Tribes of Montenegro
The tribes of Montenegro or Montenegrin tribes are historical tribes in the areas of Old Montenegro, Brda, Old Herzegovina and Primorje.
Most tribes were formed in the 15th and 16th centuries, during and after the Ottoman conquest of the medieval state of Zeta, where they replaced former administrative units known as župas. As a result, the tribal territories also became basic geopolitical units of larger divisions of the Ottoman Empire, such as the Vilayet of Montenegro, the eastern parts of the Sanjak of Herzegovina and parts of the Sanjak of Scutari. From the late 14th century to the 18th century, some tribes were also under the rule of Venetian Albania. In the 18th century, many tribes became part of the Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro and after 1858 most of them were united into the Principality of Montenegro.
The tribal assembly of the Principality of Montenegro was initially officially composed of the two communities of Old Montenegro and the Brda. However, in anthropological and historical studies, the tribes are divided into those of Old Montenegro, Brda, Old Herzegovina and Primorje, then into sub-groups and finally into families. Today they are mainly studied within the frameworks of social anthropology and family history, as they have not been used in official structures since the time of the Principality of Montenegro, although some tribal regions overlap with contemporary municipal areas. The kinship groups give a sense of shared identity and descent.
Origin
The origins of the tribal system in Montenegro and Herzegovina are unclear and throughout the 20th century, the matter has been the subject of many debates and controversies in former Yugoslavia. In fact, the question has given rise to two rival theories that can be grouped into two schools of thought, the ethnographic and the historical.The ethnographic school
Also called the anthropogeographical theory, it was developed by Jovan Cvijić at the beginning of the 20th century, summarized by his student Jovan Erdeljanović and, later, further expanded by the Serbian anthropologist Petar Šobajić. This theory suggests that the origins of the tribes in Montenegro, as well as those of Herzegovina and Northern Albania, date back well before the establishment of the medieval South Slavic states. While its proponents acknowledge the possibility that some tribes may have originated in the 15th century, they argue that the majority of them, such as the Cuce or Ćeklići, actually emerged much earlier. These tribes are believed to have developed from ancient Balkan populations predating the Slavic era, including Vlachs or Albanians, who are thought to have been gradually Slavicized over time. These old tribes would have disappeared for the most part with the advent of the feudal state and then re-emerged in the 15th century, within the context of the collapse of the state structures which followed the Ottoman conquest. One of the key aspects highlighted by the ethnographic school also concerns the relationships between members of a tribe. While these generally tend to consider that they share a common patrilineal ancestor, Cvijić and his successors proposed a different view, suggesting that this may not be the case. In their opinion, tribes did not form on the basis of kinship but rather as a result of the amalgamation of various clans of different origin. On a territorial basis, the smaller clans would have gathered around the strongest, who would then have given his patronymic name to the newly-formed tribe.The historical school
However, the ethnographic school emerged after the establishment of its counterpart, the historical school, by Konstantin Jireček, in the second half of the 19th century. In his book Vlachs and Morlachs in Ragusan Sources, published in 1879, the Czech historian considers that the modern Montenegrin tribes only appeared in the second half of the 15th century as the outgrowth of Vlach katuns. This theory was then taken up and developed by Milan Šufflay and, in the second half of the 20th century, by Vaso Čubrilović and Branislav Djurdjev. One of the key points of the historical school is that the tribal organization of Montenegro developed after the collapse of the Crnojevići's Zetan state. After the Ottoman conquest, the medieval župas, heart of the territorial organization of the feudal Nemanjić state and its successors, were replaced with administrative units called nahiyas. Nevertheless, the tribes of Old Montenegro, Brda, and Old Herzegovina would not have originated from feudal nahiyas but rather from katuns and Vlachs. In fact, while the names of numerous Montenegrin tribes are already mentioned in records from the 14th and 15th centuries as names of katuns, such as the Banjani, Drobnjaci, Ćeklići, Malonšići, Pješivci or Bjelopavlići, some are not explicitly identified as katuns. Instead, they are called Vlachs, such as the Bjelice or the Nikšići. The katun was primarily a kinship organization, but since the Vlach shepherds were also serving as soldiers, it was also a military organization. Thus, the župas would have been divided by the katuns in areas where the katuns became tribes. In this case, whether through kinship, i.e., by bringing together unrelated people in an allegedly blood-related core group, or by uniting families without imposing a blood union, the Vlach katuns would have introduced elements of their kinship structure and military democracy into the tribes that arose on the ruins of the feudal territorial organization. In fact, Djurdjev was quite categorical regarding the fact that the origins of the kinship sense of affiliation in the tribes can only be traced back to the organization introduced by the katun.Other views
Outside Yugoslavia and the nations that emerged from it, few studies have been devoted to the Montenegrin tribes. The American anthropologist Christopher Boehm, who had studied them extensively, believed that only a few of them are descended from the ancient pre-Slavic population of the Western Balkans, namely the Illyrians. According to him, the vast majority of clans are descended from Slavs who settled in the Balkans before the 10th century, with a few clan names remaining from the Illyrian heritage. He also believed that most of the tribes were formed by more recently immigrated Serbian clans, patrilineal kinship groups founded by men who had fled to Montenegro from adjacent Serbian regions for political reasons, namely to escape blood feuds or problems with the local Ottoman overlords.Organization
The tribes were territorial and socio-political units composed of clans in historical Montenegro. The tribes are not necessarily kin as they only serve as a geopolitical unit. The tribes enjoyed especially large autonomy in the period from the second part of the 15th century until the mid-19th century. Initially they were recorded as katuns - a basic Albanian/Vlach social and ethnic structure not always homogeneous by blood on which head was katunar - tribal chief. With Slavicization, former katuns began to be called plemena, while the katunar became Slavic vojvoda or knez. Following the Ottoman occupation, the relative isolation from one another and lack of centralized authority made them local self-governing units.The clans or brotherhoods are made of patrilocal kin groups which usually trace their origin to a particular male ancestor and share the same surname. Names of brotherhoods are derived from either names, nicknames or profession of the ancestor. The bratstvo is an exogamous group and in most cases, marriage within the bratstvo is forbidden regardless of the biological distance between the would-be spouses. However, this is not the case with some larger brotherhoods who sometimes allow endogamous marriages if the genealogical distance between spouses is large enough. In war, the members of the bratstvo were obliged to stand together. The size of such units varied in size, ranging from 50 to 800 warriors. Through time the bratstvo would split into smaller subdivisions and acquire separate names. Contemporary surnames of Montenegrins usually come from these smaller units. The members tend to guard their family history and many are able to recite the line of ancestors to the originator of the bratstvo.
