Editing Mafia (section)

===Initiation ceremony===
One of the first accounts of an initiation ceremony into the Mafia was given by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardino_Verro Bernardino Verro], a leader of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani Fasci Siciliani], a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the early 1890s. In order to give the movement teeth and to protect himself from harm, Verro became a member of a Mafia group in Corleone, the ''Fratuzzi'' (Little Brothers). In a memoir written many years later, he described the initiation ritual he underwent in the spring of 1893:
[I] was invited to take part in a secret meeting of the Fratuzzi. I entered a mysterious room where there were many men armed with guns sitting around a table. In the center of the table there was a skull drawn on a piece of paper and a knife. In order to be admitted to the ''Fratuzzi'', [I] had to undergo an initiation consisting of some trials of loyalty and the pricking of the lower lip with the tip of the knife: the blood from the wound soaked the skull.—[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardino_Verro Bernardino Verro]<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-alcorn_117-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#cite_note-alcorn-117 [117]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gambetta263_118-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#cite_note-gambetta263-118 [118]]</sup>After his arrest, the mafioso [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Brusca Giovanni Brusca] described the ceremony in which he was formally made a full member of ''Cosa Nostra''. In 1976 he was invited to a "banquet" at a country house. He was brought into a room where several mafiosi were sitting around a table upon which sat a pistol, a dagger and piece of paper bearing the image of a saint. They questioned his commitment and his feelings regarding criminality and murder (despite him already having a history of such acts). When he affirmed himself, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Riina Salvatore Riina], then the most powerful boss of ''Cosa Nostra'', took a needle and pricked Brusca's finger. Brusca smeared his blood on the image of the saint, which he held in his cupped hands as Riina set it alight. As Brusca juggled the burning image in his hands, Riina said to him: "If you betray Cosa Nostra, your flesh will burn like this saint."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-DickieCosaNostra_12-8">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#cite_note-DickieCosaNostra-12 [12]]</sup>

The elements of the ceremony have changed little over the Mafia's history.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-119">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#cite_note-119 [119]]</sup> These elements have been the subject of much curiosity and speculation. The sociologist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Gambetta Diego Gambetta] points out that the Mafia, being a secretive criminal organization, cannot keep written records and thus cannot have its recruits sign application forms and written contracts as legitimate institutions do. Thus they rely on the old-fashioned ritual ceremony. The elements of the ceremony are made deliberately specific, bizarre and painful so that the event is both memorable and unambiguous, and the ceremony is witnessed by a number of senior mafiosi. The participants may not even care about what the symbols mean, and they may indeed have no intrinsic meaning. The real point of the ritual is to leave no doubt about the mafioso's new status so that it cannot be denied or revoked on a whim.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-120">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#cite_note-120 [120]]</sup>