Albanians

By STEPHANIE SCHWANDER

Albanois, Arbëresh, Arnauts, Arvanits, Illyrians, Shiptare

The name “Albanian” derives from the ancient town of Albanopolis, mentioned by Ptolemy in the second century B.C. and located within present-day Albania. Etymologically this derives from the Latin albus, “white,” a possible reference to the whiteness of the nearby mountains. “Arbëresh” comes from Albanian arbër, a term for Albanians in Italy. “Arbanit,” “Arvanit”—designating Greek Albanians—changed to “Arbërit” and “Arbëreshët,” which were initially names for Catholic Albanians only. “Arnaut” derives from the Ottoman designation and—like “Albanoi,” the original French name—is to be found in older sources. “Illyrian” is the name for the autochthonous population that lived partly on modern Albanian territory, from the time of the Iron Age, and it is sometimes used in Albanian nationalist literature as a designation for “ancestral Albanians.” “Shiptare,” “sons of the eagle,” originally the self-designation of the people of the northern highlands only, is in modern Albanian the correct ethnonym for all Albanian people. Present-day Albania covers an area of 28,748 square kilometers located between 39°38' and 42°39' N and 19°16' and 21°4' E and is bordered by the Adriatic and Ionian seas to the west, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia to the north and east, and Greece to the south. Seventy-six percent of Albania is hill and mountain, 23.4 percent plains. The climate is Mediterranean in the coastal plains and foothills. In the mountain area of inner Albania, the climate becomes more continental, with less dry summers and cooler, often snowy winters.

In 2012, the population of Albania is estimated at 3,002,859 with an estimated population growth rate of .28 percent per year with birthrate of 12.38 births per 1,000 inhabitants. The death rate is estimated at 6.25 deaths per 1,000. The population composition for 2011 was 21.4 percent under 14, 68.1 percent between 15 and 64, and 10.5 percent above 65. Life expectancy for 2012 is estimated at 74.99 for men and 80.49 for women. More than a third of all Albanians live outside Albania's political borders, which were fixed in 1913 after the Balkan Wars. Large Albanian communities exist in Greece, mainly in the Tshamaria (Greek Epirus), in the Peloponnesos, in Thrace, in Greek Macedonia, and on the islands of Angistri, Euboea, Hydra, Poros, Spetsai, etc. There are also a large number of Albanians in south Italy and Sicily, descendants of religious refugees from the Ottoman advance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the early 1990s thousands of Albanians have come as political refugees to Greece, Italy, and other western European states. There are also Albanian enclaves in Turkey, Egypt, Russia, and the United States.

Albanian is the sole member of one branch of Indo-European languages. There are two main dialects whose names are also the names of the two main regional groups in Albania, which are also differentiated by their traditional social organization: Tosk, influenced by Turkish, roughly to the south of the Shkumbin River; and Gheg, with many Romance, Greek, and Slavonic influences, to the north. The modern official Albanian language dates from the period 1908 to 1912, when, as a result of the nation-building process, the language was standardized on the Tosk variant and the Latin alphabet was introduced.

Albania is relatively homogeneous ethnically with 95 percent of the population Albanian. The 1976 Albanian constitution recognizes national minorities and guarantees minority rights concerning language, folklore, and tradition, but not religion. Greeks are the largest national minority and live mainly in the Albanian Epirus. Thousands of Albanian Greeks have gone to Greece since the end of 1990 over a border that had been virtually closed for decades. The Balkan Romanians, also known as Aromuns or Vlachs, are regarded as an assimilated minority. Their earlier nomadic pastoralism came to an end through restrictions on their mobility after World War II, when political borders were closed, and through the socialist government's collectivization of agriculture. In the thirteenth century, Vlach pastoralists, artisans, and traders founded their capital, Voskopoja, in southern Albania, which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries became a center for international trade and cultural relations (with Venice, Vienna, and Budapest) with an educated class. More than 100,000 Vlachs were still recorded in Albania around the turn of the century. There are also groups of Macedonians (0.4 percent) and Montenegrins (0.2 percent). The Gypsies (less than 0.2 percent), both Sinti and Roma (Albanian evgjitë, a reference to a formerly assumed Egyptian origin, or kurbetë), were compelled by state programs to settle down permanently. In the cities they live in apartment blocks or single dispersed apartments, though separate residential quarters for Gypsies can still be found. Traditionally basket makers, smiths, and tinkers, today they are employed as street cleaners or in road construction, being socially marginalized. A very few Blacks (Albanian arigi)), the descendants of Ottoman slaves, also live in Albania. Many Jews were taken from Albania to Israel in January 1991 by Operation Flying Carpet.

