#(And it would fit with the timeline that they are in. The 18th Centr was a terrible time for POC.)

[arcgeminga]

ANSWERED ASK from @starlightofdream​:  ♂ - … My muse’s father [ POPE SAGE ] (for Defteros) ♚ Meme: send me a symbol and i will write a drabble about my muse from the point of view of…

   —  TRIGGER WARNING: strong hints racism and use of strong language (Under Cut)

Sage wasn’t one to lose his temper. He had lived long enough to know when to let go of his anger when it came to common things that time will eventually repair. He didn’t like the unnecessary drama or the unwarranted negativity around such things. He’s lived too long to be bothered by it all.

Which is why today surprised him.

Ever since the day Cassiopeia Euthymia was murdered, and he had ordered the just execution on Gemini Maximus, Sage had a strong sense of responsibility for the two children left behind because of his decree. Months before he had the chance to meet the babies, he had predicted that one of them would be born under a Cursed Star of Darkness. What he didn’t expect was that the cruelty of this era when the youngest child was born. Almost as if fulfilling his cursed birth, the hour he was born, mayhem broke, and the mother was slaughtered.

Yet, when the attendant of that day presented the babies to him, Sage did not see an ounce of evil within them. However, his assessments on the children were pushed back by more urgent matters--and ultimately never spoken aloud. Therefore, his wrongful decree stuck to the youngest like a curse he wished he could take back.

The boys were four years old now. Sage didn’t make it an everyday occasion to visit them, and he left the boys in the hands of caretakers that he had hired from the nearby village. He felt ashamed, and seeing the youngest child--Defteros--reminded him of his crime.

Something within him was itching to see the twins today. After all, it’s nearly been an entire month since he had checked up on their progress. After his various briefing with the current Gold Saints, Sage had Leo Ilias and Pisces Lugonis accompany him down to the living quarters within Sanctuary. It was a relatively small section where the attendants kept to themselves, and it was the only place Sage could send the orphaned children. As the Pope, he was allowed to come and go whenever he wished and dropping an unexpected visit was well within his right as the Sovereign.

It seemed like his visit to the ladies that were in charge of the boys was extremely abrupt.

As soon as he opened the door to the home, he felt the atmosphere become bitter. The little, dark-skinned boy, who had been running around the house with his brother in an impromptu game of tag, tripped and fell hard against the wood flooring. Sage’s eyes widened in shock, as did the Gold Saints who accompanied him--but a cacophony of cruel laughter assailed his ears.

“Look at this dumb bastard!” a woman’s shrill rang throughout the house, her cruel finger pointing to the four-year-old that groaned and struggled to his knees. Whatever toxicity the caretakers had been exposing to these boys, the lighter-skinned tot paid no mind. With heart and intentions pure, he waddled next to his fallen brother and helped him up.

When the little Defteros was on his unsteady feet, Sage’s mood darkened.

It appears he has, yet again, made a wrong judgment for the misfortunate child.

“How dare you!” Lugonis roared as he pushed past the Patriarch in his moment of blind rage; his eyes snapped to the women who laughed at the boy’s injury. At the man’s outburst, the ladies realized the Pope’s unannounced visit and hurried to stand proper as their faces became flushed from being caught in their cruelties. Lugonis didn’t care. He stood in front of the ladies, lecturing them about their lack of compassion for the child.

Sage had allowed Lugonis to yell at the women uninterrupted. He stepped into the house and placed a hand on Defteros’ brilliant, golden hair. The two boys didn’t seem to notice him, with Aspros pointing at a Defteros’ knees and muttering so low that Sage couldn’t hear it. The darker-skinned child was bruised and scratched all over his knees, legs, and ankles. And the culprit of the injuries was none other than the ill-fitted footwear the little boy wore. A lot of what the little boy was wearing did not fit the tiny, thin child. Defteros even had several bruises around his face, but it was hard to tell if they had formed from him falling a lot or if other types of abuses happened. On the other hand, Aspros didn’t have a single blemish--treated much better than his younger brother.

