G’BYE GOA: THE MHARS By Valmiki Faleiro None of what is believed about the first human settlements in Goa is based on scientific evidence. Most of what we know is rooted in lore or based on conjecture. For whatever its worth, let’s recount what we know of how Goa got populated – with her tribals and, millennia later, her Indo-Aryans, in all 41 kinship groups. The theory that human settlements began in Goa from about 10,000 BC does not stand the test of reason. Available vegetation wouldn’t sustain life in the early Neolithic period. Human settlements would more credibly have begun circa 4,000 BC or 3,000 BC. Joao de Barros (1496-1590), arguably the greatest chronicler of the Portuguese in India, even if he never stepped here, wrote the first three ‘Decadas,’ covering the period from 1498, when Vasco da Gama arrived, to 1526. In the second Decada (Vol. I, Chapter 1), Barros says Goa’s first settlers were “poor people who came from beyond the land of Canara.” These Proto-Australoids, who inhabited South India and Sri Lanka, are believed to have come from coastal Karnataka/north Kerala. They were the Mhars. However, Arthur Crawford in ‘Legends of the Konkan’ (1909) cites an ancient account of a Chitpavan Brahmin, that ‘Dhangars’ first discovered the beautiful Konkan. Hearing this, Mhars crossed the Ghats and settled on the Konkan coast. (The earliest known Dhangar settlements in Karnataka date 2,900 BC. Assuming the belief to be true that Dhangars arrived in Goa about 1,000 years after the Mhars, Goa’s earliest human settlements could not be before 4,000 BC.) Latter day tribes that migrated to Goa called the originals ‘Maraung’ (“elder family” in the Mundari language) before the word got corrupted to Mhar. Even the last to arrive, the Indo-Aryans, acknowledged Mhars – through various religious and social customs – as the original owners of Goa. The head Mhar was called ‘Vatandar Mhar.’ Mhars, today a scheduled tribe, sacrificed buffaloes to propitiate spirits of their ancestors and their demon deities. They ate the flesh, even bones, hence regarded ‘untouchable’ – just as cobblers, who worked on the hides of cattle. So much that Mhars were not allowed to even cross the shadow of the ‘higher’ castes that followed them into Goa! If a latter-day Brahmin even inadvertently stepped on the shadow of a Mhar – clad in footwear made from the hide of a cow – he would return home to undergo a purification ritual. It’s a different matter that Brahmins ate beef in the Vedic age and guests were called ‘Goghna’ (“slayer of the calf”) … for whom the calf was cooked into a meal. Mhars worshipped the devil-god ‘Maru.’ Maru lived on hilltops and treetops. Hence the small shrines around the base of trees, where Maru was placated with offerings of miniature clay horses. Such trees were never cut down. Over time, Maru came to be known as Ketrapal (Sheshtrapal.) Mhars also worshipped the wild ‘Kel’ tree (the deity Kelbai.) Mhars lived by hunting and gathering fruits and edible vegetation and roots. Mhars were believed to possess powers of exorcism. Even though latter-day Gawda, Kumbhar, Gurav and Bhagats were known for sorcery, none compared to a Mhar – when it came to chasing away evil eye, spirits, and even cobras! These powers activated Sundays and Wednesdays, when the rituals were performed. Even converts to Christianity were believed to have retained these powers. Christian Mhars were summoned to Hindu households to exorcise evil eye, much as the “corrupted” one would participate in temple rituals of honour and receive the first share of the crop as his Hindu ancestors did. Mhars worked as undertakers, preparing funeral pyres and conducting cremations (some converted ones worked as church sextons), and later acquired skills at bamboo weaving. A ‘Mhar-vaddo’ welcomed entry to most Goan villages (“Ganv asa thuim marodd asa”), to protect it from evil spirits and invaders! Though pioneers, Goan Mhars are at the bottom-most rung of the social pecking order. Every successive tribe that settled in Goa was stronger, and subjugated the earlier settlers. Another reason why Mhars were at the lowest slot of the societal hierarchy. (ENDS.) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ====================================================================== The above article appeared in the April 26, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa