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Cultural activities

Gozo’s Culture Organising Committee produces a ‘Gozo Cultural Calendar’ in the form of a booklet. It is updated regularly and found at most tourist establishments. Alternatively one can visit www.gozo.gov.mt for a full updated list.

Activities include religious feasts, processions and functions as well as all sorts of exhibitions, concerts operas and drama. Carnival activities and National festivities are also listed.

Traditional Feasts

The main Gozitan cultural events are the village ‘Festas’. There is a program of village feasts throughout the summer months and visiting one of them is a must. Most activities take place in and around the village church. The church is always lit and dressed up for the occasion and hosts several religious functions. The village streets are also ornamented for the feast with wooden statues, hanging cloth banners and lighting.

Brass bands play an important part in village feasts. Most parishes have their own band that practices all year for the annual feast. They parade around the village streets and also play on a purposely-erected podium in the main square. Some parishes have two bands and others invite bands from different villages to play at their feast to make their program longer and more varied.

The religious procession is always the highlight of the feast when a statue of the saint to whom the church is dedicated is exposed and paraded around the village.

The fireworks that accompany every feast provide a spectacle for locals and tourists. There are two types of fireworks, those that are shot up into the sky and visible from practically the whole island and the street fireworks that are mounted usually close to the village church and set off late at night as soon as the bands stop playing. The land based ones are artistically made to rotate, move and change colour and they are a spectacle in themselves. It is advisable not to stay too close to these fireworks when they are set off. Staying downwind of them is also not a good idea.

Feasts

The people of the Maltese Islands are almost a hundred percent Catholic and have been so since St. Paul introduced Catholicism to Malta 2000 years ago. The Maltese and Gozitans are particularly proud of this and are eager to show off their religious wealth amongst which are almost 400 churches and chapels.

Each Gozitan village has a main church and at least a few others. Village feasts are organised every weekend between mid May and mid September. There is a fixed program of feasts for which each community dresses up the church and the streets and organises several days of activities. They do their best to honour their patron saint.

Annual celebrations in honour of the churches’ patron saints have been an important part of Gozitan culture since time immemorial. Since the 16th century, these celebrations have evolved in to feasts with a great deal of activities being organised out of the churches.

The villagers donate considerable sums of money specifically to be spent on the village feast. Most are keen to have a better feast and more spectacular fire works than those of their neighbouring villages. Huge sums of money are spent on fire works and bands from other villages are paid to contribute to make a more varied event. The church walls are dressed in rich damask ornate with palm designs. All the silverware the church owns is displayed on the altars.

Throughout the feast week but climaxing on the Saturday evening, various bands and processions parade the village streets which are in turn decorated with coloured lights, several statues, numerous masts with flags and banners hung across from building to building.

There are two types of fire works and these are always a measure of the magnificence of the feast. The aerial fireworks are shot high up in to the sky and can be viewed from many vantage points all over the island. Hand making these is an art in itself, and indeed a very dangerous one. The ones let off on the ground are also a work of art and can only be viewed by those prepared to wait in the village main square till midnight when all the religious functions and the brass bands are over.

Each feast has a very well prepared program of events and both the in-church sermons and the outdoor activities are a must for those who visit Gozo and would like to experience a little bit of Gozitan culture. It is common for immigrants to Canada and Australia to coincide their holiday to Gozo with the feast of the village they were born in.

Holy Week

All village feasts are programmed to happen during the summer months when the weather permits outdoor celebrations. Easter on the other hand always happens in March or April and the festivities organised for the Holy week are usually characterised by colder often humid conditions.

The Holy week refers to the eight days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday and it is when the Catholic Church celebrates its main and most holy feast, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Most communities in Malta and Gozo prepare their churches and themselves for this feast. Some go as far as dedicating the front room of their homes, dressing them with red damask and statues and often leaving their main door only shut with a glass door for all the passers by to view and enjoy.

Palm Sunday is when the community gathers at church or at a chapel in the village outskirts, palm leaves and olive tree branches are blessed and incensed by the celebrant then the olive tree branches are distributed to the public and taken home to be exhibited in a prominent place and ward off evil.

The 40 days immediately before Easter are known as ‘Lent’ and it is traditional for the Maltese and Gozitans to fast to some extent or the other. Some abstain from sweets and meat on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent and Good Friday whilst others chose some type of sacrifice and try to keep it up till Easter.

On Maundy Thursday a ceremony is held during which the parish priest washes the feet of a dozen men from his village and all chapels and churches remain open late for the locals to do the ‘seven visits’. It is traditional to visit and pray at seven different churches. From then on till Saturday, only dim lights light the churches and relative quiet can be experienced throughout the village.

Without any doubt, the most prominent activity in the Holy Week is the Good Friday procession. Several life size statues representing the passion and death of Jesus Christ are paraded around the villages in the late afternoon. Some of these statues show the crucifixion, the crowning with thorns, the fall under the cross and Judas’ kiss. Parading in between these statues are hundreds of villagers dressed in Roman armour, sometimes on horses or personificating characters from the bible whilst others wear white robes and cover their faces then drag chains or carry large heavy wooden crosses, the penance for some delivered blessing. The village brass band plays funeral marches and a sombre ambiance dominates as the procession proceeds well into the evening.

There are six such processions on Gozo and each attracts thousands of spectators. Two of these processions wind their way around the streets of Victoria whilst Nadur, Xaghra, Zebbug and Ghasri also organise their own.

On Saturday night the churches open up an hour or so before midnight and are packed with locals celebrating the Easter vigil, the end of Lent.
The last event in the Holy week is a short procession on Sunday morning. A statue of The Risen Christ is paraded nearby the church and accompanied by the band playing joyful tunes and a cheering crowd of mainly young villagers. The highlight of this event is a run with the statue back into the church amongst the cheers of the crowds.

The Holy week celebrations do not coincide with the main tourist season but for those wishing to experience some intense Gozitan culture, visiting Gozo at Easter time is extremely interesting. In sharp contrast with the summer draft, one can also witness the green hills and countryside of the Gozitan Island at this time of the year. Walking around the island at Easter time is a most pleasurable experience.