Fishing has always been a tough and risky job. The sea can be very unpredictable, and fishermen never know how many fish they will catch if any at all. They also can’t be sure if the weather will be safe enough for them to go out to sea. There are two Maltese sayings that show how difficult fishing can be. One of them Is-sajjied jgħid li l-art ħabel tajjeb means that working on the land is a safer and more reliable way to make a living, while the other one Il-baħar żaqqu ratba, imma rasu iebsa compares the sea to a person with a soft belly but a hard head, meaning it can be calm and gentle one moment and dangerous the next

Fishermen usually stayed close to the shore because it was safer. For many years, pirates were a constant threat, and sudden storms could be very dangerous for their small boats. For instance, in 1742, three Maltese fishermen were captured and taken as slaves because they went too far out to sea to fish.

Neolithic depictions of fish

Fishing during the Stone Age

When people from the Neolithic period (the New Stone Age) first settled on the Maltese Islands, they probably didn’t eat much seafood. Scientists figured this out by studying the chemicals (through isotope analysis) in ancient human bones found at a burial site near Ġgantija Archaeological Park in Gozo. The sea was scary and unknown to these early settlers, and their boats or rafts were not very strong.

Even though they didn’t eat much seafood, the early Maltese did use things from the sea in other ways. For example, seashells, crab claws, and fish bones were found in the prehistoric layers of Għar Dalam cave. These were used to make necklaces and pendants found at many ancient sites on the islands. Perforated stones and pottery with holes, discovered at Borġ in-Nadur, may have been used as weights for fishing nets. The oldest ship drawings (graffiti) in the Mediterranean are found at Ħal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex (close to Cottonera). If you visit the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, you can see examples of fish carved in stone from the Neolithic period.

Fishing during Medieval times

As time passed, fishing became more important in Malta. During the Roman period, fishing hooks and net weights were found, showing that fishing was a common activity. In the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Arabs ruled Malta, a writer named Al-Himyari mentioned the tasty and abundant fish caught in Maltese waters. Around 807 AD, the Arabs introduced a way to catch tuna called the tonnara in the nearby Egadi island of Favignana off the coast of Sicily. This method spread to Africa and Spain as well. One of the first fishing laws in Malta was made in October 1469. This bando (an official law issued to the public in the streets) required fishermen and fish sellers to sell their fish at the marketplace, showing that a fishing industry existed before the Knights of St John arrived in 1530. If you look at a map of the Siege of Malta in 1565, you can even see a small fishing boat among the larger galley ships in the Grand Harbour. This suggests that fresh fish may have helped the soldiers survive during the siege.

Early fishing markets

One of the earliest mentions of a market in Birgu goes back to 1488. We know that there was a fish market on Mandraggio Street during the early years when the Knights were in Malta. The people selling fish were fishermen and others who owned stalls. From Notary Pietro Zammit’s records (a register) from 1598 and 1599, we learn that tuna, tuna belly, and sardines were some of the fish available for sale at that time.

A hard life

Fishing was likely seen as a job that people did only during certain seasons. In the winter, when fishing wasn’t as good, fishermen took on other jobs to earn money. They often also worked as sailors, pirates (called corsairs), or ferrymen. Fishing was a way to survive when times were tough. If you had a fishing net, rod, or hook, you could catch fish. Fishermen also used long lines, baskets lowered from cliffs, or cages placed on the seabed to catch fish.

People from places like Bormla, Birgu, Isla, and Kalkara often turned to fishing when they didn’t have enough food, even if they weren’t fishermen. In 1620, a man named Michele Ponso, who worked as a berettaro (that means he made hats for a living), decided to go fishing because he was poor and couldn’t earn enough money. Hat sales were probably not going so well that summer. One night, he climbed down the walls of Birgu to try to catch fish for his hungry family.

Unfortunately, climbing the defence walls was illegal, and he was punished by the Castellania, the Order’s courthouse, with a form of public torture (which involved being stretched on a rope), called Tratti di Corda.

Another story involves three men named Michele Paci, Mario Paci, and Mariano Paci, who were fishing for tuna when they started arguing over a barrel of wine. This story, dating back to 1620-21, tells us that small fishing communities existed in Cottonera and nearby areas like Għajn Dwieli. It also shows that fishing trips were usually done in groups.

Fishing from Birgu

Fishing under the Knights of St John

Many rules about fishing were made during the time of the Order of St John. These rules mostly focused on how fish were sold, their prices, and keeping the marketplace clean. Fish sellers needed a license from the Gran Corte Della Castellania to sell fish. The Order set the prices for fish, and it was illegal to sell fish for more than these fixed prices, especially when there wasn’t much fish available.

