Arte Palmárica: who wrote it, when, and what does it say? (FN, in the NT)
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Frederick Noronha
Oct 19, 2023, 7:03:41 PM10/19/23
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Arte Palmárica: who wrote it, when, and what does it say?
Frederick Noronha
The Navhind Times
The Navhind Times
Oct 15, 2023
For quite some time, one had heard of the work called Arte Palmárica. It was mentioned as a slender book, written some centuries in the past, about the coconut in Goa.
This work has been described as a "brief treatise on the cultivation of coconut palms, written by an anonymous Jesuit in Goa" (Smith). Like many aspects of inadequately-researched Goa, the one too had been forgotten in the recesses of time. There were references to it in old texts and Portuguese books, but that was all.
Its importance has also been noted. After all, the "coconut has been a staple, and symbol, of Goa for centuries." This text is seen as having "the nameless author lays out a number of methods for producing the largest, healthiest yields possible" (ibid). See archive.org/details/arte-palmarica-1
This book has nine brief chapters. It tells us the best way to choose seed coconuts; the time and method to plant; ways of watering young plants; soil, distance and arranging beds.
It also covers coconut-related other topics like filing in plant groves; adding ash to palm groves; thickets within palm groves; the benefits and gains of palm groves; and finally how to plant and maintain disease-affected trees.
Its centuries-old, unnamed author -- a priest, no less -- believes came up with methods that were "based not on tradition, but on observation and experimentation, and hence superior to those employed by local growers."
The work has an interesting past. At one time, it was well noticed here. The slender book was published for the first time by the National Press of colonial Goa in 1841 by the General Secretary of the Government, Cláudio Lagrange -- in the size of quarto of 18 pages. It was later inserted by Filipe Neri Xavier in 1852 into his Bosquejo Histórico das Comunidades (Historical Outline of the Comunidades).
Bernardo Francisco da Costa transcribed the Arte Palmárica from the Bosquejo into his Agricultor Indiano (Indian Agriculturalist), vol. 1, p. 141-168, published in Lisbon in 1872, correcting some words that must have been typographical or copying errors. Costa interspersing within the text, in italics, several parentheticals explaining Indian phrases and measures.
J.I.de Loiola followed the improved text in his booklet Culturas Indianas (Indian Cultures), printed in 1896. As the edition of 1841 was entirely out of print, and the Bosquejo Histórico das Comunidades, Bernardo Francisco da Costa’s opus, and José Inácio de Loiola’s booklet, were getting to be rare, the colonial administration released another version based on the text used in the Agricultor Indiano, "thereby popularizing a work in which there are many ideas of recognized benefit for local agriculture". But the text has been largely forgotten in recent years. Surely not understood any more.
* * *
This work begins by saying: Just as in other parts of the world there is a variety of plantations from which landlords make their living, there are also plantations here in Asia, very different from those of Europe, Africa, and America.
"The principal ones, being more common and profitable because they are more fruitful, are palm groves, whose trees (unlike any others) bear fruit twelve times a year... each month they produce a bunch of coconuts, larger or smaller according to the treatment given to them by the palm-grower and the quality of the soil in which they are planted.
"And there are palms that give fifteen or sixteen bunches a year, from one of which I saw 196 coconuts obtained from a single harvest, all of them good and well-formed. There are bunches of great number, as was seen on a Gudêm plantation, where one was found that had 300-odd coconuts."
It points out too: Furthermore, of all trees, the palm is the most helpful and of greatest utility, because from it comes wine, oil, vinegar, sweets, water, and sustenance. Its fruit has traveled everywhere, and is held in great esteem and highly valued; it is used in sacrifices ... and in large parties and weddings, especially after being dried."
Coconut, we are told, is put into the seasonings of various "stews". Houses are covered with its wood and leaves. Buoys for boats are made of this wood, so are "many other things".
From a coconut tree, "one can put a sailboat out to sea with everything it needs, including the hull, masts, yards, ropes, cables, water, wine, oil, vinegar, provisions, and sweets."
