What was the Combaneesh?

[Angelo Santino]

Doti refers to earned merit such as "de sgarro" or "de sangue." Giovinotto, picciotto, camorrista are the grades/classes of membership. A picciotto who has committed enough acts on behalf of the society becomes a picciotto de sgarro after a formal recognition.

[B.]

Ahh, thanks for clarifying.

Edit: I'm a bit confused though as I've seen dote referred to the way I used it.

[PolackTony]

Excellent notes and analysis.

I’ve pondered the “Reno” thing and can only conclude that it had to be a mistranstscription. Unclear to me what locality DeCarlo was actually referring to.

The “pig language” thing is notable, as the 19th century Camorra in Italy used a coded language/secret language and set of jargon (as well as written codes) both to identify fellow members and conceal their communications from outsiders.

Ciaffone aptly compares the Camorra to the Freemasons (first, second, and third degree). Whether Ciaffone was aware of this or not, the structure and rituals of the old Camorra were in fact influenced by or borrowed from Masonic sects in the 19th century.

“Batura” (possibly battuto), in the way that DeCarlo translates it as “bad guy” would seem to be akin to malandrino. Malandrino is of course a general term meaning criminal or outlaw, with no organizational significance in the Camorra, but has been often used to refer to Camorra/‘Ndrangheta affiliates. For example, one theory of the etymology of the Calabrian term ‘ndrina is that it derived from Malandrina, the organization of “bad guys”. We know that in several localities in Italy the Camorra called itself Società di Malavita (in Bari and other locations in Puglia and Calabria). Bad guys lead a Bad Life.

What DeCarlo was trying to explain with the bocce reference, “boss and underboss”, is unclear. It was also a casual conversation and these guys often went off on tangents and threw in non sequiturs, so who knows. All that comes to mind is that in bocce two sizes of ball are used, the larger boccia and the smaller boccino, which maybe DeCarlo thought reflected “boss and underboss” (though multiple of the larger boccie are used in a game).

[Angelo Santino]

It's confusing stuff, especially given the term society and how that can refer to so many things- the entire society, the local society, classes of the society, the district.

Someone who holds camorrista in the Pendino district is
A an honored society member
B a member of the Naples loggia
C a member of the Pendino society
D a member of the Major society
E a member of the camorrista class.

Calderone was correct: “They had endless rules. Whenever a man of honor spoke with one of them he’d become bewildered, he’d develop a headache. No one wanted to end up in the same jail cell as as ‘ndranghetisti. It was the same tune from morning to night. It was tedious, wearisome and obsessed. They would never stop talking, going on and on about the same things: “If someone acts like this, is he a sbirro or not?” And so forth. Or they’d start up with their nursery rhymes like kids in elementary school. The subject? The ‘ndrangheta with its rules and customs. They admitted a huge amount of people and so they were legion, but they weren’t organized as well as the Cosa Nostra. We would choose carefully, and our people were more reliable.”

[Angelo Santino]

Excellent notes and analysis.

I’ve pondered the “Reno” thing and can only conclude that it had to be a mistranstscription. Unclear to me what locality DeCarlo was actually referring to.

The “pig language” thing is notable, as the 19th century Camorra in Italy used a coded language/secret language and set of jargon (as well as written codes) both to identify fellow members and conceal their communications from outsiders.

Ciaffone aptly compares the Camorra to the Freemasons (first, second, and third degree). Whether Ciaffone was aware of this or not, the structure and rituals of the old Camorra were in fact influenced by or borrowed from Masonic sects in the 19th century.

“Batura” (possibly battuto), in the way that DeCarlo translates it as “bad guy” would seem to be akin to malandrino. Malandrino is of course a general term meaning criminal or outlaw, with no organizational significance in the Camorra, but has been often used to refer to Camorra/‘Ndrangheta affiliates. For example, one theory of the etymology of the Calabrian term ‘ndrina is that it derived from Malandrina, the organization of “bad guys”. We know that in several localities in Italy the Camorra called itself Società di Malavita (in Bari and other locations in Puglia and Calabria). Bad guys lead a Bad Life.

