Gashi (tribe)

The Gashi are thought to be related to the Toplana.[3] According to tradition, recorded by Baron Nopcsa in 1907, the ancestor of Shllaku was named "Can Gabeti", one of four brothers (the others were the founder of the Gashi, Toplana and Megulla).[4] The four brothers lived in the Shllaku region where they divided up their possessions. The Gashi and Toplana eventually moved eastwards.[3] Nonetheless, the Gashi are thought to have been the first tribe in the region of Tropoja, i.e. before the Krasniqja. Historical reference is made to another ancestral father of the Gashi called Leka, the son of Pjetër Spani, who lived in the settlement of Selimaj (Gegëhysen) in the second half of the fifteenth century. [5]

Gabeti, said to have been an Orthodox Christian from Montenegro, came across the original native population who were the ancestors of the Kolë Pep Fura family and whose last male descendant died about 1900.[6]

According to Robert Elsie, the first mention of this tribe in historical documents was in 1634 as Gaasi in the ecclesiastical report of the Franciscan priest Bonaventura di Palazzolo.[7] Robert Elsie emphasized that Gashi were first northern Albanian tribe that lived in the region of Tropojë.[8]

One branch of the Gashi tribe, the Bardhët (English: the white ones) descends from Kuči.[9] Although Kuči speak the Serbian language, according to Elsie they were originally Albanians.[10]

Since the last decade of the 17th century the region of Kosovo and north-western Macedonia was settled by families belonging to Albanian tribes.[11] The most intensive phase of this migration was between the middle of 18th century until the 1840s.[12] This led to division of many tribes including Gashi.[13]

Shala tribe was in conflict with Gashi tribe until they made peace in August 1879, based on sultan's order.[14]