Triad recruits must undergo a ritual that is evocative of Buddhist ceremonies. They learn secret handshakes and subtle facial expressions and gesture signs. Superstition plays a central role in the ritual. The way chopsticks are held or set down and the number of fingers used to grasp a goblet while drinking signify things of great importance to members. Language, too, is part of the ritual. Reynolds illustrates this as follows: “Certain phrases are used to signify information not to be shared with others. According to the RCMP, who infiltrated the Triads more effectively than any other Western police force, ‘bite clouds’ meant ‘smoke opium,’ and ‘black dog’ was code for ‘gun.’”[19]
It is important to distinguish among the terms Triads and Tongs, which are equated mainly in the Western media. The word Tong, which means “meeting hall” in Chinese, surfaced in the nineteenth century. It referred to social organizations helping Chinese immigrants adapt to the United States and Canada as laborers. Exploitation of the immigrants was rampant. Within the immigrant community, groups of people who wanted to help the exploited immigrants, who called themselves tongs, became vital sources of assistance givers. After a while, criminal elements within the tongs emerged, becoming involved in illegal activities, from gambling to prostitution and drug trafficking. Wars ensued among tong factions, with the survivors forming a new kind of street gang, separate from the Triads, who trace their origins to ancient legend. The Tongs continue to operate in North America, but their numbers are constantly dwindling in the face of social changes within Asian communities.
Gang names are sometimes based on those of their leaders. One of the most renowned gangs named in this way is the Sabini Brothers gang, formed in 1939 in London. The gang took its name from five brothers who were half Scottish and half Italian. Also in London, a gang named after two brothers, the Richardsons, terrorized the streets in the 1960s. Interestingly, the main rival gang of the Richardsons was a gang named after two brothers as well, the Krays, which became one of the most notorious gangs in Britain. At first, the two gangs collaborated, but they eventually came to distrust one another, leading to gang warfare on the streets of London. The rivalry was immortalized by the 1990 British movie The Krays, which revolves around the claim made by the Krays themselves that their activities did not target common people, but that their violence was limited to “their own kind.”
Some gangs name themselves after territories or places. The Dover Road Gang, for instance, named itself after a street in London that they have seized as their own territory. The Yardies, who came to Britain from Jamaica, got their name from the fact that they originated in the impoverished back streets of their native Jamaica. The police have been reluctant to use the gang’s name in an attempt to deny it the status of veritable gang it seeks. The police see the Yardies as street drug dealers—no more, no less. In Jamaican, the word yard can mean “home” or “patch of territory.” In the Unites States, Jamaican bands prefer to call themselves Posse, a term taken from Hollywood cowboy movies, referring to a group of men armed and summoned by a sheriff to enforce the law. This betrays the intrinsic interest that the gang has for the gunslinger ethos displayed in cowboy movies.
Oftentimes, gangs get their names simply from the world of fantasy. The Hells Angels, as we saw in the previous chapter, probably got their name from a movie or else created it metaphorically to convey hellish fear. The British gang called The Forty Thieves got their name from the book Tales from the Arabian Nights. The gang was founded in the 1890s, standing apart from most organized gangs given that it was run by women, who were mainly organized shoplifters based in South London. New members would have to wait for vacancies in the gang to join. The new recruits were trained and required to serve an apprenticeship under the tutelage of the leader, befittingly called the “Queen.”
