Monti Saibinichi Fest, Celebrating the Lady of the Mount in Mangalore
Mangalore-Catholic traditions surrounding the feast of the Lady of the Mount are unique from most other Catholic customs. Ruth Dsouza Prabhu finds that they mirror several traditions in the Hindu celebration of Ganesh Chatuthri, revealing a beautifully syncretic culture in the region.
I was 12 years old when I returned to Mangalore from Kuwait for good. In addition to a whole new lifestyle, it was a life full of traditional customs. The one I had the most fun in was the fula wudonchey (translating from Konkani to flower throwing) ceremony in the run-up to Monthi Saibinichi Fest (The Nativity or Lady of the Mount Feast), the harvest festival of the Mangalorean Catholics, celebrated on September 8th every year.
For 9 days before the feast, children head to church with baskets of flowers. A small statue of Infant Mary is installed in the church, and each child places a flower at the statue, upon arrival. Together, they are led in prayer by the priest, and at regular intervals, shower the statue with flowers. The excitement is palpable, and small children in the front often end up covered in petals themselves. The priest leading the prayer gets his fair share of the flower shower too.
As soon as the ceremony is over, animated guessing begins on what the sweet of the day will be. For each of the 9 days, a member of the congregation sponsors sweets, to be distributed to all the children present. I remember waiting in line for my share of ice cream or saat (a deep-fried, flaky, flour-based sweet), malpuri (deep-fried discs of sugar and flour), doodh peda (milk pedas), or sometimes, little blocks of banana halwa in clear plastic wraps. So much excitement; we’d nibble happily at each Sunday’s treat as we walked home.
Paddy and corn brought to church for blessing | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
The decorated statue of Infant Mary | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
On the day of the feast, newly harvested paddy and corn are brought to church, where it is blessed during mass. At the end of mass, each family is given Novem, the first fruit of the harvest — a stalk of paddy and corn leaves. From the paddy stalks, a kernel for each member of the family is opened and put into jivo roce (translating to uncooked, freshly pressed coconut milk sweetened with jaggery). After prayers, the oldest member of the family feeds a spoonful of this sweetened milk with one kernel, to each family member, representing the hope that a bountiful harvest reaches each home, and we never go hungry. And then we sit down to partake of a vegetarian feast where several preparations (always in odd numbers!) feature on the menu.
A Syncretic Culture
The flower throwing ceremony, the distribution of sweets, the sharing of Novem and prayers for a good harvest, make this feast one that is celebrated with family. The origins of these customs are elaborated in research articles of Konkani scholars like Fr. Pratap Naik S.J. This Feast of Flowers, as it is also sometimes known, is believed to borrow its name from the Capela de Nossa Senhora do Monte (Portuguese for 'Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount') constructed in 1519, on a hillock in Old Goa, by Afonso de Albuquerque, in honour of Mary. The feast of this chapel is on September 8th and is called Monthi Saibinichem Fest ('Feast of the Lady of the Mount').
Children carrying baskets of flowers | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
The floor after the ceremony | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
When the Portuguese built their colonies in India, there was much conversion to Catholicism. However, most of these new catholics continued to practice customs and traditions that belonged to their older religion, ie traditional Hindu customs. This caused insecurity among the Portuguese rulers, eventually leading to the Inquisition around 1561. Large communities of converts were tortured, to ensure compliance with customs of their new religion. Many Goan Catholics fled to parts of Maharashtra and Mangalore, taking their customs and celebrations with them. Mangalore belonged to the jurisdiction of the Goan archdiocese until 1830, and it was Goan priests who managed the churches in the city, offering a safe haven to its congregation.
These priests accommodated traditional Hindu customs in Christian worship. The celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi and Nativity see a slight overlap, based on Indian and Gregorian calendars. Tradition has the Ganpati idol installed in homes for an odd number of days — a day and a half, 3 or 7 days. The idol is decorated with flowers and everyday sweet and savoury dishes are offered as prasadam. For Nativity, a flower throwing ceremony was brought in to mark 9 days of the installation of the statue in the church before the feast. I can speculate here that the sweets given to children had roots in the daily prasadam. In fact, on the day of the feast, right after the flower throwing ceremony, children are given sugarcane — also from the first harvest, but it is an interesting coincidence that sugarcane is also a favourite of Lord Ganesha.