Without the coconut, the inhabitants of Goa would have been "extremely poor and would not have what they need to sustain themselves". But many plantations then were not maintained well, and ruined, then too.
There are practical tips offered. For nuts to be planted, get them down gently. Palms from which nuts are plucked should not be less than 30 years old, strong, have a good crown, and good bunches of coconut."
Best coconuts to be grown were from the island of Juari, others in the village of Carmoná. But this has been questioned.
When is the best time to transplant a coconut sapling? Which month of the Indic calendar? How did they keep the coconut saplings cool and defend them from cattle? For how many years do you need to water a coconut tree? What happens if coconut trees are planted too tightly? Or on uneven ground?
* * *
It is for experts in the field to tell us how accurate or helpful these views from another era really are. But a slender book of this kind tells us a thing or two about the Goa of the past.
For one, Goa's access to early printing (since the year 1556) has helped it to build information, especially in the field of plants and languages, besides geography, diverse religious ideologies, and some other ideas from across the globe. This has locally acknowledged only inadequately till date. Secondly, Arte Palmárica reminds us that we never know what hidden gems of Goa-related information are lying hidden down there, only waiting to be discovered and encountered.
A Kerala Tourism website post acknowldges this: "Integrated farming practices and plantation crops were popularised in Kerala by the missionaries. Farming was one of the main engagements at the ashrams of foreign missionaries. It was a Jesuit priest who wrote about coconut farming in the book Arte Palmarica. The foreign missionaries brought fruits and plants from South America, Africa and South-East Asia and planted them in Kerala and Goa. The list of different varieties of mangoes popularised by Jesuits in Goa is really interesting."
This book is still available online, leather bound and in Portuguese, for US$36.70, or less for some fascimile copies. Till a few years back, the 1918 edition of this book was available, for a mere Rs 5, from the Government Printing Press, Panjim.
Its translator, Dave Addison Smith (who goes by the pen-name of DA Smith) is a Houston, Texas-based translator, writer, and union organizer. He learnt Portuguese at a Brazilian cultural centre in his city.
Smith's published translations include the Portuguese poetry of Laxmanrao Sardessai, Orlando da Costa's novel set in Torsan Zor in Margao, O Signo da Ira, the biography of Angolan revolutionary Sita Valles, and the 18th-century correspondence of the nuns of Convent of Santa Mónica in Goa. He most recently contributed to The Colonial Perio-dical Press in the Indian and Pacific Ocean Regions as an editor.
Some of his earlier work has been published through Goa,1556, a network this columnist is associated with. The book will be released at Siolim's coconut festival this Sunday evening (Oct 15). At the end of the day, we still don't know who originally wrote the book and when exactly....
###
For quite some time, one had heard of the work called Arte Palmárica. It was mentioned as a slender book, written some centuries in the past, about the coconut in Goa.
This work has been described as a "brief treatise on the cultivation of coconut palms, written by an anonymous Jesuit in Goa" (Smith). Like many aspects of inadequately-researched Goa, the one too had been forgotten in the recesses of time. There were references to it in old texts and Portuguese books, but that was all.
Its importance has also been noted. After all, the "coconut has been a staple, and symbol, of Goa for centuries." This text is seen as having "the nameless author lays out a number of methods for producing the largest, healthiest yields possible" (ibid). See archive.org/details/arte-palmarica-1
This book has nine brief chapters. It tells us the best way to choose seed coconuts; the time and method to plant; ways of watering young plants; soil, distance and arranging beds.
It also covers coconut-related other topics like filing in plant groves; adding ash to palm groves; thickets within palm groves; the benefits and gains of palm groves; and finally how to plant and maintain disease-affected trees.
Its centuries-old, unnamed author -- a priest, no less -- believes came up with methods that were "based not on tradition, but on observation and experimentation, and hence superior to those employed by local growers."
The work has an interesting past. At one time, it was well noticed here. The slender book was published for the first time by the National Press of colonial Goa in 1841 by the General Secretary of the Government, Cláudio Lagrange -- in the size of quarto of 18 pages. It was later inserted by Filipe Neri Xavier in 1852 into his Bosquejo Histórico das Comunidades (Historical Outline of the Comunidades).
