Frans Baldacchino il-Budaj : the public perception of għana in contemporary Maltese society

Abstract

Before delving into the life of Frans Baldacchino, nicknamed il-Budaj, and trying to understand his impact on Maltese folk singing, locally known as ghana (pronounced 'aana'), it is important to examine the situation of this style of singing before il-Budaj dedicated himself completely to it. But, to start with, what is ghana? How and where did it originate and develop? It is of course next to impossible to give a precise answer to some of these questions, mainly because of the serious lack of documentation, but we can presume that it has been with us for a very long time, much longer than one may expect. The Maltese word ghanja (pronounced' any a') stands for a song or a poem or rhyming verses, while ghana means the singing itself. We can safely assume that ghana has existed since ancient times in one form or another. The oldest document which mentions Maltese jucularu (musician, jongleur) dates back to the Militia List of 1419-1420 discovered by Godfrey Wettinger As pointed out by Cassar Pullicino, the notion of daqqaq (a player of rnusical instruments) in his dual role as folk musician and singer has a long history in the Maltese islands because in practice a daqqaq was frequently also an ghannej (folk singer, pronounced 'anney', plural is ghannejja pronounced 'anneyya'). Closer to our times, in Malta, the village people of the late 18th and 19th century did not have any opportunities to learn and improve their humble lot. Illiteracy among the general populace was widespread, and except for some in the cities, and a handful in the rural areas, no one could read or write, and very few bothered to do anything about it. Rural life was centred more on farming fields, herding flocks of sheep and goats, and dedicating oneself to family life. So one could not expect any significant changes from such communities. Generally speaking, education among such people was 'at a low ebb'. Despite all this, however, some sort of art still emerged amongst them, and one special gift that some people seemed to have naturally was the ability to rhyme, while others could pick up a guitar and improvise for hours on it without having learnt one musical note.