Goa, Festa of São João (St. John), June 24

The tradition of well jumping is explained here by well-known Goan columnist and blogger, Cecil Pinto:http://www.mail-archive.com/goanet@lists.goanet.org/msg63101.html

River-jumping, Teen Manos Bridge:

The jumpers are not daunted by the fact that crocodiles (like those in ‘The Hungry Tide’) have been seen near this bridge:

Social theorist and translator, Lucano Alvares

speculates that the tradition of well-jumping may be a remnant of pre-Christian practices.

But Cecil Pinto dismisses this on the grounds that Lucano cannot speak with authority about Goan customs since his family is from Mangalore – they are thought to have fled there from Goa in the 16th century to escape the Inquisition (for more on Mangalore see ‘In An Antique Land’, where I write at length about that ancient and beguiling city, and about Abraham ben Yiju, the North African-Jewish trader, who went there four centuries before Lucano’s ancestors].