The Three Kings Feast that will be celebrated on January 6 is incomplete without the intricate crowns worn by the three young ‘kings’. Keeping up the tradition of making hand-made crowns for over five decades is Efigenia Saldanha from Arossim. NT BUZZ caught up with the lady in her eighties to trace her crown making journey
SHERAS FERNANDES | NT BUZZ
The people of Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim will celebrate the feast of Epiphany or the Three Kings Feast with traditional rituals and festivity at the chapel of Our Lady of Remedios on January 6 atop the Cuelim hillock. The feast of Epiphany is a biblical incident wherein three wise men, from three different places dreamt about the birth of Jesus. They then set out in search of the child Jesus not knowing the place of birth, only following a star. The feast is also celebrated in the villages of Reis Magos, Verem in Bardez and in Chandor in Salcete.
This fascinating biblical story is enacted every year as part of the rituals, one that I would eagerly look forward to as a child. Back then, I had no much knowledge of the significance of this grand feast.
It is a tradition where three young boys, one from each village are chosen with the approval of the presidents of the communidades from amongst the gaunkars/indigenous settlers. On the feast day in Cansaulim the selected boys dress up in royal robes and a crown, mount on the horses to begin the journey to the top of the Cuelim hillock. They are led by flag bearers and colourful parasol holders.
It was much later that I began to fathom the traditions and customs that were followed. The families of the ‘three kings’ have to adhere to preparations for the feast. While this tradition is followed till date, the festival is almost incomplete without the royal crowns. 85-year-old Efigenia Saldanha from Arossim has certainly adhered to tradition by making the crowns worn by the three young kings.
She still prefers to make the crowns manually, without any mechanical aid and has been decorating fabric with colourful thread for over five decades now. While she can’t recall the exact number which could easily be close to a hundred crowns, she humbly says she’s made over fifty crowns.
After the death of her brother Inacio Saldanha, she now gets help from her 57-year-old nephew Olavo Saldanha who makes the exteriors of the crown. She picked up the skill of making crowns from her father Epoldo de Saldanha. The Saldanhas for generations have been known for making wax candles for households and church occasions. “We would get customers from places like Vasco, Verna, Margao and even further but after the death of my brother I could no longer cope with the tedious process that again involves a lot of muscular strength in making the finished product,” says Efigenia.
The crown, she makes, feature an array of stitches and patterns. It isn’t easy to stitch, but at 85, Efigenia does this tedious work with passion. The stitches are intricate along with the colour combinations used, that can easily be mistaken for machine embroidery. Efigenia tells us that it takes her almost a month to complete working on a single crown. “The crown is made using several materials like aluminium, velvet, sequins, beads and semi-precious stones, metallic and embroidery threads. I begin by measuring the head size of the king to ensure a perfect fitting and then go on to make the outline of the crown which is finalised by the kings’ families,” says Efigenia who initially makes a rough draft of the crown to standardise the look and embroidery designs. This year she has made crowns for the kings from Cansaulim and Cuelim.
A crown costs anything between `8000 to `10,000 depending on the work, and she has started charging the amount only recently. “There was a time we would get paid `100 per crown though we would spend almost `1000 in the making,” she says adding that times have changed and people appreciate her work.
Efigenia was just 20 years old when she started making crowns. Before that she would help her father who made crowns using bamboo. “The process of making crowns using bamboo required a lot of muscular work and after my brother passed away I stopped making it using bamboo,” says Efigenia.
Age is just a number for Efigenia; she reminisces how crowns are cherished in people’s homes for several decades. The secret behind the long-lasting crowns is that each element is stitched to the crown instead of being stuck using gum. Recollecting an incident she says, “A few years back I had made only two crowns while the third crown was made by somebody else. It was evident that the boy wasn’t comfortable with his crown and was quite fidgety. Whereas the other two crowns fit perfectly well,” says Efigenia who in the past would teach embroidery to girls in the vicinity, when there weren’t any vocational training institutes like today.