What DeCarlo was trying to explain with the bocce reference, “boss and underboss”, is unclear. It was also a casual conversation and these guys often went off on tangents and threw in non sequiturs, so who knows. All that comes to mind is that in bocce two sizes of ball are used, the larger boccia and the smaller boccino, which maybe DeCarlo thought reflected “boss and underboss” (though multiple of the larger boccie are used in a game).

Following the Terranova fall out, I believe someone went to Reno, NV at the advice of Morano. I want to say the guy was even arrested there.

[PolackTony]

Doti refers to earned merit such as "de sgarro" or "de sangue." Giovinotto, picciotto, camorrista are the grades/classes of membership. A picciotto who has committed enough acts on behalf of the society becomes a picciotto de sgarro after a formal recognition.

“Dote” (literally meaning gift or talent/skill) was used to refer to grade of membership (what in Freemasonry are called degrees) in the Camorra and is still used today with the same meaning in the ‘Ndrangheta (eg, Il dote di Picciotto). “Dote” is synonymous with “fiore” (flower) which is also used in the same sense.

[Angelo Santino]

Doti refers to earned merit such as "de sgarro" or "de sangue." Giovinotto, picciotto, camorrista are the grades/classes of membership. A picciotto who has committed enough acts on behalf of the society becomes a picciotto de sgarro after a formal recognition.

“Dote” (literally meaning gift or talent/skill) was used to refer to grade of membership (what in Freemasonry are called degrees) in the Camorra and is still used today with the same meaning in the ‘Ndrangheta (eg, Il dote di Picciotto). “Dote” is synonymous with “fiore” (flower) which is also used in the same sense.

From Dickie, BB

So far, so (relatively) straightforward. But at this point the ’ndrangheta’s peculiar fondness
for arcane rules and procedures takes over again. In Cosa Nostra, holding office is the only
official measure of a Man of Honour’s status. In the ’ndrangheta, if a member is to hold one of
the official positions of power in a Local, a Precinct, or in the Crime, then he has to have reached
a certain degree of seniority. Seniority is measured in doti, meaning ‘qualities’ or ‘gifts’, which
are the ranks in the organisation’s membership hierarchy. Sometimes, more poetically, rising a
rank in the ’ndrangheta is referred to as receiving a fiore—a flower. The offices in the Local are
temporary appointments, whereas the flowers are permanent marks of status. As he steals, extorts
and kills, an ’ndranghetista wins new flowers. Every new flower means yet another protracted
induction ceremony and after it a greater share of power and secrets. The young initiate starts at
the bottom as a picciotto d’onore (‘honoured youth’) and ascends through a series of other ranks
like camorrista and camorrista di sgarro (which means something like ‘camorrist who is up for
a fight’) and then on to the more senior ranks, such as santista, vangelista and padrino (or
saintist, gospelist and godfather).

Ok, so Eric was correct and I was mistaken. Doti it is. But then this makes it sound like doti and fiore are different. There is a distinction between regular a standard picciotto and a picciotto di sgarro, it's not like a promotion but more like recognition.

--

Ralph Daniello fled to Reno. The way Marano spoke raised questions, he said "mention my name in..." and he rattled off a bunch of cities, one being Pittsburgh the other being Reno. It could be taken as an implication that something was in Reno.

[PolackTony]

Doti refers to earned merit such as "de sgarro" or "de sangue." Giovinotto, picciotto, camorrista are the grades/classes of membership. A picciotto who has committed enough acts on behalf of the society becomes a picciotto de sgarro after a formal recognition.

“Dote” (literally meaning gift or talent/skill) was used to refer to grade of membership (what in Freemasonry are called degrees) in the Camorra and is still used today with the same meaning in the ‘Ndrangheta (eg, Il dote di Picciotto). “Dote” is synonymous with “fiore” (flower) which is also used in the same sense.

