Arrosim’s history keeper leaves no stone unturned
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Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا
May 4, 2015, 1:52:42 PM5/4/15
to The Third Thursday Goa Book Club
Arrosim’s history keeper leaves no stone unturned
Dr Themistocles D’Silva recently released a reworked version of his research in his hometown of Arossim. His latest addition is that of four unique stone structures found in the village. He says locals consider them to be dohannim, but could in fact be grave markers. DIANA FERNANDES chronicles the chronicler’s work
02 May, 2015, 12:37AM IST
Villages
have their own history, that’s no surprise, but few take to documenting
them and even fewer take to publishing a book about it. Dr Themistocles
D’Silva hailing from the village of Arossim, not only printed a book
about his village back in 2011, but has subsequently updated his
findings in his latest version of the book.
The
newest addition to the book is his research on four unique structures
found along the comunidade paddy fields from Arossim through to the
foothills of Cuelim.
The
retired scientist who has in the past worked on research topics like
that of the Bhopal gas tragedy is also a member of the American Chemical
Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry and currently lives in
Chapel Hill, USA.
He says he needed to get the revised addition after discovering important information in Portugal.
“The
main reason for the revised addition was because of the recognition of
the existence of megaliths in Arossim and the neighbouring villages, and
important information uncovered from the archives in Portugal that
added depth to the local history,” says Dr D’Silva.
In
his book Unravelling History The Village of Arossim, Goa he writes that
to local farmers, the four unique stone structures known as dohannim
(dohannem-singular) or dovornim “were assumed to have been erected to
enable the tired travellers to rest and refresh at the nearby pond, by
temporarily placing the load of their heads on these platforms,
unaided.”
Professor
K A Kennedy, from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology
Cornell University however opined the structures were actually dolmenoid
cists or grave markers.
“These
huge stones or grave markers, located in the fields at the source of
River Sal, are believed to have existed since the Neolithic Period when
the first farming community settled in this fertile and highly desirable
area some 3000 years ago,” says D’Silva. Proof of human habitation at
the time is clear from the discovery of Mother Goddess in Curdi (now
Verna) and the rock cravings in Usgalimal dating back to between 4000
and 6000 BC.
Similar
monuments have also been in the form of megalithic granite dolmens in
Kerala dating back to the Iron age and Neolithic period. “Such megaliths
(erected with local stones) exist throughout the peninsula of India. So
it’s not surprising that we have such stones in Goa which up to now
were not recognized as such, but erroneously assumed to be structures
used to place baskets on,” says D’Silva.
Made
from commonly found laterite stones, the structures measure more than
five feet long and usually find use during the feast of Three Kings held
at the Chapel on the hill top of Cuelim.
Flag
bearers leading a procession of the re-enactment of the three kings
momentarily stop at each of the standing and fallen megalithic
structures waving the flag poles in a circular motion. An earlier
practice of wetting the structures with feni was discontinued but
D’Silva says it shows the importance they had in the past.
“It
is indicative that these stones had a special significance, perhaps of
honouring their dead tribal leaders, as guardians of the fields. The
stones may have survived to this date only because they are both
honoured and feared by the local farmers and the tradition kept alive by
a tribal clan from Cuelim. These rituals are inconsistent with the
namesake dohannim, supposedly built as resting platforms,” he writes in
the book.
He
also writes that it had been suggested that previously, on festive
occasions, Hindu idols taken in procession at night, or corpses carried
to the funeral pyres may have been placed on these structures which “may
also explain the long existing local legend of sightings of ghostly
procession with torches or lamps on the top of the hill on the night of
the feast of the Three Kings, that for a long time, no one dared spend
the night at the chapel residence.” This myth however was proven to be
false when some individuals spend the night to no ill effect, says the
author.
http://www.heraldgoa.in/Goa/Goa-Social/Arrosim%E2%80%99s-history-keeper-leaves-no-stone-unturned/87990.html
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Goa,1556 Shared Content at https://archive.org/details/goa1556
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