Culture of Malta
The culture of Malta has been influenced by various societies that have come into contact with the Maltese Islands throughout the centuries, including neighbouring Mediterranean cultures, and the cultures of the nations that ruled Malta for long periods of time prior to its independence in 1964.
History
The culture of prehistoric Malta
The earliest inhabitants of the Maltese Islands are believed to have been Sicani from nearby Sicily who arrived on the island sometime before 5000 BC. They grew cereals and raised domestic livestock and, in keeping with many other ancient Mediterranean cultures, formed a fertility cult represented in Malta by statuettes of unusually large proportions. Pottery from the earliest period of Maltese civilization is similar to examples found in Agrigento, Sicily. These people were either supplanted by, or gave rise to a culture of megalithic temple builders, whose surviving monuments on Malta and Gozo are considered the oldest standing stone structures in the world. The temples date from 4000 to 2500 BC and typically consist of a complex trefoil design.Little is known about the temple builders of Malta and Gozo; however, there is some evidence that their rituals included animal sacrifice. This culture disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC and was replaced by a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that is known to have cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta, probably imported by Sicilian population because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens with similar constructions found in the largest island of the Mediterranean sea.
The development of modern Maltese culture
The culture of modern Malta has been described as a "rich pattern of traditions, beliefs and practices," which is the result of "a long process of adaptation, assimilation and cross fertilization of beliefs and usages drawn from various conflicting sources." It has been subjected to the same complex, historic processes that gave rise to the linguistic and ethnic admixture that defines who the people of Malta and Gozo are today.Present-day Maltese culture is essentially Latin European with the recent British legacy also in evidence. In the early part of its history, Malta was also exposed to Semitic-speaking communities. The present-day legacy of this is linguistic rather than cultural. The Latin European element is the major source of Maltese culture because of the virtually continuous cultural impact on Malta over the past eight centuries and the fact that Malta shares the religious beliefs, traditions and ceremonies of its Sicilian and Southern European neighbors.
Phoenicians
The Phoenicians inhabited the Maltese Islands from around 700 BCE, and made extensive use of their sheltered harbours. By 480 BCE, with the ascendancy of Carthage in the western Mediterranean, Malta became a Punic colony. Phoenician origins have been suggested for the Maltese people and their customs since 1565. A genetic study carried out by geneticists Spencer Wells and Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut argued that more than 50% of Y-chromosomes from Maltese men may have Phoenician origins.Algerian legend claims that the ancestors of the present Maltese, together with the first Algerians, fled from their original homeland of Aram, with some choosing to settle in Malta and others in North Africa, which would suggest that the prototypical Maltese culture had Aramaean origins. Another tradition suggests that the Maltese are descended from shepherd tribes who fled Bethlehem in the face of an advancing enemy, set sail from Jaffa, and settled in Malta. There is also some evidence that at least one North African tribe, the Oulad Said, claim that they share common ancestry with the Maltese.
Aghlabid conquest
This period coincided with the golden age of Moorish culture and included innovations like the introduction of crop rotation and irrigation systems in Malta and Sicily, and the cultivation of citrus fruits and mulberries. Then capital city Mdina, originally called Maleth by the Phoenicians, was at this time refortified, surrounded with a wide moat and separated from its nearest town, Rabat. This period of Arabic influence followed the conquest of Malta, Sicily and Southern Italy by the Aghlabids. It is presently evident in the names of various Maltese towns and villages and in the Maltese language, a genetic descendant of Siculo-Arabic. It is noted that, during this period, Malta was administered from Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Emirate of Sicily. Genetic studies indicate that the Arabs who colonised Malta in this period were in fact Arabic-speaking Sicilians.,It is difficult to trace a continuous line of cultural development during this time. A proposed theory that the islands were sparsely populated during Fatimid rule is based on a citation in the French translation of the Rawd al-mi'ṭār fī khabar al-aqṭār. Al-Himyari describes Malta as generally uninhabited and visited by Arabs solely for the purpose of gathering honey and timber and catching fish. No other chronicles make similar descriptions and this claim is not universally accepted.
