Party Politics in America 17th Edition –

Ebook PDF Version

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/party-politics-in-america-17th-edition-ebook-pdf-versi
on/
 CONTENTS
List of Figures xix
List of Tables xxi
List of Boxes xxii
Foreword by John H. Aldrich xxiii
Preface xxxi
Acknowledgments xxxiv

PART I PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS 1

1 What Are Political Parties? 4
The Three Parts of Parties 6
The Party Organization 8
The Party in Government 8
The Party in the Electorate 9
What Parties Do 10
Elect Candidates 10
Educate (or Propagandize) Citizens 10
Govern 10
Extended Party Networks 11
The Effects of Party Activity 11
How Do Parties Differ from Other Political Groups? 12
Parties Are Paramount in Elections 12
They Have a Full-Time Commitment to Political Activity 13
They Mobilize Large Numbers 13
They Endure 13
They Serve as Political Symbols 13
How the American Parties Developed 15
The Founding of American Parties 15
A National Two-Party System Emerges 18
The Golden Age of the Parties 19
The Progressive Reforms and Beyond 20

vii
viii Contents
What Do the Parties Stand For? 21
Parties Are Shaped by Their Environment 25
Voters and Elections 25
Political Institutions 26
Laws Governing Parties 26
Political Culture 27
The Broader Environment 27

2 The American Two-Party System 30

The National Party System 31
The 50 State Party Systems 32
Measuring State Party Competition 33
Limits on Competitiveness: Incumbency 34
… And Other Reasons for Limited Competitiveness 35
What Causes a Two-Party System? 37
Institutional Forces 37
Manipulating the Rules 40
Exceptions to the Two-Party Pattern 41
Nonpartisan Elections 41
Areas of One-Party Monopoly 42
Minor Parties 43
The Rise of Independent Candidates 47
Will the Two-Party System Continue? 49

PART II THE POLITICAL PARTY AS AN ORGANIZATION 53

3 The State and Local Party Organizations 56
What Is a “Strong” Party? 57
How States Regulate the Parties 57
Levels of Party Organization 58
Local Party Committees 58
State Central Committees 60
The Legendary Party Machines 61
How the Party Machines Developed 61
How Machines Held on to Power 62
Local Party Organizations Declined and Then Rebuilt 64
Local Parties in the 1970s 64
Local Parties Today: More Active, More Structured 66
 Contents ix
The State Parties: Gaining Money and Services 67
Traditional Weakness 68
Increasing Strength in Recent Decades 68
Summing Up: How the State and Local Party Organizations Have
Been Transformed 72

4 The Parties’ National Organizations 77

The National Parties 77
The National Committees 78
National Party Chairs 78
Presidents and Their National Parties 80
Other National Party Groups 81
Congressional Campaign (“Hill”) Committees 81
Governors’ Associations and Other Groups 81
Women’s and Youth Groups 83
Party Networks 83
Two Paths to Power 84
The Service Party Path 84
The Democrats’ Procedural-Reform Path 85
Both Parties Take the Service Path 86
Rising to the Challenge of New Campaign Finance Rules 87
Party Money and Activism in the 2010s 88
What Is the Impact of These Stronger National Parties? 92
Effects on Candidates’ Campaigns 92
Effects on State and Local Parties 93
Effects on the Presidency 97
Effects on Congress 97
Relationships Within the National Party 98
The Limits of Party Organization 98

5 Party Activists 102

What Draws People into Party Activity? 102
Purposive (Issue-Based) Incentives 103
Solidary (Social) Incentives 103
Material Incentives 105
Mixed Incentives 107
Pragmatists (Professionals) and Purists (Amateurs) 108
Where Do Activists Come From? 110
Finding Volunteers: Is Anybody Home? 110
What Kinds of People Become Party Activists? 111
Better Educated and Wealthier Than Average 113
x Contents
People from “Political Families” 115
Different Agendas 115
More Consistent (and Intense) Views 116
Party Activists and Democracy 117
The Problem of Representation 118
Purists and Pressure for Internal Party Democracy 118
Activists, Party Strength, and Democracy 119

PART III THE POLITICAL PARTY IN THE ELECTORATE 123

6 Party Identification 126
How People Develop Party Identifications 127
Childhood Influences 127
Influences in Adulthood 128
Patterns of Partisanship over Time 128
Was There a Decline in Partisanship? 130
Recent Changes in the Direction of Party ID 132
Partisanship and Intense Negative Feelings 133
Party Identification and Political Views 134
Party Identification and Voting 136
Party Voting 136
Party Versus Candidates and Issues 137
Partisanship as a Two-Way Street 137
Party Identification and Political Activity 139
Party Identification and Party Differences 139
The Myth of the Independent 140
Attitudinal Independents 140
Behavioral Independents 141
Are Independents a Likely Source of Support for Minor-Party
Candidates? 141
Change in the Impact of Party ID 142
A More Candidate-Centered Politics 142
The Continuing Significance of Party 143

