A SELECTED MAFIA GLOSSARY (SICILIAN)

In Corleone, Sicily (see "Rassettarsi la testa" below)

Ammonizione:  Judicial proceeding which imposes specific  restrictions on offenders or potential offenders.

Anonima Sequestri:  Incorporated kidnappings.

Associazione  a delinquere:  A charge “invented” by Prefeto Mori  especially for the mafiosi.

Campiere:  Overseer, field-guard (see below)

Canziarsi:  To go into hiding (from the police).

L'Ora(1900-1990) (see below)

 

Compare, compa`, commare:  Old Italian words for someone who is close to the family.  (The Merry Wives of Windsor is, in Italian, ‘Le allegre commari di Windsor’).  It comes from ‘cum matrem cum patrem’.  In Sicilian compare or commare are witness to a marriage of godfathers  and godmothers, a practice used by the cosche to expand the family network.

Cosa bianca:  Heroin.

Cosa carica:  A considerable quantity of drugs.

Cosa bianca (see above)

Cosca (plural cosche)—cacocciula:  Referred etymologically to artichoke (in Sicilian cacocciula) to indicate a clique of Mafiosi.  Capocosca = the leader of a cosca.

Cosche map (see above)
 

Garantire:  To guarantee, to protect and give one’s word for a ‘smaller’ man.

L’Ora:  Palermitan evening daily started in 1900 by Ignacio Florio.

Lupara and Pallettoni (see below)

Lupara:  Sawn-off shotgun.  Meant for shooting wolves and used by Sicilian criminals for its compactness.  It is an ordinary shotgun sawn off at both ends , so that it becomes a kind of long revolver, but a more lethal one, since its bullets contain many lead pellets.  It is a fearful and graceful object; some of the shotguns are ornately worked, but most are just smoothed on both sides, the wooden and metal ends.  The belt for the bullets has a beautiful quality and obviously  enhances the sense of power of the man who feels its weight.

Mandante:  Principal.

Mandatario:  Agent in a Mafia crime.

‘nfamita:  An infamy – for a Mafioso, breaking the Mafia ‘code’.

‘ntisu:   Someone whose opinion is listened to and is important – a mafioso.

Pallettoni:  The lupara’s pellets.

 

Pupi in Palermo

 

pupi:  Sicilian puppets (representing the paladins of the court of Charlemagne).  

Rassettarsi la testa:  Mafioso slang for keeping quiet.

Anti-police graffiti in Palermo  

Sbirro (pl. Sbirri):  Southern pejorative for policemen.

Sfregio:  An offence to the authority of a Mafioso, which has to be punished.

Sgarro:  An offence punishable by death.

Sucivita`:  The society – the Mafia.

Vendetta:  Revenge.

Vossia:  Comparable to the English ‘thou’ and no longer used in current Italian.  The Sicilians only use it to address people of respect like the mafiosi.

From Gaia Servado:  Mafioso.  New York, Dell, 1976

The Ballad of Luciano Leggio

Luciano Leggio (1925-1993)

Excerpts from “The Ballad of Luciano Leggio”, Pt. 1:

“Liggio has even had the honor of being the subject of a ballad called ‘The Prince of the Mafia’.  In it we find the usage of the word ‘Killer’, by now adopted by the Sicilian dialect  whenever referring to the Mafia:

‘Signori miei, voglio raccontarvi la complete storia del capo mafia siciliano Luciano Leggio (dento Liggio):

I.

Quanno muriu Calogero Lo Bui

Lu cupu di la mafia lucali

a Corlionici fu un fui fui

pp’acquistari ddu titulu . . . riali:

ma cci appi cchiu putiri e fermu pusu

dori Micheli Navarra, mafiusu

II.

. . .  Luciano Liggiu ancora era un mucciusu

un carrusiddu a chinnicianni appena

siccu arruganti, agili mpignusu

di pruvatu curaggiu e longa lena

ca spurtusava, ccu la so pistol

un palancuni ca nta l’aria vola

III.

Ma la so puverta’ non lu consola

e cuminciau la vita di banditu

ccussi’, a vint’anni, dopo bona scola . . .

addivintau assassin rifinutu

ed ammazzu la guardian giurata

Calogeru Calajanni numinata

(Il Colajanni fu ucciso perche’ aveva denuncito Liggio per un furto di covoni di grani e l’aveva fatto rinchuudere in prigione.)”

Corleone (Sicilian: Cunigghiuni), Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy, pop. 12,000.

Translation:

“Good people, I want to tell you the complete story of the Sicilian head of the Mafia, Luciano Leggio (called Liggio):

I.  When Calogero Lo Bui, head/of the local Mafia died/at Corleone there was a rush/to conquer the ‘royal’ title:/but  the one who had real power and strength/was Don Michele Navarra, the Mafioso./

II.  . . . Luciano Liggio was still a boy/a youngster of fifteen only/lean, arrogant, agile and overbearing/of great courage and energy/who killed with his pistol/a bird which flies in the air./

III.  He was not consoled by his poverty/and started the life of a bandit/and so, at twenty, after a good school/he became a refined murderer/and killed a guard/called Calogero Colajanni/

(Colaganni was killed because he had denounced Liggio for a theft of wheat and had him locked up.)”

Michele Navarra (1905-1955) aka "'u patri nostru" ("our father").

From Gaia Servado:  Mafioso.  New York, Dell, 1976