The Mirg Festival among Hindus, celebrates the onset of the monsoon and occurs a day prior to the San Joao festival. Both signifiy a new crop-planting year. So IMHO, the Church wrapped itself around a pre-existing rural-agricultural festival; and gave the native practices some Christian reasoning - even if there is no "well-jumping" in Portugal and Europe. As a physician, connecting well-jumping (after a few copachem) to a fetus moving in the mother's womb is pretty uncomfortable - to put it mildly.
Considering that till the industrial revolution (which really never came to Goa), the agriculture and livelihood of the native population could be affected by: too much, too little, delayed, wrong timing or irregular rains, - a good monsoon season must be a God-sent. This is even more especial if, the prior year was a bad crop-year (emphasizing the effigy-burning). So the joy of a new monsoon, especially after a hot summer, can well compare to a mother's joy and excitement of the new baby in her womb; and the new life the monsoon will bring. The cultural significance of the San Joao fest may not be very different to the fest that marks the start of the fishing season in Goa. Is not that named after St. Peter? Regards, GL _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