The Wise Guy
As mentioned earlier, the criminal’s nickname constitutes a brand name. The title of don, which is given to a person of prominence in most of southern Italy—priests, noblemen, and the like—is a common one for Mafia capi. It is a sign of great respect, a fact that was not missed by Mario Puzo, who gave his main character the title of “Don” Vito Corleone. It is the equivalent of English “Lord” and, in fact, derives from Latin Dominus, meaning exactly that. Interestingly, it has become a synonym for “Mafia boss” in English. The first capo to bear that title was Vito Cascio Ferro (1862–1943), known as “Don Vito.” He was born in Palermo on the estates of Baron Antonino Inglese, becoming a gabellotto (“revenue collector”) for the baron and a rich local businessman. By the time Don Vito emigrated to New York in 1901, he had developed a reputation as a capo. In New York, he gave advice to the Black Handers, laying the foundations for the emergence of the American Mafia. He even crossed the path of legendary anti-Mafia cop Joe Petrosino, who had him arrested for murder. Don Vito was never convicted, and he returned to Sicily to escape prosecution from the police. In 1909, Petrosino was murdered during a visit to Palermo as he was seeking collaboration with Italian authorities to combat the Mafia. Don Vito was arrested for the murder, but he was never convicted because of dubious testimony given at his trial. He was arrested sixty-nine other times but never convicted, until Mussolini stepped into the anti-Mafia fray. In 1927, Don Vito was arrested by Mussolini’s Sicilian prefect, Cesare Mori, finally convicted, and sentenced to fifty years in prison, where he died in 1943.
Another early capo to bear the title of don was Calogero Vizzini (1877–1954), known as “Don Calò.” Born to peasant parents in a small town in the province of Caltanissetta, he initially teamed up with local bandits to ensure safe passage of grain products. He was among the first to make connections, as a capo, to influential and powerful citizens and groups, including the Freemasons, army officers, politicians, and businessmen. During World War II, he collaborated with the Allies and was, curiously, made an honorary colonel of the U.S. Army. He was the most respected and powerful Mafia don after Ferro.
Descriptive nicknames abound in criminal culture. The name of Salvatore in Sicilian is often rendered by the more colloquial and affectionate form “Totò,” which is ironically the nickname given to one of the most brutal of all Mafiosi of all time, Salvatore “Totò” Riina, who became part of an internecine Mafia war between clans, adopting, along with Luciano Leggio and Bernardo Provenzano, the vicious methods and activities of their American cousins in the Cosa Nostra. Riina also used the nickname “The Beast,” which accurately described his violent character. It was Riina who had ordered the murder of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone. He was arrested in 1993, six months after Falcone’s death. Apparently, he was betrayed by one of his most loyal followers, Balduccio Di Maggio—so much for omertà!
Abbreviated names are also common. Examples include Salvatore “Salvo” Lima (1920–1992), who was actually a politician in the Christian Democratic Party in Palermo and thus a link to the political realm for Mafia clans. He was assassinated when it was determined that he was no longer useful to the Mafia. The irony of the nickname “Salvo,” which, although a shortened form of Salvatore, is also an Italian word meaning “safe,” was not missed by the newspapers that reported on his death.
Many nicknames are essentially character profiles. An example is the one given to Michele Greco, born in Palermo in 1924 into a family with strong Mafia ties. He came to be known as “Il Papa” (“The Pope”) because of the power he wielded as head of a prominent clan known appropriately with the religious epithet of “La Cupola” (“The Cupola”). Incidentally, his brother, Salvatore, was known as “Cicchiteddu” (“Little Bird”) Greco, because he was raised on a citrus fruit grove where birds would flock. Appearance, character, and affiliation are the main semantic features used in the creation of many nicknames. Antonino “Manuzza” (“Little Hand”) Giuffrè, for instance, the acting head of the Caccamo mandamento, got his nickname because of his deformed right hand, mangled on account of a hunting accident.[20] The vicious Totò Riina was also nicknamed “U Curtu” (“Shorty”) for the self-ex
planatory reason that he was a short man. Pino “Scarpuzzedda” (“Little Shoe”) Greco was an underboss of the Ciaculli Family and a leading hitman for the clan. His Mafioso father was nicknamed “Scarpa” (“Shoe”)—hence his nickname. In a similar vein, American racketeer Joseph Lanza was nicknamed “Socks” because of his tendency to settle disputes with his fists (as in to sock someone).
