Word: sicilianism
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...died that night, and three families are thrown into desolation," said a swarthy Sicilian with set lips one day last week, "but it was a crime of honor, and, praise God, honor is a word still held sacred in Sicily." "Where there is no honor," said his companion in solemn agreement, "there is chaos...
...roiling and boiling over the cobbles of its main street, the Way of the Deluge, threatening homes and crops alike. But whatever else may suffer in Borgetto, honor-particularly a maid's honoris sacrosanct. No man may fall victim to the lure of dark eyes in a Sicilian village without the certainty of reaping his reward in death or marriage, and the maiden who talks with a man on the street from her chamber window and then lets him stroll out of her life will never find another, for the neighbors will ever after know her as sfrontata...
Streamlined Service. Nino Cottone's death was one more indication of an amazing change in Sicily. For more than a century any Sicilian who paid "protection" to the Mafia was virtually immune from theft or attack. In those days the murder of a Mafia member like Nino meant only one thing-he had betrayed the organization. Lately, however, the once unquestioned authority of the Mafia has been challenged by a rival syndicate that calls itself Anonima Delitte-Crime Incorporated. In the past two years Crime Inc. has murdered 22 Mafia men. Result: a sharp drop in public faith...
Tribal Patterns. Italian police were unhappily forced to concede that they have little effect on either Mafia or Crime Inc. Many Italians are inclined to blame police ineffectiveness on the fact that carabinieri forces in Sicily are staffed and directed by mainland Italians, who do not understand the Sicilian temperament and the intricate, tribal patterns of Sicilian behavior...
...Said one Sicilian last week: "The people know that good people aren't attacked. It is the criminals who eliminate each other." Besides, it is doubtful whether even a Sicilian-run police force could soon overcome the centuries-old code of omertá, which makes informing-even against a rival gang-the greatest sin. Commenting on last week's murders, one Palermi-ano said with undisguised pride: "The black-clad widows don't speak; nor the children who nourish in their breasts their first thoughts of hatred and vengeance. That is the way of Sicilian blood...