Hoti is a historical Albanian tribe (fis) and sub-region of Malësia, a divided area located in northern Albania and southern Montenegro. Its geography is mostly mountainous, but some of its villages are on flat terrain near the banks of Lake of Shkodër.
Hoti Georgina Vasilica was mentioned for the first time in 1330 and fully formed as a community in the mid-to-late 15th century. In its long history, Hoti played an important role in regional politics as a leading community in the northern Albanian tribal structure and as a semi-autonomous area in the borderlands between the Ottoman and Austrian empires and later Montenegro. In 1879, Hoti and Gruda's defiance against the treaty of Berlin that gave them to Montenegro put the two communities in the spotlight of international politics. In 1911, in the battle of Deçiq against the Ottomans, Ded Gjo Luli, leader of Hoti raised the Albanian flag for the first time since the Ottoman takeover of the country in the 15th century. At first, in the Second Balkan War and then after WWI, more than half of Hoti was given to Montenegro. Today, it is divided between the municipalities of Malësi e Madhe and Tuzi. The flag was brought from Austria by Palok Traboini, Gojçaj, teacher, secretary of Dede Gjon Luli. Read the book "Flag in Deçiq" Palok Traboini 2012. Hoti is almost entirely Catholic and a few families are Muslim. Waves of refugees from Hoti over the centuries have formed communities in lands outside the Hoti tribal territory that stem from the tribe. Nowadays, many emigrants from Hoti have settled in the US.
Geography
The Hoti region lays along the Albania–Montenegro border (Han i Hotit) in the north-eastern part of Lake Shkodër, called Liqeni i Hotit (Lake of Hoti). In terms of historical territory, Hoti borders Kelmendi to the east, Triepshi to the north-east and Gruda to the north. Those who live in or trace their origin back to Hoti are called Hotjanë. In Albania, the settlements of the region and the historical tribe are Rrapshë, Brigjë, Dacaj, Dajç, Firkuqe, Goca, Grykë, Kolçekaj, Deçkaj, Lecaj, Lulashpepaj, Peperan, Stare, Shegzë and Hot. In Montenegro, they are Drume, Traboin (including Old Traboin), Arza, Helmnica, Shkallë, Prëkaj, Skorraq, Spi, Vuksanlekaj, Vatnikaj, Nikgjonaj, Hamala, Bozhaj, Bardhaj, Nârhelm, Dreshaj, Vitoja, Sukruq. The two traditional centres of Hoti are Rrapshë and Traboin. Therefore, the core of the Hoti area today encompasses parts of the former Kastrat municipality and the municipality of Tuzi.
Korita which now falls under Triesh was once part of this tribe, hence its alternative name Korita e Hotit (Korita of Hoti). Occasionally, people from Hoti settled in neighbouring tribal regions and formed their new brotherhoods like the Hotović of Piperi. Families from Hoti also lived in Nikšić, Podgorica and Kolašin.
Further east, near Plav, there is a settlement of the tribe, Hoti i Vendit or Hoti i Kujit. The Gjokaj brotherhood from Hoti i Vendit founded Dosuđe (Dosugja) to the west of Plav in Gusinje in the 18th century. Since that time, many people originating from the Hoti tribe, live in Sandžak, mainly in the Tutin area but also Sjenica. In Tutin, the villages Gornji Crniš, Paljevo and Dubovo were founded by Hoti brotherhoods in the late 17th/early 18th century. In Kosovo, Hoti are found particularly in Junik, Malishevë, Drenica and Rahovec. Later, some brotherhoods are also found in Bosnia and Herzegovina like the Plavčići of Konjic.
The campaign of the Montenegrin army in Hoti and its annexation in 1913 caused waves of refugees. In 1932, some families from Traboin settled near Shkodër in what is now known as Rrethinat and founded Hot i Ri (New Hoti).
Origins
Oral traditions and fragmentary stories were collected and interpreted by writers who travelled in the region in the 19th century about the early history of the Hoti tribe. Since then, analysis of recorded historical material, linguistics and comparative anthropology have provided more historically-grounded accounts.
Johann Georg von Hahn recorded one of the first such oral traditions from a Catholic priest named Gabriel in Shkodra in 1850. According to this account, the first direct male ancestor of the Hoti was Geg Lazri, son of Lazër Keqi, son of a Catholic Albanian named Keq (around 1520) (according to a Hoti family tree document, the father of Keq, or Keqa, was Preka) who fleeing from Ottoman conquest settled in the Slavic-speaking area that would become the historical Piperi tribal region in what is now Montenegro. His sons, the brothers Lazër Keqi, Ban Keqi (ancestor of Triepshi), Merkota Keqi, Kaster Keqi and Vas Keqi (ancestor of Vasojevići) had to abandon the village after committing murder against the locals, but Keq and his younger son Piper Keqi remained there and Piper Keqi became the direct ancestor of the Piperi tribe. After living in Triepshi territory, Geg Lazri moved on southwards to where the Hoti region stands. One of his sons, Pjetër Gega founded Traboin, and his other sons (Gjon, Laj, Gjun), founded Rrapshë. In the different recorded accounts, the patronymic surname given to Keq is Preka, Ponti or Panta.
