[Goanet] The Last Prabhu: Tracing ancestors through a mind-boggling journey and a multidisciplinary approach (Dr Sandra Fonseca)
The Last Prabhu, A Hunt for roots: DNA, ancient documents and migration in Goa Second Revised Edition Bernardo Elvino de Sousa -- Review by Dr Sandra Fonseca sfons...@uottawa.ca "Undra mojea mama, ani aum sangtam tuca... ani mazorechea piliean taca eka gansan khailo." These are words of a popular, well-loved Goan song, sung even today at every Goan get-together. Yet many Goans probably don't dwell on the meaning and significance of the words of the song. In his well-researched 2020 scientific treatise, "The Last Prabhu, A Hunt for roots: DNA, ancient documents and migration in Goa", the author Dr Bernardo Elvino de Sousa sheds light on the meaning of this song, explaining how and why the Portuguese conquerors were able to capture Goa. The author traces the history of his ancestors through a multidisciplinary approach utilising revolutionary developments in genetics, deep ancestry DNA test results, written documentary evidence and orally transmitted history. With his amazing skill in deciphering scripts and translating languages -- Konkani, Marathi and Portuguese, de Sousa puts together pieces of the puzzle of the peopling of Goa and India in painstaking, precise detail. In a personal search for his own ancestral roots in the village of Aldona (in Bardez, Goa), de Sousa provides a glimpse into the migratory paths and the history of the life of people in the villages of Goa in the late 16th and early 17th century. The book also reveals the origins of the church and the circumstances around conversions to Christianity, the condition of women, and the caste system. Although de Sousa explains the complexity of DNA in plain, simple terms using analogies and examples in his multifaceted book written through the lens of history, geography, literature and science, it is a book that requires several re-reads as the readers are taken on a mind-boggling chronological journey of migration patterns of early Goan settlers, an analysis of haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA and the realities of the life and death decisions made under the Portuguese rule of Goa. Based on scientific evidence, de Sousa traces his ancestry to the Indus Valley Civilisation population as well as the Yamnaya and Sintashta cultures in the Steppes that migrated through the Fertile Crescent to Goa around 700 BCE. de Sousa also demonstrates that "all Indians irrespective of their caste consist of ANI [Ancestral North Indian] and ASI [Ancestral South Indian] mixtures in different proportions belonging to different haplogroups, resulting from ancestors who migrated out of Africa through different routes and different epochs." (p.128). In his search to understand how the people of Goa were so easily conquered and ruled by foreign invaders, de Sousa uncovers the covert help given by the Hindus to the Portuguese to avoid the excessive tax demands of Adil Shahi that sounded the death knell for Goa. In the process, de Sousa discovers that his ancestors were self-governing, skilled, sophisticated, literate in Sanskrit, experienced agriculturalists, environmentalists -- a people resilient in the face of enormous challenges and limited choices offered by their conquerors. In a rendering of the truth, while de Sousa describes the brutality of the Portuguese conquerors, the forced conversions to Christianity, explaining how "the fury of the Inquisition spared no one -- women, children nor the deceased" (p.163), he also sheds light on other uncomfortable truths such as the deplorable condition of Brahmin women under a dominant patriarchal system and the rigidity of the caste system. Meetings in the 1600s The descriptions of the meetings recorded in the Tombo de Aldona are detailed and vivid transporting the reader back to the 1600s where one can visualize the meetings that took place under the shade of a banyan tree in the village of Aldona. For any Goan interested in tracing their ancestral roots, the book offers details on pre-conversion ancestral Hindu names, vangads, and gotras and a fascinating account of the efficient functioning of the gaunkari system and the comunidades. At a broader level, the book is a story of migration triggered by climatic changes and a quest of human survival, a quintessential story of human migration. de Sousa reveals how historically migrants have brought expertise, new ideas and skills that foster innovation and progress and history has demonstrated time and again that those countries that recognize and utilize this tremendous human capital will flourish and thrive. de Sousa offers important cautionary lessons here for nations and peoples about the need to embrace new ideas and innovation to prosper. Goa, not the same As de Sousa relates, "Goa of today is not the same as Goa of the past and will not be the Goa of the
[Goanet] The Last Prabhu...
