Shqipëria
7
The Labs (by Ibrahim Manzour, 1827)
THE LABS
The Labs [Lapes] live in a region called Laberia, a mountainous territory situated between Toskeria to the north and east, Chameria to the south, and the Adriatic Sea to the west. The members of this tribe are the dirtiest and crudest of all the Albanian nation, and this is no exaggeration. Their ignorance surpasses all imagination. Those among them who regard themselves as Muslims know only that they are Turkco (Turks). They do not even know the word Muslim, nor do they know anything about the Islamic faith that they even distort when they pronounce the word. Those who claim to be Christians call themselves giaour (from the Turkish word gavur ‘infidel’). They make the sign of the cross with three fingers, from right to left, as is done in Greek Schismatic churches. This is all that these savage and beastly mountain men know of their religions, to which they are not particularly attached. It often happens that families and, indeed, whole villages, convert to Islam solely to rid themselves of the capitation tax called haraç that non-Muslims are forced to pay, even though the sum involved is quite modest, being three and a half piasters for the poor class. This is the equivalent of two francs and sixty-two centimes annually for adult men. Women and children are exempt. In 1818, while I was in Janina, Ali Pasha ordered the inhabitants of a Christian village in Laberia to convert to Islam. I do not know the reason why the tyrant did this in contrast to their convictions, but I do know that none of them, including their priest, opposed the order. Indeed none of them minded being circumcised. Ali Pasha sent them an imam (Muslim priest) from Janina to teach them Islam and, at the house of Mehmed Efendi, the pasha’s steward, where I was staying, I was told that the son of the one-time priest and the two sons of the mayor of the village had been carried off to learn about the Muslim religion and to serve as hostages in order to guarantee the sincerity of the conversion of their fathers. The other children of that village were distributed among the main Muslim families of Janina for the same purpose.
One day, I spoke to a Lab who was born a Christian and who had converted to Islam with all of his family. As the reason for his conversion, he told me that he had been suffering difficulties over the last few years – frost, epizootic diseases, illness and fines, etc. He had prayed to Jesus, to his mother, to Saint Nicholas and to various other saints, but to no avail. He and his family decided it was time to invoke the intercession of Mohammed, and since that time, he has been relieved of all the difficulties. They thus all decided to put themselves under his protection and converted to that religion. This had the added advantage that he did not need to spend his money buying little candles that the Christian saints demanded and that were never big enough for them. As a poor man, he could not afford the fine candles they required. But Mohammed, on the other hand, protected him free of charge. It was with the most serious and intimate conviction that this Lab naively revealed these reasons to me. I have referred to them here simply to show the ignorance in which these people wallow, at the very gates of civilised Europe.
The Labs are universally despised, even by other Albanians. They are too simple-minded to be as evil as the other tribes, but their excessive coarseness and their disgusting filth make them a bother. They often commit murder and rape out of simple stupidity, as the other Albanians do out of spite or vice. Ali Pasha has arrested and massacred hundreds of them because they are all thieves, due both to natural impulses they cannot resist and to extreme poverty. But this has not helped to improve these beasts in human form, even though there are hardly any Lab families without members who have been put to death for such crimes on the terrible orders of Ali Pasha. I have been told that Labs even steal among the crowds that have gathered to witness the execution of their close relatives or brothers. They cannot resist stealing, which they do for the basest of motives.
The word Lab is used as an insult by all Albanians who are not of this tribe. They themselves are insensitive to such insults and don’t care, as long as they are not beaten up and their wives are not seduced. Marriages between Muslims and Christians are very frequent in this tribe. That is, Muslim men marry Christian women but it is not allowed for a Christian man to marry a Muslim woman.
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Originally Posted by Herr Abubu
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