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TO KONNA'LO? GOAN SOCIETY IS BASED ON A TRADITIONAL HIERARCHY By Lucio Rodrigues --------------- Courtesy 'Goan Literature: A Modern Reader', Guest Editor: Peter Nazareth. >From the Journal of South Asian Literature, Winter, Spring 1983. US ISSN 0091-5637. Reproduced with permission of the editor. --------------- KONKANI HAS ITS own unique expressions -- words, phrases, idioms, proverbs, and other folksy linguistic miracles which defy translation into any other language. *To konna'lo?* is one such, with its several inflexions according to gender and number: *tem konnalem*, *ti konna'li*, *te konna'le*, *teo konna'leo*, *tim konna'lim*. Literary, the phrase means, "Which family does he belong to?" or "Who are his parents?" It is apparently a simple interrogative, an expression of normal, healthy curiosity, expressing the concern that one human being has for another. But to those who know their Konkani and belong to the social matrix of Goa, the phrase is far from simple and innocuous. True, it does express curiosity, but the curiosity is not the elementary curiosity of a mere individual. It is the highly sophisticated curiosity of the community, or organised society. The phrase is a masterpiece of verbal economy and semantic subtlety. It implies a social and moral attitude that is the result of a whole way of life rooted in the soil of Goa. Though the phrase is known to all, it is never used indiscriminately. It is not to be bandied about in the street or in the market-place. You cannot just speak it out glibly, or shout it out brazenly. Even in the drawing-room or the dance-hall, you cannot mouth it tactlessly. To do so would be the height of impertinence, and you would be summarily condemned as a very ill-mannered yokel. In fact, the use of the phrase calls for the proper occasion and situation, the proper place and time, and above all, the most practised gesture and inflexion of voice. Its utterance is part of a "code." Goan society is based on a traditional hierarchy which has its origins in ancient Hindu India. It is a hierarchy of many tiers, arranged in a descending scale, each tier made up of a homogeneous group, with its own status, it own priviledges and responsibilities, its own loyalties, and its own "code" of honour, which have to be zealously guarded. An individual's place in this hierarchy is determined solely by the accident of birth. The gods decided it all for you: you are born into a family which belongs to one of the social tiers, and there you "belong," there you stay. Like the fixed stars in the heavens, you have your fixed station in the social firmament, and your set orbit. In the good old days, before emigration and the spread of education began to disturb the feudal stability of life in Goa, everyone knew practically everyone else. Your identity was known, not only who you were but also where you belonged. This is generally true in the villages even today. Such was the thoroughness with which the hierarchic social system was perpetuated that a large number of Hindu surnames could be interpreted as marks of identification which placed you definitely in one of the social tiers. However, an accident of history took place to disturb the old social order. Foreign conquest and conversion in the sixteenth century introduced new ideas of a free and equal society in Goa. The logic of the principle that all men are equal was a challenge to the traditional hierarchic practice, and the situation was fraught with perils. But the challenge had to be faced. Habits die hard; position and privilege cannot be easily surrendered; group loyalties cultivated over the centuries cannot be given up. The new ideas of social mobility were a threat to the homogeneity of the group. The purity of the social group had to be maintained, the well-being of the members assured. This could be done by sedulously preventing the infiltration of intruders and upstarts, of "outsiders." Under the new dispensation this was not as easy as before. Names, for example, were arbitrarily changed, and one clue to the identity of an individual came to be lost. "Fernandes" or "Colaco" offered no clue to the status of an individual christened with the new foreign name, as "Sardesai" or "Borkar" offered. A "Colaco" could be anyone from the highest-born to the lowest-born. In this state of anonymity and impending social confusion a technique had to be devised to discover the identity of the individual, so that the privileges enjoyed exclusively by the high-born could be safeguarded. In the field of employment, for instance, unwanted low-born competitors had to be eliminated. The loaves and fishes of office had to be distributed among members of the group that enjoyed the patronage of the rulers. The elders who held office had not only to see that their relatives, whom they knew, were well-placed, but also see that further recruitment was confined to the members of the social group they traditionally belonged to. This called for the closely scrutiny and circumspection. This was a task for the new Goan gentleman. A gentleman, as Cardinal Newman has it, is one who never hurts others. So when the job-seeker had to be 'placed' socially, it had to be done in a gentlemanly manner. The problem was to find an answer to the crucial question which the upholders of the old hierarchic order had invented in face of the new challenge: *To konna'lo?* An easy way would have been to ask the party a direct question: *Tum konna'lo?