If we look at the original Boston Mafia (around 1930), we get a somewhat clear vision of the underlying skeleton. La Famiglia’s members formed a rigid self-protecting hierarchy, similar to the church, with its pope, cardinals and bishops, priests and laity. (The Mafia had no correlatives to monks or nuns, however.) At the head of the gang-family was the padrone-don. Although the exact roles were fuzzy at times, they were fairly defined.
Beneath the original Boston don, Filippo Buccola, was the sotto capo, or underboss. (The first recognizable underboss was Joseph Lombardo.) Buccola also commanded personal lieutenants, the chief of whom was John “Johnny Williams” Gugliemo. Under him served the “capo regimes,” or chiefs of 10, such as Frank Cucchiara and Henry Noyes.
The bottom ranks were populated with “soldati,” or soldiers.
Mafia: Cost Of Admission To become a member was difficult, requiring an old world ritual that mimicked baptism into the Catholic Church. As the FBI learned from an informer, “before a man could be ‘made’ he would have to do something outstanding which the group recognized, and if the person had the temperament and was believed trustworthy, he would be proposed for membership in the organization and his application voted on.”
That was just the beginning. “Because if the new member is accepted, then he takes an oath.…once an individual is ‘made,’ he is never allowed to resign, and the only way he can terminate his association is by death.”
The sponsor told the initiate: “You were baptized when you were a baby, your parents did it, but now this time we’re going to baptize you.” Then, with all the pomp of a low-grade Puccini opera, the inductee-soldier repeated a blood oath. Other elements included slicing the trigger finger to drain the blood, and playing a kind of Italian finger throwing game, similar to that children use for selecting teammates before a baseball games.
The outcome decided which “compare” or buddy, who would stand beside the inductee during the ceremony. The inductee took into his cupped hands a paper card with the image of the family’s patron saint. The card was ignited, and while the flames consumed it, the inductee said in Italian, (whether he could speak it naturally or not) the following: “As burns this saint, so will burn my soul. I enter alive and I will have to get out dead.”
One Way Out
As one Boston capo said: “It’s no hope, no Jesus, no Madonna, nobody can help us if we ever give up this secret to anybody, any kinds of friends of mine, let’s say. This Thing that cannot be exposed.” The family head would assign the new soldiers to a capo, making them promise to even kill a son or a brother for informing on the organization. The ritual of a baptism ended with kisses and farewells.
All members were part of a near-formal trade association. “Whatever you got belongs to you. None of us will take from each other.” They had to give first offers on properties and deals to their colleagues, and prefer to do business in the family—legitimate or otherwise. Protocols were strict — new members had to observe rules when introducing each other and were not allowed to divulge their allegiance unless there was a proper introduction from an amico.
Being made wasn’t always a reason never to apologize to one’s fellow amici—or fear for one’s life. Raymond Patriarca the elder ordered the murder of a Mafioso who disobeyed him. He disliked one soldier in Revere so intensely he pondered executing him — and when on his sickbed Jerry Angiulo plotted, at least in jest, to rob his house of its hidden treasures. This system worked with enormous success for eight decades.
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