From Dickie, BB

So far, so (relatively) straightforward. But at this point the ’ndrangheta’s peculiar fondness
for arcane rules and procedures takes over again. In Cosa Nostra, holding office is the only
official measure of a Man of Honour’s status. In the ’ndrangheta, if a member is to hold one of
the official positions of power in a Local, a Precinct, or in the Crime, then he has to have reached
a certain degree of seniority. Seniority is measured in doti, meaning ‘qualities’ or ‘gifts’, which
are the ranks in the organisation’s membership hierarchy. Sometimes, more poetically, rising a
rank in the ’ndrangheta is referred to as receiving a fiore—a flower. The offices in the Local are
temporary appointments, whereas the flowers are permanent marks of status. As he steals, extorts
and kills, an ’ndranghetista wins new flowers. Every new flower means yet another protracted
induction ceremony and after it a greater share of power and secrets. The young initiate starts at
the bottom as a picciotto d’onore (‘honoured youth’) and ascends through a series of other ranks
like camorrista and camorrista di sgarro (which means something like ‘camorrist who is up for
a fight’) and then on to the more senior ranks, such as santista, vangelista and padrino (or
saintist, gospelist and godfather).

Ok, so Eric was correct and I was mistaken. Doti it is. But then this makes it sound like doti and fiore are different. There is a distinction between regular a standard picciotto and a picciotto di sgarro, it's not like a promotion but more like recognition.

--

Ralph Daniello fled to Reno. The way Marano spoke raised questions, he said "mention my name in..." and he rattled off a bunch of cities, one being Pittsburgh the other being Reno. It could be taken as an implication that something was in Reno.

Dote and fiore are synonymous but as Dickie notes fiore is a bit more poetic and often used when referring to when a member was approved to move up a degree. Apparently, the Bad Guys thought it sounded nicer to “give a guy a flower” when saying that he was approved by the Society to be promoted to a higher degree of membership.

Regarding the “sgarro” thing I think of it as like an “honorary degree”, a merit badge. The pentitti who testified in the 1891 Bari trial of the Società di Malavita made it sound like when a guy was elected or approved by the Society to move up a degree, the “sgarro” title was given to him as an honorific. So if a Picciotto was approved by the Società Maggiore to be promoted to Camorrista, he was then called “Picciotto di Sgarro” to denote him as being especially honored among the Picciotti, until he underwent the initiation for Camorrista.

Good catch on the Reno thing with Daniello. I’d have a very hard time believing that was what DeCarlo was referring to though, as he seems to have believed that wherever he was referring to was a locality where a number of Camorra affiliates were inducted into Cosa Nostra.

[B.]

Ok glad to know I used it right haha. A lot of this stuff is still esoteric to me.

With Reno, DeCarlo was referring to guys made into the mafia and specifically the Genovese, so if they did make Camorristi in Reno NV it would be a big development.

[Angelo Santino]

De sgarro wasn't the only one, there was de sangue (good at knife fighting) and presumably there were others.

As far as Reno, I don't know. But both the 1910's Navy Streeters and the guys taking in the 60's were Campanian. Also there was one source that said the Genovese had a capo in Seattle or something. I don't know what they had but it leads me to believe that when these guys joined the Gen, the Gen by default inherited an entire network nationwide, doesn't mean they made everyone.

Another thing, Marano said Pittsburgh. Who did he mean? Did he mean Mauro or the Volpes of Wilmerding? We have very little evidence of Naps and Calabrians interacting. The sole exceptions are the Volpes, one brother was caught up in the West Virginia Black Hand case which involved Naps and Calabresi but... were they all intermixed was Fairmont and Clarksburgh divided among compaesani lines? I don't know. It was a secondary city so finding guys like Dick Ferris (or something close) makes it hard. Canonsburg had Naps made in Campania who landed there and fell under the jurisdiction of Mauro (this came out in statements). I suspect it was birds of a feather. The Naps staying with their own like the Calabrese staying with theirs is no different than the dynamic we see with Palermitani, Trapanese and Corleonese in the early NY Mafia. And like them, the Calabrians in Pittsburgh and the Naps in NY had Sicilians with them.