Archaeological and prehistoric evidence for Illyrian settlements on Albanian territory date from the second millennium B.C. At first influenced by ancient Greek civilization, Illyria belonged to the Roman Empire after 168 B.C. From the fourth to the sixth centuries the Illyrians suffered Hun and Gothic invasions, and from the sixth century Slavs began to settle on Illyrian territory. In Kosovo the plains settlers withdrew into the mountains, thus laying the historical foundations for modern territorial disputes between Serbs and Albanians in Yugoslavia. From 750 the area was under Byzantine rule, and from 851 to 1014 it belonged to the Bulgarian Empire. Later came the Normans (1081-1185) and Neapolitans (the “Regnum Albaniae” of Charles of Anjou in coastal Albania, 1271), and the country became part of the Great Serbian Empire from 1334 to 1347 under Stefan Dušan. The Venetians then claimed the area until 1393, when the Ottoman Empire absorbed it; the area finally declared its independence in 1912.

In 2010, 52 percent of the Albanian population was urban. The relatively low urbanization rate is probably a result of state restrictions on mobility. Virilocal marriage leads many Albanian women to live in urban areas. A major portion of the population today live in apartment blocks built in the Socialist period. Besides the capital, Tirana, the main regional centers are Durrës (the main port), Shkodër, Elbasan, Vlorë, and Korcë. In pre-socialist days villages were composed of groups of houses surrounded by farmland and pastures. Stone and wood were the main materials used in house building. The Ottoman influence can clearly be seen in the widespread enclosure of houses by stone walls for religious reasons and the use of stone, originally for defensive purposes, in the first floor, timber in the second. Also typical of Albania is thekula, a fortified dwelling of stone with slits for windows in the lower floor and closable windows above, adapted to the threat of brigandage, foreign (especially Ottoman) invasions, and, above all, feuds. The one-room house of stone and timber with a central fireplace is the basic unit, sometimes extended with additional buildings into larger farms. Because of the sloping terrain, many houses are built perpendicularly on several levels against the slope, thus utilizing all possible space. In areas with a more Mediterranean climate, a veranda added to the basic unit serves in summer as a place for cooking, sleeping, and living. In the south one also finds the manor houses of the former feudal rulers (patrons) in both rural and urban areas, some of which were built for defense. In the plains both these and ordinary houses often show the influence of Italian architecture.

The extended household was basically self-sufficient, with property and labor held in common. Surplus produce was sold in sometimes distant markets to provide weapons, household utensils, bride-wealth, etc. During the Socialist period farming and stock raising were carried out by cooperatives and collective farms, and many villagers commuted to jobs in industry and state services. Privatization started in the early 1980s, after expropriations had led to the slaughter of stock by protesting farmers and consequent meat shortages. As a result, the government introduced a brigade economy (a brigade being a cooperative workers' unit representing approximately the population of a former village), and workers sold the surplus products at state shops at prices guaranteed by the state. No research has been carried out on the secondary economy in Albania, but people evidently provided themselves with raki` (a spirit), vegetables, herbs, and fruits on the black market. Since 1990, a transformation toward a free-market economy has been going on. Industrial production declined by about 50 percent in 1991. Strikes, especially in the mines, the worthlessness of the Albanian currency, and a 60 percent unemployment rate currently are the main features of a very unstable economic situation.

In the past there were urban centers and certain streets in the cities where male artisans and specialists sold various products of pottery, metal, and wood: for example, agricultural and household tools, instruments, religious icons in Eastern Orthodox areas, ironwork, silver and gold filigree, embroidery, and other needlework. Ottoman style influenced carvings in wood for interior decoration all over Albania. Shepherds carved their crooks. Farmers produced and carved wooden spoons, pipes, distaffs, spindles, and musical instruments such as flutes, the cifteli (a two-stringed mandolin), and the lahuta (a one-stringed instrument); some regions were famous for their ornamented carved wooden chairs, cradles, and bridal chests. Women worked for family needs and in many urban and rural regions for the market, specializing in textiles.

