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A Pro- em-Base . . . . . . Approac
THIRD CANADIAN EDITION

Richard H. Robbins
State University of New York at Plattsburgh

Maggie Cummings
University of Toronto

Karen McGarry
McMaster University

NELSON
-EDUCATION
 NELSON
EDUCATION

Sociocultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach, Third Canadian Edition

by Richard H. Robbins, Maggie Cummings, and Karen McGarry

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A Note About the Book's Cover:

The publisher of Sociocultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach, Third Canadian Edition, hopes that the
inquiry-based approach of this book guides students as they develop an inquisitiveness and openness to cultural
diversity. The cover image is an untitled work from 1993 by Max Johnston, an artist whose work is primarily abstract art
and who lives in Toronto.
A Pro_ em-Base- Approac
THIRD CANADIAN EDITION
Although all humans that we know about are
capable of producing accurate sketches of localities
and regions with which they are familiar, cartogra-
phy (the craft of mapmaking as we know it today)
had its beginnings in 16th-century Europe, and its
subsequent development is related to the expan-
sion of Europeans to all parts of the globe. From
the beginning, there have been two problems with
MERCATOR
maps: the technical one of how to depict on a two-
dimensional, flat surface a three-dimensional spher-
ical object, and the cultural one of whose world
view maps reflect. In fact, the two issues are insepa-
rable, for the particular projection one uses inevita-
bly makes a statement about how one views one's
own people and their place in the world. Indeed,
maps often shape our perceptions of reality as much
as they reflect them.
In cartography, a projection refers to the system
of intersecting lines (of longitude and latitude) by
which part or all of the globe is represented on a
MOLLW£10E
flat surface. There are more than a hundred different
projections in use today, ranging from polar perspec-
tives to interrupted "butterflies" to rectangles to
heart shapes. Each projection causes distortion in
size, shape, or distance in some way or another. A
map that correctly shows the shape of a landmass
will of necessity misrepresent the size. A map that
is accurate along the equator will be deceptive at
the poles.
Perhaps no projection has had more influence
on the way we see the world than that of Gerhar-
VAN E& GRINTIN
dus Mercator, who devised his map in 1569 as a
navigational aid for mariners. So well suited was
Mercator's map for this purpose that it continues
to be used for navigational charts today. At the same
--- --
time, the Mercator projection became a standard for . ~:.,.._

depicting landmasses, something for which it was

IV NEL
 The Van der Grinten Projection (1904) was a
compromise aimed at minimizing both the distor-
tions of size in the Mercator and the distortions of
shape in equal-area maps such as the Mollweide.
Although an improvement, the Van der Grinten still
emphasizes the lands of the northern hemisphere at
the expense of the southern. For example, it shows
Canada and the former Soviet Union at more than
never intended. Although an accurate navigational twice their actual size.
tool, the Mercator projection greatly exaggerates The Robinson Projection, which was adopted
the size of landmasses in higher latitudes, giving by the National Geographic Society in 1988 to
about two-thirds of the map's surface to the north- replace the Van der Grinten, is one of the best
ern hemisphere. Thus, the lands occupied by Euro- compromises to date between the distortions of size
peans and European descendants appear far larger and those of shape. Although an improvement over
than those of other people. For example, North the Vander Grinten, the Robinson Projection still
America (19 million square kilometres) appears depicts lands in the northern latitudes as propor-
almost twice the size of Africa (30 million square tionally larger than those of the southern, that is,
kilometres), while Europe is shown as equal in size the Third World. And like European maps before
to South America, which actually has nearly twice it, the Robinson Projection places Europe at the
the landmass ofEurope. centre with the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas
A map developed in 1805 by Karl B. Mollweide to the left, thus emphasizing the cultural connec-
was one of the earlier equal-area projections of the tion between Europe and North America, while
world. Equal-area projections portray landmasses in neglecting the geographic closeness of northwest-
correct relative size, but as a result, they distort the ern North America to northeastern Asia.
shapes of continents more than other projections. Each of the four maps on the following pages
They most often compress and warp lands in the conveys quite a different cultural message. Included
higher latitudes and vertically stretch landmasses among them are the Peters Projection, an equal-
close to the equator. Other equal-area projec- area map that has been adopted as the official map
tions include the Lambert Cylindrical Equal-Area of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational,
Projection (1772), the Hammer Equal-Area Projec- Scientific, and Cultural Organization), and a Japa-
tion (1892), and the Eckert Equal-Area Projection nese map that shows us how the world looks from
(1906). the other side.

