When I was a little girl it was my dream to join the mafia or become a serial killer. Well, maybe “dream” is an exaggeration…let’s use the phrase “I used to think about it sometimes and would be 100% okay with it if it happened” instead. Sure I was a weird little booger goblin, but who wasn’t when they were 7?
But now half of my childhood dreams can possibly come true, since I now know the initiation ritual of Italy’s most dangerous crime syndicate called the ‘Ndrangheta, centered in the southern region of Calabria (a region in Italy). How do I know what their ritual consists of? Because I watched the video that an Italian police officer took, duh.
The ground-breaking footage was recorded by Carabinieri police with a hidden camera. Carabinieri are the national military police of Italy.
“In this holy night, in the silence of the night and under the starlight and the shining moon I create the holy chain. With humble words I create the holy society,” a mob elder says in the video to start the ritual known as the Santa (Holy) bestowal.
The elder then asks the new gang member to deny all of his family’s prior crime affiliations “up to the seventh generation”.
The oath is taken in the name of three Italian nationalist figures of the 19th century: unification hero Giuseppe Garibaldi; politician Giuseppe Mazzini; and army general Alfonso La Marmora.
According to police the historic figures are used instead of the names of high-ranking clan members.
So now you can do two things with your life:
1. Keep doing what you’re doing
2. Copy that video and become part of the Italian mafia
Looks like a win-win situation to me…unless your life sucks. In which case you should probably just go ahead and find a cyanide pill and a gun so you can join the mafia.
[H/T IB Times, header image via Shutterstock]