7 Party Coalitions and Party Change 148

The American Party Systems 149
The First Party System 149
The Second Party System 150
The Third Party System 151
 Contents xi
The Fourth Party System 152
The Fifth Party System 152
The Sixth Party System 153
The Social Bases of Party Coalitions 159
Socioeconomic Status Divisions 159
Race 160
Regional Divisions 161
Urban vs. Rural 162
Age 163
Religion and Religious Commitment 164
Ethnicity 164
Gender 165
The Central Role of Issues in the Group–Party Linkage 166
Clearer Differences Between the Two Parties’ Coalitions on Issues 169
From Democratic Majority to Close Competition 170
How Can We Characterize These Changes: Realignment, Dealignment, or
What? 171
Issue Positions Can Combine and Then Re-Combine 171
Problems with the Idea of Realignment 172

8 Parties and Voter Turnout 177

Elections: The Rules Affect the Results 178
Expansion of the Right to Vote 178
Rules Affecting Access to Voting Rights 179
The Secret Ballot 179
Citizenship 180
Residence 180
Registration 180
The Special Case of Voting Rights for Black Americans 180
The Long Struggle for Voting Rights 181
From Voting Rights to Representation 182
Getting Blacks’ Votes Counted 183
Efforts to Liberalize Voting Rules 184
Election Day Registration 184
“Motor Voter” Laws 184
Voting by Mail, Early, and No-Excuse Absentee Voting 185
The Voter ID Controversy 185
Voter ID Laws 185
Proof of Citizenship 186
Voter Intimidation 187
Voting Systems: Are Votes Counted Fairly? 187
xii Contents
The Low Turnout in American Elections 189
Social Group Differences in Turnout 190
Education 191
Youth 192
Gender and Race 193
Social Connectedness 193
Political Attitudes 194
The Impact of the Current Campaign 194
The Excitement of the Election 195
Close Competition 195
Party Efforts to Mobilize Voters 195
Do Party Efforts Diversify the Electorate? 196
The Challenge to the Parties 196

PART IV PARTIES, NOMINATIONS, AND ELECTIONS 203

9 How Parties Choose Candidates 205
How the Nomination Process Evolved 205
Nominations by Caucus 206
Nominations by Convention 206
Nominations by Direct Primaries 206
The Current Mix of Primaries and Conventions 207
Types of Primaries 208
Closed Primaries 208
Open Primaries 209
Blanket Primaries 209
Why Does the Type of Primary Matter? 210
How Candidates Qualify 212
How Do Candidates Get on the Ballot? 212
Runoffs: When Too Many Candidates Get on the Ballot 212
What Parties Don’t Like About Primaries 213
Difficulties in Recruiting Candidates 213
The Risk of Unappealing Nominees 213
Divisive Primaries 214
Problems in Holding Candidates Accountable 215
The Party Organization Fights Back 216
Persuading Candidates to Run (or Not to Run) 216
Endorsing Candidates 216
Providing Tangible Support 217
 Contents xiii
Candidates and Voters in the Primaries 217
Many Candidates Run Without Competition 218
… And Voters Are in Short Supply 218
The Impact of the Direct Primary 219
Has It Made Elections More Democratic? 219
How Badly Has It Harmed the Parties? 220
Is the Primary Worth the Cost? 221

10 Choosing the Presidential Nominees 224

The “Invisible Primary” 224
The Adoption of Presidential Primaries 226
Turbulence in the Democratic Party 227
Presidential Primaries and Caucuses Today 228
The Race for Delegates: Timing and Momentum 230
Candidates’ Strategic Choices 232
Rules Changes for 2012, 2016, and 2020 233
What Is the Party’s Role? 234
Voters’ Choices in Presidential Nominations 236
Who Votes? 236
Are Primary and Caucus Voters Typical? 237
Do Voters Make Informed Choices? 237
Do Primaries Produce Good Candidates? 238
The National Conventions 238
How the Conventions Began 238
What Conventions Do 239
Who Are the Delegates? 240
Apportioning Delegates Among the States 241
How Representative Are the Delegates? 241
How Media Cover Conventions 243
Do Conventions Still Have a Purpose? 244
Should We Reform the Reforms? 244
What Could Be Done? 245