But then we fast forward to the 30s, one of the Volpes in the Pittsburgh LCN was murdered which led to Genovese getting involved. We don't know what Genovese was, if anything, because he wrote a Navy Street Member. The fact that he was made in 1923 could indicate he was already someone but for all we know he could have been a giovinotto in the camorra. The information isn't there for us to explore. But the Campanians had their own cultural network (regardless of society) and what society existed appeared more watered down than the Calabresi model. In the 1900s in NY there was no shortage of Neapolitan criminals but they didn't appear to be part of anything. Stands to my theory that Neapolitans "outgrew" the camorra (Dickies said as much so I'm not saying anything new). Those that joined the mafia had that inclination to join something, be it a gang, mafia, society, whatever and follow the protocols to a t.

[antimafia]

In the "Random historic info" thread, I had posted last March an excerpt from Antonio Nicaso's 2004 book about Rocco Perri. Below I've reproduced the excerpt, which deals with the aftermath of Frank Griro's murder of Francesco Sciarrone on July 30, 1911:

A few days later, Toronto police arrested Joe Musolino, the boss of Toronto's Picciotteria, a forerunner of the current 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian-based Mafia. During a search of Griro's former restaurant, the police had found a weapon whose registration number had been filed off. Musolino, the new owner of the eatery, was unable to explain the origin of the firearm. Griro told Inspector Walter Duncan that Sciarrone had been a camorrista [ed.: bolding is mine] -- a high-ranking member of the Picciotteria -- who was working for Musolino.

At Griro's trial for the murder of Sciarrone, the defence lawyer, Thomas Cooper Robinette, asked his client,"Did [Sciarrone] tell you the name of the organization to (which] he belonged and to which you were supposed to be affiliated?"^6 [footnote]

"Yes," replied Griro. "They told me the Mafia was behind it." And to the judge who asked him if the Mafia and the Black Hand were the same thing, he explained, "They're all the same, the Black Hand, the underworld, the Mafia, the Camorra [ed.: bolding is mine]."

footnote
6. Peter Edwards and Antonio Nicaso, Deadly Silence: Canadian Mafia Murders. Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1993, pages 13-26.

My note: A long time ago, Canadian writer Jerry Prager traced the ancestry of the Sciarrones in Ontario to San Giorgio Morgeto in Calabria.
__________

The news item below was published 15 days after the murder. (NB: I had to take 2 screenshots to make the article legible; if you want to save the article, make sure to right-click on both screenshots/images here.)

From The Quebec Chronicle, 14 Aug 1911, p. 2.




__________

The news item below was published 19 days after the murder.

From the Fenelon Falls Gazette, 18 Aug 1911, p. 6. (A PDF of the entire page of the newspaper will be found at https://images.ourontario.ca/Partners/C ... _1037p.pdf.)

[B.]

Good stuff Antimafia.

The Joe Musolino of Canada was a cousin of the infamous one back in Santo Stefano di Aspromonte, is that right?

I suspect Stefano Zoccoli of Pittsburgh (and later head of the
San Jose consiglio) was a relative of the infamous one in Calabria as he was from Santo Stefano, his mother was a Musolino, and Giuseppe Musolino was involved with an older man also named Stefano Zoccoli.

Zoccoli's daughter married Pete Milano and an informant linked Zoccoli, his compare Tripodi in Steubenville, and the Milanos to Rocco Pellegrino in Westchester.

[Angelo Santino]

Good stuff Antimafia.

