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Durham 1909, Hasluck 1954, Whitaker 1976 and 1981), as well as contemporary scholars
(e.g. Sotiri 2001, Rusha 2001, de Waal 2005) either only describe or briefly mention the
kinship in Albania. While Durham, Hasluck and Whitaker mainly talk about kinship in
northern Albania, other scholars listed above do not put any particular attention to its analysis
and/or comparison between the regions. One of the main reasons for this is the view that 45
years of communism with its methods of collectivisation of the land, enhancement of
controlled movements in the areas inhabited by the Greek-speaking population, suppression
of religion, planned industrialisation, and with the communist ideas of unity and equality of
Albanian citizens, caused numerous terms of kinship terminology (such as ikoyenia/familje,
soi/fis, çeta/varka) either changed gradually dissapered.
1.9.1. Ikoyenia or Familje
In my discussion about the kinship structure in Dhërmi/Drimades I mainly refer to
ethnographical studies of the neighbouring regions with which, according to both
historiography and people’s personal accounts, the inhabitants of Dhërmi/Drimades used to
have contacts. I refer to studies from Northern Epirus (Campbell 1964, Iossifides 1991), Crete
(Herzfeld 1985), Inner Mani (Seremetakis 1991) as well as to some other parts of Greece (Just
1991). Dhërmian/Drimadean kinship classification in theory corresponds to that of Inner
Mani, where the inhabitants maintain bilateral kinship classification with a strong patrilineal
bias. The matriline is regarded as a weaker bond.
Following from my conversations with several local people, the basic unit of
Dhermian/Drimadean social organisation is the family ikoyenia/familje. The question
“piounou eisai;/e/i kujt je ti?” (whose are you) is one of the questions that the villagers
frequently ask the “stranger” for whom they anticipate that are coming from the village (for a
similar account in southern village of Epirus see Iossifides 1991: 137; and for Rrenshen in
northern Albania see de Waal 2005: 99). This kind of a question is posed in order to identify
somebody with the particular ikoyenia/familje and its pertaining social, economic and political
position in the village with which the person’s identification seems to be closely connected.
The etymological meaning of ikoyenia derives from the word ikos, meaning a house or
household, and yenia, meaning birth, generation or lineage (see Iossifides 1991: 137).
Theoretically, in Dhërmi/Drimades the meaning of ikoyenia/familje conjoins the house or
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