Information (R. Elsie) about Lohja tribe that turned out
J2-M205>CTS1969>Y22059
Also interestingly its mentioned that they had lots of interactions with Reçi tribe, and when i look at genetika.com i see that Reçi are so far tested J2a-M410, which is just as J2-M205 more rare in North Albania but more common in South Albania, Greece and Italy.
The Lohja Tribe
Location of Tribal Territory
The small Lohja (or Lohe) tribal region is situated in the upper valley of the Proni I thatë (Dry Creek) in the District of Malësia e Madhe in northern Albania, around the village of Dedaj on the southern side of the valley. It borders on the traditional tribal regions of Shkreli and Kastrati to the west and north, and Reçi and Rrjolli to the south. The main settlements of this tribe are Lohja e Poshtme (Lower Lohja) and Lohja e Sipërme (Upper Lohja), about 15 kilometers northeast of Koplik.
Population
The term Lohja occurs, according to Edith Durham, in a Serbian document in 1348 as Loho. The form Loeia is mentioned in the ecclesiastical report of Pietro Stefano Gaspari in 1671. On the 1688 map of the Venetian cartographer Francesco Maria Coronelli, the region is called Loheia, and in an ecclesiastical report in 1703 the Catholic Archbishop of Bar [Antivari], Vincentius Zmajevich, records two forms Locheia and Loheia.
The Lohja, initially with two bajraks, formed one bajrak with the neighboring and equally small Reçi tribe, which lived slightly farther down the valley. It was of polyphyletic origin and was thus not a fis in the sense of a tribe claiming descent of the male side from one common ancestor.
Lohja was originally a Catholic tribe. It later turned Muslim, though it retained a large Catholic minority. The apostolic visitor to Albania, Pietro Stefano Gaspari, who travelled through the region in 1671-2, reported:
The village Loeia [Lohja], 6 miles from Riolo, is the site of the church of Saint Nicholas, that seems to be roofless. There are 20 homes here, and 183 souls. 30 scudi would be needed to repair the church. Needed in this village are a set of vestments and an icon of Saint Nicholas.
Edith Durham described Lohja as one bajrak, consisting of 80 Moslem and 40 Catholic houses.
It had a mosque and hodza, and shares a priest with Rechi, the tribe next door – also mostly Moslem. Rechi-Lohja is of mixed stock, mainly originating from Pulati and Slaku, and was originally all Catholic.
In the first reliable census taken in Albania in 1918 under Austro-Hungarian administration, the population statistics of the Lohja tribe were given as follows: 94 households with a total of 709 inhabitants.
French consul Hyacinthe Hecquard regarded the Lohja, together with the neighbouring Reçi, as a particularly intelligent tribe. Their renown was such that their chiefs and elders were almost always consulted by the other tribes in matters of war or when important decisions were to be taken, and the opinion of this tribe was generally followed. Because of their intelligence and fidelity, they were also much sought after as servants for large Muslim families and pashas.
The Lohja tribe shared pastureland on the coast on the slopes of Mali I Rrencit with Shkreli, Rrjolli and Kelmendi, where they were wont to spend their winters with the herds.
Tribal legendry, Ancestry and History
Edith Durham states that the Lohja were mixed descent from Shllaku and Pulati. ¨Probably families flowed down into this more fertile district not far from the lake when Serb rule broke up, for “Loho” and its mills are mentioned in 1348 by Stefan Dushan among the districts which are given to the Church.
¨
Baron Nopcsa estimated that they arrived in their present tribal territory in about 1590, which was equivalent to 11 generations before his time (ca. 1907).
Photo by Kel Marubi, 1910.