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Għana is certainly encapsulated from ordinary
social life. Tensions between individuals that exist
outside the għana context are not dragged
into the performance. Whenever a fact having to do
with ordinary social life is mentioned, it is done
only to score 'points'. Thus, while the għannejja
do not sing to resolve, say, disputes over land, an
għannej might mention in song that his
opponent has neglected to pay his electricity bill.
Indeed, the għannejja are not bound together
by anything other than għana (although a few
happen to be related through marriage). If an
għannej had to stop singing - as some do for
their first few married years - he would cut himself
off from the rest of the għannejja.
Għana is also marked off from the normal flow
of life in that there are several unwritten rules or
conventions governing the session itself that
severely limit any spontaneity, barring, of course,
the actual content of the songs. Clapping is frowned
upon and quickly censured on the rare occasions on
which it does occur,(11)
and it is unthinkable that an aficionado would
suggest a rhyme or reply to an għannej;
occasionally this happens, the story goes, and then
the session is likely to end in a brawl (though I
was never told of a specific instance). The only
spontaneity the audience is permitted is to laugh if
a riposte is particularly witty. The exception here
explains the rule: no explicit support should be
shown towards any għannej while he is singing
(although some aficionados are known to be the
'supporters' of a particular għannej);
laughing is permitted because it downplays the
tension of the event by stressing its ostensible
joking character. That there is or can be a great
amount of tension present is indubitable though.
Once, a visiting għannej from Australia,
Salvu 'l-Kalora', was singing opposite 'Superstar'.
Although they are now on good terms it was well
known that they had engaged in a particularly bitter
and vicious quarrel a few years ago. When the
session was drawing to a close and each għannej
had sung his gadenza (the concluding
eight-verse riposte), 'Kalora' burst into
another gadenza. The spectators drew in a
quick breath, thinking that he wanted to give 'Superstar'
an extra blow, and only relaxed when 'Kalora',
in the gadenza itself, excused himself with
the audience and said he was only doing this to ask
the oldest għannej who was present, Pawlu
Seychell, if he (Pawlu) would do him the honour of
singing with him.
Other conventions that govern the singing itself
also serve to 'encapsulate' għana. In fact,
there is a sense in which they could be seen as
dividing the singing bout itself into pre-liminal,
liminal and post-liminal stages. Thus, the first
quatrains of the singers are usually taken up by
telling who is singing, where and when; often the
guitarists are also included. This convention was
instigated with the advent of the tape-recorder,
where the circulation of tape-recordings of several
sessions necessitated the easy identification of a
particular session. But this convention can be seen
as easing in the start of the bout, especially when
one considers that during these first quatrains the
audience is sometimes reminded to keep quiet.
Indeed, I have only seen the audience being
addressed directly at the beginning or the end of
the session, but not during the 'liminal' stage -
the main fight itself.(12)
Finally, this convention of 'easing into' a bout is
strong enough that if a singer 'barges' into a fight
with his first quatrain, he is seen as being
particularly aggressive and possibly even a
show-off.
Strong shades of a liminal state can be perceived in
the main part of the bout itself. First, the themes
themselves are dramatic and grave (even if dealt
with wittily): they may be personal honour,
reflections on social values, or political (in the
narrow sense of the word). Second, the language used
is not one that is used in ordinary social
intercourse: it is high-flown, using elaborate
metaphors and formalistic phrases, as well as
(depending on the għannej) occasionally out
rightly self-righteous. One of the most common
metaphors is that comparing the two singers with
race-horses while sprinkling quatrains with proverbs
is prized for it adds a moralistic tone. Finally,
some phrases are formulaic, the most common being "I
am an għannej and so are you", and "I love(d)
you and you love(d) me". Such formulaic phrases are
common enough in oral poetry (Ong 1982: Finnegan
1981). Here the phrases may either be used
ironically or else strategically, to manipulate the
counterpart's response.