Between 1736 and 1741, Grand Master Despuig built some stores to be used as fish markets. Fishermen had to bring their fish to these stores to sell them. The fish were weighed using copper and iron as standard weights. To make sure ordinary people could buy fish easily, the rules said that fish retailers could only buy fish after the public had one hour to buy what they wanted. The market was supervised by a person called the accattapano, or ‘market surveyor,’ and another person known as the middleman. Under the Knights, fishermen could sell their fish directly at the stalls without needing a middleman, but this changed when the British arrived.

In 1741, under Grand Master Pinto, the closed fish markets were no longer used. Instead, fish had to be sold at the Valletta Marina wharf or the main square in Vittoriosa. Every fishing boat had to bring its fish to Valletta, and no one was allowed to buy a large amount of fish at once or keep fish to sell later. Both Despuig and Pinto made these rules to help people during times of famine and to make it easier for poor people to buy fish.

A plan of the Valletta food market in 1785. Photo Courtesy of the National Library

Grand Master Pinto da Fonseca

Grand Master De Vilhena

In Malta, a special fishing net for catching tuna, called the tunny net, was introduced by Grand Master Pinto and officially started on June 1, 1748. This fishing method, known as the tonnara or mattanza, was set up in Mellieħa Bay. Expert fishermen from other countries were brought in to help make it as good as, or even better than, the famous fishing spot at Cape Passero in Sicily. Although people were unsure at first because it was expensive to set up, their doubts were quickly proven wrong. They caught seventy-two large greater amberjacks, each weighing between 45 and 50 pounds.

The 1750 fishing season was very successful, with many tuna and other fish being caught. In June of that year, they caught eighty large tuna. To help the local people, the Grand Master set a low price of 24 grani per rotolo for the tuna, which was much cheaper than the imported Sicilian tuna.

Club for Tuna Fishing

However, this low price led to a shortage because Sicilian fishermen refused to sell their tuna in Malta for such a low price. Despite this, the tonnara in Mellieħa continued to operate successfully for many years. When Baron Riedesel visited Malta in 1773, he noticed that the Maltese people lived simply, mostly eating ‘bread, peppers, onions, and anchovies.’ Most people who lived away from the sea ate small fish like anchovies and sardines that were preserved in salt because there were no fridges back then. These fish were easy to catch from the shore, and sardines were much more common in Malta’s waters than they are now. In fact, when Maltese people visited Tunisia, they were often greeted with the saying Malta ħanina, ħobża u sardina, which means ‘sweet Malta, bread and sardines.’ This was because many Tunisians came to Malta between 1903 and 1906 to work on the Grand Harbour breakwater, and they were paid in bread and sardines.

Workmen working on the Grand Harbour Breakwater

Construction of Grand Harbour Breakwater

Fishing and religion

Throughout Maltese history, fresh fish was expensive because it was hard to get and depended on the season. Bigger, tastier fish were found in deep water, which required more effort and was dangerous to fish for far from the coast. Even though fish was available, it wasn’t as popular as meat. The Catholic Church had rules that divided the calendar into Giorni di Grasso (days of fat) and Giorni di Magro (lean days). During the forty days of Lent before Easter, and on certain days like Wednesdays and Fridays, people weren’t allowed to eat meat, cheese, or anything from land animals. They could, however, eat fish and use oil instead of butter. Because of this, eating fish was seen as a kind of penance, but it was still something people had to buy.

Fish have always been connected with Christianity. In the New Testament, Jesus is called a ‘fisherman of men,’ and one of his miracles was multiplying fish to feed a hungry crowd. The Greek word for fish, “Ιχθύς” or “ichthys,” is actually made up of the first letters of the Greek words for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, saviour.’ Each letter stands for part of that phrase: ‘i’ for iēsoûs = Jesus, ‘ch’ for Christós = Christ, ‘t’ for theoû = God, ‘y’ for yios = Son, and ‘s’ for soter = saviour

For rich people, serving fish to guests was a way to show off their wealth. In the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, there’s a kitchen that’s over 500 years old. One of the utensils on display there is a Poissonnière, a French dish used for cooking fish by steaming it in water. In 1798, the Inquisitor had three of these long copper dishes, which he used to cook and serve expensive fish to impress his guests on giorni di magro, or “lean days,” when people weren’t allowed to eat meat.

Poissonnière in the Inquisitor’s Palace kitchen

Watch Maria Rosaria Zammit Abouzid, Heritage Malta’s Coordinator Curatorial Support for Ethnography, as she talks about the Inquisitor’s Copper Pan Fish Poacher.

