What did the Sicilians refer to their organization prior to importing the Cosa Nostra terminology from the Americans? Honored Society?
The feds added theâ€La†but many American members are geared referring to it as “La†Cosa Nostra....is that just an example of the newer generations picking up on the “La†from the news/LE? A form of life imitating art?
this organization never had a real name, it was called 'the sect' before 1860, 'mafia' after 1860 and 'cosa nostra' since the 1950s, it has not a proper name although it's the same since at least the 1830s, the members anyway always called themselves 'men of honour' since the beginning, the real name should be honoured society
This is true, they don't have a name. "Cosa Nostra" is just Italian for "this thing of ours" which is not a name, it's just the term they use when referring to their organization.
I didn't know they called it "the sect" before 1860 but the name "mafia" is just a name the media gave them, as far as I know. However, I heard a story about the name "mafia". The short version of the story was a peasant Sicilian woman was getting raped by a rich land owner and she yelled out to another peasant woman she knew for help, she yelled out; "ma-fe-aa", "ma-fe-aa" (the woman's name) who subsequent came to her aid. And so the name "mafia" was born.
Probably just a Sicilian legend, who knows.