Their ironic deployment is obvious: such phrases
usually precede an insult. It is the second use, the
strategic manipulation of the opposite number's
response, that is the more interesting, for it is
reminiscent of Bloch's description of the use of
formalised language for social control, especially
to rule out disagreement (1975: 16). Here, Merina
elders, for example (for similar techniques are also
used by the Tikopian Maru, Tswana chiefs and New
Guinea Highlanders among others), are deemed to use
highly formalised language because of its lack of
specificity as well as its being associated with
tradition. I have observed a similar technique used
by the għannejja, though the language used
was not so restricted. A particular example is
relevant here. In one situation one singer was
trying to placate the other, who was nursing a
grievance done to him by a third party. On this
occasion the parties interested in burying the
matter tended to use formulaic language as well as
urging the grieved singer to 'forgive and forget' by
using stock sayings as well as appeals to the
singer's Christian charity. Thus, in successive
quatrains, the first singer (Salvu 'l-Kalora')
urged his companion (Pawlu Seychell) to follow
Catholic Catechism ('Duttrina'), to forgive
as all Christians do, and to remember that 'one
should not act like the Mafia', harbouring grudges,
but have a pure heart ready for the Day of
Judgement. Under this sort of pressure, the
aggrieved party must relent because otherwise the
audience would deem him to be flouting traditionally
held mores. He can only resist by saying that the
grievance was far too big to be easy to forgive, as
indeed another singer did in a second case. Yet this
singer, too, relented after the session was over and
drank with the għannej he held guilty of
defaming him eleven years before.(13)
Thus the 'liminal' state consists of the two
għannejja carrying on a debate in which the
ritualised atmosphere permits both jokes at the
other's expense and highly self-righteous language
which in normal social intercourse would not go down
very well. However, the sanctimonious language tends
to fade away or be outrightly reversed during the
gadenza. Thus, during a duel one singer
chastised another for boasting that as a government
employee he did not work for his money, calling him
a social parasite in the process; however, in the
gadenza the former slyly admitted that he wished
he was granted the grace of being in the latter's
position. Also, the insults hurled during the duel
are normally disowned. It is usual in the gadenza
for għannejja to refer to the insults
exchanged as 'joking between friends'. Hence the
gadenza, the marker of the transition back to
normal discourse, may be regarded as a sort of post-liminal
phase.
The ritualistic quality of għana is enhanced
by other features. Firstly, as sung nowadays, a
session has a pre-determined length - approximately
one hour. Secondly, stating the names of the singers
and the venue and date of the session gives the
event a cosmic dimension. This is especially so when
the date is given, for in Maltese the year must be
uttered in word and not number form. Thus the singer
states, say, (if the year were 1989): 'The year is
nineteen hundred and eighty-nine, the month x, the
day y' (instead of 'nineteen eighty-nine ...').
Paradoxically therefore, stating the date gives a
timeless quality by putting the event on a par with
other important historical dates. This tendency to
connect disparate events together is further
accentuated by the music, which although improvised
follows a traditional tune. It is this linking which
gives tragic Fattijiet (the non-extemporised
għana which either relate a true or
fictitious tale, generally tragic) a
semi-mythological stature - for each story thus
seems to be linked to all others that are played to
the same tune thematically, as well as musically. In
this respect għana can also serve to
mythologise history. The best example of this is the
Fatt called 'Mintoff Story', which is the biography
of the charismatic former Labour Party leader and
Prime Minister Dom Mintoff,(14)
which is played to one of the most moving renditions
of a traditional tragic tune - Mintoff's political
vicissitudes thus gain epic proportions.
The mythological element is also present in a more
substantial sense. As Sant Cassia points out, 'għana
probably represents a language closer to "myth" than
to poetry' (1989: 164). This is because of the
effect of the riposte and counter-riposte, together
with the value attached to sticking to the
'Subject', leads to the 'structure' of the duel
becoming evident only through repeated oppositions.(15)
It is significant in this respect that the 'true'
għannej is regarded as 'a genius, a poet'. His
art is a 'gift from God, a vocation' - this was the
very first thing my first interviewee Bamboċċu (and
it was repeated to me many times by other people
thereafter) told me, an 'outsider'. For għana
is more than a form of competition between the
għannejja: it also creates and expresses
competition within this social group vis-a-vis
the wider society. At its best għana is an
epiphany of Divine Grace, as one listens and watches
the għannej 'build his Subject', edifying the
audience and, at least by implication, making
statements about the central values of Maltese
society as well as about Maltese identity. This is
what draws the audience in, makes it a participant
and creates a community. Perhaps also, it is this
that made an informant tell me that għana
'bewitches you, it gives you goose flesh'.
These themes, stated so tersely here, will be the
subject of the next section.
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