Until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an important trade route between Rome and Byzantium, the Via Egnatia, passed through Durrës. In the nineteenth century, Orthodox Greek and Vlach citizens in the southern parts of Albania traded with the Ottoman Empire, economic centers in the north being Shkodër and Prizren (the latter in Kosovo). Economic relations with Yugoslavia ended two years after the proclamation of the Albanian Socialist People's Republic in 1946. From 1949 Albania was a member of the Soviet-East European Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, and the Soviet Union was the most important trading partner until 1961, when relations were broken off. Economic assistance was provided by China from 1961 until 1978, when it ended and Chinese experts withdrew. In 1968 Albania left the Warsaw Pact. Until May 1990 the constitution did not permit the raising of foreign loans, which restricted foreign investment. Albania exports different types of ore and metals (primarily iron ore and chromite), electricity, gas, agricultural products, some finished goods (textiles, handicrafts, etc.), building materials, chemical products, plastics, and cigarettes and tobacco. Grain, luxury goods, machinery, vehicles, chemical and electromechanical products were imported. The principle of “no import without export,” broadly realized until 1987, was intended to guarantee economic autarchy. The increasing deterioration of Eastern European economies—Albania's major trading partners—together with the problems of drought and an inflexible system of central planning, have led to severe shortages. Since September 1991 the Albanian population has been supported largely through European Community programs designed to avoid further movements of refugees.

In general, the men of the clan society were concerned with agriculture and stock raising. Transhumant pastoralism, lumbering, and hunting were men's seasonal tasks. In addition to housekeeping, women were responsible for small-scale production such as weaving and sewing for the household or for one's dowry, plus dairy farming and child care. Often, when a family was involved in a feud, the men went into hiding and the women took over their work too. The household head was allowed a horse in order to represent the family to the outside world, and he also decided the organization of labor among the agnates. He appointed his female counterpart, the “mistress of the house” (zonjë, not necessarily his wife), who was similarly responsible for the female labor of the household. In modern times, the socialist constitution declared women equal to men. In reality this principle often creates an added burden for women, because in public life they are employed equally with men in agricultural and industrial production and in civilian and military service, whereas their emancipation in private life, though official policy, is often more theory than fact.

In the clan society land was owned jointly by the clan and owned locally by the agnates of an extended household. In the plains latifundia (çiftlics) developed when the formerly independent villages were integrated into the patronage system in Ottoman times. With the weakening of the Ottoman Empire, regional feudal rulers (beys), Albanian converts to Islam with lucrative positions in the Ottoman administration, extended their power and kept the mostly Eastern Orthodox peasants under their control as tenants. Endogamous family aristocracies arose, the best-known from 1778 being the Bushatli family, with large properties around Shkodër in northern Albania, and the family of Ali Pasha of Tepelena (1785-1822), with extensive landholdings in Epirus. In the area around the city of Tirana up to the neighboring mountainous district of Mati, the two systems met and a mixed system of land tenure developed. Family heads were already known as beys, and some estates belonged to wealthier families, but in general land still was communally held by the different clans. The Albanian beys were expropriated after the war, when socialist land reforms in 1946 divided the land among farmers formerly dependent on feudal landlords. Later, the land was nationalized and collectivized in state farms, though this action was delayed somewhat in mountain areas because of a combination of underdeveloped infrastructure and popular resistance. People were organized in cooperatives, first on the level of single villages and later in groups of villages. Since the collapse of socialism, a process of privatization of land has been set in motion, accompanied and hampered by numerous conflicts.

Gheg clan society lasted until the 1950s in northern Albania. Those who claimed descent from a common, sometimes mythical or fictitious male ancestor were organized in an ideally exogamous patriclan or fis found in many villages with lineages at the village or mehala level. Understood as a “brotherhood” or vellezeri, these included a variable number of communal extended households, called shpi or shtëpi (literally, “house”), each consisting of the nuclear families of a number of brothers, with up to ninety individuals in some cases. Genealogies, understood as a tree, were carefully remembered and handed down through the generations through epic songs and tales as origin myths.

Kin ties were defined by blood given to the children only through the patriline. A wife's or mother's kin were her parental family; her father and brothers were responsible for her until she married. Accordingly, mother's brother and mother's son had special terms, but apparently there was no specific kin terminology for their children. All matrilateral cousins, cross as well as parallel, were potential marriage partners but not any patrilateral cousins, relations with whom constituted incest. In the traditional extended household, patrilateral cousins of any degree were called brothers and sisters, patrilateral uncles of any degree fathers or uncles. When the actual father and mother became very old, the eldest brother and sister were given the terms for father and mother. Thus the terminology was at least partly classificatory, with bifurcate-merging features.

