Maltese Crib

The Maltese Crib - by Gorg Mifsud Chircop

According to Guzè Cassar Pullicino and the late John Bezzina in their studies A New Look at Old Customs (1968) and The Origins of the Crib in the Maltese Islands (1997) respectively, a crib features in Rabat Malta in 1617. It was built by the Dominicans of Valletta. This seems to be no isolated case, as the regular Religious Orders, namely the Franciscans, the Augustinians and the Dominicans had already inculcated in the last decades of the sixteenth century and early seventeenth century various religious Christmas festivities. These included the Christmas novena, daily high Mass, Christmas Eve mass, and processions with paper lanterns. In the second half of the eighteenth century a barber, Maestro Saverio Laferla is mentioned and acclaimed for his skill in making cribs and statues of papier mache'.

However, reliable sources trace the modern presepju construction ritual way back to the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in various localities, including Hal Qormi, Tas-Sliema, H’Attard, in-Naxxar, Bormla, il-Furjana, and il-belt Valletta. It was largely due to the great influence and sound religious convictions of the late Dun Gorg Preca, founder of the lay society, the Society of Christian Doctrine, popularly known as “il-Muzew’’, that the grotta and presepju tradition spread like wild fire in Catholic Malta. It was only to his merit that the Christmas procession on Christmas eve was introduced in il-Hamrun Malta in 1921 and in ir-Rabat Ghawdex in 1941, also spreading to other villages in both islands.

Tiny Malta has its own way of presenting the crib, in Maltese “il-presepju’’. There are two kinds of cribs: "il-grotta" (lit. the cave), a small children’s crib (with very small statues), and “il-presepju" proper, a large elaborate crib found in churches, homes, hospitals, youth centres, etc. There are various actors in the crib, falling under two group types: one, biblical universal actors including Our Lady, Baby Jesus, St Joseph, angels with/without musical instruments, the three kings, a beast of burden, normally a donkey, and a cow; and the other actors dressed in Maltese popular style of dress and representing traditional crafts and pastimes and scenes depicting everyday life in Malta and/or Gozo, such as musicians (e.g. “taz-zaqq" (the bagpipe player), “tat-tanbur’’ (the hand drummer) and “taz-zavzava" or “tar-rabbaba" (the friction drum player), “l-ghannejja" or “ix-xrik" (lit. the two partners in folk singing, or, impromptu singers), weavers, farmers, fishermen, fishmongers, bakers, hunters, “ix-xabbatur" (lit. the climber), “l-ghageb" or “l-imghaggeb" (lit. the simple man full of wonder), and “ir-rieqed" (lit. the sleeper). As in the various aspects of Maltese life and world-view variations dominate Maltese Christmas culture, explicitly to be discovered in the pasturi or Christmas statuettes.