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Corleone was a town of about eighteen thousand people. It was built on a slope with a protective limestone cliff in the background. In a small gorge above the town there was still an old small stone arch. The local legend said that it was built by the Moors to support an aqueduct. The road coming from Palermo as it entered the town was sided on the right by a small but beautiful public garden with several decorative palm trees. On the left there were a few houses with large doors to allow access to traveling carts and horses. The houses also provided shelter for the night and they also provided a few rooms on the upper floors for the "carrettieri". These houses had all the characteristics of medieval road inns and the same bad reputation. The main road continued into the town where most of the few shops were located. There were a few grocery and fruit shops, a butcher shop, a few barber shops, a cafe, a private club for men, and a post office. The road winded through the town and passed by the little town square on the right, the cathedral on the left, and turning to the left it passed by the convent and the hospital. Turning to the right the road continued over a tall stone bridge and then by a limestone cliff towards the mountains of the interior. In the lower part of the town, in the middle of the valley stood a huge limestone block on top of which was a primitive prison, still in use at that time, and accessible only by steep and narrow steps built on one side of the rock.
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My two years in Corleone were exciting for me. I came in contact with a totally different culture. Family honor and matters of right and wrong were private family affairs. To seek the help of the law to deal with these matters was a sign of lack of manhood. Many men in the town were feared and respected as honorable men. My first introduction to this type of culture came one day soon after my arrival. I was with a group of students chatting in front of the school. They were talking about a cousin of one of them who had been killed the year before. Naively I asked if they had caught the person who committed the crime. They all looked at one another and laughed. Later one of them explained to me that these matters were usually handled by "the man" of the house and this matter had already been taken care of six months before. Soon I learned that all men carried guns openly. Their gun of choice was the 38 Smith and Wesson. One must remember that even though there was a semblance of government and police force in 1945, there was still an atmosphere of lawlessness. It must be added that the control of personal feuds and revenge which the Fascist Regime had vigorously pursued in Corleone and other Sicilian cities, did no longer exist. These early years of the post-war were the years when many old scores were settled.

Many in Corleone were land owners, cattle and sheep owners, and farmers. The men who were going to the fields used to ride on their mules with a shotgun across their laps and they wore an ammunition belt. The shells they usually carried were loaded with buck-shots or a single lead ball, certainly