Arts and artisanal heritage

MandoFolk

A slow song and dance in Konkani, in six-eight time, danced in facing rows with fans and handkerchiefs. It developed in the nineteenth century among the Catholic landed families of Salcete — Loutolim, Curtorim, Raia, Benaulim — and its texts are about love, separation, and often the politics of the period, written in a register of Konkani that borrowed freely from Portuguese. Every mando is followed by a dulpod, which is fast, comic and domestic, so the pairing moves an evening from formality to release.

Performed by: Catholic households of Salcete, and today competitive troupes. Occasion: Weddings, feasts and the annual mando competitions

DekhniFolk

A semi-classical dance in Konkani that stages a Hindu subject — most famously a temple dancer asking a boatman to ferry her across — performed largely within the Catholic community and set to a melody that is openly indebted to both traditions. It is the single clearest artefact of the region's crossed inheritance.

Performed by: Women. Occasion: Stage and feast performance

FugdiFolk

A circular dance driven by a rhythmic breath sound rather than by instruments, accelerating until the ring breaks. It needs no accompaniment and no stage, which is why it survived in courtyards when staged forms did not.

Performed by: Hindu women. Occasion: Ganesh Chaturthi, Dhalo and the monsoon months

DhaloRitual

Night-long singing in two facing rows on the village mand, over several successive nights, with songs of household and fertility and no male participation. The mand — a defined open ground with a sacred marker — is the institution, not the dance.

Performed by: Hindu women of the village. Occasion: Paush, in the weeks after the harvest

Ghode ModniFolk

Dummy-horse dance, in which men wear a horse frame at the waist and move in formation with swords to drum and cymbal. It is understood locally as a commemoration of cavalry, and it belongs to the New Conquest taluks where warrior lineages survived Portuguese rule longest.

Performed by: Men, chiefly in Bicholim and Satari. Occasion: Shigmo

Goff and TalgadiFolk

In Goff, dancers hold coloured cords hung from a central pole and plait them into a braid by the pattern of their steps, then unplait it by reversing. Talgadi and Tonyamel are the stick and clap dances of the same festival week.

Performed by: Men. Occasion: Shigmo

CorridinhoFolk

A quick paired dance taken directly from the Portuguese folk repertoire and kept in Goan village halls long after it faded elsewhere. It is danced in lines of couples to a brass or string band.

Performed by: Couples. Occasion: Carnival, village feasts and weddings

Mando and dulpod

The Konkani art-song repertoire of the Catholic gentry, sung to violin, guitar and ghumot in six-eight time, paired with the faster dulpod. Its texts are a written literature, collected and printed since the nineteenth century, which sets it apart from most Indian folk song.

Tiatr cantaram

The songs that punctuate a tiatr — solos, duets and trios in Konkani, backed by a brass and reed band, and written each season on current affairs. They are the most widely heard political commentary in the language.

Ghumot percussion

The ghumot is an earthen pot drum played across the lap, with a wide head and an open back that the player closes with the elbow to bend the pitch. Its head was historically monitor-lizard skin; since that became illegal it is made with goat skin. It was declared Goa's heritage instrument in 2019 and is used in temple bhajan, mando and tiatr alike.

Konkani bhajan and kirtan

Temple singing in Konkani and Marathi in the New Conquest shrines, with mridang, harmonium and cymbals, and a strong local bhajani mandal culture that competes at festival season.

The parish choir and the band tradition

Church music training in Goan villages produced staff-notation literacy at a rate unusual in India, and Goan musicians consequently staffed dance bands and film orchestras in Bombay through most of the twentieth century. The village brass band that plays a wedding and the arranger who scored a film song came out of the same choir loft.

Tiatr

Konkani stage drama in Roman script, structured as acts separated by songs, and first performed in Bombay in 1892 by Lucasinho Ribeiro. It is commercially self-supporting, runs a full season in Goan and Bombay halls, and treats migration, corruption, family and language politics directly enough that it functions as public argument rather than only as entertainment.

Khell tiatr

The village and street form, played at Carnival and Easter on open ground without a proscenium, shorter and broader than the hall tiatr and performed by the village's own people.

Perni Jagor

Masked night theatre performed by the Perni community with painted wooden masks representing a fixed cast of deities and types. Very few families still perform it and the surviving mask collections are largely in museum and family custody.

Zagor

An all-night village vigil-play, most famously at Siolim, performed by Hindu and Catholic participants together with defined hereditary roles for each — a working arrangement rather than a symbolic one.

Ranmale

Forest-village theatre of Satari and Sanguem, staged over several nights around Shigmo, with episodes from the epics played by men of the village in improvised verse.

Feni distilling GI registered Sanguem, Quepem, Canacona, Satari and Bicholim

Registered as a geographical indication in 2009, and the only Indian spirit protected as a regional appellation. Cashew is not native — the Portuguese brought it from Brazil in the sixteenth century and planted it to hold laterite slopes against erosion. The fruit was a by-product of the nut until somebody distilled it.

Material: Cashew apple and coconut toddy. Technique: Cashew apples trodden in a laterite basin, the juice fermented three days in earthenware, then pot-distilled once to urrack and again to feni over a wood fire. Coconut feni is distilled from tapped toddy instead.

Azulejo tile painting Panaji and Bardez

Blue-and-white narrative and address tiles, on churches, house facades and street signs. The technique is Portuguese and the practice in Goa is a twentieth-century commercial revival by studios in Panaji rather than an unbroken colonial-era trade.

Material: Tin-glazed ceramic tile. Technique: Hand painting in cobalt oxide on a tin glaze, then kiln fired so the pigment fuses into the glaze.

Ghumot making GI-worthy Bicholim and Ponda

A handful of potter families still throw the drum body, and the change of skin from monitor lizard to goat after wildlife protection law altered the instrument's tone — a documented and openly discussed shift.

Material: Fired clay body and goat skin. Technique: Wheel-thrown pot with a wide mouth and open back, skin stretched and lashed with cord.

Chitari lacquered woodwork GI-worthy Cuncolim, Salcete

Painted and lacquered wooden objects, toys and ceremonial items made by the Chitari artisan families of Cuncolim. Very few workshops remain.

Material: Turned wood, lac and pigment. Technique: Wooden forms turned on a lathe and coloured with lac applied by friction while the piece spins.

Terracotta and pottery Bicholim, Ponda and Quepem

Water pots, festival lamps, the frames for Ganesh Chaturthi idols and the Narkasur armatures. The idol trade keeps the craft alive on a seasonal cycle rather than a steady one.

Material: River and field clay. Technique: Wheel throwing and open firing.

Brass and bell metal Bicholim and Ponda

Samai lamps, kansallem cymbals, temple bells and the tall multi-tiered deepstambh fittings for the New Conquest shrines.

Material: Brass and bell-metal alloy. Technique: Sand casting and hand finishing.