The Mataruge were a medieval Albanian tribe which originally lived in Old Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia. Their name is attested in historical recordfor the first time in 1222 in the Pelješac peninsula of Dalmatia. Throughout the 20th century, they were considered to have stopped existing as a separate community during the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 15th century. Modern research in the Ottoman archives showed that they had dispersed throughout the western Balkans following Ottoman conquest and formed settlements in other areas. By 1477, a part of them lived in the kaza of Prijepolje, where they formed their own distinct community with 10 villages. One of their leaders appears in the defter to have been a Vojko Arbanash. Other Mataruga communities had moved in central Croatia and Bosnia. Over time they became culturally integrated in the surrounding communities of their new homelands. Families who trace their origin to the tribe are found today in all countries of the western Balkans. Various etymological derivations about the name of the tribe have been proposed which involve Albanian, Latin, Celtic or a combination of those languages. One these links the name to a term which referred to a type of spear which was introduced by the Celts in the Balkans. Like other communities in the western Balkans they were sometimes grouped socially with the Vlachs, a term which came to refer to the social status of pastoral semi-nomadic communities. In folk, oral stories they have also been linked to other tribes like the Španje and the Kriči. These communities seem to have also migrated along with Mataruge from Old Herzegovina to Croatia after in the wake of the Ottoman conquest. Mataruge were frequently mentioned in historical documents of 14th and 15th century as a pasture society, with some of the most prominent of them being organizers of caravans for transport of salt and other goods from the seaside into mainlands. Names of many toponyms in Montenegro and Serbia are derived from the name of this tribe, such as Mataruška Banja, Mataruge in Pljevlja and Mataruge in Kraljevo.
