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See also:MAFIA (MAMA) , a See also:secret society of See also:Sicily. Its organization
and purposes much resemble those of the See also:Camorra (q.v.). Various derivations are found for the name. Some hold it to be
a Tuscan synonym for miseria; others, a corruption of Fr. mauvais
(See also:bad). Others connect it with the name of an alleged Arab tribe, Ma-afir, once settled at See also:Palermo. Giuseppe See also:Pitt-6 asserts that the word is See also:peculiar to western Sicily and that, with its derivatives, it formerly meant, in II Borgo, a See also:district of Palermo, beauty or excellence. Thus, a handsome woman showily dressed was said " to have mafia," or to be mafiusa. Often in Palermo the See also:street merchants See also:call arance-mafiuse (See also:fine oranges). Thus, Pitre argues, mafia, applied to a See also:man to See also:express manly See also:carriage and bravery, would naturally become the See also:title of a society the members of which were all " bravos." A less credible explanation of the See also:term is connected with Mazzini, who is said to have formed a secret society the members of which were called Mafiusi, from Mafia, a word composed of the initial letters of five See also:Italian words, Mazzini autorizza furti, incendi, avvelenamenti, " Mazzini authorizes See also:theft, See also:arson and poisoning." This theory suggests that the word was unknown before 1859 or 186o.
The Mafia, however named, existed See also:long before Mazzini's See also:day. In its crudest See also:form it was co-operative See also:brigandage, blended with the See also:Vendetta (q.v.). The more strictly organized Mafia was the result of the disorders consequent upon the See also:expulsion of the See also:- KING
- KING (O. Eng. cyning, abbreviated into cyng, cing; cf. O. H. G. chun- kuning, chun- kunig, M.H.G. kiinic, kiinec, kiinc, Mod. Ger. Konig, O. Norse konungr, kongr, Swed. konung, kung)
- KING [OF OCKHAM], PETER KING, 1ST BARON (1669-1734)
- KING, CHARLES WILLIAM (1818-1888)
- KING, CLARENCE (1842–1901)
- KING, EDWARD (1612–1637)
- KING, EDWARD (1829–1910)
- KING, HENRY (1591-1669)
- KING, RUFUS (1755–1827)
- KING, THOMAS (1730–1805)
- KING, WILLIAM (1650-1729)
- KING, WILLIAM (1663–1712)
king of See also:Naples by See also:Napoleon. When the See also:Bourbon See also:court took See also:refuge in Sicily there were alarge number of armed retainers in the service of the Sicilian feudal See also:nobility. See also:Ferdinand IV., at the bidding of See also:England, granted a constitution to the See also:island in 1812, and with the destruction of See also:feudalism most of the feudal troops became brigands. Powerless to suppress them, Ferdinand organized the bandits into a rural See also:gendarmerie, and they soon established a reign of terror. The abject poverty of the poorer classes, unable to eke out existence by See also:work in the See also:sulphur mines or on the See also:fields, fostered the growth of two classes of mafiusi—the vast See also:majority of the inhabitants who were glad to put themselves as passive members under the See also:protection of the Mafia, while the active members shared in the See also:plunder. The Mafia thus became a loosely organized society under an unwritten See also:code of See also:laws or See also:ethics known as Omertd, i.e., manliness (from Sicil. omu, Ital. uomo, a man), which embodied the rules of the Vendetta. Candidates were admitted after trial by See also:duel, and were sworn to resist See also:law and defeat See also:justice. Like the Camorra, the Mafia was soon powerful in all classes, and even the See also:commander of the royal troops acted in See also:collusion with it. The real See also:home of Mafia was in and around Palermo, where no traveller was safe from See also:robbery and the See also:knife. In an organized form the Mafia survives only in isolated districts. Generally speaking, it is to-day not a compact criminal association but a complex social phenomenon, the consequence of centuries of misgovernment. The Mafiuso is governed by a sentiment akin to arrogance which imposes a See also:special See also:line of conduct upon him. He considers it dishonourable to have recourse to lawful authority to obtain redress for a wrong or a See also:crime committed against him. He therefore hides: the identity of the offender from the See also:police, reserving vengeance to himself or to his See also:friends and dependants. This sentiment, still widely diffused among the See also:lower classes of many districts, and not entirely unknown to the upper classes, renders difficult legal See also:- PROOF (in M. Eng. preove, proeve, preve, &°c., from O. Fr . prueve, proeve, &c., mod. preuve, Late. Lat. proba, probate, to prove, to test the goodness of anything, probus, good)
proof of culpability for acts of violence, and multiplies sanguinary private See also:reprisals. In See also:September 1892 about 150 Mafiusi were arrested at See also:Catania, but all repressive See also:measures proved useless. The only result was to drive some of the members abroad, with disastrous results to other countries. In See also:October 1890 See also:David Hennessy, See also:chief of police in New See also:- ORLEANS
- ORLEANS, CHARLES, DUKE OF (1391-1465)
- ORLEANS, DUKES OF
- ORLEANS, FERDINAND PHILIP LOUIS CHARLES HENRY, DUKE OF (1810-1842)
- ORLEANS, HENRI, PRINCE
- ORLEANS, HENRIETTA, DUCHESS
- ORLEANS, JEAN BAPTISTE GASTON, DUKE
- ORLEANS, LOUIS
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE JOSEPH
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE ROBERT, DUKE
- ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE, DUKE OF (1725–1785)
- ORLEANS, LOUIS, DUKE OF (1372–1407)
- ORLEANS, PHILIP I
- ORLEANS, PHILIP II
Orleans, was murdered. Subsequent legal inquiry proved the crime to be the work of the Mafia, which had been introduced into the See also:United States See also:thirty years before. In May 1890 a See also:band of Italians living in New Orleans had ambushed another gang of their See also:fellow-countrymen belonging to a society called Stoppaghera. The severe police measures taken brought the vengeance of the society upon Hennessy. Eleven Italians were indicted on suspicion of being implicated in his See also:murder; but the See also:jury was terrorized and acquitted six. On the 14th of See also:March 1891 a See also:mob led by well-known New Orleans citizens See also:broke into the See also:gaol where nineteen Italians were imprisoned and lynched eleven of them.
See W. See also:Agnew See also:Paton, Picturesque Sicily (1898) ; C. W. Heckethorn, Secret See also:Societies of all Ages (1897) ; Alongi, La Maffia (See also:Turin, 1887) ; Le See also:Faure, La Mafia (See also:Paris, 1892).
End of Article: MAFIA (MAMA)
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