During the war between the Souliotes and Ali Pasha, when the villages of Souli were being evacuated by the defeated population, a group of 22 Souliot women and their children were trapped by Ottoman troops in the mountains of Zalongo in Epirus, on 16 December 1803. In order to avoid capture and enslavement, they threw first their children and then themselves off a steep cliff, committing suicide. According to tradition they did this while dancing and singing, jumping down one after the other. Today, a monument on the site of the event commemorates their sacrifice.