Residence in Albanian clan society was strictly virilocal. Marriage arrangements were always exogamous and made by the head of the household. Children were betrothed sometimes even before birth, often in respect of an existing alliance or in order to establish friendship or peace with another clan. Religious differences between the families were no obstacle. A part of the bride-price was paid after the girl was born, the balance when she was old enough to be handed over to the bridegroom's relatives, who picked her up in a marriage procession. Girls were married between the ages of 13 and 16, boys between 15 and 18. Regionally, dowry also was given to the girl by her family, and if she was widowed and sent home, she could take with her, whatever remained. Levirate was also practiced. Sometimes young widows were resold, the profit being shared between her former husband's family and her own. A wife was regarded as her husband's property, as were her children; unmarried women belonged to their fathers. If a wife failed to give birth to a son, her husband was allowed to divorce her by cutting off a piece of her dress and sending her home to her family. Such a woman was considered worthless and she had almost no chance of being married again. Church influence ended the practice of taking a woman without marrying her until she proved her fertility. A woman's only possibility of escaping an unwanted marriage without causing bloodshed between the families involved was to promise perpetual virginity as a verdzin, which entailed the difficult task of finding a number (which varied according to region) of co-jurors from her own clan who would agree to feud if she failed to maintain her oath. A verdzin was allowed to take over male responsibilities and duties, and in some areas she dressed like a man. In the mountains there was often a shortage of women, causing a regional explosion in the amount of bride-price, which in turn led to marriage by capture in some cases. Socialism prohibited traditional customs concerning marriage and promised the free choice of partner to both sexes.

In the anthropological literature the extended household organized by fraternal principle is known by the original Serb word zadruga (see “Kin Groups and Descent”).

Leadership positions traditionally were not inherited but achieved. One exception was the public post of a bayraktar or standard-bearer (see “Political Organization”), though even here, merit was the basis of a holder's choice of his successor from among his sons. Another exception was the position of captain (kapedan), or head of the clan, which was transmitted hereditarily through the Gjomarkaj family of the large clan of Mirditë, who were the keepers of all knowledge about the “Kanun” or traditional law (see “Social Control”). The Kanun also regulated inheritance for the household and specified that land and other property never be divided up but always remain communal within the agnatic group, with the household head having control over its use. Land could not be bequeathed to the church by anyone without permission of the clan assembly. In the event of the deaths of their husbands or fathers, women were left to the charge of their respective agnates. In the case of the minority of a sole male heir or of the total lack of male heirs, an elder sister could choose to become a verdzin as a classificatory male household head to care for the property and keep it together for subsequent generations.

On the third day after birth (poganík) three fairies would predict a child's fortune, according to traditional belief. Although baptized after three to four weeks, the child was actually initiated into the community of the house through the ritual of the first haircut when the child was about one year old. A lack of sons or of children altogether was regarded as a misfortune. Ritual techniques and amulets protected children from the evil eye. Fathers often exchanged their young sons to raise them even more strictly, and children were only allowed to speak when spoken to. A man had to carry weapons (a rifle or pistol) to be taken seriously. Girls were introduced to domestic work very early. The main concerns of child care and education were developing toughness and respect for elders, especially men. Initially the socialist government faced high rates of illiteracy, which has almost vanished to less than one percent by 2001. Children normally attend a crèche from about 6 months old, before going to kindergarten and then, from the age of about 6, to school. Socialist state education stressed the symbolic “triangle of education, productive work, and physical and military training.”

The agnatic descent system has already been discussed under “Kin Groups and Descent.” The institutions of god-parenthood, arising out of the rites of a child's first haircut and baptism, and blood brotherhood extended social ties further for the whole family.

The lord of the house or zot i shpis represented his extended family in the assembly of village elders, no member of which had any wealth or other privileges. One or more of its most respected members (plak ordryeplak) also represented the village in the assembly of clan elders (kuvënd). Each clan also had one or more “standard-bearers” or bayraktars], military leaders with administrative and juridical functions in times of peace. The area in which the zot i shpis recruited his followers was known as a bayrak, which might or might not coincide with a clan (fis) territory. Some clans therefore had more than one standard-bearer, while in other cases one bayraktar would be responsible for more than one clan. He had the right to convene the clan assembly and preside over it for military purposes. The assembly had executive and juridical functions concerning the community (questions of territory, religion, politics, and law), whereas cases concerning single persons or lineages were decided at village assembly level. In the plains these traditional forms of political organization were replaced by the Ottoman administration, which introduced a feudal structure. Under socialism, the state and the Communist party organized politics on the local level. As part of the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, Albania is moving rapidly toward a democratic system. In 1991 Albania became a member of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in March 1992 the Democratic party, which had been founded only in 1990, won the second free election in Albania with a majority of more than 70 percent.