No doubt, this sort of disgusting injustice has been going on for a very long time, right under his nose.

How can a single child completely and utterly destroy the Grand Patriarch of Sanctuary just by being the victim of other’s cruel entertainment?

“Ilias,” Sage called for the Leo Gold Saint low enough not to interrupt Lugonis’ rage. He somehow managed to suppress the amount of shamed-filled agony that pulled at his heart. “Please, go find a better-suited caretaker for these children.” Ilias left with a silent nod, and Lugonis was at the tail end of his passionate rant. Sage felt his chest become too heavy with uncontrollable regret...

He bent his knees so that he can roughly be equal height to the young children. To his dismay, the little boys avoided his eye contact. They were aware of him, but it seemed they had been taught to avoid looking at adults directly. It shattered the older man’s spirit. How could he have been so blind?

“I’m so sorry,” Sage’s apology came in a hoarse whisper. The twin’s shifted their eyes to the ground before Aspros reached out and grabbed Defteros’ hand.

“Come on, Defteroulis,” Aspros hummed as he tugged his little brother away into the deeper parts of the house. Defteros allowed his brother to pull him along, trying his best not to trip over the too-large footwear. “Let’s go play more.”

Sage watched the boys scamper off, then stood up to full height after they had turned the corner to what he assumed was their bedroom. Lugonis had turned his attention from the irresponsible caretakers and lowered his head in guilt.

“I apologize,” the Pisces Saint grimaced as the words left his lips. “I didn’t mean to hurry past you, Holy Father... I just got so angry...” 

“I understand,” Sage inhaled calmly--oddly betraying whatever emotion was building inside of him. “After all, you have that little child. Naturally, a parent will get upset at the cruelties shoved upon innocent babes.”

The time-warn man told his Saint to hurry off. When he was alone with the group of women he had trusted the boys to--his sleeping ire opened its eyes.

[ofstormsandsaints]

Past Fashion in the Demon World - First Bloods

Reminiscence of the past

Let us be clear: the founder race is dying.

Their previous king's sanity had declined past the point of denial.

Didn't even try to save his people.

The mad king's overthrow - was planned by collective force.

The war. the End. the plague of the land.

And those still alive, erased from memory and then eaten away by the disease. Locked and sealed in the dark.

Vomiting blood and bitter regret.

Like the Great Roman Empire - Idleness and Decadence led to their downfall.

The war had ransacked everything. Every element of the past, of the golden age of the Ancestors. Endzeit took the living and left only meaningless trinkets of memory.

Burai kept some of those and even more: Menae's dresses, some of her jewellry...

and a daughter as the hidden remaining evidence of an ancient time. An ancient world he had conquered.

The two last remaining Founders. First children of the Moon

Today protect body and soul, the last bits of their glorious heritage.

The founder race thrived in the centre of the demon world

cold, dry winters

quite pleasant summers and mid-seasons full of soft colours.

mountainous land (not to the level of the Adler's but still high enough so they could get fresh gusts of wind), they towered over the other territories.

Their hegemony was supreme, at first even quite brilliant. They were self-sufficient, feared but respected.

Not the slightest interest in human civilisations. For them, humans were slaves, food, and entertainment.

At the top of the hierarchy, Founders were the reference of good taste and what was fashionable at the royal court would be in vogue everywhere else.

due to similar weather conditions, some elements of the First Blood fashion could be compared to a strange mix of old European apparel.

which is crazy because the timeline is so fucked up we don't even know where to situate the founders existence in human history because they were ahead of their time: from the clothes silhouette to the fabric used and the skills of their tailors.

Let's dive into blood into a 'brief' description of founders' fashion.

Aristocrats' clothing. Because like everywhere else, the world doesn't seem to care about how the commoners would dress. We prefer rare silks and gold over anything.

But the shiniest stars are always the dying ones.