Bernardo Francisco da Costa transcribed the Arte Palmárica from the Bosquejo into his Agricultor Indiano (Indian Agriculturalist), vol. 1, p. 141-168, published in Lisbon in 1872, correcting some words that must have been typographical or copying errors. Costa interspersing within the text, in italics, several parentheticals explaining Indian phrases and measures.
J.I.de Loiola followed the improved text in his booklet Culturas Indianas (Indian Cultures), printed in 1896. As the edition of 1841 was entirely out of print, and the Bosquejo Histórico das Comunidades, Bernardo Francisco da Costa’s opus, and José Inácio de Loiola’s booklet, were getting to be rare, the colonial administration released another version based on the text used in the Agricultor Indiano, "thereby popularizing a work in which there are many ideas of recognized benefit for local agriculture". But the text has been largely forgotten in recent years. Surely not understood any more.
* * *
This work begins by saying: Just as in other parts of the world there is a variety of plantations from which landlords make their living, there are also plantations here in Asia, very different from those of Europe, Africa, and America.
"The principal ones, being more common and profitable because they are more fruitful, are palm groves, whose trees (unlike any others) bear fruit twelve times a year... each month they produce a bunch of coconuts, larger or smaller according to the treatment given to them by the palm-grower and the quality of the soil in which they are planted.
"And there are palms that give fifteen or sixteen bunches a year, from one of which I saw 196 coconuts obtained from a single harvest, all of them good and well-formed. There are bunches of great number, as was seen on a Gudêm plantation, where one was found that had 300-odd coconuts."
It points out too: Furthermore, of all trees, the palm is the most helpful and of greatest utility, because from it comes wine, oil, vinegar, sweets, water, and sustenance. Its fruit has traveled everywhere, and is held in great esteem and highly valued; it is used in sacrifices ... and in large parties and weddings, especially after being dried."
Coconut, we are told, is put into the seasonings of various "stews". Houses are covered with its wood and leaves. Buoys for boats are made of this wood, so are "many other things".
From a coconut tree, "one can put a sailboat out to sea with everything it needs, including the hull, masts, yards, ropes, cables, water, wine, oil, vinegar, provisions, and sweets."
Without the coconut, the inhabitants of Goa would have been "extremely poor and would not have what they need to sustain themselves". But many plantations then were not maintained well, and ruined, then too.
There are practical tips offered. For nuts to be planted, get them down gently. Palms from which nuts are plucked should not be less than 30 years old, strong, have a good crown, and good bunches of coconut."
Best coconuts to be grown were from the island of Juari, others in the village of Carmoná. But this has been questioned.
When is the best time to transplant a coconut sapling? Which month of the Indic calendar? How did they keep the coconut saplings cool and defend them from cattle? For how many years do you need to water a coconut tree? What happens if coconut trees are planted too tightly? Or on uneven ground?
* * *
It is for experts in the field to tell us how accurate or helpful these views from another era really are. But a slender book of this kind tells us a thing or two about the Goa of the past.
For one, Goa's access to early printing (since the year 1556) has helped it to build information, especially in the field of plants and languages, besides geography, diverse religious ideologies, and some other ideas from across the globe. This has locally acknowledged only inadequately till date. Secondly, Arte Palmárica reminds us that we never know what hidden gems of Goa-related information are lying hidden down there, only waiting to be discovered and encountered.
A Kerala Tourism website post acknowldges this: "Integrated farming practices and plantation crops were popularised in Kerala by the missionaries. Farming was one of the main engagements at the ashrams of foreign missionaries. It was a Jesuit priest who wrote about coconut farming in the book Arte Palmarica. The foreign missionaries brought fruits and plants from South America, Africa and South-East Asia and planted them in Kerala and Goa. The list of different varieties of mangoes popularised by Jesuits in Goa is really interesting."
