A fun card game requiring at least eight people and the more the merrier. One person is the Sheriff, another is the Doctor. At least one person is the Mafioso, though with more people, there can be more. Everyone else is a townsperson. Roles are chosen by card dealing. Another person, who does not actually play, is the Narrator. He runs the game.

The Narrator will tell everyone to go to sleep. Then he will tell the Mafioso to wake up and select a person to kill. The he tells the Mafioso the go to sleep.

Then he will tell the Doctor to wake up and select a person to save. If the Doctor selects the same person the Mafioso selected, the person lives. The he tells the Doctor the go to sleep.

Then he will tell the Sherrif to wake up and accuse a person of being the Mafioso. If he selects correctly, the Narrator will nod. The he tells the Sherrif the go to sleep.

The Narrator then tells everyone to wake up. If a person died during the night, the Narrator will say so.

Then the floor is open for accusations. Everyone but the dead can pick someone to accuse. If someone is accused, they then have the opportunity to defend themselves. The table then votes on whether or not to send them to the electric chair. If they do, that person is also dead, whether they are the Mafioso are not.

The game continues until all the Mafiosos are dead.

Ok, I recommended many definitions for deletion. It seems everybody has thier personal version of mafia's history. I am Sicilian and the study of the Mafias (we prefer plural vs one single mafia) is one of my interests, as a Sicilian and as a student. Also... I'm no member of any "family" you may think of.

The word itself has rather obscure origins, and its history and meaning is totally unrelated with modern concept of mafia.

Modern Mafias have so many different aspects I couldn't say if one is wronger than others. Nowadays the term "Mafia" can be rightly (and sadly) related to almost every socio-political aspect of our lives. We could say the word itself has gained a more general and complex meaning since its migration from Sicily to USA.

As regards the word itself: its origin can be traced back in the centuries. Sure it had something to do with the many invasions Sicily was exposed to. During the ages, Sicily has been invaded by pretty much ALL of the peoples in the Mediterranean Area: Greeks, Romans, Normands (~French), Arabs, Spanish, Italians nowadays. This gave the island's culture an inmense richness, but as a side effect created among Sicilians some sort of silent "brotherhood" against anyone coming from the outside world.

This "brotherhood", meaning protection of the masses from the invasors, lately degenerated into an oppression of the masses. The term mafia, originally indicating (not meaning) a group of people "respected" for being charismatic mem...

the bush administration

The Mafia, also referred to in Italian as La Cosa Nostra (variously translated as This Thing Of Ours or Our Thing), is the name for a secret, criminal organisation which evolved in mid 19th century Sicily, and led to an offshoot on the East-Coast of the United States emerging during the late 19th century with the waves of Italian immigration to that country. As opposed to the insular Sicilian Mafia, during the 20th century the American Mafia became more accomodating of Neapolitan criminals, and other Southern Italians among the sworn-in membership of 'made-men', and forged closer associations with gangsters of other nationalities, thus becoming distinct from the original organisation in Sicily.

The term "Mafia" describes a specific secret society in Sicily and their descendants in the USA, yet the word itself has no pin-pointed historical birthplace. In the original Palermo dialect the word 'mafioso' once meant 'beautiful', 'bold' or 'self-confident'. Anyone who was worthy of being described as a mafioso therefore had a certain something, an intangible attribute called 'mafia'. 'Cool' is about the closest modern English equivalent; a mafioso was someone who fancied himself. In fact it was the early Italian government which attached specific criminal connotations to the word and turned it into a subject of national debate. It was following the Prefect of Palermo, Filippo Gualterio's report to Rome in 1865, citing that "the so-called Mafia or criminal associations" had be...

a real gangster. organized crime. gangsters now and days think their tough just becuz they are poor. crips, bloods, street gangs are all fake wannabe's. the mafia is the real gangsters.

Businesspeople who usually operate outside the law in order to maximize their profits. Murder, extortion, threats to families, theft, fraud, bootlegging, and broken kneecaps are regular business practices.

A REAL gang.

the people who really control the world we just dont know it.