What’s the Story: The Sri Lanka Podcast
Oct 23, 2026 · 21 min · 9 segments
What might make you scream loudest in the lonesome depths of a long Sri Lankan night?
David SwarbrickHost
And near the top of the list on this island is undoubtedly the Gunnybilla, known more colloquially as the Gunny Sack Monster or Kidnapper.
There are no agreed depictions of him, but he is often seen as a tall, dark creature standing on two legs with a mane of black hair.
Marilyn Monroe-esque red lips and a long red tongue dripping with some liquid you would be wise not to inquire too deeply about.
Like most sack kidnappers, the label being largely interchangeable with any number of sack siblings in other countries, the gonny biller was the go-to tool for frustrated parents bent on getting their errant kids to do something they would rather not.
Behave badly, the warning would go, and the gonny biller will come in the night and snatch you away in his gunny sack.
Historians date the monster to around 100 CE and, with plausible arguments, link it to a rather unsatisfactory period in Indo-Sri Lankan relations.
South Asia was then being rocked by the antics of Karikala the Great, the grandest of the early Chela kings of South India.
Committed to safeguarding his growing kingdom's food security, the king sought to irrigate vast tracts of arid land, but to do so he needed to build a canal and a dam, and for that he needed labour.
A massive 1,000-foot-long, 60-foot-high dam was built and a great canal cut to move water.
The king's side reward for all this was to be remembered forever in Sri Lankan folklore as the kidnapper or snatcher.
And there he stuck, transformed forever into a scare weapon for Sri Lankan parents forever.
Until 1987, when his name took on something altogether new, a much more horrifying meaning, one that has largely led for the term Goni Bella to being discounted for the purposes of mere child discipline.
For in 1987, Sri Lanka was rocked by a second wave of Marxist-Leninist insurrections, and this one, like the first, barely ten years earlier, almost brought about the collapse of the entire government.
The rebellion was driven as much by objections to the Colombo government's peace accord with India to calm the civil war in the north of the island as it was by rage over unemployment and economic injustice, especially amongst the young.
No one has yet credibly counted the casualties of this conflict, but estimates are well into the six-figure range.
As paramilitary groups took over enforcing what they thought ought to be government policy, masked informants were used to identify possible JVP members.
Inevitably, given the masked face, the informants were called the Goni Billah.
With a nod from the gony binner, the JVP suspect would be dispatched for interrogation and all too often permanent disappearance.
Since then, the phrase has been coined to describe any politically motivated threat that politicians like to make to scare the public into their way of thinking.
When the Muslim minority endured significant harassment, it was even used to denigrate Muslim women who wore the face covering abaya.
Small wonder then that Sri Lankan parents have largely stopped using the phrase with their children.
And near the top of the list on this island is undoubtedly the Gunnybilla, known more colloquially as the Gunny Sack Monster or Kidnapper.
There are no agreed depictions of him, but he is often seen as a tall, dark creature standing on two legs with a mane of black hair.
Marilyn Monroe-esque red lips and a long red tongue dripping with some liquid you would be wise not to inquire too deeply about.
Like most sack kidnappers, the label being largely interchangeable with any number of sack siblings in other countries, the gonny biller was the go-to tool for frustrated parents bent on getting their errant kids to do something they would rather not.
Behave badly, the warning would go, and the gonny biller will come in the night and snatch you away in his gunny sack.
Historians date the monster to around 100 CE and, with plausible arguments, link it to a rather unsatisfactory period in Indo-Sri Lankan relations.
South Asia was then being rocked by the antics of Karikala the Great, the grandest of the early Chela kings of South India.
Committed to safeguarding his growing kingdom's food security, the king sought to irrigate vast tracts of arid land, but to do so he needed to build a canal and a dam, and for that he needed labour.
A massive 1,000-foot-long, 60-foot-high dam was built and a great canal cut to move water.
The king's side reward for all this was to be remembered forever in Sri Lankan folklore as the kidnapper or snatcher.
And there he stuck, transformed forever into a scare weapon for Sri Lankan parents forever.
Until 1987, when his name took on something altogether new, a much more horrifying meaning, one that has largely led for the term Goni Bella to being discounted for the purposes of mere child discipline.
For in 1987, Sri Lanka was rocked by a second wave of Marxist-Leninist insurrections, and this one, like the first, barely ten years earlier, almost brought about the collapse of the entire government.
The rebellion was driven as much by objections to the Colombo government's peace accord with India to calm the civil war in the north of the island as it was by rage over unemployment and economic injustice, especially amongst the young.
No one has yet credibly counted the casualties of this conflict, but estimates are well into the six-figure range.
As paramilitary groups took over enforcing what they thought ought to be government policy, masked informants were used to identify possible JVP members.
Inevitably, given the masked face, the informants were called the Goni Billah.
With a nod from the gony binner, the JVP suspect would be dispatched for interrogation and all too often permanent disappearance.
Since then, the phrase has been coined to describe any politically motivated threat that politicians like to make to scare the public into their way of thinking.
When the Muslim minority endured significant harassment, it was even used to denigrate Muslim women who wore the face covering abaya.
Small wonder then that Sri Lankan parents have largely stopped using the phrase with their children.
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