WOOL MAKING AND WEAVING

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WOOL MAKING AND WEAVING

Humans have always relied upon the fur and skin of animals to keep warm and protect their skin from the elements. Leather shoes enable soft soles to walk long distances, and pelts and furs helped early man to survive frozen winters.

We know that some 7000 years ago, sheep, goats, cows, and bulls lived on Malta, as limestone carvings of these animals are found in some of the Neolithic monuments and prehistoric complexes that dot the islands. It is safe to assume that these first inhabitants of Malta, who probably came from Sicily, sheared their flocks and spun their wool to make clothes. There is a theory that these early settlers established some sort of trade with the Sicilian Islands of Lipari and Pantelleria and may have traded wool or rough woollen cloth in exchange for flint and obsidian to make tools for carving.

Most likely the Phoenicians introduced weaving and dyeing skills in Malta and Gozo. Certainly, during ancient Roman times, Malta was famous for its high-quality linen made from the flax plant. However, Silius Italicus, a Roman Senator and Latin epic poet, also referred to Malta as lanigera, meaning a producer of wool. Archaeologist Brunella Bruno suggests that wool was probably exported in its raw state to the nearby port of Syracuse in Sicily.

During the Arab occupation of Malta, there was plenty of pastureland and herds. The geographer Ibn-Hawqal mentioned the large number of Maltese rams that could be found here. In the sixteenth century, Quintinus of Lyon also noted Malta’s rich pastureland. Sheep’s milk was also used to make a local cheese called ġbejna, a tradition which continues today.

The Arabs introduced the cotton plant to Malta in the 9th century, which helped boost the Maltese economy. By 1164, Maltese merchants were already exporting cotton to Genoa. Wool was also exported, but in smaller amounts because most of it was used to make clothes for the locals. While rich people wore fine silks, brocades, and cottons, the lower classes wore coarser cottons and wool.

In 1576, Nicolo de Nicolai observed that Greek, Italian, Moorish, and Maltese women of ill repute in the harbour area wore a fine, long white woollen cloak called a barnuco by the Moors over a long white shirt.

Wool had other uses too. Every year, some wool was used to replace or spread out old hard lumps of wool in mattresses. Wool was also used in folk medicine. In the past, a clump of warm wool was sometimes pressed on lumps in the breast to help with pain relief.

For a long time, women in Malta made extra money by weaving and spinning wool and cotton for merchants. They used a distaff (a stick for winding flax ready for spinning) and a spindle (a round stick with narrow ends used for twisting yarn in hand spinning) to do this. These tools became symbols of hardworking and good (virtuous) wives. Documents recording the strange case of a woman named Betta Caloiro from Bormla, who was put in prison for witchcraft in 1608 in the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, show that spinning was a common activity for women back then. The Devil’s Bride

From a young age, girls would start preparing their ‘trousseau,’ which was part of their dowry (money and goods given by their parents for their wedding). This included clothes, towels, and bed linen that they would bring to their new home when they got married.

For example, in 1664 the dowry of Signorina Clara, the daughter of the wealthy Hon. Simon Simonis and Signora Maria, included many items. She received 35 scudi in cash, six new gowns, two pairs of sheets, three pillow covers, and two towels. She also got a wooden four-poster bed, a woollen mattress and a straw cover, a pair of silk-embroidered cloth cushions, two woollen-stuffed cushion pillows, and a satin blanket in various colours. Additionally, her dowry included a blue printed valance (a piece of fabric that hangs across the top of a window), a tablecloth and six napkins, two faldettas (typical cloaks with a stiff hood once worn by Maltese women when venturing outside their homes) – one made from blue damask and the other from striped green satin, two coats, a new veil, four pictures, a beech chest, a table and four small chairs, a second-hand faldetta), a short grey coat, and a new dobbano (skirt).

It wasn’t just the rich who had dowries. Girls used the money they earned from lace making and weaving to buy sewing materials and fabrics for their trousseau. They knitted jumpers and dresses from sheep wool, which was easy to find at home. This was their job during the long winter evenings when there was no electricity, and the whole family gathered around the light of one lamp to spend time together, known as the sahra. A special kind of scissors called ġelem in Maltese was used to shear the sheep. The wool was then sold to people called nissieġa, though some of the wool was kept for home use. On St Anne’s Day, the 26^th of July, the wives and daughters of farmers and shepherds would take the freshly shorn wool and wash it in the sea. They would then weave it at home or take it to a female weaver to make fardi (types of mats), blankets, and other draperies using traditional wooden looms. Men usually did the dyeing of fabrics. Nowadays shearing is done using electrical tools.