File:Majmuna stone.jpg|thumb|The Majmuna Stone, a Kufic gravestone of the girl Maymūnah who died on Thursday, 21 March 1174
Up to two hundred years after Count Roger the Norman conquered the island, differences in the customs and usages of the inhabitants of Malta were distinct from those in other parts of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies: moribus d'aliis de vivunt d'ipsarum d'insularum de homines et constitutionibus, nostri Sicilie.
The marble gravestone of a Saracen girl named Majmuna, found in a pagan temple in the Xewkija area of Gozo dates back to 1173. Written in Kufic, it concludes saying, "You who read this, see that dust covers my eyelids, in my place and in my house, nothing but sadness and weeping; what will my resurrection be like?"
The population of Malta at that time amounted to no more than 1,119 households, of whom 836 were described as Saracens, inhabiting the island following the Norman invasion and before their ultimate expulsion.
Jewish presence
A number of Jewish families resided in Malta almost consistently from approximately 1500 BCE to the 1492 Edict of Expulsion, and again from the time of the Knights of Malta through to the present. This is yet another source of Semitic influence in Maltese culture.According to local legend, the earliest Jewish residents arrived in Malta some 3,500 years ago, when the seafaring tribes of Zebulon and Asher accompanied the ancient Phoenicians in their voyages across the Mediterranean. The earliest evidence of a Jewish presence on Malta is an inscription in the inner apse of the southern temple of Ġgantija in Xagħra, which says, in the Phoenician alphabet: "To the love of our Father Jahwe". There is evidence of a Jewish community on Malta during the Roman period, in the form of carved menorahs in the catacombs in Malta. Members of Malta's Jewish community are known to have risen to the highest ranks of the civil service during the period of Arab occupation, including the rank of Vizier. By 1240, according to a report prepared for Emperor Frederick II, there were 47 Christian and 25 Jewish families on Malta, and 200 Christian and 8 Jewish families on Gozo.
Unlike the Jewish experience in the rest of Europe, throughout the Middle Ages the Jews of Malta generally resided among the general population rather than in ghettos, frequently becoming landowners. The Jewish population of Malta had flourished throughout the period of Norman rule, such that one third of the population of Malta's ancient capital, Mdina, is said to have been Jewish.In 1492, in response to the Alhambra Decree the Royal Council had argued – unsuccessfully – that the expulsion of the Jews would radically reduce the total population of the Maltese Islands, and that Malta should therefore be treated as a special case within the Spanish Empire. Nonetheless, the decree of expulsion was signed in Palermo on 18 June 1492, giving the Jewish population of Malta and Sicily three months to leave. Numerous forced conversions to Catholicism, or exile, followed. Evidence of these conversions can be found in many Maltese family names that still survive today, such as the families Abela, Ellul, Salamone, Mamo, Cohen, and Azzopardi.
A much smaller Jewish community developed under the rule of the Knights of Malta, but this consisted primarily of slaves and emancipated slaves. Under the rule of certain Grandmasters of the Order, the Jews were made to reside in Valletta's prisons at night, while by day they remained free to transact business, trade and commerce among the general population.
Local place names around the island, such as Bir Meyru, Ġnien il-Lhud and Ħal Muxi attest to the endurance of Jewish presence in Malta.
Slaves in Malta
Exposure to Semitic influences continued to a limited extent during the 268-year rule of the Knights of St. John over Malta, due in part to trade between the Knights and North Africa, but primarily due to the large numbers of slaves present in Malta during the 17th and 18th centuries: upwards of 2,000 at any given time, of whom 40–45 per cent were Moors, and the remainder Turks, Africans and Jews. There were so many Jewish slaves in Malta during this time that Malta was frequently mentioned for its large enslaved Jewish population in Jewish literature of the period.The slaves were engaged in various activities, including construction, shipbuilding and the transportation of Knights and nobles by sedan-chair. They were occasionally permitted to engage in their own trades for their own account, including hairdressing, shoe-making and woodcarving, which would have brought them into close contact with the Maltese urban population. Inquisitor Federico Borromeo reported in 1653 that:
strolled along the street of Valletta under the pretext of selling merchandise, spreading among the women and simple-minded persons any kind of superstition, charms, love-remedies and other similar vanities.
A significant number of slaves converted to Christianity, were emancipated, or even adopted by their Maltese patrons which may have further exposed Maltese culture to their customs.