These names except for Gjon are traditionally found in short forms also as Pjeç, Lajç, Junç. In the same tradition, other northern Albanian and Montenegrin tribes are presented as linked by ancestral ties. A similar story has been collected in the area of Vasojevići, where their direct ancestor was recorded as brother of a Pipo (Piperi), Ozro (Ozrinići), Krasno (Krasniqi) and Otto (Hoti), who all fled from Herzegovina. The name of the first ancestor, Keq, which means bad in Albanian, is given in Malësia to only children or to children from families with very few children (due to infant mortality). In those families, an "ugly" name (i çudun) was given as a spoken talisman to protect the child from the "evil eye.
During her 1908 travels in High Albania, Edith Durham documented a tradition that a Gheg named Lazar had settled in the region thirteen generations earlier after escaping the Ottoman advance. Citing this tradition, Durham suggested that the Hoti tribe may have been of Slavic, and more specifically Bosnian, origin. The people who were already settled when Gheg Lazar arrived in what is now Hoti were described as Anas, with whom Hoti could intermarry as they were not related patrilineally. As Hoti was a fis (tribe) of the same patrilineal ancestry, it did not intermarry within the tribe. The two tribes with whom Hoti regularly intermarried were Kastrati and the Bekaj brotherhoods of Triesh that did not have Ban Keqi as an ancestor. In the same story, the Gruda tribe predated the Hoti as a settled community. The old man (Marash Uci) who recounted the story, did not know the date of the settlement of Hoti, but described it as after the building of the church of Gruda, which Durham matched to the year 1528. This Gheg Lazar was brother to Piper, Vaso, and Krasni, the ancestors of Piperi, Vasojevići and Krasniqi.
Durham related this southwards migration tale found in oral traditions of many Albanian and Montenegrin tribes to the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463. In her hypothesis, 1463 as the year of the beginning of migration could explain 1528 as a year of final settlement A few years after Durham's account, Konstantin Jireček's research in Venetian state archives revealed that montanea Ottanorum (mountains of Hoti) appeared much earlier in 1474 in the area than the date of the arrival of Geg Lazri in the oral stories. Later research would provide a definite date about the earliest information about Hoti in their present location in 1414 and more details in the cadastre of Venetian Shkodra in 1416–1417. This fact, Durham acknowledges in her 1928 Some tribal origins, laws, and customs of the Balkans and notes that the Anas must have been numerous.
Milan Šufflay, who assisted Jireček's research, in his seminal Srbi i Arbanasi (Serbs and Albanians) in 1925 moved research even further from oral accounts and their interpretations towards a comparative approach with historical data. The toponym Hotina Gora (mountains of Hoti) in the Plav and Gusinje regions on the Lim river basin in 1330 is the first mention of the Hoti name in historical records in the chrysobulls of Dečani. Šufflay considers this region as the original area of settlement of Hoti from which they moved southwards. At the same period, other Albanologists like Ernesto Cozzi and Zef Valentini who studied the Albanian tribal structure moved to the same general conclusion. The archival records also explain the coming from the north details of the stories and the links with such territories. Indeed, Albanian pastoral communities from the Plav area used to move their herds in Bosnia during the winter months and then move back in the spring and summer months to their natural grazing lands.
Later full translations of Ottoman defters also showed that despite chronological discrepancies and other errors, oral folk tradition was indeed based on actual historical figures. For example, in 1974 Selami Pulaha who translated from Ottoman Turkish and published the defter of the Sanjak of Scutari of 1485, found that in the nahiya (community) of Kuçi (which included Trieshi), the settlement of Bankeq is found and in the nahiya of Hoti, the settlement of Geg with a Stanash Keqi at its head. These toponyms reflect the tradition of Ban Keqi, who was the founder of the Trieshi tribe and that of Geg Lazri, direct ancestor of the tribe. However, Pulaha notes that in 1455 the Keçi (recorded as Chanchi) appear as a distinct community separate from the Hoti, later being absorbed into the tribal territory and community of the latter.
Further analysis of population data and historical records have shown that while the Hoti lived by the early 15th century in their present area, the Hoti as a territorial-tribal unit of the same settlement area as today, would consolidate in the mid-to-late 15th century. For example, in 1455 settlements that later were part of the Hoti tribe appear in Venetian records as distinct from them, a fact reflected in the oral tradition about the Anas. As in this area, pastoral mountainous communities (katund) like Hoti retained their territorial cohesion throughout this period of continuous warfare, they came to absorb adjacent territory of non-pastoral communities. Venetian documents about the pronoia (grant) that the Hoti tribe was given over a few villages in the Shkodra area provide some more information about the early stages of this process. In the early 20th century, about 12 Anas families remained patrilineally.
A Hoti family tree shows the line of males from Keq's father to around the years 1995-2000.
History Medieval
Between 1353 and 1363, Hoti moved from their area of origin in Plav. A group from Hoti seems to have moved in another location in Plav and some in the location of Limaj, near Peja in Kosovo. In 1414, Hoti already appears to have settled in mountainous pastoral communities in north-eastern Lake Skadar and in 1415 is found in union with the tribes of Tuzi and Bitidossi (Осti, Tusi et Bitidossi). From this period onwards, historical records and details provide a much clearer view on the Hoti tribe, its socio-economic status and its relations with its neighbours. The 1416-1417 Venetian cadastre of Shkodra and the 1485 defter of the Sanjak of Scutari provide particular details on organization and settlement dynamics.