Goa & Gomantak · Western Coastal Strip

The small things

The line that explains the mapTiswadi, Bardez and Salcete came under Portuguese rule in 1510 and 1543; Ponda, Sanguem, Quepem, Canacona, Pernem, Bicholim and Satari only between 1763 and 1788, by which time Lisbon's policy no longer required religious conformity. That two-century gap, and not geography, is why the churches are coastal and the temples inland, why the Old Conquest villages are laid out around a church square and the New Conquest ones are not, and why the two halves of Goa still vote, eat and speak differently.
What happened to the temples of the Old ConquestsFrom the 1540s, Portuguese decrees ordered the destruction of temples in the territories then held, and the Goa Inquisition operated from 1560 until it was abolished in 1812, with a brief suspension in the 1770s. Large numbers of people converted, some under compulsion and some not; about a quarter of Goa's population is Christian today. Temple communities responded by carrying their deities across the rivers into territory Portugal did not yet hold, which is why Manguesh, Shanta Durga and Mahalasa are worshipped at Priol, Kavlem and Mardol rather than at Cortalim, Quelossim and Verna.
A field that grows rice and fish in alternationKhazan lands are reclaimed tidal floodplain held behind earthen bunds with timber sluice gates. Opened on the right tide the gate admits brackish water and fish fry; shut, it keeps salt out of the paddy. The bunds must be maintained collectively or the whole system floods, so the engineering and the village institution that manages it are the same thing — and where the institution has weakened, the fields have gone saline.
Land owned by a village rather than a personThe comunidade — gaunkari before the Portuguese codified it — holds village land collectively in the names of the descendants of the founding clans, auctions its cultivation annually, and pays the surplus out as a dividend called zon. Many comunidades still exist, still meet, and still pay a zon that is now often a token amount against land worth crores.
One state with a different civil lawGoa retained the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 after 1961 and applies a common set of family law provisions across religious communities — the only Indian state to do so. It also carries Portuguese-era features such as the communion of assets in marriage, and it is routinely cited in national debate by people who have not read it.
The only referendum of its kindOn 16 January 1967 Goans voted in an Opinion Poll on whether to merge with Maharashtra. The proposal was rejected, Goa remained a separate Union Territory, and became a state on 30 May 1987. It is the only such plebiscite held in independent India, and the anniversary is observed locally as Asmitai Dis, identity day.
A Brazilian fruit that became a protected spiritThe cashew is not Indian. The Portuguese brought it from Brazil in the sixteenth century and planted it to bind laterite slopes; the nut was the crop and the swollen apple was waste until it was fermented. Feni is the result — trodden juice called neero, fermented three days, distilled once to urrack and again to feni — and it was registered as a geographical indication in 2009. Goa also holds GI registrations for the Khola chilli of Canacona, the Harmal chilli of Pernem, the Myndoli banana and the fried sweet khaje.
Vindalho has nothing to do with potatoesThe name is carne de vinha d'alhos — meat in wine and garlic — a Portuguese shipboard preservation method. Wine did not survive the voyage, so palm and coconut toddy vinegar replaced it, and the vinegar is what makes the dish keep and improve for days. The potato in restaurant vindaloo is an English-language misreading of d'alhos as aloo.
The baker's hornThe poder still delivers bread twice a day in most Goan villages, on a bicycle, announcing himself with a rubber-bulb horn. The loaves — poi, undo, katre pao, kankonn — were traditionally raised with palm toddy brought in that morning by the tapper, so two trades ran on the same pre-dawn schedule.
A Goan voice on the Voyager recordWhen the Voyager Golden Record was assembled in 1977, the Indian classical vocal selected was Kesarbai Kerkar's "Jaat Kahan Ho". Kerkar was from Keri in Goa and sang in the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana; the record is now beyond the heliosphere.
A drum that changed its skinThe ghumot is an earthen pot drum whose head was historically monitor-lizard hide. When that became illegal under wildlife protection law, makers moved to goat skin, which alters the tone. Goa declared the ghumot its heritage instrument in 2019, and players will tell you which skin an old recording was made on.
A submerged village that comes back every summerKurdi in Sanguem was flooded by the Salaulim reservoir in the 1980s. Each summer, when the water drops, the house foundations, the temple base, the church and the wells reappear, and former residents return for a few weeks to a village that exists only between the monsoons. The singer Mogubai Kurdikar came from it.

Small local details of Goa & Gomantak — customs, quirks and things that are not in any guidebook. (12)