244 



NA TURE 



{July 15, 1880 



and from the latter seems to have been formed, 3, 

 Arnaitt, the general Turkish designation, though more 

 strictly applicable to the Muhammadan Albanians. Thus 

 Arnaut, Albanian, and Shkipetar, all traceable to roots 

 meaning rock, height, would be practically synonomous, 

 and aptly descriptive of an essentially " highland " race. 



VI. Three Main Ethnical Divisions. —i. Ghcg 

 (Gepides) in Upper Albania, as far south as River 

 Shkunibi, and penetrating eastwards across the Morava 

 Valley nearly to Sophia, with detached enclaves in Servia, 

 but on the other hand partly Slavonised on the Montene- 

 grin frontier. Elsewhere the Ghegs are taken as the 

 purest representatives of the old lUyrian stock. This 

 word, the origin of which is unknown, was a term of 

 contempt originally applied to them by their southern 

 kinsmen. It has thus come into general use, although 

 never employed by the people themselves, who use either 

 the collective designation Shkipetar or the particular 

 name of their tribe. 2. Toshk or Tosl: (Toskides) in 

 Central and Lower Albania, wherever not Hellenised. 

 Originally confined to the Toskides proper of Toskeria, 

 a small district on the right bank of the Lower Voyussa 

 north-west of Topedelen, this word has also gradually 

 acquired general currency, and so far differs from tlic 

 corresponding Gheg that it is accepted and used by the 

 people themselves, at least throughout the whole of the 

 Voyussa basin. 3. The Epirols of the Vilayet Yanina 

 from the remotest times largely intermingled with the 

 Dorian Greeks, and now almost completely Hellenised. 

 The term is of course rather geographical than ethnical, 

 but very convenient in view of the political changes 

 now pending in this district. In connection with these 

 changes it will be useful to note that the Pindus range 

 bet\veen Epirus and Thessaly is occupied by the Kutzo- 

 Vlachs (the Kara-Guni or " IJlack Capots " of the Turks), 

 with decided Hellenic proclivities,"religious, political, and 

 social, though still speaking a corrupt Rumanian (neo- 

 Latin) tongue. Even in Epirus the Toshk itself, wherever 

 still spoken, is largely mixed with Greek elements, and 

 most of the Toshks themselves are here bilingual, speaking 

 Greek and their mother tongue indifferently, while in 

 Yanina, capital of the vilayet, Greek has long been 

 supreme. Consequently the contemplated transfer of this 

 territory to Greece, with which it has been uninterruptedly 

 associated from prehistoric times,^ cannot seriously affect 

 the integrity of the Albanian race or do any undue 

 violence to their legitimate national aspirations. 



VII. Three Religions: i. Muhammadan every- 

 where, but rather more general in the south than the 

 north ; 2. Orthodox Greek, almost exclusively in the 

 south ; 3. Roman Calholic, of Latin rite, almost exclu- 

 sively in the north. From this it follows that the Ghegs 

 arc partly JNIoslem, partly Roman Catholic ; the Toshks 

 partly Moslem, and partly Orthodox Greek ; the respective 

 numbers being as under, as far as any such estimates can 

 at all be depended upon in Turkey : — 



Moslem. Orthodox Greek. Catholic (Lat'.ii). Total. 



Ghegi ... 400,000 ... 50,000 ... 150,000 ... 600,000 

 Toshks ... 600,000 ... 200,000 ... — ... 800,000 



The diffusion of Muhammadanism no more implies the 

 presence of Turki elements in Albania than it does in 

 Hcrzegovinia or amongst the Bulgarian Pomaks of the 

 Rhodope Mountains. Like causes have produced like 

 results in all these places, and in Albania, when resist- 

 ance ceased with the death of George Castriota, most of 

 the influential and better classes adopted Islam, while the 

 peasantry, who never had much to lose or gain either way, 

 remained christian. We sometimes hear it said that 

 religion is a racial test in Turkey, but from this it is 

 evident that the statement can be true only in a negative 

 sense. It is safe to say that here no Christians are of 



* Here were the famous Oracle of Dodona and the no less fam:us rivers 

 Acheron and Cocytus, which play such a conspicuous part in Greek mytht 



Tiu'ki Stock ; but the converse is -i-ery far from being the 

 case, for we see from this table that in .-Mbania alone 

 there are no less than i,ooo,coo Muhammadans who are 

 not of Tiu-ki, but of Illyrian stock, apart always from a 

 few Osmanli officials and others in the large towns. 



