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Reviving A Checked Past With Goa’s Gawda Kapodd

Kapodd

Reviving A Checked Past With Goa’s Gawda Kapodd

The Gawda kapodd, evolved as the Kunbi weave, has crossed the boundaries of caste, religion and region, but care must be taken to preserve and keep it in circulation

Syncretic Vibes: A Gawda woman in a kapodd sari, poses with the community’s beloved aboli flowers Photographs: Assavri Kulkarni

Across the textile map of India, rarely does one find a weave being worn by only a particular caste, tribe or religion. I know of none, other than the checked kapodd, the traditional attire of the Catholic Gawda women of Goa.

The Gawdas are the original inhabitants of Goa. Primarily engaged in agriculture, they were originally nature worshippers, but took to Hindu practices over the past millennium. A section of the Gawda population in several villages of South Goa got converted to Catholicism around the 17th century during Portuguese rule. It is the women of this community who wear the brightly coloured checked kapodds. The origin of this weave is unknown and there are no records of another caste or community wearing this kapodd, not even the Hindu Gawdas. So, it may be assumed that sometime after conversion the community women adopted the attire.

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