Orlando Ribeiro, a renowned Portuguese geographer-historian, whose recently published Goa em 1956: Relatório ao Governo (Lisboa, CNCDP, 2000) refers to “mestiçagem espiritual” in Goa, implying thereby what Gilberto Freyre, a Brazilian sociologist of Portuguese origin, on a Salazar-sponsored visit to Goa five years earlier, in 1951, to propagate “luso-tropicalismo”, defined as “unidade de sentimento e cultura”, meaning a common heritage of feelings and culture ( an expression appropriated by Orlando Ribeiro on pp. 82, 119 of his Report). Orlando Ribeiro’s academic credibility and relatively high degree of impartiality and critical perspective make his Report valuable for all interested in evaluating how much of the impact of the Portuguese in Goa was really lusotopic, lusophonic and lusophilic. Obviously Salazar did not like the report and it remained unknown till it was published recently by the Portuguese historian Fernando Rosas, with an introduction by Orlando Ribeiro’s wife Suzanne Daveau. Here follow some extracts translated from the Report:
“My intimate being and my way of going about force me to be very frank and not to hide those aspects which are less pleasant, or to avoid those aspects which hurt our national feelings. I think that it is good to face the hard reality, however painful it may be to us. It is only this way we can avoid ambiguities, illusions and hesitations, and can know for sure on whom we can depend and what should be the ground for our decisions.”
“Unlike elsewhere where the
Portuguese, attracted by the coloured females had
produced very quickly a mestiço population (população mestiçada), the rigidity of the caste system in
“Unlike in Brazil, where so many illustrious and humble families proudly acknowledge their Portuguese origin and mixed descent; unlike in Cabo Verde, whose creole population feels very close to us, because of their old African slave-ancestors who shared the blood of their white masters, the Goans have preserved the purity of their caste, but yet reveal a surprising degree of assimilation of our habits and living style. Here we have only a spiritual miscegenation (mestiçagem espiritual). It is hard to believe though that no Portuguese blood runs into the veins of the rural aristocracy of Salcete or the old Christian families of Margão.”
“Meantime, it is surprising to
note the meagre presence of the Portuguese language
among the Goan Christian population. Only the
educated inhabitants speak Portuguese language correctly and fluently, and not
rarely with remarkable eloquence. Many families in Margão
use Portuguese to converse among themselves. But they use invariably Konkani with their servants, just as
it happens with the generality of the village population. However, during feast celebrations, in the
roadside conversations, in the dramatic performances, it is not difficult to
pick up Portuguese words, like pai, mãe, família, casamento,
“I have known
reasonably well the adjacent Islands and have a small book written on Madeira;
I have visited all the Portuguese territories in Africa, starting from Mozambique,
and have studied better Guinea and the islands of Cape Verde; I have spent four
months in Brazil and observed its deep recesses; I have known something about
the Muslim world since my days as student and after my visits to Morroco, Egypt and West Africa. I had thus acquired a good
preparation to initiate my research in
Unlike in Portuguese Africa,
where the expressions Metrópole and metropolitano
are used with some discretion, in Goa
it is common to hear the binary use of Province /
“Twenty-three years ago I had gone on a
boat-cruise to our Atlantic islands, and I remember the affection and warm
welcome that was accorded to the Portuguese by the African populations. My
longer visits to