Anyways-

male fashion

can be sum up in four points :

18th-century "habit à la française" (I'm french but I only read it with a fake British accent it's terrible)

Imperial Russian court and military uniforms

Alucard from Castlevania (especially the one from 1997)

and Bloodborne

what? I should develop?

the 18th-century/Alucard style. soft ruffled shirt, large embroidered silk cravat, heavy linen pants with high leather boots sat on top, again a goddamn cloak...on top of a pirate coat-

founders men were responsible for the "romantic vampire aesthetic" but Karlheinz will never admit it.

they liked form-fitting clothes, slightly tight on the chest because they wanted to accentuate the strong lines of their necks and outline their shoulders to make them look broader.

yeah they're insecure like that😔

overcoats heavy with wealth.

it could be brown, it could be blue, it could be violet-You see what I'm doing here.

some buttoned, some buckled but all embellished with stitches of silver and gold

long hair was a genderless preference.

Well. Women were expected to keep them long because blablabla women and feminity blablabla but for the men who chose to have long hair (like Carla) it was perceived as a sign of power??

like they considered that you have to be particularly deft or confident in your magical abilities to be able to fight with long hair (they're not particularly wrong though)

but I prefer to think that they liked long hair because it contributed a LOT to their dark romantic aesthetic.

anything for the drama.

female fashion

a glorious mix of 18th-19th century russian court fashion and... 50s old hollywood dresses. (don't ask me, they're stylish and visionary)

beautifully designed, from the delicate shape of a butterfly sleeve to the way it embraced the line of the shoulders

distinguishing and elegant, the off-shoulder elongated the neck and the low neckline was lined with small almost-transluscent pearls and silver threads to capture the light and make their skin radiates under the fine diamond necklaces.

corsets obviously but we are far from the killing corsets Cordelia could wear to have one hell of a waist. In comparison, they were comfortable (again, their tailors were that good)

silk opera gloves, sometimes lacy ones to match the men's stupid shirts 🙄

layered skirts but not the bulky type (not the Empress Sissi style). Founder women didn't like the ballooning silhouette and found it unattractive as it didn't do them any favour.

preferred drawing attention to their waist and cleavage but also to their height.

skirts had to compliment and accentuate the length of the body as the First Blood women were taller than most female demons. (well see Cordelia. She's the tallest among the three wives and I suspect her to be actually quite 'short' for a founder woman.)

their silhouette is almost fae-like: lithe, lean and strong despite being overprotected and confined to that castle 😔

so the skirts were long, organza or taffeta draped the main skirt to give some dimension to the dress - no crinoline. maybe a bustle to add a little to their hips and bums

because the Founders can only be killed by decapitation, they provocatively exposed their necks a lot in their clothing style.

open ruffs (like a smaller Medici collar), off-shoulder, v-neck or sweetheart necklines...

Fate being a cruel mistress, this small game of silent provocation was definitely not what caused their ruin.

But you know what happened.

Now most of these lavish gowns and sumptuous coats are just crumbs of inspiration from an old system, left to be pecked.

[weemsbotts]

The Disappearing Pitter Patter of Feet: The Colonial Girls Lost in Time

By: Lisa Timmerman, Executive Director

Participating in any of our outside walking tours, day or night, includes a trip to Dumfries Elementary Public School and Dumfries Cemetery. One ghost story specifically refers to the appearance of “colonial girls” and in a town filled with Civil War folklore, it is intriguing this particular association attached itself to the school. But if Dumfries Graded School and later Dumfries Elementary Public School operated in the early 1900s, why colonial ghost children?

In 06/19/1795, Mrs. Simson advertised the opening of her Boarding School in the Republican Journal and Dumfries Advertiser. “Where she intends teaching all kinds of needle-work, in silk and worsted; she also teaches the tambour and embroidery, with the art and elegance of shading, and taste in the arrangement of patterns.” She wished to “cultivate their young minds, as well as form their manners” flattering herself “that she has given satisfaction to the parents of those whom she has already had the honour to instruct – and gained the love of her pupils.” Besides for needlework, she advertised “reading, spelling, and writing taught with propriety”.

