Piperi (tribe)

Piperi (Serbian Cyrillic: Пипери) is one of seven traditional Highland tribes (Brđani, "highlanders", from Brda) and a historical region in northeastern Montenegro, spanning a region between the Morača and Zeta rivers, reaching the northern suburbs of the Montenegrin capital Podgorica. The Piperi are regarded as one of the most bellicose tribes during the wars with the Ottoman Empire, in the history of Montenegro.

The eponymous founder, voivode Pipo, lived in the 15th century. According to legend, there were five brothers- Pipo, Vaso, Ozro, Kraso, and Oto, who become forefathers of the Montenegrin tribes Piperi, Vasojevići and Ozrinići, and the Albanian tribes Krasniqi and Hoti).

Piperi were first mentioned in Venetian documents at the beginning of the 15th century. Mariano Bolizza recorded in 1614 that the Piperi had a total of 270 houses, of Serbian Orthodox faith. The 700 men in arms were commanded by Radoslav Božidarov.Giovanni Bembo, the Doge of Venice (1615–1618), had defeated the Serb pirates (Uskoks), whom the Austrians had employed against the Republic of Venice; they were forced to take refuge at Nikšić and Piperi, and established themselves in the villages and tribes, under the later presidence of the Petrović-Njegoš family that held the office of Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan of Cetinje (later Vladika, Prince-Bishop) after 1694. They fought Osman Pasha in 1732, and Mahmut Pasha in 1788. They are mentioned as a "Serbian Orthodox clan" in a historical and geographical survey from 1757 and a letter sent by the Clan federation to Russia from 1789. Documents, especially the letter of Ivan Radonjić from 1789, show that the Montenegrins were identified as Serbs, and that the Banjani, Kuči, Piperi, Bjelopavlići, Zećani, Vasojevići, Bratonožići were not identified as "Montenegrins". They were all mentioned only in a regional, geographical, and tribal manner, and never as an ethnic category. In 1796 they fought Mahmut Pasha again, in the Battle of Martinići (in modern Danilovgrad). They fought Tahir Pasha around 1810.

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