What was the Combaneesh?

[B.]

Excellent, so it does seem battuta was in use among prison Camorristi and that could have filtered out to these guys who came up around it. Hard to say what the context is but they also seem to be casually dropping random memories.

[PolackTony]

Excellent, so it does seem battuta was in use among prison Camorristi and that could have filtered out to these guys who came up around it. Hard to say what the context is but they also seem to be casually dropping random memories.

One would imagine that the use of the battuta would have been just as common among Camorristi/Picciotti in US prisons as back in Italy.

Ciaffone also recalled the Camorristi as using “the pig language” to identify fellow affiliates. The prison Camorra used a coded language, unintelligible to outsiders, which they called “boccaglio”, “buccagghiu” in Calabrese/Sicilian (the word literally means mouthpiece or nozzle). Clearly, not just the organization but elements of the broader subculture adherent to the old Camorra was transported to the US and still recalled by guys in the 60s.

[Angelo Santino]

We just recorded a 4-hour podcast on this. What was the Combaneesh? Asked and answered.

Maybe we can get it out tomorrow. If not, soon.

[Cheech]

We just recorded a 4-hour podcast on this. What was the Combaneesh? Asked and answered.

Maybe we can get it out tomorrow. If not, soon.

Excited for this

[ShotgunTheRifle]

We just recorded a 4-hour podcast on this. What was the Combaneesh? Asked and answered.

Maybe we can get it out tomorrow. If not, soon.

Looking forward to it!

[B.]

It's a four hour long Camorra initiation ritual where Angelo and Tony bring me into the minor society and I get my face slashed at the end.

[InCamelot]

Will be clicking refresh at work tmr.

[PolackTony]

It's a four hour long Camorra initiation ritual where Angelo and Tony bring me into the minor society and I get my face slashed at the end.

A Camorrista eats as much as a hungry goldfinch, he keeps quiet or he falls like a ball that spins and beats here and there because he must be like a spiral that always returns and can never stand still.

A Camorrista weighs as much as a feather abandoned to the wind and is worth as much as the gold of the whole of France.

A Camorrista represents a lion tied with a chain of 24 links and 25 rings that cannot be detached without the order of Society.

A tall, wise comrade, a chief, and an accountant reside on a small island in the middle of the sea with a straitjacket and irons and chains against which they fight and refight so as not to be accused by other Heads of Society.

The Camorra is a ball of blood that goes around the world and every 24 hours it makes its rounds.

[motorfab]

I haven't had time to listen to your new podcast yet so I don't know if you'll address this point but in 1930, Neapolitan-born detective Alberto Verusio Ricci wrote an article in True Detective Mysteries magazine about his experiences with the "Black Hand" & the Camorra

Among other things, he found a manuscript of the rules of the Camorra belonging to John Rotundo a Calabrian Camorrist, wanted for a murder committed in Pennsylvania in 1927. The article contains images of the manuscript.

Some pages had been published in the press of the time but here they are very readable.

I guess some of you already know it but those interested here is the article, pages 28 to 33 & 87 to 91 https://archive.org/details/TrueDetecti ... 7/mode/1up

[Angelo Santino]

Ive had them for awhile, including the 3rd article. I'll be delving into these docs and others in the upcoming article.

[PolackTony]

I haven't had time to listen to your new podcast yet so I don't know if you'll address this point but in 1930, Neapolitan-born detective Alberto Verusio Ricci wrote an article in True Detective Mysteries magazine about his experiences with the "Black Hand" & the Camorra

Among other things, he found a manuscript of the rules of the Camorra belonging to John Rotundo a Calabrian Camorrist, wanted for a murder committed in Pennsylvania in 1927. The article contains images of the manuscript.

Some pages had been published in the press of the time but here they are very readable.