Mrs. Simson’s indicated that the Boarding School was “at the House of Thomas Lee, Esquire, on the Hill”. The famed Lee family owned property throughout Virginia including the Town of Dumfries and while both Colonel and former Governor of Virginia Thomas Lee and Thomas Ludwell Lee, Sr. died before the 1780s, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Jr. presumably placed a newspaper ad in the Alexandria Gazette on 09/17/1787 for persons wishing to rent “a large Commodious Store house in Dumfries, as well situated being nearly in the centre of the main streets…” Charles Lee also advertised in the same paper and date “…to be leased forever at public auction…about 15 lots situated in the town of Dumfries on the main street opposite to McDaniels Tavern being part of the square now occupied by Henderson, Ferguson & Gibson”. While the Lees rented and sold property in Dumfries, some to the Merchant family, the house “on the hill” likely referred to the area around the current Dumfries Elementary Public School.

In 18th century America, middle- and upper-class white families usually hired tutors to instruct their young daughters the basics of writing and arithmetic, with more advanced and skilled instruction in needlework, music, manners, and other forms of arts and crafts. If the parents could and were willing to send their daughters to a boarding school, they would hone their skills in needlework and come back with a “level up” – a finished needlework to display prominently in the home, discreetly (?) informing guests of the family’s wealth, sophistication, and refinement. These “female accomplishments” were important signals to a society focused on appearance and marriage. Virginia prohibited the gathering of enslaved children for the purpose of education extending from the constant white paranoia that educated enslaved persons were more likely to rebel. However, the Bray Schools in Virginia instructed enslaved persons in Christian education through biblical literacy. Both Williamsburg and Fredericksburg operated official Bray schools ranging from 1760-1774, although Fielding Lewis encountered low enrollment and white hostility forcing him to close the Fredericksburg location sooner.

Although siltation was an issue by 1795, the town of Dumfries still attracted people as the Henderson family resided in Dumfries and Mason Locke Weems had yet to purchase the lot for his book depository. However, we have so little information beyond the newspaper advertisement for the boarding school. Did anyone pay the fee to board their children? If so, which families took advantage of this offer and what were their experiences in Dumfries?

Interestingly, the Republican Journal and Dumfries Advertiser also included the following song in the same paper with Mrs. Simson’s advertisement, titled “Domestic Felicity”. Although not attributed to any person in the newspaper, this song appears in Isaiah Thomas, Jr.’s ed, “The Sky Lark: or Gentlemen and ladies’ complete songster. Being a collection of the most modern and celebrated American, English, and Scotch songs”.

“Though grandeur flies my humble roof,

Tho’ wealth is not my share,

Tho’ lowly is my little cot,

Yet happiness is there.

 *

A tender wife, with mild control,

By sympathy refin’d,

When rage the tumults of the breast,

Becalms my troubled mind.

 *

Three pledges of our mutual love,

Kind Providence has given,

And competence, to nurse their hopes,

Is all we ask of Heaven.

 *

Still, from the little we enjoy,

A little we dispense;

And watch the buddings of their mind

Just blossoming to sense.

 *

With arm entwin’d in arm we fit;

And join their hands to pray;

And teach the accents of their tongue,

To hail the rising day.

 *

At eve again they kneel and bless

The hours which are now past;

And hope their cherish’d virtues may

Prove happiness at last.

*

Accept, Great Father of us all;

Accept their little prayers,

And grant the nurslings of our youth

May crown our silver hairs.

*

Let those whose weak and infant limbs

With tenderness we guide,

Be props unto our age when down

The steep of life we glide.”

(Image: Instruction with Delight. Thomas, Isaiah. Little Robin Red Breast. A Little Pretty Pocket-book Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly. Massachusetts: Worcester, 1787. The Colonial Society of Massachusetts: 18th century Massachusetts Songsters, Volume 54, Music in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1820: Music in Homes and Churches)

While the “colonial girls” will not respond to repeated queries (naturally), they and all the ghosts, such as the enslaved persons, represent our quest to understand everyone living in Dumfries. While essays and books are continually written about the white male society, they are not the ghostly figures people claim to see in this town – instead, it is the ones whom society did not equate as equal.