11 The General Election 248

Campaign Strategy 249
How Campaigning Has Changed 251
Sources of Information 251
Professional Consultants 252
Methods of Persuasion: The Air War 252
Television 252
xiv Contents
The Internet 253
Direct Contact by Mail, Text, and Twitter 254
The Ground War: “Under the Radar” 255
Canvassing and Phone Banks 255
Micro-Targeting 256
Negative Campaigning 259
Putting These Tools to Work 260
A Democratic Wave in 2008 260
Backlash in 2010 261
A Democratic Revival in 2012 261
… And the Republican Comeback in 2014 262
2016: The Unprecedented Campaign 263
Do Campaigns Make a Difference? 265
The Argument That Campaigns Matter 265
The Argument That They Don’t 266
Some Tentative Answers 267
Candidate-Centered or Party-Centered Campaigns? 267
Party Influence in Competitive Campaigns 268
The Continuing Struggle Between Candidates and Party
Organizations 269

12 Financing the Campaigns 273

How Much Money Is Spent on Campaigns? 274
Presidential Campaigns 274
Congressional Campaigns 274
State and Local Campaigns 277
What Is the Impact of Campaign Spending? 278
A Never-Ending Story: How “Interested Money” Flows into
Campaigns 279
The “Wild West” Days of Campaign Finance 279
The FECA Reforms of the 1970s 280
Limits on Direct Contributions to Campaigns 281
Public Disclosure 284
Public Funding of Presidential Campaigns 284
The Loopholes That Ate the Reforms 285
Unlimited Self-Funding by Wealthy Candidates 285
Independent Spending 285
Soft Money 286
Issue Advocacy Ads 287
What Did the 1970s Reforms Accomplish? 288
 Contents xv
Another Try: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) 289
More End Runs: 527 and 501(c) Advocacy Groups 291
The National Parties Survived BCRA 293
Bundling 293
Citizens United and Super PACS 293
Will Super PACs Replace the Parties? 297
State Regulation and Financing 298
Has Campaign Finance Regulation Made a Difference? 298
Money in American Politics 299

PART V THE PARTY IN GOVERNMENT 303

13 Parties in Congress and State Legislatures 305
How the Parties are Organized in Congress 306
Changes in the Power of House Party Leaders 307
The Gingrich Revolution 309
… And Later Shifts in Party Control 310
What Caused This Stronger Party Leadership? 311
Parties in the Senate 313
Parties in the State Legislatures 314
Methods of Party Influence 315
Carrots and Sticks 315
Agenda Control 316
Party Influence on Legislative Voting 317
How Unified Is Each Legislative Party? 317
Greater Polarization of the Congressional Parties 322
What Issues Promote Party Voting? 324
What Conditions Produce Strong Legislative Parties? 326
The Power of Legislative Parties 328

14 The Party in the Executive and the Courts 333

Presidents and Governors as Party Leaders 334
The President as Campaigner-in-Chief 334
The President as the “Top of the Ticket” 334
Party Leadership and Legislative Relations 336
Legislative Support for Executives 336
Party Influence in Executive Agencies 338
How is Presidential or Party Influence Exercised? 338
Changing Partisan Perspectives in the Federal Bureaucracy 339
xvi Contents
Traces of Party in the Courts 340
Judicial Voting Along Party Lines 342
What Causes Partisan Behavior on the Courts? 342
The Party Within the Executive and the Judge 345

15 The Semi-Responsible Parties 348

The Case for Responsible Party Government 349
How Would Party Government (Responsible Parties) Work? 349
The Case Against Party Government 350
It Would Increase Conflict 351
It Wouldn’t Work in American Politics 351
The Gingrich Experiment: A Temporarily Responsible Party 353
Party Cohesion and Ideology 354
Are the American Parties Ideological? 354
Do They At Least Offer Clear Choices? 354
But Internal Divisions Remain 358
Ideology and the American Voter 358
How Ideological Is the American Public? 359
Partisan Sorting or Ideological Polarization? 360
Differences Among Voters, Activists, and Candidates 363
When Is Party Government Most Likely? 364
When There Is Strong Presidential Leadership 364
In Times of Crisis 365
When the Parties’ Supporting Coalitions Are Reshaped 365
Party Government and Popular Control 365