Tribes.— It is not a little remarkable that the country 

 which might almost be regarded as the cradle of European 

 civilisation has itself remained nearly stationary since the 

 rude Dorians issued forth from the mountains of Epirus 

 to the conquest of Peloponnesus. Of all the western 

 Aryans the Albanians alone have remained in a semi- 

 pastoral state, and retained the primitive tribal organisa- 

 tion. Both branches of the race, but especially the Ghegs, 

 are still divided into a considerable mnnber of phis or 

 pilar} that is, clans or septs, some of which, such as the 

 Suliots in the south, and the I\Iirdites in the north, have 

 acquired historic renown. George Castriota, the Scander- 

 beg, or "Alexander the Great " of the Turks, who almost 

 single-handed for thirty years stemmed the torrent of 

 Osmanli conquest, was Prince of the ISIirdites, and, the 

 astounding valour and self-devotion of the Suliots form 

 one of the most stirring episodes in the Grarco-Turkish 

 wars during the early part of the present century. Recently 

 also such tribal names as those of the Klementi, Hotti, 

 Dukazin and others have been heard of in connection 

 with the present political troubles on the Montenegrin and 

 Albanian frontiers. As such troubles are likely to be of a 

 protracted character, pending the definite settlement of 

 the new northern and southern frontier lines, the readers 

 of Nature will probably be glad to have in the annexed 

 table a complete classification of all the Albanian tribes : — 



MiRDlTES : — Dukazin ; Dibri ;'.M.it3 or Matia ; Oroshi 



Fandi ; Kushneni, Spachi ; Kuchi 

 PuLATi : — Giovagni ; Planti ; Kiri ; Sumraa ; 



Toplana; Dushmani ; Shalla ; ShosW 

 Other semi- ) Klementi ; Hotti ; Shrelli ; Kastrati 

 independent \ Rechiluho ; Rioli ; Posripa ; Kopliki 



tribes. ) Grica Gruemir ; Busagwit ; Grudda ; Trepchi 



To:-hks proper of Toskeria ; Yapides or Liapes ; 

 Kheimariots ; Khamides or Khumis 

 Tyames; Suliots 



Of all the tribal associations by far the most important 

 are the Mirdites, who, although numbering scarcely over 

 20,000 altogether, form a powerful political factor in the 

 country. They constitute a Roman Catholic oligarchy, 

 whose chief town is Orosh, where resides their prince or 

 chief The confederacy is fully recognised by the Porte, 

 to which it is tributary. Amongst them has long been 

 prevalent the custom of marrying none but Turkish, or 

 rather Muhammadan, women, carried off from the plains 

 and baptised in the mountains. Their territory lies 

 chiefly south of the Drin, and with the Pulati ("Men of 

 the Woods "), Klementi, Hotti, and other highland tribes 

 between the head streams of that river and Lake Skutari, 

 they are often collectively called Malliesor or "Black 

 Mountaineers." - But they must not on that account be 

 confounded with the neighbouring Montenegrins, as some 

 writers have recently done.' 



Of the Toshk tribes the most influential are the Toshks 

 proper on both banks of the Lower Voyussa ; the Yapides 

 or Yagys, who are the Lapides, Liapes, or Lapes of the 

 Greeks, on the Akrokeraunian coast range as far south 



» Terms prohably referable to the same Aryan roots as the Greek <("Ti;, 

 implying blood relationship, and (pparpla, a wider tribal signification. 



^ From 7«rt/, mountain, and y, black. . 



3 F. Bianconi (" Ethnographic et Statisque de la Turquie d Europe, 

 Paris. 1877), speaking of the Kuchi, Klementi, Pulati, and Matl.says 

 (p. 45) that " toutes ces races sont Slaves." But Ritter zur 

 (•' Die Volker des osmanischen Reiches, Vienna, 1877), 

 accuracy, includes them amongst the i 

 Vilayet of Skutari. So also E. Reclu: 

 Martin (Art. Albanie, p 59) :— " Leurs t 

 du Drin inferieur, entre les confluence: 

 llcuve et le lac de Scutari les Klcmc, 

 Ponlati, ou gens des forets." 



Samo 

 th his usual 

 jdependent Albanian tribes of the 

 (I. p. 188) and Vivien de Saint- 

 ibus les plus notables sont au nord 

 des deux branches sup^rieurs du 

 ti, les Iloti, les Kaslrati, el les 