NEL PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE v

 INUIT

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NEL PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE VII

 RUSSIA

o.
KAZAKHSTAN

KIRGHIZSTAN
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PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
OF CHINA

IRAQ IRAN
BHUTAN
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ARABIA
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J VIETNAM PHILIPPINES
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ANTARCTICA

NEL PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE IX

 •

GREENLAND

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KINGDOM LATVIA
LITHUANIA

KAZAKHSTAN

KIRGHIZSTAN
MON GOLIA

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• PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
OF CHINA
MOROCCO

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UNITED • •••
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SIERRA LEONE - - - ''- i-\ ~ I
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NEW
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• " . _,_.,_ ANTARCTI CA

JAPANESE MAP
Not all maps place Europe at the centre of the world. This map, besides reflecting the importance the
Japanese attach to themselves in the world, has the virtue of showing the geographic proximity of North
America to Asia a fact easily overlooked when maps place Europe at their centre.

X PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE NEL

 GREENLAND
•

UNITED
RUSSIA STATES

'
CANADA

r'.
.....
•
-·

UNITED STATES
.•.

• .... C>

..- .
• FRENCH GUIANA

•
COSTA RICA
iiiiiiiiiiii;;;::=. PANAM~------l
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GUYANA
ECUADOR SURINAM

BRAZIL

. 0
••

ARG ENTINA URUGUAY

NEL PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE XI

 PUTTING THE WORLD IN PERSPECTIVE IV
PREFACE XIX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS XXIX

CHAPTER 1

CULTURE AND MEANING 2

CHAPTER 2

DOING FIELDWORK IN SOCIOCULTURAL

ANTHROPOLOGY 36
CHAPTER 3

THE MEANING OF PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT 58

CHAPTER 4

CONSTRUCTING REALITIES 92
CHAPTER 5

CONSTRUCTING FAMILIES AND SOCIAL

RELATIONSHIPS 128
CHAPTER 6

CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES 160

CHAPTER 7

SOCIAL HIERARCHIES 186

CHAPTER 8

GLOBALIZATION, NEOLIBERALISM, AND THE

NATION-STATE 220
CHAPTER 9

RESOLVING CONFLICT 254

GLOSSARY 281
BIBLIOGRAPHY 287
INDEX 305

XII NEL
PU TT ING T HE WORLD IN An Anthropologist Looks at a
"Happy Mea l" 24
PERS PECT IVE IV
QUESTION 1.5: How Can an
PREFAC E XIX
Anthropolog ical Perspective Be Used
A BOU T THE A UT HORS XXIX Outside Academia? 26
What Can You Do w ith a B.A. in
Anthropology? 26
Appl ied Anthropology 27
CHAPTER 1
Ind igenous Issues 27
CULTURE AND MEANING 2 Lega l Anthropology 29
Pol it ical Ecology 30
PROBLEM 1: How can people beg in to Medica l Anthropology 30
understand beliefs and behaviours that are
Corporate Ethnography 32
d ifferent from their own? 3
CONCLUSIONS 34
INTRODUCTION 3
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 35
The World Behind Everyday
Appearances 3
A Mu lt i-faceted Discip line 4 CHAPTER 2
QUESTION 1.1: Why Do Human Beings
DOING FIELDWORK
Differ in Their Beliefs and Behaviours? 9
QUESTION 1.2: Is It Possib le to See the
IN SOCIOCULTURAL
World Through the Eyes o f Others? 12 ANTHROPOLOGY 36
How Do People Explain the
Bel ief s and Behaviours o f Others? 12 PROBLEM 2: How do sociocu ltural
The Ethnocentric Fal lacy and the anthropolog ists learn about culture? 37
Relat iv ist Fa llacy 13 INTRODUCTION 37
Virg inity Test ing in Turkey and
Canniba lism Among the Wari' 14 QUESTION 2.1: How Did Ethnographic
Objectivity and Mora lity 16 Fieldwork Develop During the Formative
Years of Anthropology? 39
QUESTION 1.3: How Can the Mean ings
Anthropology from an Armchair 39
That Others Find in Experience Be
Ethnographic Fieldwork 41
Interpreted and Described? 18
Deciphering the Balinese QUESTION 2.2: How Has Fieldwork
Cockfi ght 19 Changed over the Past Century? 43
Chang ing Notions of Fieldwork 43
QUESTION 1.4: What Can Learning About
Other Peop les Tell Anthropo log ists QUESTION 2.3: What Are Some of the
About Their Own Societ ies? 22 Cha llenges o f Conduct ing Fie ldwork? 47
A Bal inese Anthropologist Stud ies The Embarrassed Anthropologist 47
Canad ian Hockey 22 Con f ront ing Witchcraft in Mexico 48

