In Albania With the Ghegs

8/9/2019 In Albania With the Ghegs

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IN ALBANIA WITH THE GHEGS

MAYHEW, Athol

Scribners MonthlyVolume 21, Issue 3

January 1881

Fierce are Albanias children, yet they lack

Not virtues, were those virtues more mature.

Where is the foe that ever saw their back?

Who can so well the toil of war endure?

Their native fastnesses not more secure

Than they in doubtful time of troublous need;

Their wrath how deadly! But their friendship sure

When Gratitude or Valor bids them bleed,

Unshaken rushing on whereer their chief may lead.Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Canto II.


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TOMB OF SKANDERBEG AT ALESSIO

On the eastern shores of the Adriatic, at the southern extremity of the olive-clad coast ofDalmatia, a short distance beyond Cattaro, the Austrian rule over the Slav ceases, and the

Turkish province of Albania begins. Geographically, the position of the country is described as

conterminous with the ancient Epirus and with the southern provinces of ancient Illyria, andas including part of the classic soil of Macedonia and Chaonia. The serrated coast of Albania is

washed in the north by the waters of the Adriatic, and bv the Gulf of Arta in the south. On the

east it is separated from Servia and the Turkish province of Rumili by the rocky barrier of the

Pindus and Scardus Mountains; Greece lies upon its southern frontier, and to the north it isbounded by Montenegro and Bosnia. From north to south Albania is barely three hundred miles

in length, or a trifle shorter than Ireland; from the sea eastward to the Pindus and Scardus chain

it nowhere extends inland beyond one hundred miles at its northern or broadest extremity, andthis narrows down to thirty on the southern border. Ethnologically, Albania is broadly divided

by the two great tribes or clans of Ngege, Ghegides, or Ghegs, who inhabit northern or Illyrian

Albania, and the Toskides, or Tosks, who people the southern or Epirotic portion of thecountry. Colonel Leake and Johann George von Hahn, the only reliable authorities on the


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subject of Albania, mention a third clan called the Liape, a poor and predatory race who live in

the mountains between the Toke and Delvius. The principal Gheg towns are Dulcigno, Scutari,

and Durazzo, and the chief Tosk cities are Berat and Elbassan. The Albanians themselves,however, know no such scientific distinctions as Gheg or Tosk. In their own language, which

recent research has pronounced to be an independent branch of the Indo-European family and,according to Humboldt, the floating plank of a vessel that has been sunk in the ocean of timeand lost for ages, they call themselves Scipetaar, or highlanders. The Turks in a like manner

ignore all tribe distinctions, and term them broadlyArnauds.

ALBANIAN HORSE WITH WOODEN PACK-SADDLE

The common belief is that Albania is thinly peopled. Square mile for square mile, no country on

the borders of Albania possesses more populous centers. Scutari alone, the capital of the north,has a population of almost 27,000, and Joannina, the metropolis of the south, has quite as many

inhabitants; Ochrida, Prisrend, Elbassan, and Berat are all considerable cities; nor are the minor

towns of Dulcigno, Alessio, Durazzo, Croya, Jakova, and Ipek by any means thinly peopled.Hardly more exact is Dr. Arnolds oft-quoted saying that Albania is one of those ill-fated

portions of the earth which, though placed in immediate contact with civilization, has remainedperpetually barbarian. Disguised in one form or another, this opinion has given color toEnglish encyclopedias, until Albania has come to be regarded as a very Botany Bay in moral

geographya black, barbaric spot in Europe surrounded by a perfect halo of Slav civilization.

That its people are, as yet, very far from the acme of civilization, all who know them willreadily admit; but that they are so wofully behind the social advancement of their Slav

neighbors is easy enough to disprove.


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In the first place, the Albanians are not only industrious and skilled in various handicrafts, but

the country has several representative manufactures which would not disgrace the art

productions of our Western capitals. Can this be said of the Montenegrins, the Bosnians, or theServians ? In the towns of Ipek and Jakova, gold and silver filigrees are made, far superior to

Maltese work, both in the artistic feeling exhibited in the design, and the marvelous intricacyand delicacy of the finish of the workmanship. This glittering, lace-like Jakova work is eagerlysought for in every bazaar, and the costliest

Gold cups of filigree, made to secure

The hand from burning,

as mentioned by Byron in Don Juan, and which are generally placed under the tiny Turkish

coffee-cups,are always of Albanian manufacture. Prisrend is famous for its carpets, but moreparticularly for the production of the magnificent silver-mounted pistols and chased and jewel-

hilted yataghans, which lend such splendor to every opulent Albanians girdle; while Scutari is

celebrated for the skill of its cloth-workers, and the dexterity of its gold embroiderers. Have theSlavs on the northern and eastern borders any industries such as these?