The list of such nicknames is extensive. Among them we find such self-explanatory names as “Diamond” Jim Colosimo, a powerful Chicago Mob boss; Earl “Hymie” Weiss, a boss of the North Side gang in Chicago during the Capone era whose nickname is a slur standing for his Polish ethnicity; Richard “Peg Leg” Lonergan, a leader of an Irish gang calling itself the “White Hand,” in obvious ironic reference to the Black Hand; “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, implicated in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, whose name is an obvious reference to his profession of hitman; Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno, a hitman who turned state’s evidence, hence the term weasel; Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, a hitman for John Gotti who testified against his boss to save himself; and Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo, a maniacal killer who was part of a Brooklyn gang with his brothers. There is even a case of someone borrowing from television, namely, Joseph Caridi, an alleged member of the Lucchese crime family who is also known as “the Tony Soprano of Long Island.”
One of the most terror-producing names in Mafia history is the one that was given to brutal Black Hander Ignazio Saietta (1877–1944), considered to be one of the most deadly gangsters of all time, who used torture as a primary method of extortion. He was aptly called “Lupo the Wolf,” with the word lupo itself meaning “wolf” in Italian. Fear of wolves is endemic in Italian culture, and Saietta was perceived as having a wolverine nature. His stare alone, like that of a wolf, was said to have made people faint. He was suspected of having carried out more than sixty murders but was never convicted of any of them, showing again his lupo qualities.
Lunde perceptively explains the etiology of Mafia nicknames as follows:
Mafia underworld nicknames are self-explanatory, usually based on some notable mental or physical characteristic or inspired by their real last name, like “Tony Pro” (Anthony Provenzano). In the case of Murray Llewellyn Humphreys, “The Hump” and “The Camel” are both a play on the first syllable of his last name and the fact that he always wore camel hair overcoats. “Happy” Malone was a dreaded killer who never smiled. Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt carried his favorite weapon, a semiautomatic shotgun, in his golf bag. He was also a very good golfer. The “Gurrah” in Jacob Shapiro is simply Brooklynese dialect for “Get out of here,” which Shapiro used to say to resident union officials when taking over their local branch. Tony “Ducks” Corallo somehow always ducked convictions. “Scarface” was a nickname bestowed on Capone by the media. It would not have been wise to address him as such. His friends called him “Snorky.”[21]
A nickname is a marker of self-importance, braggadocio, and fanfaronade. Many criminals try to live up to their names, perhaps fulfilling the omen present in their name. An example is the Sicilian Michele “The Cobra” Cavataio, a brutal killer who got his nickname from his deceitfulness and the fact the he carried a Colt Cobra revolver. He acted and lived his life as a snake might, sneakily, yet viciously, when disturbed. The Palermo bosses had decided to get rid of him in 1969 because he was seen to be a loose cannon. In a gunfight, Cavataio was eventually killed.
The Talk
Such Mafia terms as pentito, Mano Nera, pizzo, and others are part of a lexicon that is called “criminal argot” or “cant” by linguists. These allow criminals to communicate with one another so that others will not be able to understand. The first dictionary of a criminal cant was published in 1819, compiled by an English nobleman, James Hardy Vaux, who had spent his early life in London and Liverpool and had become a criminal because of his addiction to gambling. Vaux probably recorded the cant spoken by English criminals and wrote the dictionary to gain a pardon, which he received in 1820. Historical documents show that various forms of criminal cants were spoken centuries prior to Vaux’s book, many going back to the medieval period. Interestingly, the newspapers reported in June 2009 that inmates in an English prison (Buckley Hall Prison in Rochdale) were using an “Elizabethan cant” as a vehicle of communication amongst themselves, so that guards would not be able to understand them. The criminals were fluent in a thieves’ cant that was used by sixteenth-century rogues to keep their operations secret. They had adopted the same type of slang, updating it to refer to drugs and other kinds of criminal activities. The examples reported included chat or onick for “heroin,” cawbe for “crack cocaine,” and inick for “phone or mobile phone.”
