergent narratives is the view that the world is far more dangerous and
unpredictable than previously imagined, which had a psychologically destabilising impact
on many. Contemporaneously, the revisiting of unusual events recorded in sacred texts
read in the context of the tsunami functioned to stabilise their anxiety, which may restore
psychological equilibrium. Consequently, for many of the participants, narrative bricolage
has therapeutic psychological value as well serving a cognitive function. However, the
stabilising effect of reappropriating myth can also lead to new anxieties. Finally, narratives
of disasters that either symbolically or ideologically attribute agency to a cosmological
event can reduce political consciousness around the need to prepare for such happenings
– although in this instance the impact of the event did prompt action by government.
7KHIRXUWKHPHVGUDZQIURPWKHGHVFULSWLRQVDQGQDUUDWLYHVLGHQWL¿HGLQWKLVVWXGRIIHU
continuing research opportunities for contrast and comparison with other natural disasters
FDXVLQJUHFHQWGHYDVWDWLRQDQGVXJJHVWWKDWGHVFULSWLRQVVXFKDVµPRQVWHUFFORQHV¶µNLOOHU
HDUWKTXDNHV¶DQGµFUXHO¿UHV¶FRQVWUXFWWKHHYHQWVWKHGHVFULEH
Acknowledgements
I am extremely indebted to the three reviewers who provided useful suggestions informing this
article and to Dr Cyril Schafer for his valued comments and review of earlier drafts.

9. 57
No. 141 — November 2011
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Michael Bourk is a Lecturer in the Department of Media, Film and Communication, University of
Otago, New Zealand.