Note: While our closed season begins on 11/01/2020, we will continue to offer online virtual tours! The online tour includes a meeting with the staff and a video of the house. Stay tuned for special virtual November Member programs along with news of possible holiday outside walking tours! Click here to access info regarding our latest & upcoming programs and tours!

(Sources: The Republican Journal and Dumfries Advertiser, No. VI, Vol 1, 06/19/1795; HDVI Archival Files: Dumfries – Town Lots, Newspaper Notices; University of Michigan Digital Text Collections: Evans Early American Imprint Collection Text Creation Partnership; MET: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: Peck, Amelia. American Needlework in the 18th Century, 10/2003; Library of Virginia & Virginia Humanities: Encyclopedia Virginia. Bly, Antonio. Slave Literacy and Education in Virginia)

[antonkusters]

Exhibition dynamics

Hey.

So much has gone into my current Mono No Aware + Yakuza exhibit – it's the largest one I've had in my career to date – that I thought it might be a good idea to describe some of the things happening behind the scenes.

The start

I was invited for a first conversation with Gerhard (the director) about 13 months ago. A simple premise: "next year is a city-wide celebration of the 25th anniversary of the city's relationship with Japan (Hasselt has an exquisite Japanese garden - the largest in Europe), your images often have a connection to Japan, might we find common ground?" As Hasselt is my home town, everything seemed like a very nice potential fit. Gerhard had seen Yakuza exhibited before, and Mono No Aware at Ingrid Deuss in Antwerp. In the larger whole of the city wide celebrations, it seemed logical to display both bodies of work, and to focus on the newer, mostly unseen work of Mono No Aware. They would each get a separate space in the building.

The sketches

As Mono No Aware only ever had been partially exhibited, a lot of production would still have to happen. And I was unsure about impact the huge space of the cultural centre would have on my work. My first sketches started out to try and make the space drastically smaller and more intimate. rooms within rooms, literally creating an environment which could be completely controlled. A natural instinct I suppose:

The elements

As you can imagine, this proved to be too expensive... I had to find a way to work with the space instead of against it. Because I've extensively used Japanese rice paper and goza mats in installations before, maybe they'd come in handy this time as well. Even though the sketches were very basic, they were excited to go for the key elements of high walls, circles, rice paper, goza mats and colour. I could start making a production dossier next.

The dossier

Over the next couple of months all elements of the production had to be dealt with, and in the dossier I would end up including the following things - in no particular order:

a collection of installation views of previous exhibits (so I could reassure everyone that I did indeed know what I was doing)

a list of assumptions specific to the organisation and location

the overall concept of the exhibit and its installation + whatever is tailored to the space/organisation/event

synopsis of each project

a cv and bio, publication tearsheets

a visual overview of the installation elements needed

a complete edit of all the images of the Mono No Aware project (and Yakuza too of course)

current status: what existed already and what not (production-wise)

a general timeline

a budget proposal (artwork production, framing, installation production, artist fees)

transport requirements, storage requirements

personal thoughts and questions

exhibition histories of both projects

specific production sheets for the lab, the frame maker, etc.

Production time

As soon as the budget was approved, I could start production... First setting in motion the things that would reasonably be expected to take the longest or have insecure delivery dates, i.e. ordering the custom made goza mats and rice paper in Japan and getting them shipped to Belgium and through customs. Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law this all went without a hitch.

A schedule of days reserved for the build up was spread out over 3 weeks in April, starting on the 3rd, and the opening being on the 23rd (with a private viewing on the 22nd). The first week would be used for construction of the walls and the painting, while we started sewing the mats. The second week the system to hang up the rice papers would be tested, and on the 18th all the artwork would be delivered and everything would come together.

2D and 3D

Most of my time went into designing the actual exhibit, while communicating with the technical staff along the way as to where they might foresee problems installing, visitor flow, or anything else.