Bernardo Elvino de Sousa's The Last Prabhu is now available on the Kindle store: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CEZLK48?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660 -- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ Frederick Noronha | http://about.me/noronhafrederick | http://goa1556.in _/ P +91-832-2409490 M 9822122436 Twitter @fn Facebook: fredericknoronha _/ Goa,1556 CC shared audio content https://archive.org/details/goa1556 _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
[Goanet] The Last Prabhu
The Last Prabhu A Hunt for Roots: DNA, Ancient Documents and Migration in Goa was released on the 30th of April to coincide with the month of birth of our first grandchild, Raul Sanjay, to emphasize the fact that my book is all about roots. The idea of doing this project emerged gradually: discussions on ancestry at home as I was growing up, the influence of my wife, a great granddaughter of José Nicolau de Fonseca and herself very well-versed in history, and also the inspiration from books by eminent historians most notably those authored by Prof. Teotonio de Souza. The immediate trigger was an article in The National Geographic magazine regarding their Genographic project carried out jointly with IBM that set the ball rolling. About the book They did not leave paradise and would have accepted food from a serpent or any other creature in their quest for survival. More than 60 thousand years ago, humans belonging to haplogroup C – the so-called coastal people – migrated from Africa inhabiting the coastlinethrough the southern Arabian Peninsula, India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia up to Australia. A second migration followed: Africa that had entered the ice age bringing with it a drought and making food scarce for these hunter-gatherersbut theSahara had temporarily become greener attracting the animals that were indispensable for their survival. These nomads characterized by the genetic marker 168moved northwards literally followingtheir food. Their intellectual ability had evolved, they had invented tools that could aid them in their quest for survival and developed communication skills that gave them a determining advantage over all other species. Based on the results of DNA tests, The Last Prabhu describes the route that the descendants of these emigrants from Africa followed, leading them to populate the world including Goa. It also combines the results of DNA tests with literature data and an analysis of old documents such as Ghantkar's "A History of Goa in Goykannadi Script" pertaining to the village of Aldona, where I was born and grew up, leading to some interesting conclusions. We are all migrants to some extent and descendants of the first migrants out of Africa. The story of my ancestors is that of emigrants who on many occasions abandoned whatever was home at the time for greener pastures until they found a peaceful haven in Goa. Every time, it was their quest for survival that triggered their migration and specific value adding innovative skills enabled them to set their roots in new surroundings. Another conclusion is that there is absolutely no genetic basis to the existence of the caste system since Brahmins all over India not only do not belong to the same haplogroup but additionally share haplogroups with other varnas and even with tribal populations. My resources being too limited for such a vast topic, my focus on Goa was based on the haplogroups of about half a dozen individuals, sufficient however to provide scientific proof that all the members of a specific vangod (family clan of the founders of the village) of Aldona's Comunidade Fraternal are descendants of a common ancestor. This conclusion is applicable to all the villages of Goa, since their foundation has followed an identical pattern. DNA tests have enabled me to identify and personally meet a member of the 4th vangod of Aldona's Comunidade Fraternal, to which I belong, whose ancestors emigrated to Karnataka centuries ago and is now currently settled in the USA, a long lost cousin with whom I had the pleasure and opportunity to have dinner and continue to be in contact.The book reports on an analysis of the meetings of Aldona's Gaunkars as related in Ghantkar's Tombo de Aldona and determines the pre-conversion names of all the 12 vangods of the Comunidade Fraternal. My pre-conversion Hindu name was Prabhu from where the book draws its title. The book also explains how to discover through DNA tests a person's ancestral migration route starting some 60 thousand years ago, how deep ancestry can be helpful in identifying common ancestors going back several generations, it discusses the peopling of Goa as well as historical aspects related to the village of Aldona that could serve as an example of what possibly occurred in many other Goan village. It would be very helpful if Goa University would initiate a large-scale project to test the Y DNA as well as mDNA of Goa's various communities and Comunidade vangods. It would provide insights on the peopling of Goa and perhaps other highly interesting conclusions of historical interest. It is most unfortunate that old documents in Goa's archives and libraries are treated with such appalling neglect and disrespect and access to them is hindered by massive bureaucracy. It is our last opportunity to save information on the past history of Goa and its inhabitants, our last opportunity to save information on our ro
