Il-bierah kilt tiġieġa u llum bajda moqlija. Yesterday I ate a hen and today a fried egg.
It-tiġieġa hija u tixrob tiżżħajr ‘l Alla. The hen when drinking gives thanks to God. [because it always lifts its head high afterward]
Tiġieġa hawtiela bajjada. An active hen is a a good egg layer.
-from A Comparative Dictionary of Maltese Proverbs, Joseph Aquilina
Abu Dajaj [Father of Poultry, from Arabic], Buttigieg, Tiġieġa…look familiar?
Buttigieg is a common surname in Malta’s smaller island of Gozo, which if true makes Mayor Pete a Gozitano. I remember spending a cold rain-drizzling afternoon in an English pub in Gozo’s main town of Victoria- renamed from its Arabic-derived Maltese toponym of Rabat- after seeing in the nearby Museum of Archaeology the Maymunah Stone, a 12th C. Arab period headstone with an inscription extolling the deceased, a girl named Maymunah who died March 21, 1174, carved in Kufic letters on the back side of a Roman era marble slab with a rose carved on the front.
The inscription reads…
“In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate. May He be propitious to the Prophet Muhammad and to his followers and grant them eternal salvation. God is great and eternal and He has decreed that his creatures should perish. Of this the prophet of Allah bears witness. This is the tomb of Maymūnah, daughter of Hassān, son of ‘Ali al-Hudali, known as Ibn as-Susi. She died – Allah's mercy be upon her – on Thursday 16th day of the month of Sha'ban in the year 569, professing that there is only one God who has no equal. Look around you! Is there anything everlasting on earth; anything that repels or casts a spell on death? Death robbed me from a palace and, alas, neither doors nor bolts could save me. All I did in my lifetime remains, and shall be reckoned. O He who looks upon this tomb! I am already consumed inside it, and dust has settled on my eyes. On my couch in my abode there is nothing but tears, and what is to happen at my resurrection when I shall appear before my Creator? O my brother, be wise and repent.”
Buttigieg said he picked up some Arabic as part of his military training. But maybe he has Arab blood in his veins dating from Maymunah’s time….Was perhaps one of his Gozitano ancestors known as Abu Maymunah before he became the Father of Poultry?