Dear Fred,
Thanks very much for publicizing this classic book on the cocoanut
tree. I am forwarding your email to my friend and colleague at CSIR,
Dr M V Viswanathan, a well-read botanist and herbarium keeper.
These two books (the old and the new, the original and the translation
by Dr Smith), I am sure, will be in the collection of both the British
Library and Project Europeana. And in the Internet Archive. You might
wish to check. You may also check if this book is referred to in
Wealth of India: Natural Products and in TKDL.
At one point, you mention that from this tree comes ..... sweets,
water..... etc. Probably you meant 'sweet water,' meanig tender
cocoanut water. Please check. All over India, people use cocoanut to
make sweets, of course.
With warm regards,
Arun
On Fri, 20 Oct 2023, 04:33 Frederick Noronha,
<[email protected]> wrote:
Arte Palmárica: who wrote it, when, and what does it say?
Frederick Noronha
The Navhind Times
Oct 15, 2023
For quite some time, one had heard of the work called Arte
Palmárica. It was mentioned as a slender book, written some
centuries in the past, about the coconut in Goa.
This work has been described as a "brief treatise on the
cultivation of coconut palms, written by an anonymous Jesuit in
Goa" (Smith). Like many aspects of inadequately-researched Goa,
the one too had been forgotten in the recesses of time. There
were references to it in old texts and Portuguese books, but that
was all.
Its importance has also been noted. After all, the "coconut has
been a staple, and symbol, of Goa for centuries." This text is
seen as having "the nameless author lays out a number of methods
for producing the largest, healthiest yields possible" (ibid).
See archive.org/details/arte-palmarica-1
<http://archive.org/details/arte-palmarica-1>
This book has nine brief chapters. It tells us the best way to
choose seed coconuts; the time and method to plant; ways of
watering young plants; soil, distance and arranging beds.
It also covers coconut-related other topics like filing in plant
groves; adding ash to palm groves; thickets within palm groves;
the benefits and gains of palm groves; and finally how to plant
and maintain disease-affected trees.
Its centuries-old, unnamed author -- a priest, no less -- believes
came up with methods that were "based not on tradition, but on
observation and experimentation, and hence superior to those
employed by local growers."
The work has an interesting past. At one time, it was well
noticed here. The slender book was published for the first time
by the National Press of colonial Goa in 1841 by the General
Secretary of the Government, Cláudio Lagrange -- in the size of
quarto of 18 pages. It was later inserted by Filipe Neri Xavier
in 1852 into his Bosquejo Histórico das Comunidades (Historical
Outline of the Comunidades).
Bernardo Francisco da Costa transcribed the Arte Palmárica from
the Bosquejo into his Agricultor Indiano (Indian Agriculturalist),
vol. 1, p. 141-168, published in Lisbon in 1872, correcting some
words that must have been typographical or copying errors. Costa
interspersing within the text, in italics, several parentheticals
explaining Indian phrases and measures.
J.I.de <http://J.I.de> Loiola followed the improved text in his
booklet Culturas Indianas (Indian Cultures), printed in 1896. As
the edition of 1841 was entirely out of print, and the Bosquejo
Histórico das Comunidades, Bernardo Francisco da Costa’s opus, and
José Inácio de Loiola’s booklet, were getting to be rare, the
colonial administration released another version based on the text
used in the Agricultor Indiano, "thereby popularizing a work in
which there are many ideas of recognized benefit for local
agriculture". But the text has been largely forgotten in recent
years. Surely not understood any more.
* * *
This work begins by saying: Just as in other parts of the world
there is a variety of plantations from which landlords make their
living, there are also plantations here in Asia, very different
from those of Europe, Africa, and America.
"The principal ones, being more common and profitable because they
are more fruitful, are palm groves, whose trees (unlike any
others) bear fruit twelve times a year... each month they produce
a bunch of coconuts, larger or smaller according to the treatment
given to them by the palm-grower and the quality of the soil in
which they are planted.
