The relationship between the gavnkars, zonnkars, munddkars, and other players in the gavnkari have been written about for many years and I was used to reading about them. But when Leroy Veloso first showed me his work in 2007 about using the Matricula – which was primarily for registering people who were to receive some fraction of the zonn – to identify clans I immediately recognized it as a valuable bi-product. I don’t think that was its intention but it is important. And its simplicity is elegant. I was surprised that more historians were not doing it.
Of course, there is deeper work that can proceed from it and the master of such work is Bernardo De Sousa in his book “The Last Prabhu”. Someone needs to create a how-to paper to work with the mahajans to identify the root surnames the way Bernardo has done. That is not simple. But I wanted to point out how simple it is to work with the matricula, say from 1940, to unearth the clans of a village. That is important because now that the Gavnkari has been treated so callously by the new institutions of governance those documents are in danger. Everyone needs to work quickly to work with their communidade to create a clan list. Once the matricula ledgers go to the Panjim Archives it is all over. I couldn’t find anyone there who knew what they were and how to get access to them. They are lost in the ether. Finding books of baptisms, marriages and deaths are easy, but you can forget about the matriculas. So work with what you can find in the village communidades today. I sat in the Nachinola communidade for just 2 hours and was able to create a table. Nachinola was my late wife’s village. I couldn’t thank them enough for their kindness. They wouldn’t even accept a donation for their institution. But what I have created has been highly prized by my Nachinola friends. I stand in awe of the traditional system of village governance that stood for over 1000 years and that is now in its twilight years. John Nazareth From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of wrdsilva Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2024 12:15 AM To: Goa-Research-Net <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [GRN] Understanding the clans of Goa... (John Nazareth) My fieldwork in Goa shows the Matricula etc. have merit, but the 'clan' system is difficult to describe the way it is often done. Ganvponn, Ganvkari, Zonn, Zonnkar, Munddkar, Mittgaudde etc.etc. makes the rural system a little more complicated than it is recovered from 'communidades' accounts, or vangodd systems. We need good fieldwork complimented by documents, Portuguese and local (Konkani, Marathi) in order to get a better grasp of the system operating and changing over external interventions in Goa. William Robert Da Silva On Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 1:34:30 PM UTC+5:30 Rowena wrote: Very exciting. I remember wanting to work on this decades ago. Glad someone is 👍🏼 Regards, rowena On Thu, 4 Apr, 2024, 13:25 Frederick Noronha, <[email protected]> wrote: A paper by John Nazareth <[email protected]>, Canada-based statistician and history enthusiast. Check it out below. He writes: "These tables can be gleaned from the Matricula, while is the ledger within the Communidade office on which they log the gaunkars who are registering for their zonn." He says while his work covers only a few villages, others could do so for more. "I got one of my friends to do the necessary in Anjuna in just two days." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CAMCR53J0ZVMvJshaYnnvNNeceRcNt55AKEG%2B%3D9CyUo0m2cVBxQ%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CAMCR53J0ZVMvJshaYnnvNNeceRcNt55AKEG%2B%3D9CyUo0m2cVBxQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/19cf537c-3cb9-4170-b53a-67501262ed34n%40googlegroups.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/19cf537c-3cb9-4170-b53a-67501262ed34n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/IA1PR11MB61470DDD7B560D4074E0729EFF002%40IA1PR11MB6147.namprd11.prod.outlook.com.
