The traditional Maltese qoffa wicker basket risks extinction unless something is done to revive interest in the dying trade used to make it, according to 81-year-old John Mifsud who has been weaving cane shopping baskets since he was six.

“Apart from me there are just a few old men – I’d say two or three at most – who still make the Maltese qoffa. When we die, it’ll be the end,” Mr Mifsud said.  

The Maltese qoffa, he said, can be distinguished from other cane shopping baskets because it is made of local, yellowish cane and has a few lawyers of darker strands.  

Mr Mifsud recalled a time when there was a type of wicker basket for everything. Apart from the qoffa, which served as a shopping bag, there were special baskets to carry strawberries, for bingo, the ones farmers used for vegetables and those used to keep ferrets for the purpose of rabbit hunting.

“When the bikini came to Malta I couldn’t keep up with the workload,” he added. “Their mothers did not let them wear the bikini. So they used to put it in the qoffa and put a towel over it. They’d wear it later.”

But the qoffa took a strong blow when plastic shopping bags took over, and he does not believe there was hope of the qoffa ever returning. 

See video above.