"And there are palms that give fifteen or sixteen bunches a year,
from one of which I saw 196 coconuts obtained from a single
harvest, all of them good and well-formed. There are bunches of
great number, as was seen on a Gudêm plantation, where one was
found that had 300-odd coconuts."
It points out too: Furthermore, of all trees, the palm is the most
helpful and of greatest utility, because from it comes wine, oil,
vinegar, sweets, water, and sustenance. Its fruit has traveled
everywhere, and is held in great esteem and highly valued; it is
used in sacrifices ... and in large parties and weddings,
especially after being dried."
Coconut, we are told, is put into the seasonings of various
"stews". Houses are covered with its wood and leaves. Buoys for
boats are made of this wood, so are "many other things".
From a coconut tree, "one can put a sailboat out to sea with
everything it needs, including the hull, masts, yards, ropes,
cables, water, wine, oil, vinegar, provisions, and sweets."
Without the coconut, the inhabitants of Goa would have been
"extremely poor and would not have what they need to sustain
themselves". But many plantations then were not maintained well,
and ruined, then too.
There are practical tips offered. For nuts to be planted, get
them down gently. Palms from which nuts are plucked should not be
less than 30 years old, strong, have a good crown, and good
bunches of coconut."
Best coconuts to be grown were from the island of Juari, others
in the village of Carmoná. But this has been questioned.
When is the best time to transplant a coconut sapling? Which
month of the Indic calendar? How did they keep the coconut
saplings cool and defend them from cattle? For how many years do
you need to water a coconut tree? What happens if coconut trees
are planted too tightly? Or on uneven ground?
* * *
It is for experts in the field to tell us how accurate or helpful
these views from another era really are. But a slender book of
this kind tells us a thing or two about the Goa of the past.
For one, Goa's access to early printing (since the year 1556) has
helped it to build information, especially in the field of plants
and languages, besides geography, diverse religious ideologies,
and some other ideas from across the globe. This has locally
acknowledged only inadequately till date. Secondly, Arte Palmárica
reminds us that we never know what hidden gems of Goa-related
information are lying hidden down there, only waiting to be
discovered and encountered.
A Kerala Tourism website post acknowldges this: "Integrated
farming practices and plantation crops were popularised in Kerala
by the missionaries. Farming was one of the main engagements at
the ashrams of foreign missionaries. It was a Jesuit priest who
wrote about coconut farming in the book Arte Palmarica. The
foreign missionaries brought fruits and plants from South America,
Africa and South-East Asia and planted them in Kerala and Goa. The
list of different varieties of mangoes popularised by Jesuits in
Goa is really interesting."
This book is still available online, leather bound and in
Portuguese, for US$36.70, or less for some fascimile copies. Till
a few years back, the 1918 edition of this book was available, for
a mere Rs 5, from the Government Printing Press, Panjim.
Its translator, Dave Addison Smith (who goes by the pen-name of DA
Smith) is a Houston, Texas-based translator, writer, and union
organizer. He learnt Portuguese at a Brazilian cultural centre in
his city.
Smith's published translations include the Portuguese poetry of
Laxmanrao Sardessai, Orlando da Costa's novel set in Torsan Zor in
Margao, O Signo da Ira, the biography of Angolan revolutionary
Sita Valles, and the 18th-century correspondence of the nuns of
Convent of Santa Mónica in Goa. He most recently contributed to
The Colonial Perio-dical Press in the Indian and Pacific Ocean
Regions as an editor.
Some of his earlier work has been published through Goa,1556, a
network this columnist is associated with. The book will be
released at Siolim's coconut festival this Sunday evening (Oct
15). At the end of the day, we still don't know who originally
wrote the book and when exactly....
###
Caption.. covers, old and new. And the translator, DA Smith.
--
FN * +91-9822122436 * 784 Saligao 403511 Bardez Goa
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