A tribe is commonly made up of several brotherhoods of different ancestry. At times of tribal autonomy, brotherhoods usually lived concentrated in the same place for long time and therefore formed a part of the tribe. Different brotherhoods living on the territory of one tribe were often not related to each other. A new brotherhood could be established if a stranger sought refuge, usually because of conflict with Ottoman authorities or because of a blood feud, within a tribe.
The tribes were an important institution in Montenegro throughout its modern history and state creation. Every tribe had its chief, and they collectively composed a "gathering" or assembly. The tribal assembly elected the vladika from exemplary families, who from the 15th century were the main figures in resistance to Ottoman incursions. The uniting of tribes was their core objective, but the results were limited to narrow cohesion and solidarity.
Culture
The Dinaric society of highland herdsmen had a patriarchal-heroic culture with endemic culture of violence caused by the survival from poverty on barren terrain, isolation from cities and education, and preservation of tribal structures. Illiteracy was not uncommon, and folk songs had higher influence on moral standards compared to Orthodox religious teaching. Sharp father-son clashes were common as violent self-assertion brought respect. Danilo Medaković in 1860 noted the paradox in Dinaric men "He is as courageous in combat as he is fearful of harsh authorities. Harsh authorities can turn him into a true slave", resulting in willingness to fight, but never true political freedom. Guerrilla warfare also had a negative impact on respect of the laws, with robbery and looting making important part of economical income. The harsh Montenegric life perspective is reflected in The Mountain Wreath.The clans were often in intertribal conflicts and blood feuds. Collaborating with external enemy against domestic wasn't uncommon, as Milovan Djilas relates "We Montenegrins did not hold a grudge against the enemy alone, but against one another as well". Djilas in his boyhood memoirs described the blood feuds and resulting vengeance as "was the debt we paid for the love and sacrifice our forebears and fellow clansmen bore for us. It was the defence of our honour and good name, and the guarantee of our maidens. It was our pride before others; our blood was not water that anyone could spill... It was centuries of manly pride and heroism, survival, a mother's milk and a sister's vow, bereaved parents and children in black, joy, and songs turned into silence and wailing. It was all, all". Although it made life miserable, "threat of vendetta helped to hold individuals within marriage pattern... individual tribes remained viable as political units under the vendetta system because truces usually could be made when needed".
In modern censuses of Montenegro, descendants identify as Montenegrins, Serbs, ethnic Muslims and Bosniaks, and Albanians.
The organisational structure varies significantly between various clans and tribes. Traditionally, the Vojvoda was regarded as the highest authority in the tribe. However, the appointment on such position also diverged among clans and evolved in the process of time. In some tribes the position was hereditary, and not necessarily from father to son, while in some was elective. Tribes of Old Montenegro rarely had Voivodas until the 18th century. The authority was thus in the hand of the local knez. The Highland tribes appointed Voivodas since the mid 15th century, while the tribes of the Old Herzegovina started the practice a century later. Voivoda had the authority to represent the tribe overall and thus his allegiances, either to the Ottomans or to the Prince-Bishops of Montenegro, even proclaiming himself independent marked the political course of the tribe. With the stronger central authority, Voivodes were gradually recognised as a sort of nobility in Montenegro, with the ruler having a power to strip them off the title. This historical process laid foundation for the creation of modern Montenegro, which evolved to the country from a loose federation of the tribes in the 18/19th turn of the century. The title of knez gradually disappeared, and thus was replaced with Sardar. During the period of theocracy, the highest religious authority was reserved for the Hegumen of some of the medieval monasteries which tribe claimed as its own and for whom it developed a worshiping cult. Morača is a particular example since it served as a gathering place of both Rovčani and Moračani tribe and, up to the beginning of the 19th century, Vasojevići, who later developed their own cult after Đurđevi Stupovi.