Mafia initiation ritual

To become a full member of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra – to become a “man of honor” – an aspiring member has to pass a Mafia initiation ritual. The ceremony involves significant ritual, oaths, blood, and an agreement is made to follow the rules of the Mafia as presented to the inductee. The first known account of the ceremony dates back to 1877 in Sicily.

The typical sequence of the ceremony according to several distinct descriptions has common features. First, the new recruit is led into the presence of other members and presented by a member; the association is explained including its basic rules; then his finger is pricked with a needle by the officiating member; a few drops of blood are spilled on a card bearing the likeness of a saint; the card is set on fire; finally, while the card is passed rapidly from hand to hand to avoid burns, the novice takes an oath of loyalty to the Mafia family.

The first known account of the ceremony dates back to 1877 in Monreale in an article in the Giornale di Sicilia in an account about the Stuppagghiari, an early Mafia-type organisation. Other early accounts were during a trial against the Fratellanza (Brotherhood) in Agrigento (1884) and the Fratuzzi (Little Brothers) in Bagheria (1889).

One of the first life accounts of an initiation ceremony was given by Bernardino Verro, a leader of the Fasci Siciliani, a popular social movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the early 1890s. In order to give the movement teeth and to protect himself from harm, Verro became a member of the Fratuzzi in Corleone. In a memoir written many years later, he describes the initiation ritual he underwent in the spring of 1893:

"[I] was invited to take part in a secret meeting of the Fratuzzi. I entered a mysterious room where there were many men armed with guns sitting around a table. In the center of the table there was a skull drawn on a piece of paper and a knife. In order to be admitted to the Fratuzzi, [I] had to undergo an initiation consisting of some trials of loyalty and the pricking of the lower lip with the tip of the knife: the blood from the wound soaked the skull."

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Wikipedia