Comunidades de Goa
April 25th, 2010 at 6:08 pm (Customs, History)
by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas
“Whether to abolish or reorganise comunidades has been a subject of much discussion. These are otherwise known as agricultural associations. Let us try and focus attention on this extremely old institution activity. The exact date of organising comunidades is not known, but Portuguese historian Joao de Barros, in his publication Decade II, Fr. Francisco de Sousa in his book Oriente Conquistado, and Afonso Mexia, in his book Foral de Usos e Costumes, establish the date as 1526. It is known that centuries earlier, a few people from across the Ghats came to Goa. They were agriculturists, in Cape Canar( Karnataka), and not having good lands for cultivation, were attracted by the freshness and beauty of Goa.
The first people to live in Goa divided themselves into families called Vangores, each vangor representing a family. In order of preferences, these were again classified and called first, second, third, etc, vangor. The territory was again divided into malos, meaning provinces, and each of the malos into gaos, or village. A certain number of vangores were transformed into ganvponn or comunidade. It is clear that the term gaos led to the formation of the term comunidade. Which in the early days was the most elevated form of family control in respect to religion, economics and society. Read the rest of this entry »