Weaving is the process of making cloth, rugs, blankets, and other items by crossing two sets of threads over and under each other. It is one of the oldest crafts in the world. Weavers use threads spun from natural fibres like cotton, silk, and wool. They can also weave thin, narrow strips of almost any flexible material, including plant leaves.

Wool and Cotton have similar production processes:

First, female workers removed the cotton from its pod (idommu). They then used a traditional cotton carding machine to separate the seeds from the cotton. After the seeds were removed, the carded cotton needed to be softened and made workable. This was the specialized job of a man called id-daqqaq who beat and thrashed the carded cotton.

Once softened, women spun the cotton on a spinning wheel, called maġħżel in Maltese, turning it into fine threads. These threads were then wound onto a traditional reel known as imkebba, which means a roll of spun thread or yarn. A woman called is-seffieħa turned the wound threads into a warp, which is a set of yarns stretched in place on a loom. Finally, another woman, known as it-tewwejja, folded the threads, preparing them for weaving.

Read more about the history of cotton in Malta here: The Cotton Textile Industry and Maltese Merchants

Reviving Wool-Making at the Inquisitor’s Palace:

At the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, where the National Textiles Collection is kept, Annamaria Gatt, Heritage Malta’s Curator for Costumes & Textiles, and a team of volunteers are working hard to bring back the craft of wool-making. The process of skirting, carding, and spinning to create local homespun wool is becoming rare. Heritage Malta is documenting the entire process, from raw material to finished woollen products, as part of a series that focuses on history, ethnography, education, and conservation.

Today, laws forbid cleaning wool in the sea, so it is done in troughs instead. It took five days and ten people to wash, clean, and dry the fleece of 16 sheep. After shearing, the wool is cleaned by hand to remove any plant material and dirt. Then, it is soaked in hot soapy water for up to thirty minutes, repeating this step three times, followed by soaking it in hot, clear water two more times. It’s important not to squeeze the wool to avoid felting (tangling). After this, the wool is laid out in the sun to dry.

Once dry, carders are used to open, disentangle, and further clean the wool before it is rolled and ready for manual spinning with a spindle to produce a ball of wool.

Watch the process here:

Wool making from the 1800s

Under British rule, wool, along with cocoa, spices, coffee, hemp, silk, foreign cotton, wood, and tobacco leaf, was imported primarily for re-export. Until recently, a cottage industry in Malta and Gozo flourished, knitting woollen jumpers and weaving sheep’s wool rugs for tourists.

One weaver who has kept the craft of weaving on wooden looms alive is Antoine Vella, known as ‘Antoine tan-newl’ (newl means a loom in Maltese). Based in Rabat, Malta, Antoine learned weaving from his parents at a very young age. In the summer, you can often find him weaving at festivals or on village piazzas. He works hard to keep this tradition alive by making sustainable handmade carpets, throwovers, cushion covers, and bags using mostly local cotton and Maltese sheep wool. Across the channel in Gozo, Alda Bugeja has also done much to keep the craft going on Gozo and regularly conducts workshops on wooden loom weaving and macrame,

Watch Antoine at work here

Written with reference to:

‘The Woman in Gozitan Folklore’ by Anton F. Attard. Published in the Gozo Observer no 29, 2013
‘Roman and Byzantine Malta, Trade and Economy’ by Brunella Bruno. Published by Midesea Books, 2009.
‘Clothes, Status and Class in Malta under the Order of St John’ by Carmel Cassar published in Sacra Militia, issue 8, 2009.
‘Features of an Island Economy: Malta 1800 – 1914’ by Arthur G. Clare. Published in Hyphen, 2(6), 235-255, 1981.
‘Malta and Genoa:1150 – 1375’ by Stanley Fiorini (2016), Accessed, July 2024 https://www.academia.edu/93838013/Malta_and_Genoa_1150_1375
‘Snajja tradizzjonali Għawdxin – il-Biedja’ by Victor Grech. Published in Eku tal-Banda 2014
‘Seven Ages of Antiquity in Malta’ by Harrison Lewis. In: B. Hilary (ed.), The Malta Year Book 1975. Malta: De La SaIle Brothers Publications, pp. 436-442, 1975.
‘Antoine Vella’. Accessed, July 2024 https://maltacrafts.org/project/antoine-vella/