Sanni Yakuma: the masked healing ritual of Sri Lanka

In the southwest of Sri Lanka, far from the resort bustle, some villages still come alive at night with strange, arresting rituals. People put on vivid wooden masks, dance, sing, and stage scenes that aim to drive illness out of a person. This ancient rite is called Sanni Yakuma, and here sickness is not just a fever or a cough. It is a demon—with a name, a temperament, and even a face.

When illness is an evil spirit

In old Sri Lankan beliefs, diseases were blamed on malevolent spirits. If someone fell ill, it meant a demon had moved in. To get well, you didn’t reach for pills—there were none—but held a special ceremony to expel the spirit. That is how Sanni Yakuma took shape.

The island is Buddhist, yet these rites exist alongside religion. People hold faith in the Buddha and also in the idea that evil spirits can be outplayed with dance, masks, and song. The overlap says a lot about everyday belief—more lived practice than doctrine.

A night of dance, masks, and theater

Sanni Yakuma is no quiet prayer but a full-blown spectacle that lasts all night. Dancers, “healers,” and mask makers take part. At dusk the ritual begins, and until dawn it is a flow of dances, scenes, and ritual acts.

The cast includes 18 demons, each standing for a specific ailment: one for fever, another for deafness, a third for stomach pain. Presiding above them is Maha Kola Sanniya, who embodies all diseases at once.

Performers don masks that portray these spirits and stage scenes that mock the demons, laugh at them, and, in doing so, drive them away. It sits somewhere between exorcism, theater, and a folk celebration. The humor feels deliberate, a way to shrink fear down to size.

The mask as a remedy

Masks for the rite are their own story. Carved by hand from light wood and painted, every color, shape, and detail is considered. The demon of skin disease, for instance, is speckled; the demon of deafness is marked by oversized ears.

They are made in villages such as Ambalangoda, home to artisans who pass the craft down through generations. The masks have become so striking and recognizable that they now appear not only in rituals but also in museums, exhibitions, and even souvenir shops.

Where the tradition stands today

These ceremonies were once common. With modern medicine and urban life, they have grown rare. Fewer people believe in spirits, and younger generations are less eager to learn the dances or the carving. Even so, Sanni Yakuma survives in some places—if not as treatment, then as culture.

Today, masked performances show up at festivals and tourist events. Villages where the masks are made attract visitors who want to see the craft at work, and some artisans even host workshops, teaching anyone willing to try their hand at making a mask.