The Kriči were, according to tradition, an "older" people that inhabited an area somewhere by the Tara river in what is today northern Montenegro. Kriči has been periodically mentioned in historical sources, geographical and ethnological literature. Their ethnic affiliation is unknown from historical sources, although tradition points that they were an old population, deemed Vlachs in theories found in anthropological studies. They, as other pre-Slavic tribes in the region, eventually assimilated into the Serb ethnos. Some toponyms in Montenegro and surnames are derived from the name of this tribe.
History
The name Kričan is mentioned as a region in the 1260 charter of Stefan Uroš I regarding the borders of the village of Prošćenje ; Kričan borders the village to the north. The toponym may have given its name to the people, or vice versa. In ca. 1300 was mentioned personal nameKričan. According to oral tradition, Kriči inhabited Jezera and Šaranci, and good part of Sinjajevina. They several times violently fought with Drobnjaci tribe and were moved over Tara river. Then inhabited lands from Sutjeska to Kolašin. Their center was in Pljevlja. Kotor documents mention Lore Kričko in 1326, and Kriče Vitomirov in 1327. Dubrovnik archive mention Dobrija and Đurađ Nenadić from Krički in 1453. In Ottoman defter from 1477 was recorded nahija Kričak, with 5 džemat, one by knez Jarosav, another on name Nikola son of Kričko, as well nahijaMataruge with 3 katuns. In 1492, in Poljica in Dalmatia was recorded David Kričković. In 1528, Nikola Grubanović Kričak from village Kruševica transcribed a Church book. In the memorial of Hilandar from 16h or 17th century is mentioned Filip Kričak and several his Kričak relatives. In 1694 in Drniš is mentioned priest Radojica Kričak, while 1762 priest Maksim Kričković. Their tribal name remained in the anthroponomy, and toponymy of lands where lived; Kričak and Kričačko polje in Sinjajevina, Kričina near Bribir, village Kričke near Drniš, another two homonymous villages near Pakrac, and Kričići near Jajce.
In literature and anthropological studies
A. Pejatović in his anthropological study Srednje Polimlje i Potarje believed that the Kriči were an amalgamation of Greeks and Illyro-Romans with Serbs, that lasted up until the 16th and 17th centuries, with gradual descent of this old population to cultivated villages and ascent of Serbs into the katuni where the remains of the old populations lived.
S. Tomić in his anthropological work Drobnjak, mentioned the Španje and Kričove as the old population of Drobnjak.
A. Luburić, the first to separately discuss the Kriči, based mainly on folk tradition, believed them to have been part of the Mataruge tribe, who after the first onrush of Slavs in Herzegovina, and death of Mataruge king Sumor in the end of the 7th or beginning of the 8th century, retreated to the areas around the Tara. Here, the Serbs gave the tribe the name Kriči, because their speech sounded like "shouting". The tribe accepted the name, and it spread in the middle Potarje. Thus, according to Luburić, based mainly on Drobnjaci tradition, the Kriči were part of the old tribe of Mataruge.
According to Mula Joksimović in Bijelo Polje, as recorded by Petar Rudić, a tradition transmitted in the Joksimović brotherhood held that the Kriči descended from the Illyrians, "but today there are no more of their direct descendants".
Another belief recorded by P. Rudić, likely influenced by literature, was that the Kriči may have been descendants of Saxons that worked in the mines of Brskovo and around Pljevlja.
In the region of Kričak, according to data collected in the field between 1964 and 1970, the Kriči were a numerous tribe, while the Mataruge only comprised one of its many brotherhoods, according to M. Peruničić, and P. Čabarkapa, a similar tradition confirmed by B. Ćorović and younger S. Bojović living in Pljevlja. The tradition is "supported" by the fact that the region of Mataruge is smaller and taken as a peripheral part of the larger, in widest sense, Kričak region. However, tradition in Polimlje and Potarje do not hold the Mataruge as related to the Kriči.
As concluded in, folk tradition on the Kriči is very different, although it is clear by tradition and literature that the tribe lived as an independent unit, and once in time included a relatively large area. Their name surely points to an old ethnic group, among which there must have been a lot of Illyro-Roman remnants ; in all probability they very early on came into contact with old South Slavic tribes.