I guess some of you already know it but those interested here is the article, pages 28 to 33 & 87 to 91 https://archive.org/details/TrueDetecti ... 7/mode/1up

Over the decades, authorities in both Calabria and North America seized several of these books or “codexes”possessed by ‘Ndranghetisti, some handwritten and others printed. We’ve discussed the 1971 codex recovered from the Sidernese Francesco Caccamo outside of Toronto, which was of this type. The codexes contained variations on the same themes, including the mythologized “history” of the Camorra and its legendary founding by the “Three Spanish Knights” on Favignana; initiation rituals for the doti (giovane d'onore, picciotto, camorrista, camorrista di sgarro); rituals for the opening and closing of Society functions such as meetings and tribunals; the rules and laws of the Society; and punishments for transgressions. Much of this comes in the form of didactic exchanges between a senior member and one of lower grade, question and answer format, to exemplify the traditions and values (honor, humility, charity to fellow members, solidarity with fellow members, abhorrence of infamità) of the Honored Society.

An excellent overview of these codexes — if one can find a copy and read Italian — is found in Luigi Malafarina’s 1986 book “Il Codice della ‘Ndrangheta”. Malafarina doesn’t include the codex recovered by Ricci in Olean, NY, that you brought up here, but it is of the same theme and content as the others he does discuss, which were mostly recovered in the early 20th century in Calabria (he also touches on the 1971 Caccamo book from Canada).

[motorfab]

I must find this book, thanks for the tip,I didn't know this one.

[Angelo Santino]

I must find this book, thanks for the tip,I didn't know this one.

Later this week or the beginning of next I'll be releasing Article 4 with Tony as a co-author which deals with the camorra's own written documents. We explore them but will also include the original documents (and their translations.) The Olean "book" will also be made available in its entirety. The Mafia never wrote its history on paper, but the camorra/'ndrangheta, in fact, did, by way of these codici or codices. I will make some "modern" examples available but as stated, it's not my place to retell the history of Reggio, other authors have done that. A review of these documents from before and after the 70s deserves deeper inquiry because that is when the 'ndrangheta went through an evolution of sorts and their codices reflect that.

[motorfab]

I briefly return to Giuseppe Mammone and the attempted murder of Thomas Cennamo in Buffalo because I was rereading my notes recently.

So on October 29, 1917, Giuseppe Mammone and 4 other individuals (Tony & Domenico Tripi, Bruno Talbo & Anthony Masdea) attempted to murder Thomas Cennamo, a shoemaker, in Lackawanna. They fired at least 20 shots and Cennamo escaped but lost an eye. The defendants were then sentenced in 1918 to sentences of 2 to 5 years.

Upon his release from prison in 1926, Mammone went to Australia, where he killed Domenico Belle and the police found a Camorra initiation manuscript at his home (see page 9 of this thread).

But the police will also find letters written by Mammone where he describes his life in the USA. Problem with newspaper articles in Australia: many events are distorted (American newspapers are gospel in comparison).

He therefore explains that an individual named Antonio Belluomo would have shot him for a story of "business jealousies") and that he would have went to his house armed and that he would have shot him 12 times after having dinner. Belluomo would be the boss of the Camorra in Buffalo.

Problem, the dates given in the article are wrong (1919 instead of 1917), the name is probably wrong because the events described are those of the Cennamo affair (I searched, nothing on this Antonio Belluomo). If this is indeed Cennamo (and I'm pretty sure it is), the name of his wife and daughter are also wrong. Another point addressed in the article is the death sentence of Mammone, which is not mentioned anywhere in the articles published in the USA.

The fact remains that according to Mammone, Cennamo/Belluomo is the leader of the Camorra in Buffalo (for those who want to read the article published in Australia, here it is https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... 20belluomo)

I didn't find much in the way of articles concerning Cennamo, but his name came up in the local press in 1926. Along with his wife Angelina, they were at odds with his brother-in-law, Biagio Pinto. Cennamo & Pinto disagree over a $200 check. But Cennamo having been armed since the attempted murder in 1917, a judge was obliged to intervene so that things did not escalate.

According to one article, Pinto emigrated to the USA around 1894 and came from the province of Salerno, so I guess Cennamo was from there too.

Pinto died in 1948 and Cennamo in 1955.

Apart from Mammone's letters, there is nothing to indicate any other criminal activity for Cennamo, has anyone already tried to find out more?

(for those interested I can attach the articles I have on Cennamo/Pinto, I did not do it here so as not to clutter the page too much)

[B.]

Excellent work, Fabien.