NEL X III
 QUESTION 2.4: What Are the QUESTION 3.2: How Can We Exp lain
Respons ib il it ies of Anthropo log ists Toward the Vast Inequality Between the Rich
the Peop le They Work W ith? What Does It and the Poor? 71
Mean to "Act Ethica lly" as an The Brit ish in Ind ia 74
Anthropolog ist? 50 Cotton, Slavery, and the Trail of
QUESTION 2.5: How Do Anthropolog ists Tears 75
Represent the Peop le They Study and Progress for Whom? 78
Work W ith? Why Is Representation an QUESTION 3.3: How Do Inequality,
Important Issue W ith in Anthropo logy? 51 Econom ic Development, and Cu ltura l
Representation and Cu lture 51 Divers ity Re late to One Another? 78
CONCLUSIONS 55 The Case of Brazi I 80
Do Progress and Deve lopment
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 56 Inevitably Lead to Inequality? 81
QUESTION 3.4: Have Progress and
CHAPTER 3 Development Improved Human Hea lth? 82
Illness and Inequality 82
THE MEANING OF The Meaning of Illness 83
PROGRESS AND QUESTION 3.5: How Can We App ly a
DEVELOPMENT 58 Crit ica l Anthropolog ica l Understand ing of
Progress and Deve lopment Outside the
PROBLEM 3: How do we exp lain the Academy? 86
transformation of human societies over the Anthropolog ists in Development 86
past 10,000 years from sma ll-sca le, nomad ic
CONCLUSIONS 90
bands of foragers to large-sca le, urban-
industrial states? 59 CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 91

INTRODUCTION 59
What Do We Mean When We Ta lk
CHAPTER 4
About Progress? 59
QUESTION 3.1: How and Why Did CONSTRUCT! NG
Forag ing Societies Switch to Sedentary REALITIES 92
Ag ricu ltu re? 60
Does the Idea of Progress He lp Us PROBLEM 4: Why do peop le be lieve d ifferent
Understand the Sh ift from Forag ing th ings, and why are they so certa in that their
to Sedentary Agricu lture? 62 v iew of the world is correct and that other
Evolutionary Exp lanations for Cu lture v iews are wrong? 93
Change: Lewis Henry Morgan and
INTRODUCTION 93
Les lie White 63
What Are the Shortcomings of The Centra l Question 93
These Theories of Progress? 65 QUESTION 4.1: How Does the Use of
Life Among Foragers: The Hadza Metaphor Affect the Meanings Peop le
and Ju/'hoans i 65 Ass ign to Experience? 95
The Transition to Agricu lture 68 Borrowing Meaning w ith Metaphors 95
Industria l Agricu lture: Producing Kwakwaka'wakw Metaphors of
Potato Ca lories 70 Hunger 98

