Intruz (Carnival)

My very first introduction, to Intruz was when I was a child, all of five years. From our balcony, I saw a young local man on a bicycle, spray powder on a village belle. The girl was all decked up in festive finery and seemed to enjoy the whole thing. I was intrigued by what I saw and ran to the road, to get a better view.

Later that same day, a troupe of actors, men as well as women, came to our house and were ushered in, by my father to our courtyard. The whole household gathered around to see them perform.
As I watched the performance, I realized that the actors were all men playing women's roles, when required.The play dealt on local issues and was satirical as well as hilarious. It was the traditional Intruz Khel.

Intruz is the local Konkani word for what the world knows as Carnival. A corruption of the Portuguese word Entrudo; from the Latin word Introito, meaning the start of Lent.

Traditionally, throughout the towns and villages of Goa, Khels were enacted at the tintos (market place) and other public places where people would gather. At the end of the performance, a hat was passed around. Prominent people would invite the troupe, to perform for their household, for a handsome fee. Those were the days of innocent fun. Many a love affair would begin during these festive days, as licence was presumed to be given, for a girl and a boy to meet. The boy would spray powder on the girl or smear her face with indigo or other harmless powders . There were also the dances, organised during all the days of Intruz. People attended these dressed in different costumes.

Mock fights were held with "cochotes",- small paper bags in which harmless mix of powders were packed. Groups of boys from different wards, would usually gather around the church square. They would hurl cochotes at each other. On contact, the cochotes would burst in a cloud of powder. The group that made the maximum number of hits, was declared the winner.

The present day crowning of King Momo, his proclaiming his reign during the Carnival, colorful floats and the parades are a more modern expression of these traditions.

History of Carnival

Encyclopedia Britannica describes Carnival and its origins in the following paragraph: Carnival, is the merrymaking and festivity that takes place in many Roman Catholic countries in the last days and hours before the Lenten season. The derivation of the word is uncertain, though it possibly can be traced to the medieval Latin "carnem levare" or "carnelevarium", which means to take away or remove meat. This coincides with the fact that Carnival is the final festivity before the commencement of the austere 40 days of Lent, during which Roman Catholics in earlier times fasted, abstained from eating meat, and followed other ascetic practices. The historical origin of Carnival is also obscure. It possibly has its roots in a primitive festival honoring the beginning of the new year and the rebirth of nature, though it is also possible that the beginnings of Carnival in Italy may be linked to the pagan Saturnalian festival of ancient Rome. 

It is celebrated starting from "Sabado Gordo" (Fat Saturday), the Saturday before the start of Santa Quaresma (Lent) on Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, through out the towns and villages of Goa,
Carnival is celebrated in many European countries like Portugal,Spain,Italy, France (Mardi Gras on the French Riviera), Germany and some of the former European colonies in Africa and Asia.

Important to Caribbean festival arts are the ancient African traditions of parading and moving in circles through villages in costumes and masks. Circling villages was believed to bring good fortune, to heal problems, and chill out angry relatives who had died and passed into the next world. Carnival traditions also borrow from the African tradition of putting together natural objects (bones, grasses, beads, shells, fabric) to create a piece of sculpture, a mask, or costume — with each object or combination of objects representing a certain idea or spiritual force.

Feathers were frequently used by Africans in their motherland on masks and headdresses as a symbol of our ability as humans to rise above problems, pains, heartbreaks, illness — to travel to another world to be reborn and to grow spiritually. Today, we see feathers used in many creative forms incorporated in carnival costumes.

African dance and music traditions transformed the early carnival celebrations in the Americas, as African drum rhythms, large puppets, stick fighters, and stilt dancers began to make their appearances in the carnival festivities.

In many parts of the world, where Catholic Europeans set up colonies and entered into the slave trade, carnival took root. Brazil, once a Portuguese colony, is famous for its carnival, as is Mardi Gras in Louisiana (where African-Americans mixed with French settlers and Native Americans). Carnival celebrations are now found throughout the Caribbean in Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica, Haiti, Cuba, St. Thomas, St. Marten; in Central and South America in Belize, Panama, Brazil; and in large cities in Canada and the U.S. where Caribbean people have settled, including Brooklyn, Miami, and Toronto and San Francisco.