In this specific case, the exhibition space doubled as the foyer of a theatre (seating 900), so I needed to take this reality into account. As a bonus, this also meant that most probably many more people would see the exhibit, literally passing through it on their way to watch a play or a concert.

3D helps me to get a grasp on variables that I can't see in 2D. However, I still always start with sketching on paper, then printing and cutting out all the images and laying them out on a floor plan / wall plan, slowly moving to digital along the way.

In the meantime, things start appearing in the press, and my control strips arrive from the lab. More work to be done. Images are to be printed on different media and across very different sizes (from tiny 8.5x11inch to massive 9ft wide posters), and every digital file needs to be dealt with individually.

Erwin, head technician, tells me it's time to deliver the wall colours: I verify each color with its corresponding color code so the paint can be mixed. The walls need to be painted about 10 days in advance so they can dry thoroughly and self-adhesive posters (or anything else that needs to be stuck) can be applied safely.

All in the while, the tech guys are building the walls. Also a test shoji screen is made at a 1:2 scale. Paint is delivered and painting begins.

And then they deliver the outside banner.

The final stretch

Time for the final stretch. In the last week, everything comes together as the artwork all gets delivered on the same day:

framed images from the framer

posters from the lab

vinyl letters and stickers from the lab

printed huge rice papers from the lab

the custom shoji screens

already produced works from my storage space

I print a paper for every single wall, with a visualisation and all necessary measurements. They remain on the walls until final inspection, so everyone working on a wall has all information at all times.

Sewing goza mats

One of the longest works of this exhibit was the stitching together the goza mats. Everything needed to be sewn together by hand in specific patterns for specific parts of the exhibit. Almost 200 mats in total, it took us four full days with a team of 6 people. Without my family I would've never been able to pull this off. Thanks a million everyone...

Then the posters are installed, the artworks are hung, the rice paper is cut to size and the vinyl letters are attached: we're nearing completion.

At the very last moment we have to hang the final rice papers from the ceiling, which takes a full day and a half. A few hours later, the vernissage.... and all stress melts away.

I'm so incredibly grateful to be able to work with my family and such dedicated and professional people, and an organisation that believed in the concept in the first place. Needless to say, you must come and see... it's totally worth it, I promise.

As a final bonus, here's a video walkthrough.

Have fun, and see you soon,

[travelworldnetwork]

By Justin Calderon

8 January 2019

There is a competitive nature that permeates through Malta so raw and unbridled that it’s written into the skyline of its capital, Valletta, and permeates across all walks of life on the archipelago.

I’m talking about pika – a Maltese word that roughly means ‘a neighbourly rivalry’, but is one of those terms that feels like a fool’s errand when foreigners try to interpret it.

Pika is, as Professor George Cassar, who teaches heritage and cultural tourism at the University of Malta explained, what drives Maltese to outdo their immediate rivals. Usually, this rivalry involves followers of different saints within the same town – a ‘this-town-isn’t-big-enough-for-both-of-us’ attitude – and ranges from benign sportsmanship to premeditated aggression.

View image of Malta’s competitive nature is written into the skyline of its capital, Valletta (Credit: Credit: Hemis/Alamy)

You may also be interested in: • South Africa’s unique way to protest • The Indian town with major attitude • Is Singapore suffering from FOMO?

“Pika is what drove the Maltese in 1958 to tear down and rebuild the Carmelite Basilica that today defines Valletta’s horizon with a 42m-high dome, just to overshadow the Anglican Cathedral next door,” he said.

Pikais also what brought about a man getting hit over the head with a flowerpot, according to the Times of Malta, during a festival in August last year. Meanwhile, just less than two weeks later, two parishes exchanged sacrilegious insults about their rivals’ Virgin Mary statue – ‘Ours is the most beautiful statue. Yours is the ugliest in Malta’; also an example of pika.