XIV CONTENTS NEL

 The Metaphors of Contemporary Family Relations in North
W itchcraft and Mag ic 100 American Popular Cu lture 129
QUESTION 4.2: How Does Symbo li c QUESTION 5.1: What Is the Composit ion
Action Re inforce a Particu lar View of the o f the Typica l Fam ily Group? 131
World? 101 The Fami ly Composit ion of
The Kwakwaka'wakw Hamatsa Dance 102 Ju/'hoans i 133
A Ritua l of Contemporary The Fam ily Compos it ion of
W itchcraft and Mag ic 103 Trobriand Islanders 134
Zombies A re "Good to Think With" 104 The Family Composition of Rura l
Chinese 137
QUESTION 4.3: How Does the Way We
Live Affect Our Bel iefs and Rituals? 106 QUESTION 5.2: How Are Fam ilies
Sapph ire Mining in Northern Formed, and How Is the Ideal Fam ily
Madagascar 110 Type Ma inta ined? 139
Modern W itchcraft in Cameroon 112 The Fam ily Cycle of Ju/'hoans i 140
The Fami ly Cycle of Trobriand
QUESTION 4.4: What Happened to Loca l
Is landers 141
Worldv iews When They Were Confronted
The Fami ly Cyc le of Ru ra l Ch inese 144
by the Re li g ions o f the European
Colonizers? 11 3 QUESTION 5.3: What A re the Ro les of
The Dene Tha and Christianity 11 3 Sexual ity, Love, and Wealth? 145
Christianity in the Solomon Islands 114 Sex, Love, and Wea lth Among
Rastafari in Jamaica 115 Ju/'hoansi 145
Sex, Love, and Wea lth Among
QUESTION 4.5: How Can People Reorder Trobriand Islanders 146
The ir View o f the World if It Becomes
Sex, Love, and Wea lth Among
Unsatisfactory? 117 Ru ral Ch inese 146
Wovoka and the Ghost Dance 118
QUESTION 5.4: What Threatens to
Ha itian Vodou 119
D isrupt the Fam ily Un it? 147
Western Secu lari sm 122
Threats to a Ju/'hoans i Fam ily 147
CONCLUSIONS 124 Threats to a Tro b riand Is land
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 126 Family 148
Threats to a Rural Chinese Fam ily 149
QUESTION 5.5: How Has the
Anthropo log ical Study of Famil ies
CHAPTER 5
Changed? 151
CONSTRUCTING Cha ll enges to Theo ry in
Anth ropology 151
FAM ILlES AND SOCIAL
QUESTION 5.6: How Can Understand ing
RELATIONSH IPS 128 Patterns o f Family Relations Be
Re levant Outside Academia? 154
PROBLEM 5: What do we need to know
AIDS Prevention in Namib ia 155
before we can understand the dynam ics o f
fami ly life in other societies? 129 CONCLUSIONS 158
INTRODUCTION 129 CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 158

NEL CONTENTS XV
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS 185

CONSTRUCTING CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 185

ID ENTITIES 160
CHAPTER 7
PROBLEM 6: How do peop le determ ine who
they are, and how do they commun icate who SOCIAL HIERARCHIES 186
they think they are to others? 161
PROBLEM 7: Why are modern societies
INTRODUCTION 161 characterized by social, polit ica l, and
QUESTION 6.1: How Is Identity, and econom ic inequa lit ies? How are certa in
One's Sense of Self, Learned? 162 gender, c lass, rac ial, and other identit ies
Learn ing Identit ies 162 priv ileged or marg ina lized in various
social contexts? 187
Learn ing to Be long 163
QUESTION 6.2: How Does the INTRODUCTION 187
Concept o f Personhood Vary from The Rationa le for Social Inequa lity 187
Society to Society? 167 QUESTION 7.1: How Do Societies Use
The Importance of Se lf 167 Class and Caste to Rank Peop le in
The Egocentric Se lf and the Social Hierarchies? 189
Sociocentric Self 168 Class as a Form of Social
Personhood in Japan 170 Hierarchy 189
QUESTION 6.3: How Do Societies Caste as a Form of Social
Distingu ish Indiv idua ls from One Stratif ication 190
Another? 171 QUESTION 7.2: How Do Peop le Come to
Accept Social Hierarchies as Natura l? 192
QUESTION 6.4: How Do Societies Mark
Changes in Identity? 173 Race as a Form of Social
Stratif ication 192
The Transit ion to Adu lthood 173
Constructing the Ideology of
QUESTION 6.5: How Do Indiv idua ls Racism 192
Communicate Their Identit ies to One Class, Race, and the Social
Another? 174 Construction of "Intelligence" 196
Ritua ls of Gift Giv ing and Hospita lity 175
QUESTION 7.3: How Is Gender a
Gifts and Commod it ies 177 Form of Soc ial Hierarchy? 200
Gift Giv ing and the Christian
Constructing Ma le and Fema le 200
Ce lebration of Christmas in North
Constructing Stratification by
America 178
Gender 201
QUESTION 6.6: How Do Peop le Gender Stratifi cation and the
Form Identit ies Through Collective Priv ileg ing of Hegemon ic
Strugg les? 180 Mascu linit ies 202
The Meaning of "Ind igenous" 180 Gender Stratifi cation and the
Social Movements 181 Feminization of Poverty 204
Pa lestinian Refugees 182 Body Image and Gender
Conflict W ith in Collective Identity: Hierarch ies 204
Telefolm in and Land in Papua New Language, Gender, and Racial
Gu inea 182 Hierarch ies 206