Similar to Hindu customs of offering the fruit of the first harvest to the Gods and placing it in pooja rooms, once the blessed paddy is brought from church to the home, it is kept on the altar. Both customs represent prosperity for the home, and a kitchen blessed with food in abundance. In many homes, this paddy would be woven with banana leaves and placed across the front door and replaced with the new harvest the following year. This can still be seen in some Catholic homes in villages. Symbolically, the harvest also represents Anna, Mary's mother's journey from barrenness to childbirth. She was without a child well into her old age, before being blessed with one.
The Feast
A lavish vegetarian feast marks the day and is shared with the whole family. Married women usually come back to their maternal homes for this meal with their families, or partake of the feast with their in-laws for lunch and join their maternal family for dinner. The meal is always served on a banana leaf, and all dishes are traditionally made with ingredients and produce local to the region (and not new crops introduced into the Indian agricultural sector).
The feast laid out: thoushe kharam, vorn, moogache kodi, karathey sukke, gosalem thel piayo, thambde bhaji thel piyao, soney sukke | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
Jivo roce laid out with new paddy | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
Vorn, made with dal, coconut milk and jaggery | Photo by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
An odd number of dishes — one, three, five, seven or nine, are prepared. You will see Alu Dento (Colocasia leaves and stalks with smashed hog plum), Tendli Miryapito (Ivy Gourd smashed with pepper), Karathey Sukke, (Bitter Gourd Sukka), Moogachi Kodi (sprouted Moong coconut gravy), Keerl ani Moog Sukke (Bamboo shoots and sprouted green gram sukka), Soney Sukka (Black Gram Sukka), Gosalem thel Piyao (Ridge Gourd with onion and hog plum), Thoushey Kharam (Cucumber with coconut and green chilli) and to round up the meal, Vorn (a payasam of dal, coconut milk and jaggery). The odd number again comes from Hindu traditions which associate a sacred reference to most numbers. The simplest of explanations is that it brings good luck (as we see in monetary gifts of Rs 101 / Rs 501 / Rs 1001, where it is believed the 1 Re goes into savings, and will grow into wealth). By similar logic, an odd number of vegetables bring good luck. Another interesting explanation I read about was that this gives everyone a chance to celebrate the festival, even if it meant cooking just one dish, which is what many poorer families could afford.
A small change in the food traditions can be seen in the Barkur/Kundapur areas (approximately 70 kms from Mangalore) where the feast always includes a fish curry. Chatting with Kishore Gonsalves, a well-known name in Konkani literature circles, and who is well-versed in the culture of the community. As a Barkur resident, he said that growing up, it was a custom for non-Christian neighbours to come over for lunch on the feast day. His home often had more than 75 people for the feast. Since many families were not so well off, there were always expectations of a sumptuous fish curry meal, and that is perhaps why fish is part of the feast here. To this day, his home hosts neighbouring families for the feast, as do others in the community. He added that if you trace a route in the region, you will see that Kemmannu, Kallianpur, Sasthan, Brahmavara, Barkur, Udyavar are all part of a network of backwaters, almost similar to Kerala, with lots of islands. So fishing and fish is part of life and no celebration is complete without it. Kane (ladyfish) curry is popularly made for the feast. However, this area also makes Ghur (Barramundi/Asian Seabass) and Kemberi (Red Mullet), both of which surprisingly don't feature often in Mangalorean homes. One can only speculate why. It is possible that the people of Mangalore felt that an everyday ingredient from the sea, and not grown from the earth, did not have a place at a celebratory harvest feast. It could also be that the local tastes of the Mangalorean people were anglicised during the British rule, and this led to several fish falling out of favour.
The feast itself is a lavish spread. When my mother and her siblings were young, most families would make extra-sweet roce to be served with shevio (string hoppers) or sannas (steamed rice cakes) for dinner, and it used to be regarded as quite the treat.
It is now my daughter’s turn to participate in, and learn these traditions. She has outgrown the flower throwing ceremony, but we still go to watch it every year. School schedules don’t let us to go back to Mangalore in time for the feast, but we celebrate by friends and family over, and following the tradition of the kernels in jivo roce. We sit down on the floor with banana leaves to share a meal that always tastes rustic — in large part because the ingredients used are seasonal, and take us back to what the community has been eating for centuries. With sated bellies, the conversation always turns nostalgic as we clear the leaves away. And as we do, there will always be someone who leans forward and says, “Ani ille vorn di” (A little more vorn please?)
Ruth Dsouza Prabhu is an independent features journalist based in Bengaluru, India. She has been writing on food for over a decade. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Reader’s Digest, and Condenast Traveller, among others.
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