The Joe Musolino of Canada was a cousin of the infamous one back in Santo Stefano di Aspromonte, is that right?

I suspect Stefano Zoccoli of Pittsburgh (and later head of the
San Jose consiglio) was a relative of the infamous one in Calabria as he was from Santo Stefano, his mother was a Musolino, and Giuseppe Musolino was involved with an older man also named Stefano Zoccoli.

Yes, and there was another Joe Musolino in Cleveland who was connected to the Milanos and Frank Turone. He served time in Leavensworth with Sam Lima (Banana Society). Lima got out out first and moved to SF. Musolino remained in contact with him and upon getting out moved to SF to the same address.

Screenshot 2024-02-16 162200.png

The Camorra was in Toronto on York St by the 1890s. When the santista grade was formed, Toronto was a part of it. Indicating that Canada Calabrians have a 100+ year relationship with Reggio. But it's confusing given their relations with the American LCN, but again, given how many societies upon societies the honored society had joining the mafia would be just another ring on the ladder to climb.

[B.]

There was also a Dominick Musolino killed in Buffalo in 1912 and Francesco Rangatore from Trabia was a witness, a likely relative of future Buffalo member Sam Rangatore who was originally from the Trabia colony in Johnstown. So these Trabia / Calabria circles keep overlapping.

[PolackTony]

There was also a Dominick Musolino killed in Buffalo in 1912 and Francesco Rangatore from Trabia was a witness, a likely relative of future Buffalo member Sam Rangatore who was originally from the Trabia colony in Johnstown. So these Trabia / Calabria circles keep overlapping.

Yes. Given these intersections between Calabresi and Trabbiesi in PA and Western NY, we should reconsider also the “Society of the Banana and Faithful Friends” in OH. This group would seem to be opaque and confusing — what looks like a Camorra/“Black Hand” Society led by and composed of Sicilians, mainly from the mafia hotbed area around Trabìa and Tèrmini Imerese (as you’ve discussed before, the Limas themselves had a mafia lineage going back to Trabìa). As a reminder, an LE raid executed in 1909, investigating a ring of “black hand” extortionists, on the Limas’ home in Marion, OH, in 1909, found a book of rules, like a constitution, similar or identical to those recovered from Camorristi in both Italy and the US, secreted in a safe and including pages denoting the membership and ranks of the “Society of the Banana”. This book specified punishments for infractions including death and wounding by knife, again like the Camorra, and established protocol for meetings and interactions with other branches of the Society. Interestingly, one of these rules specified that a member who travelled to an area under the jurisdiction of another branch must inform the heads of the “local” of that area of his trip and how long he would be staying (on pain of a knife attack if he failed to do so, naturally). This of course immediately brings to mind the “locali” of the ‘Ndrangheta.

Investigation by LE and the USPS reported that the Limas and their fellow Banana Buddies, while based in Central OH and Cincinnati, had confederates or counterparts in Western PA, Western NY, Chicago, and Chicago Heights, some of which were used to mail their “Black Hand” letters (the message to the extortion target by having multiple letters mailed from different cities being, essentially, “we are legion, we are everywhere all at once, you have no choice but to pay as you cannot fight or escape us”).

Now that we’ve seen that Sicilians were documented as being inducted into the Camorra in 19th century Italy, that Camorristi seem to have been operating perhaps even in Palermo as late as 1915 (we at least have an attestation from an American LE investigation claiming that they indeed were), and that they operated in Eastern Sicilian cities such as Messina and Catania into the 20th century, the Banana Boys can be evaluated in a new light (rather than being some weird aberration that seemed to make no sense). While none of the men arrested and put on trial as members of the Banana Society in 1909-1910 were mainlanders, we don’t know who their contacts in these other areas outside of OH were. We know that they had ties to PA and Western NY, where we have seen Trabbiesi connected to Calabresi. Further, among their number in OH were several Messinesi, hailing from a province of Sicily with a documented Camorra presence.