XVI CONTENTS NEL

 QUESTION 7.4: How Are Different The Nation-State and the Cost
Forms of Socia l Hierarchy Interwoven of a Sn ickers Bar 228
w ith Each Other? 207 What Is the Ro le of the Nation- St at e
Race, Class, and Social Hiera rch ies in an Increas ing ly Neolibera li zed
in Brazil 207 Globa l Economy? 230
Construct ing a New Rac ism 208 Globa lizat ion, Free Trade, and the
Pakistan i Immigrant Women and Canad ian Garment Industry 233
the Construction o f the "Sanit ized QUESTION 8.3: What Is the Relationship
Body" 209 Between the Nation-State and Identity
QUESTION 7.5: Can a Non-stratified Under Globa lization? 234
Community Exist With in a Large Education and the Nation-State 237
Society? 210 The First Nations' Cha llenge to
The Hutterites and the Co lony of the Canad ian State 237
Heaven 210 Globa l Cha llenges to the State 240
QUESTION 7.6: How Can Anthropology QUESTION 8.4: How Do Engagements
Be App lied to A lleviate the Effects of w ith Globa l Cap ita lism A f fect Loca l
Inequa lity? 212 Cu ltura l Identit ies and Li ve li hoods? 241
Anthropology and Human Rights 212 Nuxa lk Identity in an Age o f
Anthropology and Medica l Rights: Global ization 241
The Work of Paul Farmer 214 Figure Skating, Globa lization, and
Health as a Human Right 216 Canad ian Identity 243
Intersections o f Nationa l ism and
CONCLUSIONS 219
Econom ic and Cultura l
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 219 Globa lization in Vanuatu 244
Globa lization and Cu ltura l
Diversity 247
CHAPTER 8 Find ing Hope in the Face of
Cu ltura l Devastat ion 248
GLOBAL IZATION,
CONCLUSIONS 251
NEOLIBERALISM, AND
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 252
THE NATION-STATE 220
PROBLEM 8: What are the econom ic and CHAPTER 9
cultura l effects of g loba lization , and what is
the re lationsh ip between g loba lization, the RESOLVING CONFLICT 254
nat ion-state, and neolibera lism? 221
PROBLEM 9: How do societies g ive mean ing
INTRODUCTION 221 to and just ify various forms o f conf lict
QUESTION 8.1: What Is Neolibera lism, reso lut ion, both peacefu l and v io lent? 255
and What Ro le Does It Play in Capita list INTRODUCTION 255
Economic Globa lization? 223 Justifying Violence and Imagining
"The Great Transformation" 223 Peace 255
The Emergence of Neo li bera lism 225
QUESTION 9.1: How Do Societies
QUESTION 8.2: What Role Do Nation- Create a Bias in Favour o f Co ll ective
States Play in Market Econom ies? 226 V io lence? 257

NEL CONTENTS XVII

 Horses, Rank, and Warfare V io lence, the Nation-State, and
Among the Kiowa 257 Peace in East Ti mor 269
Good Hosts Among the QUESTION 9.5: How Is It Poss ib le to
Yanomamo 258 Justify the Creation of Weapons of Mass
Constructing Re lig ious Destruction? 272
Justifications for Vio lence 259
The Language o f Nuc lear
QUESTION 9.2: How Do Societies Create Destruction 273
a Bias in Favour of Peacef ul Conflict
QUESTION 9.6: How Do Anthropolog ists
Reso lution? 261
Do Fie ldwork in the Midst of V io lent
Characteristics of Peacefu I Con f lict? 274
Societies 261
The Endangered Anthropolog ist 274
QUESTION 9.3: What Are the Economic, Is There a Place for Anthropology-
Polit ica l, and Social Differences Mil itary Co llaborations? 275
Between Peacef ul and V io lent Making Sense of Combat: Canad ian
Societies? 263 Sold iers in Kandahar 277
The Need to Protect Resources 264
CONCLUSIONS 280
Creating the Cond it ions for
Vio lence 265 CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS 280
Sexism and V io lent Conflict 266
QUESTION 9.4: What Is the Re lationsh ip G LOSSARY 281
Between V io lence and the
BIB LI OGRAPHY 287
Nation-State? 267
Vio lence and the Nation-State 267 IN D EX 305