This book is still available online, leather bound and in Portuguese, for US$36.70, or less for some fascimile copies. Till a few years back, the 1918 edition of this book was available, for a mere Rs 5, from the Government Printing Press, Panjim.
Its translator, Dave Addison Smith (who goes by the pen-name of DA Smith) is a Houston, Texas-based translator, writer, and union organizer. He learnt Portuguese at a Brazilian cultural centre in his city.
Smith's published translations include the Portuguese poetry of Laxmanrao Sardessai, Orlando da Costa's novel set in Torsan Zor in Margao, O Signo da Ira, the biography of Angolan revolutionary Sita Valles, and the 18th-century correspondence of the nuns of Convent of Santa Mónica in Goa. He most recently contributed to The Colonial Perio-dical Press in the Indian and Pacific Ocean Regions as an editor.
Some of his earlier work has been published through Goa,1556, a network this columnist is associated with. The book will be released at Siolim's coconut festival this Sunday evening (Oct 15). At the end of the day, we still don't know who originally wrote the book and when exactly....
###
Caption.. covers, old and new. And the translator, DA Smith.
--
FN * +91-9822122436 * 784 Saligao 403511 Bardez Goa
sandra lobo
Oct 20, 2023, 1:19:24 AM10/20/23
to goa-rese...@googlegroups.com
Hi Fred,
Thanks for sharing. Dave once again is to be congratulated for his job. I have not done research on the matter but when doing my PhD research was able to notice that the books by Costa and Loyola became one of the pretexts for their ongoing confrontation.
As for the 1918 edition it is freely available at the site of the Portuguese national library.
Best wishes,
Sandra
De: goa-rese...@googlegroups.com <goa-rese...@googlegroups.com> em nome de Frederick Noronha <frederic...@gmail.com>
Enviado: 20 de outubro de 2023 00:02
Para: Goa-Research-Net <goa-rese...@googlegroups.com>
Assunto: [GRN] Arte Palmárica: who wrote it, when, and what does it say? (FN, in the NT)
Enviado: 20 de outubro de 2023 00:02
Para: Goa-Research-Net <goa-rese...@googlegroups.com>
Assunto: [GRN] Arte Palmárica: who wrote it, when, and what does it say? (FN, in the NT)
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Subbiah Arunachalam
Oct 20, 2023, 9:57:27 AM10/20/23
to goa-rese...@googlegroups.com, Viswanathan MV
Dear Fred,
Thanks very much for publicizing this classic book on the cocoanut tree. I am forwarding your email to my friend and colleague at CSIR, Dr M V Viswanathan, a well-read botanist and herbarium keeper.
These two books (the old and the new, the original and the translation by Dr Smith), I am sure, will be in the collection of both the British Library and Project Europeana. And in the Internet Archive. You might wish to check. You may also check if this book is referred to in Wealth of India: Natural Products and in TKDL.
At one point, you mention that from this tree comes ..... sweets, water..... etc. Probably you meant 'sweet water,' meanig tender cocoanut water. Please check. All over India, people use cocoanut to make sweets, of course.
With warm regards,
Arun
--
D.A. Smith
Oct 20, 2023, 4:56:39 PM10/20/23
to goa-rese...@googlegroups.com
"Sweets" and "water" are listed separately in the original
Portuguese ("dela se tira vinho, azeite, vinagre, doce, água e
mantimento"), presumably to highlight that coconuts can be used
for both sweets and water, the latter in the form of coconut
water, as you describe.
I'd be curious to see what Dr. Viswanathan thinks of the treatise!
And anyone else, really.
D.A. Smith
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CABghs%2BbsJZTsL5Rw8xf%3DCq%3DU-m%2BDmCDsbg66SUatUF1gTRXEQA%40mail.gmail.com.
Frederick Noronha
Oct 21, 2023, 6:59:03 AM10/21/23
to goa-rese...@googlegroups.com, Viswanathan MV
The text of the e-book... below
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/f5e80e3d-ad79-49e9-b388-c80adc45d7d9%40gmail.com.
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