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A MIRIDITE BY THE LAKE OF SCUTARI

Much has been said and more written of late concerning the turbulent spirit of the Albanians.

But it must be remembered that the country is most exceptionally constituted, composed as it is

of three opposing religious bodies, governed by a foreign power. The southern, or Tosk,Albanians belong, for the most part, to the Greek church; central Albania is chiefly

Mahommedan; and northern, or Gheg, Albania is principally Roman Catholic. Add to this thefact that nearly all the Mahommedan Albanians are descended fromBektashes, or renegadesfrom the Christian faith, and that, bitterly as these tripartite factions hate one another, they

detest the Porte still more, and the only wonder left us is that internal strife and rebellion have

not long ago decimated the population. Yet the Albanians are not so constantly at loggerheads

with each other or their rulers as one might suppose. The existing troubles, for instance, cannotbe traced to these sources. They have been brought about solely by the re-adjustment of the

Albanian frontier under the decrees of the Berlin Treaty. By these stipulations a very


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considerable portion of the country has been awarded to the Arnauds hereditary foes, and

Montenegro, Servia,and Greece each claim a portion of the Albanian border. Now, the

Albanians are as distinct in race and language from their borderers, the Greeks and Slavs, asfrom their Moslem rulers. Even the most pronounced Slavophiles are compelled to regard the

Scipetaars not merely as a tribe, but a nation. Moreover, their antiquity is as high as any of theirneighbors. Long before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, Albania had its independenceunder a number of petty princes. The people are wont to boast of themselves as the only

northern race who, in the fifteenth century, successfully checked the conquering arms of

Mahomet the Great. This they did for twenty-four years under the leadership of the deathless

George Castriot, or Skanderbeg, as the Turks called him. Such is the veneration of the Ghegsfor his memory that his chivalrous deeds are the constant theme of their songs, whilst to this

daymore than four hundred years after his deaththe Christian mountaineers wear a short

black mourning jacket orjurdin over their white woolen dress, in memory of him whom theylove to style the champion of Albanian liberty. Thus, as the Montenegrins carry the kappa, so

the Ghegs wear thejurdinas a memento of their long struggle for liberty in days gone by, and

as a symbol of the freedom which they believe is yet to come. It would be strange, indeed, then,if a nation with such a history, and with these aspirations, should tamely submit to see their

country parceled out and divided among those who cannot claim to have beaten them in war.


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A CHRISTIAN LADY OF ALBANIA

Much has been said and more written of late about the predatory habits and ferocious nature of

the Albanian race. According to popular notions, the lowlanders are cutthroats and the

highlanders brigands. The nearer the traveler gets to Albania, the louder and more positive

become the dismal predictions concerning his fate on entering the country; and it was with


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many misgivings that Dick and I stepped from the loudra which had brought us across the Lake

of Scutari from Montenegro, and set our feet on Albanian soil preparatory to entering the

ancient town of Scutari or Skodra. We had our rifles and our revolvers with us, loaded againstany emergency.

But our first experience of Albania dispelled the dark stain which ignorance had placed upon

the peoples character. And after wandering in some of the wildest districts of the north,

among the Miridite mountaineers when we visited the tomb of Skanderbeg at Alessio, andthrough the heart of the Clementi tribes when we tried to get into Gusinje,I can say that the

only instance of brigandage which came to our knowledge was practiced by the lake boatmen,

when they charged us a quadruple fare for rowing us from Karadagh to Scutari, and that theAlbanians regard for the sanctity of our personal effects was such that we never had our

saddle-bags stolen, as we did in honest Montenegro. The closing portion of this article will

show that in our expedition to Gusinje we ran some risk of losing our heads, but the reader will

also learn that the men who wanted to kill us were Bosniac Mahommedans, and that we were

saved by the stanch fidelity of the Albanian Ghegs.