XVIII CONTENTS NEL

 make the broad issues in the chapter manageable,
A NOTE TO STUDENTS: we break down the problem into a series of related
questions. Exercises interspersed throughout each
HOW TO READ THIS
chapter are derived from the chapter content;
TEXTBOOK they aim to focus your attention on a meaningful
critique of contemporary social practices and to
"How can you begin to think like an anthropologist?" allow you to apply the new knowledge and skills
Each of the chapters in this book addresses a series you are learning to particular social concerns.You
of questions and problems that are of concern to should therefore do the exercises after you have
contemporary anthropologists. This text provides read the chapter's corresponding section. Finally,
you with the necessary anthropological concepts the critical thinking questions, located at the end
and tools to begin to think "anthropologically" of each chapter, ask you to reflect on broad issues
about these problems. For most of you, think- discussed in the chapter. These questions should
ing anthropologically will involve re-evaluating be considered only once you have read the entire
and critiquing many core ideas and values you chapter thoroughly. They also make excellent
have probably been taught as being "true;' "right;' study questions.
or "natural." Through cross-cultural examples and You will find key terms in bold font through-
case studies, you will learn to appreciate the diver- out this text. These are foundational concepts and
sity ofbeliefs, traditions, and experiences of different ideas in anthropology, and it is important to under-
cultures. This appreciation, in turn, will challenge stand how these key ideas are defined within the
you to think differently about aspects of your own discipline. For instance, most people use the term
culture, upbringing, and beliefs. "gender" in everyday language. However, "gender"
Each of the nine chapters in this text includes has a unique meaning in anthropology. To help
a problem, chapter questions, exercises, and critical you remember these balded key terms, we have
thinking questions. Think of these as a "toolkit" to provided a running glossary throughout the chap-
guide you through the text. Each chapter begins ter, an end-of-chapter list of the key terms with
with a specific "problem."While reading a chapter, pertinent page numbers, and a full glossary at the
you should keep the relevant problem in mind so end of the book.
that, once you are finished reading, you will under-
stand how the various cultural examples in the text
can help you critically address the central problem
or issue of the chapter. Each chapter also opens with FOR INSTRUCTORS
a brief epigraph and an opening image related to
the respective problem. Together, they are meant This text introduces students to the key concepts
to evoke, visually and in literary terms, the issue at and methods utilized by sociocultural anthropology.
hand. Keep them in mind as you read through the One of our goals in writing this text is to encour-
chapter. age students to read, think, and write critically.
In addition, in each chapter you will find Indeed, we believe that one of the main objectives
questions that will help you think anthropologi- of first-year sociocultural anthropology courses is to
cally and more specifically about the problem. To teach students to think differently about the world

NEL XIX
around them. The text facilitates this by encour- the nine chapters focuses on a specific problem of
aging students to analyze and critique many basic anthropological as well as general concern:
assumptions that they have brought with them to • How can people begin to understand beliefs and
the course. For example, many of us are taught to behaviours that are different from their own?
think about our sense of identity, which encom- • How do sociocultural anthropologists learn
passes gender, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, and about culture?
family, as natural, biological, or fixed as something • How do we explain the transformation of
we are born with. In this text, however, we place human societies over the past 10,000 years
particular emphasis on the culturally constructed from small-scale, nomadic bands of hunters and
nature of our world: on the idea that many identi- gatherers to large-scale, urban-industrial states?
ties, as well as beliefs and practices, that we view as • Why do people believe different things, and
natural are both learned and the consequences of why are they so certain that their view of the
cultural differences. world is correct and that others are wrong?
We thus adopt a "problem-based approach" • What do we need to know before we can
to the study of anthropology. Richard Robbins understand the dynamics of family life in other
wrote the original edition of Cultural Anthropol- societies?
ogy: A Problem-Based Approach in the hope that such • How do people determine who they are, and
an approach would foster a classroom culture that, how do they communicate who they think
regardless of class size and instructional technique, they are to others?
would actively involve students in the learning process, • Why are modern societies characterized by
promote critical thinking, and impress on students that social, political, and economic inequalities?
they, along with the other people and cultures of the How are certain gender, class, racial, and other
world, are cultural animals worthy of study. identities privileged or marginalized in various
Each chapter is organized around an intellec- social contexts?
tual "problem" and then subdivided into a series of • What are the economic and cultural effects
questions that address the problem from an anthro- of globalization, and what is the relationship
pological perspective. Most sections of each chap- between globalization, the nation-state, and
ter contain short exercises that encourage students national identity?
to apply the knowledge and skills they have learned • How do societies give meaning to and justify
to foster a sense of reflexivity about their own various forms of conflict resolution, both
behaviours and beliefs. Each chapter ends with a peaceful and violent?
discussion of the ways in which a problem-based
These problems have no definitive solutions, yet
approach and anthropological perspective can be
they drive much intellectual inquiry. Each problem/
put to use outside academia. Ultimately, we hope
chapter is broken down into a series of specific ques-
that after reading this text, students will appre-
tions, each of which can be "answered" by focusing
ciate that culture, as the way that human beings
on the ethnographic and theoretical contributions of
make their lives meaningful, is fluid, dynamic,
anthropologists. Such questions include the following:
contradictory, and subject to critique. Moreover,
we hope that students who read this book will • Is it possible to see the world through the eyes
understand why and how anthropology matters of others?
for anyone who wants to understand, and perhaps • How do people come to accept social
make a difference in, the contemporary world. hierarchies as natural?
The material in this text is organized by prob- • What are the characteristics of peaceful
lems and questions rather than by topics. Each of societies?