Gheg customary law was transmitted orally. The clan and village assemblies administrated and modified justice for 500 years by always referring to a territorial ruler, to Lek Dukagjin, or in certain areas to Skanderbeg, both of whom were said to have codified existing customary law. In 1913 the Franciscan scholar Shtjefen Gjecov collected the laws referring to Dukagjin in the Mirdita clan's area, where it was said to have been preserved best. In 1933, many years after Gjecov's mysterious death, this collection was published as Kanuni i Lek Dukagjinit, a code based on the concepts of honor and blood. A person had to guard the honor of his family and clan, which was conceptualized through the patriline as consisting of the same blood, and the honor of wives. There was also a collective liability lasting generations regarding the actions of any clan member, maintained through an internal hierarchy reflecting the closeness of kin. The doctrine of “blood for blood” found in the Kanunled to institutionalized feud, which clearly defined the responsibilities of the “debtor of the blood” and the “master of the blood” and their respective successors in vengeance.

Moral death was more threatening than any intervention by the church, as this Albanian saying makes clear: “You fast for the soul and you kill for honor.” The idea of feud as ultimately producing family cohesion and at the same time preventing crime and disputes must be seen in the context of a system that took no action in relation to disputes or murders within a household. Since the latter concerned blood within a family, no feud would result. Quarrels arose through disputes about marriage arrangements, territory, theft, murder, and slander, whose respective values were also defined by the Kanun. For example, a guest's security had to be extremely well maintained according to strict regulations, which ensured mobility for all in an insecure environment. Misfortune for or the mistreatment of a guest could provoke blood vengeance or bring forth sanctions (such as burning the host's house) following a decision of the village community. Blood payments or an oath of allegiance, besa, were among the institutionalized ways of ending a feud, with regional variations regarding the degree to which this was consistent with one's honor.

In 1967 Albania was proclaimed the first atheist state in the world, and it remained so until December 1990, when the process of democratization under the head of state and party leader, Ramiz Alia, allowed people to admit their faith freely. About 70 percent were registered in a pre-socialist census as being of Muslim origin, 20 percent Eastern Orthodox, especially in the south, and the rest Catholic. Today [late twentieth century) there seems to be a tendency to define oneself as Catholic, motivated by a desire to move closer to the West. The old Albanian sayings, “Where the sword is, is the faith,” and “The belief of an Albanian is to be an Albanian”—the latter being current right up to and including the socialist period, when it was used for political purposes—throw some light on conversions such as those from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries under Ottoman rule, when observance of the Islamic religion became the key to the possession of civic rights. Under Ottoman rule, “Crypto-Christianity” and religious syncretism became very common. After the schism of 1054 north Albania became Roman Catholic, the south Greek Orthodox. Under the Ottomans Catholicism survived only in remoter areas. Four autocephalous Orthodox dioceses were maintained in Tirana, Berat, Gjirokastër, and Korcë until 1967, when atheism was proclaimed. From the fifteenth century on, the Bektashis, a Shiite pantheistic order of dervishes who did not distinguish between Muslim and non-Muslim members, attained great popularity, their monasteries or tekkë being spread all over Albania, with their center at the holy tomb of Saint Sari Saltik in Krujë. Typical of the pre-Christian traditional beliefs is the dichotomy of light and dark, equivalents to male and female, sun and moon, good and evil, as can be seen in symbols and figures used in legends, myths, fairy tales (e.g.,kulshedra, “monster,” versus dragoni), oaths, curses, tattoos, amulets, handicrafts, on gravestones, etc. There were also beliefs concerning vampires and witchcraft, the interpretation of omens, the observation of natural phenomena for predictions, etc. Taboos of an apotropaic character were also found; for example, the wolf's name was never pronounced out loud.

Neither Catholic priests nor bishops, nor Muslim clergymen (hoxha and sheikh among the Sunnis), nor abbots (baba, sing.; baballar, pl.) among the Bektashis, could supply every village. Some were wanderers, all were respected as God's men, and there is evidence that the nearest available were consulted by people of any faith when necessary. Clerics were not allowed to keep house dogs because their houses had to be open all night to parishioners or passing strangers, though Eastern Orthodox and Muslim priests' houses were not considered sacred, and theft from them therefore was not considered sacrilegious. Besides their more or less important role in life-cycle rites and as consultants, priests had an educational role, since the Ottoman administration allowed religious bodies (Franciscans, Jesuits) to run schools. Jesuits sometimes succeeded in ending feuds, because of the belief that they were sent by the pope and had the power to take away God's blessing for one's family for generations to come. In the years after World War II many religious leaders were sent to prison or executed.