Tragedy at Sea

Fishermen came from a tightly knit community. Because they spent long hours out at sea, away from land they formed close bonds between them. Theirs was a life of hardship and uncertainty, so the community would often come together to help the families of those who were struggling to put food on the table or who had died in a tragedy. Fishermen were also known to help people who found themselves in difficulties. For example, in 1716, some fishermen came to the rescue and saved Cavalier Duke Philip Vendome from drowning. Later on in history they also provided assistance to the Royal Air Force, which was unable to track seaplanes after being caught in violent storms, and to pilots crashing their planes in the sea during wartime.

In November 1895, two naval ships went out to search for a missing fishing boat with nine people on board, but sadly, they couldn’t find it, and the boat was declared lost. This kind of fear and danger faced by fishermen during bad weather is shown in many ex-voto paintings, which are artworks made to thank for miraculous help during accidents at sea. One such painting in the Mellieha sanctuary, dated 1826, shows a fishing boat called a firilla that capsized, putting five fishermen in danger of drowning. Another incident happened on October 20, 1816, when a storm caused a firilla with four people on board to turn over. Three of the men went missing, but one survived, and this was seen as a miracle by the Virgin Mary.

There have been other tragedies too, like one in 1911, where five young fishermen from Żejtun were caught in a fierce storm and lost their lives. One of the most tragic and recent incidents is the Simshar tragedy in July 2008, where a boat with three fishermen from Marsaxlokk, a Somali migrant, and an 11-year-old boy went missing. Only one fisherman survived, who was also the boat owner and the boy’s father.

Christ of the sailors underwater statue near Qawra point

A typical-Mediterranean ex-voto-painting from a church in Malta

Fishermen have strong connections to the church and often fish on Sundays to donate half their earnings to the church in October. They also have superstitions, like never mounting or launching a boat on a Friday and keeping the boat hidden during construction to avoid the evil eye. During the building of a boat, a cross is placed on the prow. When a boat is launched, it’s blessed with an olive branch and the cross is removed and mounted elsewhere on the boat.

Simshar Tragedy

Blessing fishing boats at the start of the Lampuki Season

Fishing under the French and British

When the French arrived in Malta in 1798, they also set prices for fish and made laws to control the fishing industry. A senior French medical officer named Doctor Robert, who was in Malta at the time, noted that the Maltese people mostly ate vegetables and fish.

Things started to change two years later when the British took over. At first, they focused on making sure the fish was clean and safe to eat. They made a rule that fish could only be sold until one hour after sunset on the day it was caught. This meant fishermen had to sell their fish the same day they brought it in from the sea. However, for some unknown reason, this rule was cancelled just a few days later.

Unfortunately, as with the price of flour, the British did not believe much in fixing prices. Increasingly, most fishermen came to rely upon middlemen, called brokers, to sell their fish. These brokers had the cash to buy fish directly from the fishermen at the market, known as the Pixkerija, and then resell it. The brokers controlled the market, making sure they got the best deals while keeping the fishermen in the dark about the actual prices. Often, the fishermen had to sell their fish for very low prices and were left with little money, even though they did all the hard work.

Near the Fish Market, Valletta

The brokers even managed the physical space of the market, making it easier for them to manipulate prices and control the entire process. They used agents to help them, who were always at the market, sometimes even sleeping there, to get the best fish early. These agents would hide the fish until prices went up, ensuring the brokers made more profit.

During certain times, like Lent when people ate more fish, the prices of fish in the market went up by 30 to 35 percent. However, even though the prices increased, the fishermen didn’t earn more money. Instead, the middlemen and some fish sellers, including many women, made most of the extra profit.

Before 1906, auctions for fish were done in a way that favoured the brokers. The bidding was done in whispers, so the fishermen didn’t know how much their fish was really worth. This left them with very little money, and some even had to borrow from the brokers to buy equipment, which put them further in debt.

Over time, things improved with new rules that stopped some of these unfair practices. For example, in 1838, whispering auctions became illegal, and accurate weights had to be used. Eventually, a free market was created under government supervision, which helped improve the situation. But by 1906, new regulations still allowed only middlemen to sell fish in the market, so other fish sellers were pushed out.

When the fisheries department was established in 1920, it was discovered that fishermen were still only earning a small fraction of the final sale price of their fish. Experts realized that the market was taking away the extra profits that could have helped fishermen upgrade their boats and equipment, leaving them with a low standard of living.

