Looking for Indo- Portuguese females
By Teotonio R. De Souza
Despite the nonracial image that the Portuguese always sought to convey,
particularly through the propaganda of the Estado Novo, the concept of
Lusophony remains largely restricted to the language, and to Portuguese
speaking countries.
What restrains the Portuguese from exploring the Albuquerquian policy of
inter- racial linkage in their present- day drive to promote Lusophony,
wider? The relics of Portuguese architecture or other forms of art is
one area that can help more easily to establish linkages. Being dead
links, they are less problematic.
But the promotion of lusosphere could delve into the populational and
demographic studies, not limited to luso- descendentes, but including
all luso- native breeds, so as to identify a deeper racial integration.
Multidisciplinary methodologies will be required to trace the
infiltration of the Portuguese blood through females married into native
Goan families. The cohabitation may have taken other forms as well. The
publications of Germano da Silva Correia and Jorge Forjaz are of limited
help for this sort of research.
They do not seek the native links; they seek almost to distance from
them. Roberto Bruto da Costa, in his A Hydra do Nativismo ( 1920),
writes that the Costas ( of Margão) had many family members married to
the Europeans and descendentes . Luizinha is remembered till now in a
Goan folk song: she is told not to cry. Her husband had taken a good
beating and cut to pieces ( foddle pole, keleai vante ).
The mestiço captain, Joaquim Garcez, was sent to Divar to rig the
municipal elections in favour of the white Government- backed candidate
in November 1854. He was done to death by the locals.
Beatriz is the protagonist of a novel published in Lisbon in 1885 by
Fernão de Goa , probably a pen- name of Eduardo Ignácio da Camara, who
arrived in Goa with expeditionary troops sent from Portugal in 1871.
Later sent to Timor, he was killed by the natives in 1895. He was
married in the Costa Leal family, once in charge of the administration
of Assolnã and other villages that belonged to the Marquis of Fronteira.
There are some indications that Thomaz Ribeiro helped in editing the
book for publication.
The novel was dedicated to the governor, Visconde de S. Januário.
Roberto Bruto da Costa, in the above book, quotes extensively from it to
describe the Marcela revolt of 1871, which provided the subtitle to the
novel: The mysteries of the last revolt in Goa.
The novel uses Konkani words and expressions, written in the Portuguese
ortography of the time and probably as the descendentes pronounced them.
For sample: Conré ( who is it?) xaró ( boy), paqueló ( European), Inga
ió, Bia naca. Cai curná tucá.
[ Come here. Don ´ t be afraid. I shall not harm you]. Curious is a
comment in a footnote describing Konkani as a language peculiar to Goa
and as an adulterated form of Marathi. The novel conveys quite vividly
the mentality and lifestyle of the descendentes, including the women
folk and their social rivalry with the females of the native elite.
It refers to the Caranzalem beach as the gathering point of the fine
flower of white gentry, described repeatedly as goanense.
The Cabo is described as Sintra of Goa, due to its bucolic environment.
It does not fail to mention that natives and descendentes hated each
other, but that descendentes disliked Europeans more than the natives
did! In the context of the revolt, Beatriz represented the interests of
the descendente females that egged on their white mates to rebel, so as
to ensure rise in military rank and salary. It had nothing really to do
with native rebellion against the Portuguese rule. (ENDS)
http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=1734&boxid=25434312&uid=&dat=9%2f20%2f2011
