Anjuna 'discoverer' for the world, dies
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 26 October 2010 21:25 IST
Yertward Mazamanian alias Eddie, a hippie who discovered Anjuna beach in Goa for the rest of the world, died in the coastal state last week, his friends revealed.
The 85-year-old Eddie, known as Eight Finger Eddie, was an American expat of Armenian ancestry, who discovered Anjuna beach for rest of the world in 1965 and stayed here till he breathed last on October 18.
Tony Almeida, whose father Joe was the first person to meet Edie at Anjuna, said that he had actually come to Colva beach in South Goa.
"He moved northwards after hearing from the locals about this stretch of shore,” Almeida said.
He is also called as the father of the hippie tribe in Goa.
In the 1960s, few beatniks and hippies travelled from Western Europe towards South Asia. Eddie was the first amongst them.
"Eddie and his companion came to Anjuna after walking through dense forest in 1965. It was a place at the foothill overlooking Arabian Sea," Tony said today.
Eddie was also the mind behind Anjuna's flea market in 1975 which initially began as a place to barter goods.
The flea market still exists at Anjuna although it has been turned into a cluster of shops.
Eddie continued hogging the limelight even after his death.
The page devoted to this first hippie on Facebook has been receiving comments from all across the globe.
His fans also had live streaming of his funeral on website Blogtv.com on October 18.
There was a time during the 60's (the roaring sixties), when the whole world underwent change, be it music, free thought and hunger for freedom that was instigated when 'cold war' and uncetainly existed between nations, when any Caucasian was called a "hippie" by locals, to be avoided as something unclean.. They often lazed stark naked on the beaches of Goa, more like a cultural invasion.
Whatever they may have done otherwise, they are pioneers of tourism in Goa, and even influenced "pop" culture, music, in Goa.