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ALBANIA
district, they have hitherto defeated every effort of the Turks to encroach on their autonomy. Their hereditary chiefs, or capidans, belong to the family known as Dera e Gy on Marlcut (the house of John Marco) which is said to be descended from Skanderbeg. In 1868 the reigning chief, Bib Doda, died, and his son and successor Prenk was detained as a hostage by the Turks. The Mirdites consequently refused to contribute their customary contingent to the Turkish army, and eventually Prenk was restored. His ambiguous conduct, however, led to the despatch of two expeditions against the Mirdites and the devastation of their territory. In 1880 Prenk was kidnapped by the Turkish authorities and exiled to Anatolia; another member of the ruling family was appointed kaimakan, but the Mirdites refused to obey him, and their district has ever since been in a state of anarchy. No Moslem is allowed to remain in Mirdite territory. (2) The Mi-shkodrak (Upper Scutari) group or confederation, also known as the Malsia-Madhe (Great Highlands) is composed of the Klement, Grud-a, Hot, Kastrat, and Shkrel tribes, which occupy the mountainous district north-east of Scutari. Owing to the proximity of the capital this group is comparatively subject to the Turkish power, and pays a small annual tribute; the chiefs, who assess and collect the tribute, form a kind of administrative council; the confederation has also an official representative council at Scutari, called the Jibal, under the presidency of a Serkarde or Moslem official. (3) The Dukajin, whose territory lies between that of the lastnamed group and the Mirdite country, include the Pulati, Shalla, Shoshi, and other tribes ; they are more independent and more savage than the Mi-shkodrak, and have never paid tribute from time immemorial. (4) The Puka group, known as “ the Seven Baryaks of Puka,” dwell farther to the east; they are nominally administered by a Turkish kaimakam, who is a mere spectator of their proceedings. (5) The Malsia Gyakovs, a group of two Catholic and three Moslem tribes, extend in the direction of Gyakovo, where they maintain an official representative; they are entirely exempt from taxation. (6, 7) The Malsia-Lezhs, who occupy the Alessio highlands, and the Malsia Krues, who inhabit the region north of Kroia, live in a state of extreme poverty and pay no tribute; the latter are much addicted to brigandage. To these seven groups, which are included under the general appellation of Malissori, or “highlanders,” may be added the Malsia of Dibra, who extend to the west and north of that town, and form a large separate group; they are notorious for their fierce lawless character, and maintain themselves by plundering the Bulgarian peasants in their neighbourhood. In general the attitude of the Albanians in the north-western districts towards the Slavonic peasantry may be compared with that of the Kurds towards the Armenians. In Central Albania the Mat tribe, which occupies the upper valley of the Matia, presents an entirely different organization ; their district is governed by four wealthy families possessing hereditary rank and influence. Towards the south the tribal ‘ organization becomes looser and is gradually supplanted by a kind of feudal system; among the powerful aristocratic houses may be mentioned the Yliores at Avlona, who are stated to own 400 square kilometres of land, and the Toptans at Tirana. The principal landowners, who reside in fortified houses, are all Moslems; their estates are cultivated on the metayer system. Since the time of Ali Pasha, who broke the power of the local chieftains, Southern Albania has been subject to the central Turkish power; before that period the mountaineers of Suli and Khimara enjoyed an independence similar to that of the Gheg tribes. The great majority of the Albanians, probably more
than three-fifths, are Moslems. The conversion of the Christian population to Islam appears to have . taken place during the 16 th and 17th centuries. Like the Cretan Moslems and the Bulgarian Pomaks, the Albanian Mahommedans retain many Christian traditions and customs; it is said that many thousands of them secretly adhere to their original faith. In the vilayet of Scutari they form more than 60 per cent, of the population ; Central Albania is almost entirely Moslem ; in Southern Albania, however, there is a considerable Christian population, whose limits practically coincide with those of the Greek-speaking districts. Of the Christian Albanians (about 480,000) some 100,000 are Catholics, almost all belonging to the Gheg tribes of the north; the remainder, including a small proportion of the Tosks, and nearly all the Greeks, Slavs, and Ylakhs, are of the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Ghegs appear to have abandoned the Eastern for the Western Church in the middle of the 13th century. Their bishops and priests, who wear the moustache in deference to popular prejudice,, are typical specimens of the church militant. Some of the Gheg tribes, such as the Puka, Malsia, Gyakovs, and Malsia Krues, are partly Catholic, partly Moslem; among fellow - tribesmen the difference of religion counts for little. The Mirdites are exclusively Catholic, the Mat-i exclusively Moslem. At the head of the Catholic hierarchy are the archbishops of Scutari (with three suffragans), Prizren, and Durazzo; the mitred abbot of St Alexander is the spiritual chief of the Mirdites. The Orthodox Church has metropolitans at Prizren, Durazzo, Berat, lannina, and Kortcha; the Bulgarian exarchate maintains a bishop at Dibra. Of the Albanians in Sicily the great majority (44,791) remain faithful to the Greek Church; in Italy 116,482 follow the Latin ritual, and 38,192 the Greek. All the Albanians in Greece belong to the Orthodox Church. Education is almost non-existent, and the vast majority of the population, both Christian and Moslem, are totally illiterate. Instruction in the Albanian language is prohibited by the Turkish Government for “ca wn' political reasons; a single exception has been made in the case of an American school for girls at Kortcha. There are Turkish primary and secondary schools in some of the towns; in the village mosques instruction in the Koran is given by the imams, but neither reading nor writing is taught. The aristocratic Moslem families send their sons to be educated in Constantinople or Vienna. At Scutari a college and a seminary are maintained by the Jesuits, with the aid of the Austrian Government; the Franciscans have several primary schools, and three lay schools are supported by the Italian Government: in all these institutions Italian is the language of instruction. There are two Servian seminaries at Prizren. In Southern Albania there are Greek schools in the towns and a large Greek gymnasium at lannina. The priests of the Greek Church, on whom the rural population depend for instruction, are often deplorably ignorant. The merchant families of lannina are well educated; the dialect spoken in that town is the purest specimen of colloquial Greek. Albania has never had a national history, owing to the want of unity and cohesion amongst its inhabitants; even the heroic resistance of Skanderbeg to the Turks (144*3-67) can hardly be described as a great national effort. The surrender of Scutari in 1478 marked the end of Venetian supremacy in Upper Albania; many of the native Christian defenders of the town eventually took refuge in the mountains, and became, it is said, the ancestors of the Catholic Ghegs. Notwithstanding the abandonment of Christianity by a large section of the population, the authority of the sultans was never effectively established, and succeeding centuries
