In the turbulent borderlands between Montenegro and Ottoman Albania, where revenge and tribal honor often dictated daily life, stories of unexpected humanity occasionally shine through the violence. One such episode, preserved in Montenegrin oral tradition and recorded by ethnographer Andrija Jovićević in his seminal work on the Malesija (Malësia) region, involves an unnamed chieftain of the Hoti tribe.

When Ottoman irregular troops (“the Turks”) killed two shepherds in Pijeske, the cycle of violence was set in motion. In response, the people of Soča (Sočani) carried out a bloody revenge, killing six Malisori chieftains in Blato near Lum.

Amid this chaos, a Hoti chieftain performed a remarkable act of courage and compassion. Hearing that Ottoman forces were about to kill two small children from the village of Seoc — Nik Raičev Lekić, a boy, and a little girl — he intervened. He hid the children in a boat and rowed them out onto the waters of Shkodër Lake, risking his own life to save them from certain death.

Source

Srpski etnografski zbornik. Volume 23. Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti. 1922.