XX PREFACE NEL
TOPIC AND QUESTION CORRESPONDENCE

Aboriginal and Indigenous Question 3.2; Question 3.3; Question 3.4; Question 3.5; Question 4.1; Question 4.2; Question 4.3; Question 4.4;
Peoples Question 4.5; Question 6.1; Question 6.6; Question 8.3; Question 8.4; Question 9.1; Question 9.2; Question 9.3
Applied Anthropology Question 1.5; Question 3.5; Question 5.6; Question 7.6;
Question 9.6; Chapter 9(Conclusions)
Caste Question 7.1
Colonialism Question 3.2; Question 3.3; Question 3.4; Question 4.4; Question 4.5; Question 6.2; Question 6.6; Question 8.2;
Question 8.3; Question 8.4; Question 8.5; Question 9.3; Question 9.4
Conflict Chapter 9
Corporations Question 8.1; Question 8.2
Cultural Relativism Question 1.2
Culture Change Chapter 3
Culture Concept Chapter 1
Ecology Question 1.5; Question 3.3; Question 3.5; Question 8.2; Question 8.3
Economic Anthropology Chapter 3; Chapter 7; Chapter 8
Education Question 6.1; Question 8.3
Ethnocentrism Question 1.2
Family Organization Chapter 5
Feminist Anthropology Question 4.5; Question 5.1; Question 6.4; Question 9.3
Fieldwork Chapter 2
Food Production Question 2.3; Question 3.1; Question 8.2
Foragers Question 3.1; Question 9.2
Gender Chapter 7; Question 6.1; Question 7.3; Question 9.3
Gift Giving Question 5.3; Question 6.5
Globalization Chapter 8; Question 3.2; Question 3.3
Human Rights Question 1.2; Question 7.6
Identity Chapter 6
Industrialization Question 3.2; Question 3.3
Inequality Chapter 7; Question 7.1; Question 7.2; Question 7.3; Question 7.4; Question 7.5; Question 7.6
International Development Question 3.3; Question 3.5; Question 5.6; Question 6.6
Kinship Chapter 5
Language and Culture Question 1.3; Question 4.1; Question 6.3; Question 7.3; Question 9.5
Law and Anthropology Question 1.5
Marriage Chapter 5
(Continued)

NEL PREFACE XXI

TOPIC AND QUESTION CORRESPONDENCE (Continued)

Medical Anthropology Question 1.5; Question 3.4; Question 5.6; Question 7.6
Nation-State Chapter 8; Question 9.4
Neoliberalism Chapter 8
Peasants Question 2.5; Question 3.1; Question 3.3; Chapter 5
Political Ecology Question 1.5
Political Organization and Control Chapter 7; Question 7.5; Question 9.2; Question 9.3; Question 9.4
Race and Racism Question 7.2; Question 7.4
Religion/World View Chapter 4; Question 1.1; Question 1.2; Question 6.5; Question 9.1
Ritual Question 1.3; Question 1.4; Question 4.2; Question 4.3; Question 6.4; Question 6.5; Question 6.6
Sexual Stratification Question 5.1; Question 5.2; Question 5.3; Question 9.3
Sexuality Question 5.3; Question 5.5; Question 5.6; Question 7.3
Social Stratification Chapter 7
Status and Rank Chapter 7; Question 3.1; Question 3.2; Question 3.3; Question 9.1
Subsistence Techniques Question 3.1; Question 3.2
Symbolism Question 1.1; Question 1.3; Question 1.4; Question 4.1; Question 4.2; Question 4.3; Question 6.4; Question 6.5
Systems of Exchange Question 6.5
Tourism Question 2.5; Question 8.4

