aced the
Muslim, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic faiths brought to them by their
conquerors (see ch. 5, Social System).

Individual Albanians distinguished themselves in the service of the
Roman and Turkish empires and were noted for their ability as soldiers.
It was not until the nineteenth century when they began to seek
autonomy that their history was recorded in writing. Kinship and tribal
affiliations, a common spoken language, and folk customs served to
provide continuity and common identity through the many centuries of
relative obscurity.

There are marked differences in the physical appearance of the typical
Geg and the typical Tosk, but until World War II the greatest contrast
was in their social systems. The Geg and Tosk dialects differ, and there
are also variations within subgroups. Some progress was made under the
Zog regime in bringing the clans, whose authority prevailed particularly
in the north, under government control and in eliminating blood feuds
(see ch. 5, Social System).

After the Communists emerged victorious they imposed controls, the
objective of which was to eliminate clan rule entirely; they waged a
continuing struggle against customs and attitudes that, they believed,
detracted from the growth of socialism. Blood feuds were brought to an
end. Party and government leaders, in their effort to develop national
social and cultural solidarity in a Communist society, publicly tended
to ignore ethnic differences.

In practice, Enver Hoxha, the Party leader, who came from the south and
received the bulk of his support during World War II from that area,
frequently gave preference to persons and customs of Tosk origin. In the
late 1960s Party and government leaders continued to devote considerable
effort to the suppression of customs and rituals that, they declared,
were vestiges of the patriarchal, bourgeois, and religious systems of
the past. On one occasion in 1968 the Party announced that because of
its influence 450 infant betrothals were annulled and 1,000 girls
renounced ancient customs, including the taboo against females leaving
their village (see ch. 5, Social System).

The Gegs, because of their greater isolation in the mountainous areas of
the north, held on to their tribal organization and customs more
tenaciously than the Tosks. As late as the 1920s approximately 20
percent of male deaths in some areas of northern Albania were attributed
to blood feuds.

Under the unwritten trib