Another important aspect of Gozitan folklore relates to folk-medicine and folk-remedies. These remedies were resorted to when a member of the family fell ill. Many wild plants and herbs had medicinal value. There were all kinds of recipes on the use of these herbs. Other folk-remedies including such items as salt, vinegar, honey, barley, carob syrup, oranges and lemons and other fruits, the water of certain wells and cisterns containing running water, sea water, and even the use of lighted candles placed on the body and extinguished by placing an empty tumbler over it (fintusi). Many a time religion was mixed-up with superstition. A pious Gozitan named Francis Mercieca, known to all as Frenc tal-Gharb, was able to find a folk-remedy for nearly all the diseases and ailments by which people became afflicted and thus he became famous throughout Gozo and Malta.

Fumigation on Easter Saturday with blessed dried olive twigs and palm leaves, together with the reciting of folk-prayers, could ward off the evil eye, a much dreaded superstition among Gozitans. It is also a known fact that certain secret formulas, known only to fishermen, could calm down and stop a water spout at sea. Water spouts at sea are very dangerous indeed and fisherman will never disclose the exact words, otherwise they may lose their power. Old prayers such as Il-Vrajs and Il-Brajbu helped Gozitan Christians to die in peace with God and go to heaven.

Going to heaven implies death. It is not possible to include all customs associated with death and funerals in this brief presentation, and only a few will be mentioned here. A custom prevailing in Gozo was the hiring of poor women and beggars to pray over and watch the corpse for the whole night. Another Gozitan custom associated with funerals, prevailing in some villages of Gozo, was that mourners accompanying the corpse to the burial ground following the funeral mass, used to return in procession to the room of the deceased where they knelt down and recited the rosary.

Until a few years ago the people of Gharb used to attend a funeral with their kabozza on, worn the wrong side. The kabozza was a traditional Gozitan cloak which, according to some scholars, originated during the times when our Islands were under the Arab domination.

CLOTHING

Old Ex-voto pictures, another folk-tradition in Gozo, usually provide considerable information about Gozitan clothing in the past. There was a numerous collection of such ex-voto pictures in the National Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception at Qala. Unfortunately they were all destroyed on superior orders from Malta. The reason given was that they were occupying precious space! This goes to show that acts ofvandalism do not always come from lowly and uneducated people.

Gozitan costumes can also be studied from the drawings in land terriers kept at the National Library of Malta, paintings in private collections and churches, references in old deeds and wills, court sentences, official orders or Bandi and research work on such old crafts as weaving, lace-making, and the extinct craft of the dying of draperies by local dyers.

Until quite recently such words as flanella, (flannel), terha (sash), qorq (sandals), ghonnella (faldetta), were very common household words. As a matter of fact, the ghonnella died out in Gozo only a few years ago.
 
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