Like many places around the world where Goans gather around a bottle of this and that or at lunch or dinner, or even at a card table, the conversation more often than not turns to Goa, Goans, Portuguese, the origin of the Goan Catholic ... the Friday Night Club in Sydney is no different. Blessed with as many points of view as there are in a variety of curries, agreement, acceptance and more often than not the subjects under examination remain floating in the air until the next Friday we meet. Then having burnt many midnight oils surfing through the wisdom (or the lack thereof) of pedia this and that, this ghosts of conversations past are brought to life for another round of robust calculation, miscalculation, examination and this and that.
This offering is to the altar of misinformation and disinformation as preached by our resident Dr Google. It is by no means the answer to the question ... How did Goa get its name!
This piece is based on a virtual conversation
on a site called Quora:
What is the origin of the State name "Goa" in India?
The origin of the name Goa is unclear. In ancient literature, Goa was known by
many names such as Gomanta, Gomanchala, Gopakapattam, Gopakapuri, Govapuri, Govem, and Gomantak. The Indian epic Mahabharata refers to the area now known as Goa, s Goparashtra or Govarashtra which means a nation of owwherds. Gopakapuri or Gopakapattanam were used in some ancient Sanskrit texts, and these
names were also mentioned in other sacred Hindu texts such as the Harivansa and the Skanda Purana. In the latter, Goa is also known as Gomanchala. Parashurambhoomi is a name that the region is referred to in certain
inscriptions and texts such as the Puranas. In the third century BCE, Goa was known as Aparantha, and is mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy. The
Greeks referred to Goa as Nelkinda in the 13th century. Some other historical names for
Goa are Sindapur, Sandabur, and Mahassapatam.
Pierre Moreira: Actually,
the Hindu Goans who got converted by the Portuguese after Goa was conquered by
them, used to opt for the family surname of their godfather or, sometimes, for
the surname of the priest who baptized them. More rarely, the surname of the
Portuguese viceroy or governor at the time of the baptism was chosen.
De Sousa, Fernandes and
Rodrigues were (and still are) very common family names in Portugal at that
time. So it is not surprising to find them so often in use. Noronha,
Mascarenhas and Menezes which are very noble surnames in Portugal are also
found even if the Goan family who uses it has no clear aristocratic roots.
Due to the proximity of the
British Raj and also due to the fact that a lot of Goans used to work for the
British in Mumbai and Karachi from the early 19th century on, some Portuguese
surnames often suffered alterations in order to be more easily pronounced by
the Brits: De Sousa and Da Silva became D’Sousa and D’Silva, Rodrigues became
Rodricks, etc.
These phenomena are not
limited to Goa and it’s common to find these family surnames in Kerala (mostly
amongst the Roman Catholic communities of Kochi/Cochim) as well as amongst the
East-Indian communities of Mumbai which ancestors were either Goans or
Portuguese Catholic inhabitants of Bombay before this settlement was offered as
a dowery by the King of Portugal to his English counterpart on early 17th
century.
In Sri
Lanka, which has been colonized by the Portuguese from the first years of the
1500s and where they kept their domination in big parts of the island till
1658, we can observe the same abundance of Portuguese family surnames which
variety is even more limited than in Goa. The process was the same as the
locals used to adopt their godfathers’ surnames. What is curious is that, nowadays,
a lot of Buddhists also have Portuguese surnames. It can be explained by the
fact that big numbers of the locals who were converted to Catholicism on the
16th century retained part of their Buddhist faith as the presence of
Portuguese missionaries as well as the creation of a local clergy were very
limited. Later on, after the end of the Portuguese rule, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
experienced a regeneration of the Buddhist religion and the Catholic faith
disappeared in many regions. But the former Sinhala surnames of these families
were lost for so many decades that they kept using the Portuguese surnames till
today (with some alterations: Sousa often becomes Souza or Soyza, Peres becomes
Peiris or Piris, Fonseca becomes Fonseka, etc.)
Vinay Borker: Almost all Goan Catholics are of Hindu origin.
When Hindus were baptized into Christianity, they got the surname of the
priest, usually a Portuguese, who baptized them. Thus, if an entire village was
converted by a single priest then all got the same surname of the priest.
Sometimes a European person, usually a Portuguese, was made the godfather of
the converted persons. The converted got the surname of the godfather. So, the
majority of converted Catholics got a Portuguese surname. Interestingly many
records of conversions are still maintained in the churches in the locality. So,
a Catholic can usually find out from the records what was his/her original
Hindu surname.
Do people from Goa like being Portuguese or Indian?
Mark Quadros: Being born
and brought up in Goa itself, I think I qualify to voice my opinion on this.
One Avo (Grandma) was Portuguese (born and brought
up in Portugal) the other was from Goa, Both ended up marrying Goans so I think
our family grew to be less orthodox and more liberal. It was interesting as a
child to see that there were hardly any differences in both. I feel the older
generation in Goa i.e. my grandparent’s generation were more into the
Portuguese lifestyle than the descendants (us)
I can write Portuguese pretty well and have studied
it for my boards as well but I think I like to associate myself as a mixture of
both Goan and Portuguese and a bit of Indian. (To start with everyone was an
Indian Hindu).
We have a more westernized culture, our parents are
open to us dating, travelling, taking breaks in our education, it’s very liberal.
We have no arranged marriage system or a ‘dowry’ system. Well, some pure caste
Goans may have this.
So yes, I feel it is totally normal to not be
associated as Indian as our culture is very different from that of an Indian
family.
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