page_title: Sao Joao Festival in Goa
section_title: Form of celebration
hierarchical_section_title: Sao Joao Festival in Goa / Form of celebration
caption_attribution_description: English: Villagers at Saligao, Goa, serve food to all present during the Sao Joao (Vangodd de Saligao) festival in Goa
context_page_description: Sao Joao or São João is a Catholic festival celebrated in Goa in an unusual manner, with people leaping into, and swimming in, wells, streams and ponds as a form of tribute to St. John the Baptist. It occurs on June 24 every year.
context_section_description: While the feast of Sao Joao is celebrated across the Catholic world on the same day, Goa is the only place in the world where it is marked by leaping into wells. On this day, groups of people go around singing traditional songs accompanied with instruments like ghumot, mhadalem and kansallem.
  "Tourists think it is only about jumping into wells. But the prayers we say before that are for a good monsoon," Cecil Pinto, described as the local authority on the feast of São João, has been quoted saying. The festival has been described as being "quite popular among tourists from both India and abroad".
  Chari writes that while the Sao Joao celebrations are "centuries old", a more recent tradition is followed in the village of Siolim, in Bardez taluka, featuring colourful floats on boats. These festivities date back 175 years, when San Joao revellers from Chapora and Zhor villages of Anjuna, Badem in Assagao and Siolim would come in boats to the chapel of San Joao in Pereira Vaddo, Siolim, every year, to pay homage to the saint.
  In the village of Saligao, also in the Bardez taluka, the event is celebrated as the ''Vangodd de Saligao'', a village festival of music, dance and with the villagers often cooking enough food to feed all the visitors free of cost.
  Sao Joao is also a celebration of thanksgiving for newly-weds, and for families with babies born during the preceding year.
caption: Villagers at Saligao, Goa, serve food to all present during the Sao Joao ([[Vangodd de Saligao]]) festival in Goa
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