Whether communicating orally or in writing or spraying painted words on walls or buildings, criminal gangs have always used cant for secrecy, identity, group solidarity, and even historical documentation. A classic example is the cant used by the Russian Mafia. The following list, cited in Lunde, provides a linguistic portrait of the gang’s origins, training ground, structure, experiences, and activities:
akademiya: (Literally “academy.”) Refers to the prison where the thief (Vory v Zakone) learns his trade.
bandity: A military word for criminals.
dan: The Russian equivalent of the pizzo, or extortion money.
krestnii otets: The boss or godfather of the clan.
Krysha: (Literally “root.”) Refers to the protection provided after someone has paid the extortion money.
nayekhat: Denotes the activity of collecting the extortion money.
pakhan: The gang leader.
panama: The descriptive English name given to the dummy company set up to launder extortion money.
skhoda: A gang meeting.
suka: (Literally “bitch.”) The Russian equivalent of the pentito; the snitch or traitor.
torpedo: The descriptive English word used to label a contract killer.
vorovskoi obschak: The communal fund that gang members can access in time of need.[22]
Like the Russian Mafia, the Yakuza has developed its own vocabulary that allows members to speak about people and events in meaningful, group-based ways. The following is an illustrative list:
bosozoku: Refers to a youthful motorcycle gang, which constitutes a source of recruitment for the Yakuza.
burakumin: Denotes a group against which discrimination is aimed and thus constituting another source of recruitment.
giri: Designates the traditional Japanese sense of obligation, applied, of course, to Yakuza members.
oyabun-kobun: The father-child relation that undergirds the hierarchical structure and overall philosophy of the Yakuza.
sokaiya: Refers to common thugs and extortionists.
yubitsume: Indicates the requirement of an unfaithful or disloyal Yakuza member to cut off part of his finger and present it to the leader as a sign of asking for forgiveness.[23]
Facing unique dilemmas of whom to trust and how to make themselves trusted without being detected, cants allow criminals to successfully stay in business. The subtlety and ingenuity of the cant is truly remarkable. Starting in the late 1800s, Italian criminal gangs communicated via a truly inventive method, using pizzini, little pieces of paper on which they wrote their messages. The messages were often encrypted in secret ways, with special words that could only be decoded by the intended receivers. Throughout time, the pizzini method became increasingly sophisticated, and it continues to be used today, because, unlike electronic forms of communication, the pizzini are hand delivered and thus less likely to be intercepted. There are even cases of Mafiosi using cryptography. Similarly, a British gang operating in the Markham area of Ontario, before the Mafia, had developed an ingenious code to construct messages sent through messengers. The cryptic language was described as a “language so dark and cabalistic that none but the initiated could comprehend its meaning.”[24] To become a member of the gang, one had to learn an oath of high allegiance and a long list of duties and obliga
tions. “He is required to pledge himself that he will adhere to their rule, and never to betray their secrets on pain of certain death. In the event of any one of the gang being arrested, the other members are found to do all they can for him.”[25] The oath of secrecy was so strong that, to this day, the location of their hideout is unknown.
Terms of Distinction
Successful criminal organizations have hierarchical structure. The levels and roles of the members need names to be meaningful. As we have seen, in the Mafia, the levels are named with such terms as capofamiglia (“head of the family”), consigliere (“counselor”), sotto capo (“underboss”), capodecina (“head of ten”), and uomini d’onore (“men of honor”), among others. The Sacra Corona Unita has borrowed extensively from the ’Ndrangheta and the Camorra, using such names as crimine (“boss”), with offices held by trequartini (“three quarter”), sgarristi (“enforcers”), and camorristi (“soldiers”). Some of its nomenclature is based on a pseudo-religious terminology, as, for example, evangelisti (“evangelists”) and santisti (“saints”). As the informer Cosimo Capodieci put it, “The organization is sacred. The crown, because it resembles a crown, meaning the rosary used in church in order to carry out the functions of Jesus Christ and the cross. United because it was necessary to be connected to one another, similar to the rings of a chain.”[26] In imitation of sacred procedures, a santista must swear devotion to the clan on a Bible.
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