The Fama of Menino Jesus of Colv, Goa

Faith and Festivity across History

Jos Venncio Machado

First published in India in 2013 by CinnamonTeal Publishing Copyright 2013 Jos Venncio Machado ISBN 978 9383175321 Jos Venncio Machado asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Photographs: Lawrie Lorenz (photos of figures n. 22 to 44) Author: All others photos and figures Typesetting and Cover Design: CinnamonTeal Publishing CinnamonTeal Publishing, Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony Gogol, Margao Goa 403601 India www.cinnamonteal.in

Foreword

derive great satisfaction in welcoming any addition to Goas cultural lore. One such addition comes from Jos Venncio Menino Jesus Machado, a distinguished Portugal-based Goan agronomist with years of experience working with FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and conducting technical missions for it in different parts of the world. Now, he presents his version of the Fama that characterizes his native village of Colv. The author believes that the clerical historians have failed to tell the complete story or have failed to do justice to the part played by the Colvenkar natives in protecting the Child Jesus of their devotion against the Jesuits, who brought it to them and then sought to take it away. Moved by a passion for lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono, authors African experiences incline him to combine his readings of the past with the West African Ashanti logic of adinkra. Having read his published essays entitled Um goano adinkra (Lisbon, 2008), I have no doubts that we would find the replica of the Menino Jesus in the church of Colv, confounding its Jesuit founders and their past and present historians, as did the parents of the Child Jesus in the Gospel narratives. If fresh documentation has not come to the rescue of the author, his lateral thinking may have provided some edge and justified his effort. The lateral thinking is ambiguous for most people who are trained in linear thinking. In Um goano adinkra, we come across D. Filomena praying to Fr Agnelo, represented by his picture on the side wall of the family oratory, to revive her boy child Nelito, named after that saintly priest (p. 21). Does lateral here mean side wall or the fact of bypassing the main deities in the oratory?
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The Fama of Menino Jesus of Colv

The lateral thinking of Jos Venncio Machado in this book is reflected in his polite way of accusing the Jesuits of manipulating the Menino Jesus as their miraculous cashier. Had the author been more conversant with the traditions and writings about the Jesuits in Goa, he would not hurt them more than those who routinely advised the early Portuguese settlers in Goa, when they embarked in fleets, to entrust their wives to the Jesuits and their moneys to the Franciscans, not vice versa. Incidentally, the devotion to Menino Jesus, better known in Goa as Bom Jesus, to whom the Jesuits dedicated their basilica in Old Goa, is spread worldwide. There are different versions of Child Jesus in the Goan art iconography, but unfortunately, the Menino Jesus of Colv escaped the organizers of the Museum of the Christian Art, both in its Rachol and Santa Monica versions. Even though this book is not aimed at historians, but to general public, including his co-villagers in Goa, Jos Venncio Machado has tackled frontally, not laterally, the relevant archival and bibliographic sources that buttress his information and arguments. The dedication of these efforts to native Colvenkars, who suffered imprisonment and were troubled by the spiritual and administrative leaders of the colonial times, is the best expression of the lateral thinking in this book. It should make us to conclude that the cultural heritage is an assorted package to cherish critically. Lisbon, 16 October 2012

Teotnio R. de Souza1
1. Full Professor at the Universidade Lusfona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal; Founder and former Director of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim, Goa (19791994), Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History (1983) and of the Geographic Society of Lisbon (2000). 10