|
Għana has
long been the domain of Folklore studies in Malta.
Indeed, the performance of għana
especially in certain festas, provides an
opportunity for għana and folklore to reciprocally
define each other, the first as 'a performance of
folklore', the second as the documentation of
'tradition'. Although għana had previously
been associated with certain festas, in the 1950s
folklorists began organizing a singing competition
to accompany a national festa (the Imnarja).
The Imnarja had become institutionalised as
an agricultural show, under the patronage of a
benevolent elite of professionals and folklorists,
with the support of the colonial Department of
Agriculture. It was shunned by the urban, anglophone,
mercantile elites who viewed it as archaic, popular,
and uncontrolled, represented through all-night
revelry. As an agricultural festival it encapsulated
an imagined past, for the economy had lost its
agricultural base by the late 19th century.
 By
situating għana in the Imnarja festa
folklorists associated it with rurality (whereas it
was equally found in urban contexts), archaised it,
and turned it into a spectacle divorced from its
social context. Folkorists (undoubtedly genuinely)
believed that għana had 'degenerated' into
offensive trading of insults, and were keen to
'salvage' its dignity as a subaltern and
'disappearing' culture. This corresponded to their
image of traditional society as harmonious and of
their role as benevolent paternalists. But by
determining the themes of the songs, which they
wrote down on slips of paper which the singers had
to draw, they depersonalised the songs, and turned
singers into potential comedians of themselves. The
subjects of the songs were influenced by images the
elite themselves had of the poplu (eg
spendthrifts, henpecked husbands) according to an
agenda unconsciously influenced by their perception
of what would amuse the poplu as public
spectacle. As Herndon and McLeod scathingly pointed
out in 1981, these judges 'know nothing about the
musical style and......[ ]...the intricacies of folk
music' (1981:159). This is correct but bypases the
fact that folklore and għana have
consequently become engaged in a complex exchange.
Whilst many good singers have shunned the
competition leaving it open to mediocre ones, the
dominant public image (among the middle classes) of
għana is formed through such contexts,
further contributing to its marginalization. This
leave a gap in the contruction of għana for
it to be 'rediscovered' outside such contexts as
'authentic performance'. On the other hand, social
recognition by the wider society is controlled by
the middle classes and folklorists who have the
social prestige both to get things done and to
confer legitimation, approval and success. Two
effects follow. From the perspective of għana,
some singers appear to conform to the expectations
of folklorists. Something similar seems to have
happened to flamenco singers in Spain, who
adjusted to the demands of visiting flamencologists
suppressing their own views of what they considered
good singing (Washabaugh 1996: xiv). On the other
hand some singers under the influence of western
models have become progressively presented
themselves as artists, or poets, with consequent
transformations of the self and the meanings of the
songs.
Inspite of the complex interelationship between
singers/għana and folklore/ists, there has
been an implicit and 'pernicious' (but
unacknowledged) connivance that renders singers
dependent upon the official approval of the classes
that set the taste-agendas of the wider society.
Both għannejja and folklorists are aware that
għana/folklore are considered relatively
unimportant for national identity and culture. I
suggest below that it is this very subalternity that
is nowadays constantly being invented and
'rediscovered'. Folklorists concentrate on għana
(among other things) to 'capture' 'tradition' from
the past, through a study of the present, and thus
claim some importance in national identity
construction. Reciprocally, singers claim to embody
'il-folklor Malti' (Fsadni, 1993), to
inscribe for themselves some national recognition.
Folklore's concentration on għana merits
scrutiny. Much Maltese folklore has concentrated on
tales, proverbs, children's games, religious
festivities, items of clothing, food, etc. Many of
these are not in active use any more. Indeed the
very process of recording what was about to
disappear has been integral to folklore since its
inception as a scholarly practice. Already in the
mid 18th century Canon Gian Pier Francesco Agius De
Soldanis, considered to be the Father of Maltese
Folklore Studies, had established two critical
features of Maltese folklore: its links to language
(as the study of old 'Cartagenian'/Punic words,
sayings, etc), and its tendency to record, even
then, customs about to disappear. Cassar Pullicino
notes that De Soldanis 'riesce a penetrare anche
in fondo all'anima dell'umile gente di citta e di
campagna per salvare dalla dimenticanza certe
pratiche e credenze anteriori al periodo dell'Ordine
Giovannita (1530-1798) e che stavano gia in via di
oblivione' (1989a: 6- my emphasis). Folklore
appears close to antiquarianism. We must entertain
the possibility that some customs may always seem
'about to disappear' (see also Stewart, 1991).
Rather than pointing to customs as distinct, 'out
there', disembedded from the field of cultural
production, such an approach would enable us to view
customs as symptomatic of the changing articulation
of social groups. 'Declining customs' may well be a
expression/attribution of (social) marginality,
whilst elevating the status of those involved in
their recording, or preservation from 'oblivion'.
Folklore in Malta can be seen as a scholarly
practice within a power-knowledge field of
'decline/disappearance' and 'preservation'. Ghana
provides folklorists and others with an opportunity
to study a practice which is 'traditional' and which
its practitioners consciously and sometimes
ironically present as 'traditional'. Moreover it is
found at the grassroots, is 'spontaneous' (although
this is a calculated spontaneity), and appears
resistant to touristic commercialisation. It
occupies a privileged position in folklore and is
emblematic of a 'living tradition'. Indeed, għana
has acquired a special role in migrant communities
as a means to manufacture an imagined utopic
community through 'the retention of tradition as
identity'.
'Tradition' is neither self-evident nor transparent. It needs to be
identified, packaged, and made the subject of
discretion and taste. The role of social groups and
of the various academic disciplines that explore
tradition is significant, as are the mass media and
the means of representation. Here it is worthwhile
distinguishing between Folklore Mark I, the
'preservation' of customs or traditions by scholars
(as discussed above), from its more recent
post-modern variant, Folklore Mark II: the popular folklorising approach that exoticises the familiar,
and is always '(re)discovering' popular customs that
are 'hidden'. I suggest that what Boissevain (1992 )
has called the 'revitalisation of European rituals'
is an aspect of 'the nostalgia of nostalgia' (Sant
Cassia, 1992). In the next section I explore the
relationship between folklore and history as
academic disciplines. Whilst folklore has been an
important source to prospect the past, in Malta it
has long been upstaged by language, history, and
archaeology. History and folklore have evolved in
opposition to each other in relation to national
identity construction. Folklore has thus had a
double investment in għana: as subject of
investigation and as a means to construct itself. |