Life-cycle rites traditionally occurred at birth, the first haircut, sometimes the first nail cutting, marriage, and death. Further rites included the swearing of an oath on a rock, a gravestone, an altar, the doorstep of a church, a meteor, a glowing coal, and on natural phenomena such as the sun, moon, fire, plains, mountains, etc., as well as the besa or renunciation of feud. Rites of the yearly cycle consisted of pre-Christian customs as well as church festivals and processions, which were often shared by people of every faith. Some days involved taboos on certain activities or certain food. Other occasions involved the lustration and blessing of water, farmland, the harvest, agricultural instruments, livestock, houses, children, plants, etc. Under socialist rule religious ceremonies were prohibited and replaced by military and nationalist public celebrations such as First May Day processions, the birthday of the former party leader Enver Hoxha, the anniversary of his death, etc. New Year's Day became the most important festivity of the year.

Albanian epic songs were the original vehicle for tradition and local history in a culture without writing. Typical heroic epics (e.g., the epic cycle “The Brothers Muji and Halili,” songs of Skanderbeg) were monophonic and sung by professional wandering artists on social occasions, or by private musicians in the family or with friends, who accompanied themselves with the one-stringed lahuta. The telling of fairy tales for adults as well as for children was popular and assured the survival of both cosmological conceptions and old legends. Norms and values were also transmitted through anecdotes, sayings, and riddles. These traditional features are still cultivated and are performed every five years at a major festival of folklore in Gjirokastër, an old city in the south. Also still performed are, for example, the women's “vessel song,” polyphonic and monophonic songs with specific regional features, and likewise a variety of men's and women's dances. The best-known modern Albanian writer is Ismail Kadare, born in 1939, who in his novels brings to life traditional conditions in Albania and the individual's experiences under the Ottomans.

Medicine was traditionally practiced either by local specialized folk doctors (hekim), by dervishes, or by “wise old women” with herbal knowledge and knowledge of necessary ritual incantations said to have been inherited from their ancestors. Doctors were highly regarded and were often also considered soothsayers. Christian and Muslim saints were appealed to for help through pilgrimages to holy places such as monasteries, saintly tombs, holy waters and springs, etc. Diseases were attributed to evil forces and malevolent ghosts (vila). The latter had a deadly touch, could cast the evil eye, and often symbolized the illness itself. Under socialism the replacement of these traditions through the continuous development of a network of hospitals, medical research institutions, care centers, and maternity stations was regarded as one of the government's most challenging tasks. Modern medicine emphasizes information and prevention. The state bears the expenses for medical treatment and medicine. There were about 714 inhabitants per doctor in 1983, a figure that approximates the European standard.

Wailing, scratching one's face, cutting or tearing out one's hair, wearing clothes inside out, etc. are all recognized modes of mourning. Usually this is done by female dependents and neighbors, rarely also by men, and sometimes female mourners are hired. In the south some mourning takes the form of a repeated antiphonal two-verse song sung by a leading mourner followed by a female chorus. Burial follows on the same day or, if a person dies in the afternoon, on the next morning, after a procession to church. Females bid farewell with a last kiss in front of the door, men inside the church. In some areas the bodies of important males are dressed in their most typical costume, with their rifle and other things associated with them (like a cigarette in the corner of the mouth), and then seated in their own yard on a chair to say their last goodbye to those who gather there. Mourning is continued for forty days in the house of the deceased and repeated at certain intervals at the graveside. In Eastern Orthodox areas traditionally the remains were exhumed after three years and the bones placed in a bone house. The good are believed to have an easy death, the bad a hard one. Life is thought to leave a person through the mouth. As well as having a decorated wooden cross, the grave is surrounded by stones either as a protection from the corpse becoming a vampire (the stones hold the corpse down) or as stepping-stones leading the dead on their way to the other world. To make their voyage easier the dead also have coins placed in their mouths (in some areas also apples or other travel supplies). In the mountains, the sites associated with particular murders, especially those resulting from feuds, are indicated with mounds of stones, calledmurana.

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This culture summary is from the article “Albanians” by Stephanie Schwander, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 4, Europe, Linda A. Bennett, ed. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co., 1992. John M. Beierle wrote the synopsis and indexing notes in December, 2011 and Ian Skoggard updated the population figures and some other statistics in August, 2012.