Traditional Fishing Boats

Kalkara Creek

Dredging Marsa in 1862 Courtesy of The Times of Malta

Malta Sea Planes Association

Traditional Luzzu

Frustrated, the Marsaxlokk fishermen armed themselves and set out in their luzzijiet (traditional Maltese fishing boats) to confront the Italians. Although a customs patrol boat tried to stop them by zigzagging around their boats, it didn’t work. The Italians, seeing the large number of Maltese boats coming their way, quickly sailed back to Sicily. After that, the Italian fishing activities in Maltese waters significantly decreased.

Fish Markets in the 1930s

In 1933, James Hornell described the fish market in Valletta, known as Ta’ Gigant Market because of a nearby statue. The market was in a very old building, with nine stalls arranged in a semicircle by the harbour. These stalls were small, had poor lighting, and lacked a water supply. There was no shelter for buyers or the fish, so everything was exposed to the sun and rain. Hornell noticed that the slabs, shelves, and utensils used in the market were often dirty, which made the fish unsafe to eat. The lack of water was a big problem; there was a pump, but it didn’t reach the stalls, so cleaning was done with just a broom and a bucket, which wasn’t very hygienic.

Old Fish Market in Valletta

More recent times

With the foundation of the Department of Fisheries and the subsequent Fisheries Board, regulations were more consciously considered, helping to keep up good relations between the fishermen and the authorities. The most important Fishing Act was enacted in 1953.

In 1990, when Malta was preparing to join the EU, the government asked experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization to visit the island. Their job was to help draft laws and regulations to make sure Malta’s fishing industry could fit in better with the EU’s standards.

Fishing in Malta, as we know it today, really started to grow in the 1980s when foreign companies came to the island. At first, there weren’t many rules, but by the 2000s, new guidelines were introduced to make fishing more sustainable. Nowadays, Malta catches over 1,300 metric tonnes of fish each year, with about 1,000 tonnes being exported to Europe and Asia.

In 1971, Malta set up a special fishing zone called the Exclusive Fishing Zone (EFZ), which extended 25 nautical miles from the Maltese Islands’ shores. This was done according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. When Malta joined the European Union in 2004, this zone was kept and renamed the Fisheries Management Zone (FMZ) by EU rules. The Malta EFZ was the first of its kind in the Mediterranean and covers a large area of 6,735 square kilometres.

The main goal of the Malta FMZ is to protect Malta’s fish and the ecosystems they live in. According to the rules, all fish caught by local fishermen must be sold through the Wholesale Fish Market in Valletta, also known as Il-Pixkerija. Fish are sold to retailers and fish hawkers in public auctions through a middleman. However, about 25% of the fish caught are not recorded; for example, some are sold directly to restaurants, which is something the Fisheries Department can’t fully control.

Still from the film ‘Luzzu’

Written with reference to:

‘Lands of Hunger’ – food scarcity and famine in Early Modern Malta by William Zammit. In Food as ‘Voice’ Proceedings of History Week 2017, The Malta Historical Society, edited by Noel Buttigieg and George Cassar.

‘Living on Fishing, Caught in the Market: The Maltese fishing communities, 1860s-1920’ by John Chircop, Journal
of
Maltese
History
Volume
2
Number
1,
2010.21.

‘Maltese Fishing Villages: the Fishers’ Changing Identities’ by Stephanie Cumbo, Master of Arts (Maltese Studies), 2023.

‘The early modern history of the Maltese harbour towns: Birgu, Bormla and Isla from 1530 to 1630’ by Rachel Grillo, 2023.  A dissertation presented to the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in History.

‘Neolithic Diet at the Brochtorff Circle, Malta’ by Michael Richards, I. Walton, Simon Stoddart, Caroline Malone and R.E.M Hedges, European Journal of Archaeology. 2001, Vol. 4(2), p. 253-262.

‘The Economic Significance of Fish and Fisheries in Malta’ by Eliseus Louis Zammit, Bachelor’s dissertation (Economics), 1975.

‘The Earliest Maltese Man was a Fisherman’ by Fiona Galea Debono, Times of Malta. Accessed in August 2024: https://timesofmalta.com/article/earliest-maltese-man-was-a-fisherman.82200

‘Fishing in Malta’ by Benjamin Hayes, Times of Malta. Accessed in August 2024: https://timesofmalta.com/article/fishing-malta-a2.1087957

‘Fishing in Malta’ uploaded online by the Malta Independent. Accessed in August 2024: https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2007-04-14/news/fishing-in-malta-171932/

‘Fishing in Malta’ uploaded online by Vassallo Malta. Accessed in August 2024: https://vassallohistory.wordpress.com/fishing-in-malta/