Nursery rhymes introduce the child to the first wonders of life. Like
their counterpats in other countries, Maltese children experience their
first journeys on their parents knees as they are rocked to and fro to the
accompaniment of a special rhyme beginning with the lines Banni
bannozzi / Gej it-tata gej (Clap, clap your hands / for Daddys
coming), which closely resemble those of the corresponding Sicilian rhyme
Manu manuzzi.. / veni lu tata.. as well as the English exhortation
Clap hands, clap hands / till Daddy comes home.
A few rhymes are quite serious in tone and content. One well-known stanza,
in particular, reflects the peoples preoccupation with the lack of
sufficient rain in Malta:
Rain, rain, rain
Incidentally, this presents a sharp contrast to the English nursery rhyme
in which children drive off rain far away to Spain:
Rain, rain, go to Sapin.
In some rhymes one can trace a definite link with a probable Semitic
stream of thought. Thus, the opening lines of a rhyme heard at Birkirkara
during the last war, i.e.
Thou of the long dress!
havea direct relationship with the following verse published by M. Feghali
from Lebanon in 1928:
Where were you yesterday?
One can still find a diversity of traditinal games among children of
school age. It is a pity that Maltese games of the playground type do not
figure in pupils' organised play activities. There are boys' games and
girls'
games, and in many instances rhymes add to the zest of the games.
Quarrels between children at play are made up by crossing the little
fingers of their hands while they say:
Peace between us
Some games show signs of native freshness and vitality, while others
reflect outside influences, mainly Sicilian and, in more recent ones,
English. The very names by which games are known, such as faraboj
(Italian: fare il boia), it-tigiega l-ghamja (the blind hen),
recalling the Italian game fare a mosca cieca and the English
blind mans buff, immediately suggest the probable origin of the
games.
Under direct British influence other games have been assimilated and given
a Maltese garb. Such are the games known as Master, explained in
Guze Aquilina's Maltese-English Dictionary as "a game consisting in
throwing a heavy flattish stone at a small standing stone with coins
placed on it or under it"; a popular pavement game in both towns and
villages of Malta and Gozo under the name of passju; and the word
kikks, uttered in a game of marbles.
In addition, the use of such words as gastell (castle, Sicilian:
casteddu) in games involving the uses of glass beads or nuts, no
less than ceratin game-rhymes with foreign-sounding words such as siamo
sette (we are seven) and in giro in giro ngella (we go round
and round) suggest earlier or long-standing contacts and links with Sicily
and Italy.
(Source: MALTA This Month, Jan. 97. Reprinted electronically with
permission of Advantage Advertising Ltd., Valletta, Malta)
that the grass may grow.
We shall give the grass to the goat
and the goat shall give us milk.
Ill take out my sheep to graze,
and I'll make me a shirt of her wool (my translation).
Never show your face again.
What have you eaten tonight?
-Bread and cheese.
And after that?
- A measure of water
- At my sister Salha's house.
What did she give you to eat?
- Salted cheese.
The Holy Mother over my head.
Christ hides me away
And the Holy Mother finds me.
Christ on the altar
blesses the little children.