* But that would be against the spirit of the new civilization. The process of detection had to be oblique and casual. By indirections find directions out: that was the civilized way. "Which village do you come from?" is usually the opening question. Like the old surnames, the names of several villages in Goa are associated with a certain social group that has a major population in it. If your reply is Assagao, or Saligao, or Moira, or Velim, or Cuncolim, or St Estevam, the problem of "placing" you is not very difficult. There is a supplementary to this: "From which ward?" which tracks you down nearer home. The pursuit continues, however, "Do you know so-and-so?" It is a change from place to person, generating an atmosphere of intimacy. If the answer is yes, then pat comes the confidence move, "He's my mother's sister's sister-in-law's husband's son-in-law." You reel under the impact of this chain of relatives, and when you have recovered from the attempt to unravel the complexity of the relationship, you warm up to the occasion and discover to him, "Ah! He's my father's sister's brother-in-law's daughter's son." It's a mutual discovery, and he bursts upon you with the cabalistic phrase, "*Arre, tum amcho mum-re!*" You're not only 'placed', you are accepted. You join the chosen band of the priviledged. Another occasion calls for a like investigation. Traditionally, marriage in Goa is endogamous. It is arranged between members of the same social group. It is not a personal affair, but a family affair, and it is mother-made. Goa is dotted with *Donas* with grown-up daughters, whose giving away in marriage is a matter of great concern and calls for perpetual vigilance. It is not only that an adequate dowry has to be provided; a proper husband has to be chosen. The young man need not be rich, he need not be highly educated; in fact, he need not even be young. There may be a bunch of decaying *beatas* in his house, not to speak of a number of aged *tios*. The family may even have bred quite a few *endde*. But the proper husband-to-be must "belong" to the social group of his mother-in-law-to-be. One of the happy hunting grounds for these *Donas* is the dance-hall, which offers a wide range of eligible young, or not-so-young, bachelors. Many a marriage has been arranged in this place, and many more are still arranged. Bejewelled, laced and feathered, these Goans of a dying species chaperoned their daughters to the hall and took their seats at a vantage point from where they could survey the whole scene. Imagine them in a phalanx, these pillars of the traditional hierarchy, fanning themselves while they observe and comment upon the young couples on the floor. Perhaps one of them spots her daughter swaying in the arms of a handsome young man. She has not seem him before, but he looks eligible. Perhaps he is making overtures to her daughter. Anything can happen when the two young people dance cheek to cheek. She has to make a quick move to prevent a *misalliance*. Her cronies on either side can come to her rescue and enlighten her. Some of them are experts in genealogy; they know family trees from roots upwards to the smallest twig. And so she leans to her left, her face half-covered with the spread-out fan, and whispers in her neighbour's ear the great question: "*To konna'lo re?*, pointing to the young man with her raised eyebrow and fixed look. This is the classic occasion for the use of the phrase. The young aspirant is minutely scanned, perhaps with the aid of a lorgnette, and "placed" with a superior sniff and a whispered contempt. His predicament has been very precisely stated by Prufrock: "... eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,/ And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall." He does not belong. The establishment is secure. Of course, in spite of the heroic efforts of such *Donas*, there have been cracks in the establishment in recent years. There is greater social mobility than ever before. But social attitudes practised over the centuries become part of the subconscious mind and resist change. The attitude crystallised in the phrase, *To konna'lo?* formed the warp and woof of Goan society. It played a furtive role in the corridors of the seminary, in the vestry of the church, and in the chapter of the cathedral. It received a sanction in Goan folklore, was codified in proverbs and immortalised in the following legend. The two adjoining villages in Bardez, Sangolda and Guirim, have each a major population of one social group. They have one church, however, and one patron saint on the centre altar, the side altars being dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus and Our Lady of the Rosary. The religious loyalty of each of the two social groups is attached to one of the side altars. It happened once that an old woman in Guirim was on her death-bed. Now, it is a custom in Goa to teach prayers to the dying and end them with the ejaculation, *Jezu pay!* (Help me Jesus). The young woman who taught her the prayers finally whispered in the ears of the dying, "Repeat after me: Jesus help me!" Hardly had she uttered the ejaculation when the old woman open her eyes wide and shook her head most piously, "Jezu amcho nhum, Jezu ten'cho!" and she closed her eyes and died. Perhaps the old woman has changed her attitude in the other world. But in this world, the Goan mind generally wavers between "decisions and indecisions" on this social problem. And if I speak wrong, dear reader, tell me this: has a question been flitting in and out of your mind as you have been reading what I have written: *To konna'lo*? Your answer will alone prove or disprove what I have been saying. -------- LUCIO RODRIGUES (1916-1973) had a brilliant academic career at Bombay University; he started the literary magazine *The Liberation Movement* and contributed to many publications in India; a specialist in folk literature and arts, he was Visiting Professor of Folklore at Indiana University in 1969. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOANET-READER WELCOMES contributions from its readers, by way of essays, reviews, features and think-pieces. We share quality Goa-related writing among the 7000-strong readership of the Goanet/Goanet-news network of mailing lists. If you appreciated the thoughts expressed above, please send in your feedback to the writer. Our writers write -- or share what they have written -- pro bono, and deserve hearing back from those who appreciate their work. 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