Although the problems and questions included anthropologist." These exercises are interspersed
in the text are not exhaustive, those that we have throughout the text and can be used in various
selected are central to the concerns of the discipline ways by students and instructors. They might
and include the topics and issues typically covered in serve as discussion questions in lectures, tutori-
an introductory sociocultural anthropology class. We als, or online discussion posts, or they could be
have chosen problems and questions that we hope will used as the basis for group work. They could also
capture students' imaginations and whet their appe- be treated as informal writing assignments, with
tite for further study in the discipline. The Topic and students preparing brief reading responses based
Question Correspondence chart, which links topics to on the exercises, which would then be used as a
questions considered in the text, can be used in guid- starting point for classroom discussion. However
ing discussion and in course planning. they are used, the exercises are designed to give
A key pedagogical feature of this text is the first-year students a chance to engage in intellec-
inclusion of exercises that give students the oppor- tual debate and to highlight the real-world impli-
tunity to apply what they have read, to think about cations of what they have learned.
the implications of the material for their own In addition to the exercises, each chapter
lives, and to think about various problems "like an concludes with several critical thinking questions.

XXII PREFACE NEL

The questions, together with updated end-of- is all about. We continue to build on Sherrie Larkin's
chapter glossaries of key terms, encourage efforts in the first Canadian edition to provide inter-
students to review what they have learned in two esting and important examples of the research that
different ways. The lists (whose terms appear in Canadian anthropologists are doing, both in Canada
bold throughout the chapter) allow students to and beyond. Larkin's strong focus on Canadian anthro-
review each chapter's material quickly: names, pological work with First Nations, Inuit, and Metis
terms, and theories. The critical thinking ques- peoples remains important as well. In order to give
tions provide students with the opportunity to students a sense of both the history of the discipline
rethink the material in a way that underscores and its ongoing dynamism and potential, we have
what they have learned through the problem- added new ethnographic examples from around the
based approach. world, both classic and contemporary. In response to
This third edition of Sociocultural Anthropology: instructor feedback, and based on our own experiences
A Problem-Based Approach includes maps, which in the classroom, we have made several additions and
are interspersed throughout the chapters. The inclu- enhancements throughout the text. These include a
sion of the different projections that open this book change in the title of the text. Although the first and
exemplifies one of the key pedagogical goals of an second Canadian editions were titled Cultural Anthro-
introductory anthropology class: to show how one's pology: A Problem-Based Approach, we have replaced
entire world is shaped by one's cultural perspective. In the term "cultural anthropology" with "sociocultural
addition to these maps, each of the chapters includes anthropology:' We feel that this change better reflects
two or three smaller maps, each of which corresponds the combined influences of British and American
with one of the ethnographic examples in the text. anthropology on Canadian anthropological traditions.
These are intended to help orient students toward In addition, we have made the following chapter-
the material, especially for places that, in our teaching specific changes.
experience, students tend to be less familiar with (the
Trobriand Islands, for example). Chapter 1
Another key feature that contributes to learning
stems from Richard Robbins's conviction evident • We have moved and lengthened our discussion
of fieldwork from Chapter 1 to form a new
in the earlier editions and maintained here, and which
we share that students learning about the cultures of chapter on fieldwork (Chapter 2).
• The discussion of anthropology's four sub-
others cannot fully appreciate them without first under-
standing something of their own cultural perspective. In fields (archaeology, biological/physical
order to appreciate that other people construct their anthropology, linguistics, and sociocultural
worlds, they must appreciate that they themselves do anthropology) is expanded.
so as well. Accordingly, we have included numerous • This edition expands significantly upon
the second edition's discussion of applied
comparisons of world cultures with North American
cultures, both in the text and through the exercises. anthropology, with examples drawn from
research within legal anthropology, the
corporate sector, work among Indigenous
groups, and health-related research.
NEW IN THIS EDITION
Chapter 2
In this Third Canadian Edition of Sociocultural Anthro- • This chapter is new to this edition. Much of
pology: A Problem-Based Approach, we retain the spirit the material on fieldwork from the last edition
of Richard Robbins's account of what anthropology has been moved here and expanded upon.

NEL PREFACE XXIII

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 DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
 FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
 Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
 The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

 This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
 “We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
 Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
 BRAZIER

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

 FINISHING THE BOTTOM

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

 LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
 Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

 BEATING THE BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN