Goa's long history as a Portuguese territory, spanning right from the early 16th Century until the middle of the 20th Century, is undoubtedly visible in living traditions practiced within its society.
Uniqueness of Goan tradition is due to the homogenous blend of European culture with that of the indigenous. One such unique practice traditionally observed among the orthodox Goan Hindu community is that of gifting idols of a particular God or Goddess to a girl at the time of her wedding.
Some Gaud Saraswat Brahmin families in Goa follow a practice wherein the Bride’s mother gifts her daughter an image of Lord Ganesh who is believed to be the Lord of knowledge, an image of Goddess Lakshmi as being the Goddess of wealth so that the couple setting out to establish a new family may be blessed with prosperity and an image of Baby (‘Bal’) Krishna in a cradle hoping that the newly married couple would be blessed with male child very soon (a male child in India was culturally considered as the lamp of the house, in Goa referred to as ‘ghoracho divo’). These idols were given as part of the wedding trousseau and were generally made of silver or other precious or semiprecious materials. The idols along with the complete trousseau are displayed for the viewing pleasure of close family and friends on the occasion of the wedding. This formal display of the trousseau and dowry is locally known as ‘rupawat’ or ‘rukwat’.
In other Hindu Brahmin families across Goa, the tradition is followed with slight variation. The image of Baby Krishna may be gifted to the bride by her mother-in-law only in the fifth or seventh month of her first pregnancy, during the occasion of the baby shower (‘fullam’, an occasion on which flowers are bedecked onto the head of the pregnant bride). ‘Fullam’ is small celebration, done in the fifth, seventh and ninth month of pregnancy. On the occasion of the ‘fullam’ in the fifth month, the pregnancy is announced for the first time ever to the close family and friends. The purpose of offering the image of Bal Krishna remains the same. The above practice of gifting an idol to the bride is practiced only among the Brahmin and Kshatriya families in Goa and across some states of India.
A practice very similar to this one but with a slight twist is also observed among Goan Catholic Kshatriya and Brahmin families. At the time of marriage, the mother of the girl to be married, gifts her daughter an image of The Infant Jesus, for the same reason as mentioned earlier in the article. The image was made either of wood, bone, ivory or silver. The more the wealthier the family was, the more the Infant would be adorned with jewelry, very typical to that worn by an Indian child. These would include waist bands, anklets and bracelets made in silver, gold or other precious / semiprecious materials. Images like this were inspired by images of baby Krishna in the cradle and were sculpted by local Hindu artisans or newly converted catholic artisans. It’s also possible that the image of the infant in a sleeping position, already a devotional symbol in Western Catholicism was intentionally adopted for use among the newly converted communities in the East, so it would resemble familiar elements from their ancestral traditions and make the new faith more relatable.
Apart from this custom practiced only amongst the Brahmin and Kshatriya Catholic community in Goa, there is yet another customary practice of gifting a religious image to the bride, which is also sent as part of the wedding trousseau, and is a custom practiced by all Catholics in Goa, irrespective of the caste they belong to.
In accordance to this practice, the ‘bride to be’ is gifted rosary beads and a statue of the patron /patroness of the church to which she is affiliated to. For example, a girl from Velim in South Goa would be gifted an image of Saint Francis Xavier, to be carried as part of her wedding trousseau. This practice was mainly followed so that the new bride may be able to propagate the devotion to her maternal patron into her new home town, i.e. her husband’s village.
There is another tradition which was followed among Goan Catholics (generally Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Shudras), which is hardly observed in today’s times. Back in the day, stitching in addition to embroidery (bordaçãao), crochet and other works associated with the needle and thread was a compulsory skill every Kshatriya and Brahmin spinster had to master. Among Shudras stitching was rare. At the time of the wedding proposal, the girl being proposed was asked to present her ‘amostra da bordação’ (a square or a rectangular piece of cloth of about 1.5-meter width, on which the young girl had learnt the different types of stitches and embroideries, which were taught to her during her embroidery classes), to the groom’s family. The groom’s family would then choose a random embroidery type from the sample cloth presented. The bride would then be asked to make decorative wall hanging on cloth, bearing a portrait of the Sacred Heart of Jesus/ The Immaculate heart of Mary or simply a floral decorative design. The piece was entirely made using the type of stitches/embroidery styles requested by the groom’s family. The completed wall hanging was then framed and presented to the groom. The groom’s family would evaluate it and, in this manner, judge the young girl on her stitching and embroidering skills.
In Indian Muslim weddings, it's customary for the bride's family to present her with a copy of the Quran during the Rukhsat ceremony, when she leaves for her husband's home. This symbolic gesture is often followed by the bride’s mother-in-law placing the Quran on her head as she enters her new home, signifying divine blessings and guidance as she begins her married life.