Monsoon Raagas 3 – Sao Joao Festival of Goa
Monsoons are the source of life on this earth. They help us in cultivating the food we eat, gives us water and all the vegetation on the earth. In fact the lives depend on rains. This only leads us to the point that there is not religious bias in celebrating rains. One such festival is Sao Joao festival which is celebrated in Goa.
Come monsoons, it is time for the Feast of Sao Joao (Saint John the Baptist) which is celebrated uniquely in the rain-drenched villages of Goa on the June 24 every year. True to the Goan spirit, there would be so much of song, dance and merriment all around the villages of the beautiful rural landscape of Goa.
Sao Joao is a Catholic festival celebrated in an unusual manner, with devotees leaping into, and swimming in, domestic drinking water wells, as a form of tribute to St John the Baptist. This festival is marked by young men in Goa jumping into wells to retrieve the gifts thrown in by the villagers. Held at the beginning of the monsoon season, it witnesses people of all ages jumping into wells, ponds and streams.
Colorful boat races are organized in Soilom, a village in North Goa’s Bardez taluka. However, the festival of Sao Joao is not celebrated with the same enthusiasm all of Goa. In the south, the celebrations take a somber tone. It is celebrated with great fervour and gusto particularly in Siolim, Anjuna, Candolim, Calangute and Assagao.
Holy Connection
According to St. Luke, Elizabeth tells her cousin Mary (who came to visit her as soon as she heard of Elizabeth’s pregnancy). “The child in my womb leapt for joy.” This is perhaps the reason why local folk, during the Sao Joao feast, jump or leap into the wells with joyful shouts of Sao Joao! The feast of Catholic priest Saint John the Baptist is celebrated six months before Christmas that is December 25, which is marked as the birthday of Jesus Christ.
Food Feast
Food and Feni is another integral part of the Sao Joao feast. Feni (a spirit produced exclusively in Goa), overflows during the occasion. People, especially newly married couples or those with a new-born gather with a dali and gifts containing seasonal fruits like moussrad mango (a Goan variety of mango), pineapples, jackfruits and a bottle of feni.
It’s also common to find that Goan delicacy called Patoleo in the bride’s basket. This is a sweet made with finely ground rice flour paste which is applied to fragrant leaves that can be as large as a banana leaf. The two sides of the leaf are stuck together after a yummy mixture of freshly scraped coconut and jaggery is filled in the center – the whole leaf and the filling is then steam cooked in a large copper vessel. Sannaas – rice cakes, are another delicacy that you’ll find in the basket.
Music, Dance & Adventure
The Sao Joao festival in Goa is a wonderful celebration of traditions and beliefs. On this occasion, people take out parades while singing Mando and various religious hymns. People participating in the Sangodd are dressed in a uniform to distinguish them from other groups. This is also the time when one’s adventurous spirit comes to the surface. Several competitions are held to allow the youths to exhibit their talents.
The music of the drums called the Ghumott and the percussion instrument called the Kansallem can be so enticing that you can’t help but become one with all the joy surrounding you, you might even want to join the revellers and jump into a well with an ecstatic shout of “viva Sao Joao” as the villagers do. Or at least join in the mandos and other peppy dances happening along the riverfronts, wells, and ponds around.
Sao Joao is a festival that is celebrated on the arrival of rains with true Goan spirit of music, dance, wine and food.
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