Albanian tribes
In contrast, bashkësi (literally, association) refers to a community of the same ancestry that has not been established territorially in a given area that is its traditional home region.
[10] Malësia e Madhe (great highlands) contained five large tribes, four of which (Hoti, Kelmendi, Shkreli, Kastrati) having a Catholic majority and Muslim minority and with Gruda evenly split between both religions.
[10] During times of war and mobilisation of troops, the bajraktar (chieftain) of Hoti was recognised by the Ottoman government as leader of all forces of the Malësia e Madhe tribes, having collectively some 6,200 rifles.
[10] The government estimated the military strength of Malësors in İşkodra sanjak as numbering over 30,000 tribesmen and Ottoman officials were of the view that the highlanders could defeat Montenegro on their own with limited state assistance.
[10] Among Gheg Malësors of the highlands, the fis is headed by the oldest male (kryeplak) and forms the basic unit of tribal society.
[20] Officials of the Late Ottoman period noted that Malisors preferred that their children learn the use of a weapon and refused to send them to government schools that taught Turkish, which was viewed as a form of state control.
[20] In southern Albania, the social system is based on the house (shpi or shtëpi) and the fis, which consists of a patrilineal kinship group and an exogamous unit composed of members with some property in common.
[22] The patrilineal kinship ties are defined by the concept of "blood" (gjak) including moral and physical characteristics that are shared by all the members of a fis.
[23] According to Pouqueville these forms of social organizations disappeared with the dominion of the Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha, and definitely ended in 1813.
After annexing Suli and Himara into his semi-independent state in 1798, he tried to organize the judiciary in every city and province according to the principle of social equality, enforcing his laws for the entire population, Muslims and Christians.
[30] Ali Pasha also reached an agreement with the Kurveleshi population not to trespass their territories, which at that time were larger than the area they inhabit today.
Northern Albanian tribes often exploited their position and negotiated their peripherality in profitable ways, which also affected their national program; its significance and challenges are different from those in southern Albania.
[36] Such peripheral territories are zones of the dynamic creation of culture, where it is possible to manipulate regional and national histories to the advantage of certain individuals and groups.
[39] Western Kosovo was also an area where Ottoman rule among highlanders was minimal to non-existent and government officials would ally themselves with local power holders to exert any form of authority.
[12] Western Kosovo was dominated by the Albanian tribal system where Kosovar Malisors settled disputes among themselves through mountain law.
[20] Albanian tribes from the Dibra region governed themselves according to the Law of Skanderbeg (kanun), named after a fifteenth century warrior who fought the Ottomans.
[20] Nineteen percent of male deaths in İşkodra vilayet and 600 fatalities per year in Western Kosovo were from murders caused by vendetta and blood feuding during the late Ottoman period.
[41][45] Albanian tribes swore oaths to jointly fight against the government and in this respect the besa served to uphold tribal autonomy.
[citation needed] During the Great Eastern Crisis, Prenk Bib Doda, hereditary chieftain of Mirdita initiated a rebellion in mid-April 1877 against government control and the Ottoman Empire sent troops to put it down.
[50] During the Eastern Crisis and subsequent border negotiations in April 1880, Italy suggested that the Ottoman Empire give Montenegro the Tuz district, containing mainly Catholic Gruda and Hoti populations, which would have split between them both countries.
[51] The tribes affected by the negotiations swore a besa (pledge) to resist any reduction of their lands and sent telegrams to surrounding regions asking for military assistance.
They were commonly referred to as a "wild" (Turkish: vahşi) and backward people living poverty and ignorance for 500 years, and hostile to civilisation and progress.
[52] In areas of Albania were Malisors lived, the empire only posted Ottoman officers who had prior experience in other tribal regions of the state like Kurdistan or Yemen that could bridge cultural divides with Gheg tribesmen.
Some Albanians strongly disproved of blood feuding, seeing it as inhumane and uncivilised, and an unnecessary waste of life that created social disruption, lawlessness and economic dislocation.
[54] To resolve this problem, Ottoman officials formed Blood Feud Reconciliation Commissions (musalaha-ı dem komisyonları) that produced results with limited success.
[46] In the late Ottoman period, due to the influence of Catholic Franciscan priests, some reduction of blood feuding among Albanian highlanders was achieved.
[58] Malisors planned further resistance and Albanian tribes living near the border fled into Montenegro while negotiating terms with the Ottomans for their return.
[58] The Ottoman military commander Mahmud Shevket concluded that the Bajraktars had become Albanian nationalists and posed a danger to the empire compared to previous uprisings.
[60] The last tribal system of Europe in northern Albania stayed intact until 1944 when Albanian communists seized power, ruling the country for half a century.
Malësia e Madhe, in the Northern Albanian Alps between Albania and Montenegro, historically has been the land of ten bigger and three smaller tribal regions.
