◆ SpookStack

bw Onn Sune ko mre is ig ho tee Ne Mecho Neste A RO + © NM rw] r ine, a) ORDA NOPD SAN & Lae] Oo La ua Ga La Lad EWNHO Ww LY “Ot us Ww Qo 7 reo r iy ADH i 1 i Foowy ractal grouping; an attitude: a form of conduct; and a sense of being superior to ay morel, soctal, or political law. The Mafia, said Paton, was a phase of Sicilian ” society, neta compart organization of individuals bound together by oaths, nor: a serret society of members who recognized one another by grips and passwords,’ but rather ‘a state of social tmmorality tacitly acquiesced in by an indefinite murber of “icilians, who order thelr living and regulate their thinking according (48) toa code of ethics called omerta. Disregarding social law and accepting omerta, Mafios! are pulded hy its teachings and by it reguiate their lives and adjust their (49) relations to their fellow men," ty ee ame TE Omerta war not ocpressed as 8 code of ethics in so many words, but I firplied in an undervorid stang consisting of popular sayings, proverbs, and apothegms, ina variable Sicilian dialect. Omerta was a living discipline kept. , alive in the minds of there v hose criminal tendencies made them favor It and f (50) ‘becotre Instruments of it, '™ turn it encouraged them to make themselves | F independent of lav and socfety, forming then:selves into a virtual “conspiracy . (51) oe of the strong and masterful aeninst the weak and fearful." Only a small minority of Sicilians were caid to be verttable Mafiosi, but thie masterful, active minority, incptred by the spirit of evil, “having omerta In their hearts, (52) terrorized the unoreanized, timorous, passive majority, the peaceable citizens." - 33 - i