Candor compels me to mention an ugly blemish in the national character which, although little

known to the outer world, is none the less observable in the race. I allude to the prevalence ofblood-feuds amongst the various clans and religious factions in the country. If it were my object

to palliate this savage custom, I might show that the vendetta has been time out of mind a rude

form of retributive justice peculiar to most primitive highland races, and that, in maintaining

this cowardly code of retaliation, the Albanians are neither better nor worse than were untilwithin recent years the natives of the Basque provinces, the Corsicans, or even the

Montenegrins. With these people, however, it was a barbarism of the past; with the Arnauds it

is an all-prevailing practice of the present. Under these blood-feud laws, the most cowardly and

cold-blooded murdersone can call them by no milder nameare of daily occurrence. Theentire population is armed to the teeth against this ceaseless vendetta, and the burial-places are

crowded with its victims; yet there is no authority in the country powerful enough to suppressit. So the barbarous custom prevails from one extremity of the country to the other,alike in

the crowded bazaars I and on the lonely hill-side, wherever the avenger and the victim meet,

and the Porte is powerless to punish because it is not strong enough to rule. The blood-feud,

however, is confined by the people to the settlement of their own private quarrels, so that,unless a stranger is injudicious enough to intermeddle, he need have no alarm about his own

safety in the country.

It would be difficult to point to a country within nine days traveling distance from Paris so

picturesquely quaint as Albania. It is a land above all others for the artist a country lockedwithin itselfa little stationary world within our vast whirligig outer one, where mediaevalism

is preserved in the most delicious freshness. It is the land of Iskander as when Iskander himself

ruled over it. The billowy landscapes of the mountainous north are far more changeful than thepeople, for nature under the thin highland air is as various as the chameleonnow iridescent

with the rainbow lights of dawn, next gleaming white and azure under the fierce midday sun,

and anon wrapped in the violet mantle of the night. But time may come and go, and show themountains and the lakes under a thousand different aspects, and yet the people have only one


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that of their forefathers.

The splendid costume of Albania is brought vividly before the untraveled mind by Byrons

memorable description of

The wild Albanian kirtled at the knee,

With shawl-clad head and ornamented gun,

And gold-embroidered garments fair to see.

Decked in this white and red and golden magnificence, he is to-day as picturesquely prominent

in every Albanian bazaar as when the poet saw him in the south at the commencement of the

century. But accurate as is this picture of a Tosk Albanian,for Byron never traveled north,itcannot be applied to the Christian Gheg. Curiously enough, the snowy kilt or festan is affected

only by the lowland Mohammedans in the north. From the days of Iskander the mountain tribes

have worn their own peculiar white woolen garments, and by these the clans are distinguishable

at a glance.


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THE FRONTIER GUARD

In my article on Montenegro, I ended by saying that the peace which the Prince looked forwardto so hopefully was hourly threatened, at the time of our sojourn in the country, by the troubles

on the Albanian border, arising from the annexation of territory at Gusinje by the Montenegrins.


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On our arrival in Scutari, we found the people in a patriotic ferment, and the outbreak of a war

with the Slavsfor which we had waited some time in Podgoritzaappeared to be imminent.

This warlike demonstration against the Montenegrins appeared to be a purely popular one, forwhich the Turkish authorities were in no degree answerable. The little border rebellion, we

were told, had been entirely organized by a patriotic secret association styling itself theAlbanian League. While I was in Scutari, I made it my business to interview several chiefs ofthis League, so as to become acquainted with the governing principles of a secret society which

is at the present moment sufficiently strong not only to openly defy the Turkish Government,

but to number among its members some of the foremost officials of the Porte in Albania. In my

opinion, the Albanian League is the forerunner of a general rebellion against Ottoman rule. Inits infancy, the League was, no doubt, encouraged by the Turks as a convenient cats-paw,

wherewith to tease the irritable Slav. But now the Government stands aghast and almost

paralyzed at the hot-blooded ferocity of the very creatures they helped to create. The anarchyand lawlessness existing lately at Prisrend, where the European consuls were imprisoned by the

mob in their consulates, and where the Russian representative was shot at through his own door,

are but slight illustrations of the utter inability of the existing authorities to cope with thepresent disorder and anarchy; while the unavenged murder of Mehemet Ali at Jakova shows too

plainly how powerless is all justice in the land.


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In Albania With the Ghegs