SAO JOAO

SAO JOAO

Sao Joao festival is immensely popular in North Goa .This festival is marked by young men in Goa jumping into wells to retrieve the gifts thrown in by the villagers.The Sao Joao festival is a wonderful celebration of traditionsSao Joao is a  festival celebrated in Goa in an unusual manner, with devotees leaping into, and swimming in, domestic drinking water wells, as a form of tribute . This festival is marked by young men in Goa jumping into wells to retrieve the gifts thrown in by the villagers. Held at the beginning of the monsoon season , it witnesses people of all ages jumping into wells, ponds and streamsColorful boat races are organized in Soilom, a village in North Goa’s Bardez taluka. However, the festival of Sao Joao is not celebrated with the same enthusiasm over all of Goa. In the south, the celebrations take a somber tone. It is celebrated with great fervour and gusto particularly in Siolim, Anjuna, Candolim, Calangute and Assagao  During the festival groups of young men would visit the local community, singing and dancing, beating make-do drums, shouting “Viva Sanjao!” Dressed in colourful shirts and wearing wreaths of flowers called ‘kopel’ as headgear, they would carry tree branches with flowers in their hands . They would dance their way towards the community well and one of the men would then make a ‘rosar’or  prayer to Saint Baptist, to bring peace and prosperity to the family and the community. Having uttered their prayers, men and boys would jump into the well which would be often brimming with rain waters. They would spend a few minutes singing religious songs while in the well and climb out once the singing is done.The people take coconut branch  with song And saying( ohh re sanjao) . doing rain dance , and car decoration has aslo  be done with coconut leafes and flowers