That these last two events took place so close in time is no coincidence. Every year, Malta’s festa season, when villages celebrate their patron saints by throwing big feasts, peaks between June and September. At this time, pika summons the islands’ hot-blooded Mediterranean spirit to the fore, as parishes compete in a paradoxically sacrilegious celebration of the sacred. Rivalries have become so intense that festas have had to be partially cancelled, the most recent in 2004, due to the threat of violence.

View image of In 1958, pika drove the Maltese to tear down the Carmelite Basilica and rebuild it to feature a 42m-high dome (Credit: Credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy)

Year after year, followers of respective patron saints attempt to outspend and outdo their neighbouring parish in a contentious crusade for showmanship that seems truly fit for the descendants of the Knights Hospitaller, the medieval sect of Catholic warriors from Jerusalem that ruled Malta for about 300 years from 1530. To this day, Maltese festa pageantry, artefacts and ornaments take cues from the Baroque style that defined the 17th- and 18th-Century architecture of the Order of St John, such as the hand-held carriage that transports the statue of the saint to the festa’s main stage, and the hand-carved wooden centrepiece for the Sunday feast. In recent years, festas have included competing theatre companies and a new record for hoisting 711 flags in a village.

“Various parts of Malta are hotter on the pika register than others,” Cassar had informed me. So I visited one of these towns last November hoping to get a better grasp on the concept. Located in central Malta, the town of Qormi hosts an intense rivalry between followers of St George and St Sebastian that has built up a reputation over the past years, and I went to learn why.

Mario Cardona, a St Sebastian supporter, anthropologist and professor at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, picked me up at my hotel in northern Malta for the 30-minute drive to Qormi, about halfway across the island. (When there is no traffic, Malta can feel incredibly small.)

View image of As Malta’s festival season approaches, pika summons the islands’ hot-blooded Mediterranean spirit to the fore (Credit: Credit: Justin Calderon)

The following of saints in Malta dates back to the Middle Ages, including the cult of St George in Qormi, Cardona told me as we drove. But St Sebastian wasn't venerated here until 1813, when the plague hit Malta and villagers vowed to build a statue of the patron saint of epidemics in exchange for delivery from the outbreak.

We pulled up to a fork in the road in the centre of a town painted the colour of desert sand, redolent to this traveller of the rocks that compose Jerusalem, and certainly closer in appearance to cities on the southern side of the Mediterranean. After all, the Arabs left a mark on Malta that lingers until today via the island’s language, which is by far more Arabic in origin than Italian. Yet Malta is still very much a European nation, one that has long remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church.

Rivalries exhibited on Malta have an additional spark of vitriol that is something uniquely Maltese

“Pika is Mediterranean,” said Cassar, explaining that Spain and Italy also are wont to display colourful festival rivalries. “But the closest example to our festa is the Sicilian type.” For example, like Maltese celebrations, Sicilian festas carry the statue of the patron saint along the streets of the town – and Sicilians are also very partial to over-the-top firework displays.

Yet, the rivalries exhibited on Malta have an additional spark of vitriol that is something uniquely Maltese.

View image of The following of saints in Malta dates back to the Middle Ages (Credit: Credit: Hemis/Alamy)

We arrived at a building whose beige stone façade was adorned with hundreds of large light bulbs and a draped green banner – the colour favoured by followers of St Sebastian in Qormi.

Beneath the banner, Cardona’s fellow St Sebastian supporters were waiting for me, including the president of their association, known in Malta as a ‘band club’.

Band clubs are volunteer organisations that are found throughout islands. As their name suggests, they are gathering halls for marching bands – a legacy of British military bands – but they’re also social clubs, equipped with bars, pool halls and even a radio station, as well as informal religious links to the church with their own chaplain and chapel.

Band clubs in Malta are also the epicentre of the most competitive forms of pika. Just by visiting the St Sebastian band club, I joked that they could use this interview as material for next year’s festa, which aroused a wide-eyed expression in one man, who appeared to already be cooking up a dubious plan how to outshine the neighbouring St George band club the following summer.

