UVARI
HISTORY According to Tamil history, the citizens of Uvari were called Bharathar 's of the Neithal (ocean) World. Uvari's historical name was Obeer Pattanam. It was ruled by the Pandyan dynasty . In the 1530s, Portuguese and Spanish missionaries from Goa arrived and converted many Bharathars to the Roman Catholic religion. The Portuguese priests, acting as godfathers, gave surnames such as Fernando to the converted. Pandya retains a fish on its flag, a symbol of this era. Legend has it that the crew of a Portuguese ship that sailed near Uvari in the seventeenth century contracted cholera . In an attempt to avert death, a carpenter aboard the ship carved an image of Saint Anthony ( Anthony of Padua ). [4] Soon after, the entire crew were restored to health. When the ship docked at Uvari, the sailors placed the statue inside a hut in the village. In the 1940s, the villagers built a church with the...