Who are the Mafia

We have  heard of the word mafia often  in various video games or movies and various other shows.

But what did mafia originally mean and what are their origins ?? Well lets try to find that out.

The word mafia originates from the Sicilian word mafioso which roughly  translates to ' Swagger ' or ' Boldness ' or  ' Bravado ' . In the 19th century it signified ' Fearless ' ,' Enterprising' and 'Proud'.

They are said to have originated from Sicily but later to have spread all across Italy and operate in various parts of Italy and as time passed to operate even out of Italy e.g in USA . But the term Mafia was never used by the Sicilian mafioso instead they and their associates call themselves as "Cosa Nostra" 

They are a type of organised crime syndicate whose primary activities include protection racketeering, brokering illegal transactions causing disputes between criminals and benefitting from them.Their secondary activities include gambling , loan sharking, prostitution ,etc. They have a strict rule of not dealing in the drug business primarily because they believe  that the money from drug business and the influence of drugs in their neighbourhood can cause people to rat the organisation out. 

The mafia be it the Italian Cosa Nostra or the American mob more or less have the same defined common rules for each of the family. 

1) Be loyal to the organisation.   

2) Be rational 

3) Be a man of honour

4) Keep your eyes and ears open but mouth shut

But the most important and hardest of them all and the one common in all is the  rule of Omerta. The word Omerta basically means the rule of silence. Basically you have to remain silent of any criminal activity you do or witness being done by the family , you must refuse to give any information to the police, your own family is nothing in front of the organisation ,if your boss asks you to do a job you ensure that its done even if your mother is on her deathbed or your wife is giving birth . The organisation becomes your family. 

The Mafia has a sort of tree or chain of command with the mob boss being at the top he is the head of his particular family he is the leader or a more famous term he is the 'Don' he calls the shots and is not to be messed with he is the one who decides if you would join his family or not his post is all powerful but with power comes responsibility and dangers. You have the responsibility of paying,maintaining and caring for the men working under you as well as increasing your influence and you also have the danger of being assassinated by a rival mob  or being arrested by the government.

Then we have the Consigliere who is the Dons adviser he advises the Don in various decisions he helps the Don to keep the family united and not let the family fall in a civil war he has the responsibility of helping the Don in ' business' .

Then we go to the underboss who is the first in line to become the Don in case the present Don dies or is imprisoned , the underboss has the responsibility of the capos , look after the day to day business and make sure that things remain in control so that the Don does not have to intervene personally.

As mentioned the Underboss has Capos working under him a capo is a rank which roughly represents captain , he is a made member in the family and has lots of respect as well as influence in the society he may receive direct orders or act on his own but in both cases has to give a cut to the Don he gets the job done on the ground level and has men working under him who are called soldiers .

Soldiers never receive orders directly from the Don , they receive orders from their capo and are the ones who do the dirty work and give a cut of it to the Capo.

So this is what the basic structure of Mafias is .