View image of Followers of respective patron saints attempt to outspend and outdo their neighbouring parish during Malta’s festa season (Credit: Credit: Victor Paul Borg/Alamy)

Last year, St Sebastian’s festa was predictably extravagant. In the week-long celebrations, according Cardona, their band club spent €100,000 on sumptuous feasts, gigantic fireworks displays and imported entertainment, including a special appearance by UK X Factor winner Ben Haenow in Qormi – a town of about 16,000 people.

“Pika is the need to keep making things bigger in order to outdo your rival,” Cardona told me. “It’s having to satisfy a need to constantly prove to yourself, to your kin and to outsiders. Rather than going for what is beautiful and entertaining, we go for what would be a first in our village.”

The size of Malta, the EU’s smallest nation with a population of around 430,000, may offer the best clue as to why rivalries here are so intense. “Geographical smallness intensifies rivalry and pika, as people can easily monitor what their neighbours are doing, thinking and saying,” Cassar said. “The competitive instinct in human beings does the rest.”

View image of Band clubs are at the heart of Maltese festas, as well as the epicenter of the most competitive forms of pika (Credit: Credit: Justin Calderon)

On the second floor of the St Sebastian band club, in a room resembling a hall in an Italian museum that included an €80,000 crystal chandelier and a painting of Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca from the Order of St John, Cardona and three other men continued to mull over the current state of pika on the islands.

“When the festa season comes, everyone likes to spend as lavishly as possible,” chimed Charles Saliba, secretary of the St Sebastian band club. In some ways, it’s bigger than Christmas; the village festas draw back the Maltese diaspora and are a time when old friends reunite.

“How much influence does the church have in your affairs today?” I probed while examining a long timeline of portraits of Catholic chaplains hung on the wall behind Cardona.

“The church takes the charge of the internal sacred part of the feast, and the band club organises its own feast. Sometimes the church priest will get involved if he doesn't like some lyrics we have written,” giggled Charles Spiteri, the band club’s president, alluding to the church’s attempts to censor the more profane material that rival parishes tend to publish, including songs, posters and banners about their saint.

View image of In Qormi, a rivalry exists between residents who follow St George and those who follow St Sebastian (Credit: Credit: Hemis/Alamy)

“My personal opinion,” said the fourth man, John Camilleri, “and maybe they don't agree with me; I don't care much.” They all laughed. “I blame the church for a big part of the pika in Malta.”

“It’s true!” applauded the band club president.

“In Maltese festas, favouritism is exhibited by priests supporting one saint over another, who elect their favoured parish to hold the grandest feast while their rivalries are forced to hold a less-decorated ‘secondary feast’,” Camilleri explained.

“Some priests even count lightbulbs in the secondary feast to see that they didn't have as many as the primary feast. Secondary feasts cannot light up the dome of a church, either,” he said. “This creates a lot of pika.”

View image of No church leader has ever really managed to control Maltese pika during the festa season (Credit: Credit: parkerphotography/Alamy)

In 2002, the Archdiocese of Malta tried to reign in the unruliness of Maltese festas, fearing that they were damaging church decorum, but the attempt ultimately fell flat. Efforts to set up a censorship board to eliminate all provocative materials from the festas and other measures failed, and the church official that led the campaign became “rather disliked” on the islands, Cassar explained diplomatically.

This is nothing new in Malta. “No bishop has ever really managed to control Maltese pika. It’s always the one against the many – and without its faithful the church is nothing,” Cassar affirmed.

It’s having to satisfy a need to constantly prove to yourself, to your kin and to outsiders

Yet, although festa expense and showmanship seems to be ever increasing, the level of decorum seems to have improved in Malta in recent decades, with or without the exhortations of the church. Camilleri remembers much more vulgar festas in his youth. “On one occasion, they painted chickens red (the colour of their band club) and threw them on their opponents to say that they were chickens,” he chuckled. “On another occasion, when a march of a rival band was passing by, someone threw urine over the people from the balcony.”

Thank the saints those days are long gone.

Join more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

BBC Travel