Today, Xewkija is celebrating the feast of its patron saint, St John the Baptist. Joe Zammit Ciantar, whose father was from the Gozitan village, reminisces about his paternal family, the village, the feast and the rotunda.
Taċ-Ciantar family
Ġużeppi – my father – was one of the sons of the family called ‘Taċ-Ciantar’. His parents – Mikiel and Francesca – and all of his maternal uncles and only aunt – were born, lived and died in Xewkija.
One of our ancestors was Rev. Fr Pietru Pawl Ciantar who, while serving as a parish priest, was appointed the first archpriest of the parish of Xewkija by Pope Leo XIII on February 10, 1893.
While MariĠwann married and settled with a family in Luqa and his other two sisters – Clementa and Nicolina – and his brother Toninu settled with families in Xewkija, my father brought up our family in Victoria.
In our childhood, my parents often used to take us five siblings to visit our paternal grandparents, our uncles and aunts, and my father’s aunt Marianna and uncles Rev. Fr Paolo (who was my godfather when I received the sacrament of Confirmation), Ġużepp, Salvu and Ġanni, who ran a small pastry factory.
The feast of St John the Baptist
At auntie Clementa, who lived in a house next to the parish church, we used to go especially for the feast of the patron, St John the Baptist, which in those days was celebrated on June 24.
At the beginning and end of the procession we used to join relatives and friends, and go to the roof from where we could better enjoy the procession going out and later going in, the crowd filling St John’s Square, but particularly fireworks; the murtali were let off from the field ‘Iċ-Ċnus’, at the back of the house.
I used to experience a fearful sensation, with the loud and deafening explosions of the petards that used to cause window panes to rattle and the floor beneath our feet to tremble.
A decorative ‘aek’ put up in the Xewkija square as part of the decorations for the festivity of the patron saint. In the background is the church of St John the Baptist, commonly known as the Xewkija Rotunda.The Precursor Band and ‘Taċ-Ciantar’
Somehow, my father’s family had ties with the local band. In the list of its presidents there is a ‘Mikiel Zammit’ who was my father’s father. In a photo of the band members taken in 1932, on the left, standing holding one of the band banners, there is my father Ġużeppi Zammit.
Moreover, among manuscripts in my possession, there are documents related to the ‘Precursor’. These date back to the first years of the foundation of the band, precisely to 1932.
Perhaps the most important document among these – although not complete – is that consisting of two two-page foolscaps with names of people, mostly from Xewkija, among them priests, who contributed money for the procurement of uniforms for the band players.
Among the names of the donors are Dr Paolo Borg Olivier (brother of Malta’s Prime Minister George Borg Olivier), Lorenzo Zammit and my uncle, Rev. Fr Pawl Ciantar.
A number of names were distinguished by the nicknames with which they were known: Ta’ Luċia, Ta’ Fittet, Ta’ Blasinna, Ta’ l-Għasfur, Ta’ Wistin, Ta’ Dun Franġisk, Tal-Majru, Tal-Marżalett, Ta’ Xmun, Iż-Żin, Ta’ Denba, Tal-Bendu, Taċ-Ċips, Tal-Isfar, Ta’ Żangu, Tal-Faħam and others.
Among these, some gave £1; others donated between 2s.6d. and 18s.0d.
I loved the feast
I grew up loving the feast of St John the Baptist too. And when I was 18, I wrote a simple, sweet poem dedicated to the saint: ‘Lil San Ġwann Battista’, which was published in the Gozo page of the Sunday paper It-Torċa of June 26, 1960. However, I consider my ‘poem’ to be very much inferior to the Kurunella lil San Ġwann Battista – one of many dedicated to saints – composed by Rev. Dr Lodovico Mifsud Tommasi.
Xewkija and theArab period
The name ‘Xewkija’ is associated with that of a plant; the word is an adjectival form of ‘xewk’ (thistle), possibly describing ‘a place full of thistle plants’.
The earliest recorded form we know of – ‘xeukie’ – goes back to March 9, 1487.
One very particular characteristic of the inhabitants of this village is that many do not pronounce the Maltese ‘q’ (the glottal stop). Instead, they utter the ‘qāf’ of classical Arabic – possibly a linguistic remnant of the Arabs’ rule over the islands between AD 870 and 1091.
Another relic is the tombstone of the Maimuna (a Muslim girl) found in the limits of the village.
The rotunda
My father was proud of the rotunda, which was being built in the 1950s to replace the old church that was full of artistic sculptured designs but too small for the Xewkin. I remember an occasion when he took me when I was aged 10 and my younger brothers Anton and Giovanni for the official blessing and laying of the church’s foundation stone by Mgr Joseph Pace, Bishop of Gozo, on May 4, 1952. I used to visit the church when still under construction (on a plan by Maltese Ġużè D’Amato) with large gigantic columns, dwarfing parts of the old church still in place.
An awe-inspiring, extraordinary temple
Besides its function of a wonderful temple for the Catholic faithful, the rotunda is a tourist attraction. Its stunning work with Maltese globigerina stone, its breathtaking largeness, its elegant design but, above all, its huge cupola resting on eight enormous concrete columns, covered with slabs of Maltese stone, are worthy of universal appreciation.
The dome is 75 metres high, has a diameter of 27 metres and a circumference of 85 metres, making it one of the largest in Europe, and… a monument of extraordinary wonder.