Gashi (tribe)
Their tribal region is based on the valleys of the Llugaj and Bushtrica rivers, bordering the Krasniqi to the west, the Bytyçi to the south over the Luzha Pass (Qafa e Luzhës), and the Morina (tribe) to the southeast.
[6] According to tradition, recorded by Baron Nopcsa in 1907, the ancestor of Shllaku was named "Can Gabeti", one of four brothers (the others were the founder of the Gashi, Toplana and Megulla).
Their settlement in Serma was short-lived, and they moved to their current location at around 1660 after Catholic members of the tribe killed 2 imams.
Begolli Bey of Peja had his troops surround the tribe and force them to move to a new region (the Highlands of Gjakova) where the native population called Anas lived.
[8] Gabeti, said to have been an Orthodox Christian from Montenegro, came across the original native population who were the ancestors of the Kolë Pep Fura family and whose last male descendant died about 1900.
[9] Baron Nopsca believes that the Gashi separated from the Toplana and Shllaku tribes at around 1524 or possibly somewhat earlier, probably as a result of the first Ottoman war in Albania.
Historical reference is made to another ancestral father of the Gashi called Leka, the son of Pjetër Spani, who lived in the settlement of Selimaj (Gegëhysen) in the second half of the fifteenth century.
[19] In the years 1690-1693, the village of Gash was burned down by the Pasha of Peja and its population was expelled to the Llap region in Kosovo.
[20] Nonetheless, some families either returned to their original territories or escaped persecution, as in 1693–1697, the Gash villages of Luzhë and Botushë appear in documents.
Halil Pasha lead a force of approximately 15,000 soldiers, mostly recruited from members of the northern Albanian tribes, but also from the sanjaks of Elbasan, Ohrid, Vlora, and Delvina.
Under the leadership of Mic Sokoli and Binak Alia, the Gashi, Krasniqi, Bytyçi and Nikaj-Mertur tribes organized a resistance near Bujan.
[26] The Gashi tribe, led by Ali Ibra and Haxhi Brahimi, participated in the Battle of Nokshiq in Montenegro, in which the Albanian League of Prizren defeated a numerically superior Montenegrin force.
Sulejman Aga Batusha of Botushë was a chieftain of the Gashi tribe, acting as their leader in the Gjakova region during the early 20th century and participating in many uprisings against the Ottoman Empire.
According to legend, there are two villages (Luzha and Botusha) in the Highlands of Gjakova where the Albanian population of the older Gashi tribe of the 17th century continues to live.
Due to their constant resistance against Ottoman rule, the Gashi tribe were repeatedly punished via military expeditions, which led to the departure of the population from their initial settlements and a gradual conversion to Islam in the years 1690-1743.
According to legend, the Shipshani are descendants of the Albanian Kall Kamberi, who had 3 sons - Gegë, Buçë and Papë Kalla - who lived about 14-15 generations ago.
[35] The geographical origin of the three brothers is not completely certain, but it is known that Gegaj, Buçaj and Papaj are settlements of the Shipshani, and that the first two generations of the tribe were of the Catholic faith.
[36] Historical records from the 17th century indicate that most residents of the Gashi village in Pult were forcibly resettled by the Ottomans in Llap as a punishment for their anti-Ottoman stance during the Austro-Turkish War of 1683-1699.
The newly emerged branch on the YFull tree is approximately 650 years old,[39] while many others with STR tests almost certainly belong to this lineage too.
[45][46][47][48][49] Apart from their nucleus in Highlands of Gjakova, brotherhoods and families stemming from the Gashi tribe are found in traditionally Albanian-inhabited territories in Kosovo, Serbia, North Macedonia and northern Albania.
Among the oldest data on the presence of the Gashi in Kosovo is the aforementioned report from 1697, which states: “The village of Gashi with 120 houses, which were evicted from Pasha of Peja, are now located in the area of Kosovo, in a place called Llap, who are living there for 8 years, which are without priests and have begun to become Turkish (Muslim) and schismatic due to the lack of Catholic priests".