16 The Place of Parties in American Politics 370

Parties and Their Environment 370
The Nature of the Electorate 371
Political Institutions and Rules 372
Societal Forces 373
Party Decline in the 1960s and 1970s 373
The Parties in the Electorate 374
Party Organizations 374
The Party in Government 375
Shifting Power Centers Within the Parties 376
Party Renewal Since the 1980s 377
Change in the Parties’ Electoral Coalitions 377
Which Party Will Gain the Advantage? 378
The Rise of More Cohesive Parties in Government 380
The New “Service Parties” 380
 Contents xvii
The Future of Party Politics in America 381
A Changing Intermediary Role 382
The Need for Strong Parties 383
How to Make the Parties Stronger 385
Conclusion: The Parties’ Prospects 385
Index 388
 FIGURES
I.1 Parties and Other Intermediaries Between Citizens and Government 2
1.1 Partisans’ Hostility Toward the Other Party, 1994 and 2016 5
1.2 The Three Parts of American Political Parties 8
2.1 Interparty Competition in the States, 2012–2016 33
2.2 The Declining Number of “Swing” Districts in the U.S. House,
1992–2012 36
3.1 The Party Organizations in a Typical State 59
4.1 Democratic and Republican Fund-Raising, 1975–1976 to 2015–2016 86
4.2 National Party Money in House Races, 1995–1996 to 2015–2016 91
4.3 National Party Money in Senate Races, 1995–1996 to 2015–2016 91
5.1 Wealthy People Are More Politically Active Online and Offline 114
5.2 Consistent Conservatives and Liberals Vote More in Primaries and Give
More to Campaigns 117
6.1 Party Identification by Decade, 1950s–2010s 129
6.2 Change in Strength of Party ID, 1950s–2010s 131
6.3 Public (Dis)approval of the Parties since 1992 132
6.4 Changing Feelings about the Federal Government, by Party ID, 2006 and
2010 135
6.5 Percent Saying the Two Parties’ Policies Are “Very Different,” 2016 139
7.1 Democratic and Republican House Seats by Region, 1954 and 2016 156
7.2 Young People’s Partisanship since 1993 163
8.1 Black Voter Registration in the South, 1960 and 2012–2014 182
8.2 Turnout in American Elections, 1790–2016 190
8.3 Group Differences in Voter Turnout, 2012 191
8.4 Voter Turnout of Younger and Older Americans, 1972–2012 192
8.5 White (non-Hispanic) Voters as a Percentage of All Voters, 1986–2016 193
9.1 Voting in Open Primaries Differs from Closed Primaries: Hillary Clinton vs.
Bernie Sanders, 2016 211
10.1 Change in the Number of Presidential Primaries, 1968–2016 228
12.1 Total Spending by Candidates, Parties, and Groups in Presidential
Elections, 1960–2016 275
12.2 Total Candidate Spending in House Campaigns, 1971–1972 to
2015–2016 276

xix
xx Figures
12.3 Total Candidate Spending in Senate Campaigns, 1971–1972 to
2015–2016 276
12.4 How Money Flows into Federal Campaigns 279
13.1 Congressional Party Unity and Disunity, 2015–2016 318
13.2 Party Voting in the House of Representatives, 1879–2015 320
13.3 Average Party Unity Scores, 1961–2015 321
13.4 Party Polarization in Congress, 1879–2015 323
14.1 Presidential Success in the U.S. Congress, 1953–2015 337
15.1 Growing Polarization of Democrats and Republicans since 1994 361
15.2 Percentage of Voters Seeing a Party Advantage on Issues, 2015–2016 361
15.3 Party Identifiers See the Other Party’s Ideology as More Extreme,
2016 362
16.1 Eroding Democratic Strength in the South: U.S. House and Senate Seats,
1955–2016 377
 TABLES
1.1 Party Differences in the 2010s: Issues and Core Supporters 23
2.1 Percentage of the Two-Party Vote Won by Republican Candidates for
President and House of Representatives, 1940–2016 32
3.1 Changes in Local Parties’ Organizational Strength 65
5.1 Comparing Pragmatists and Purists 109
6.1 Political Involvement of Partisans and Independents, 2016 138
7.1 Years of Partisan Control of Congress and the Presidency, 1801–2016 150
7.2 Change in the Parties’ Coalitions, from the 1950s to the 2010s 154
7.3 The Current Democratic and Republican Party Coalitions 157
7.4 Issue Attitudes and Party Identification, 2016 167
10.1 Who Were the “Superdelegates” in 2016? 235
12.1 The Biggest PAC Spenders (in Contributions to Federal Candidates),
2015–2016 282
12.2 Limits on Campaign Contributions under Federal Law, 2016 290
12.3 Types of Non-Party Groups Allowed to Put Money into Election
Campaigns 292
12.4 The Top Spenders Among Outside Groups (on Independent Spending and
Electioneering Ads in Federal Campaigns, 2015–2016) 295
15.1 Party Control of the Federal Government, 1951–2016 352
16.1 Environmental Forces Influencing the American Parties 371

xxi
 BOXES
Is the Tea Party a Party? 14
The American Major Parties 17
Plurality Versus Proportional Representation: How It Works in Practice 39
A Day in the Life: Competing Against the “Big Guys” 44
Want to Run for Office as an Independent? Good Luck! 48
What’s the Matter with Kansas Republicans? 71
Money Is the Mother’s Milk of Parties 79
How the Hill Committees Help Targeted Campaigns 82
Which Would You Choose? Could a Stronger National Party Benefit You? 94
When the National Party Tries to Pick a Winner 96
A Day in the Life: What Did You Do Sophomore Year? I Ran for the State
Legislature 104
How Social Media Are Changing Political Activism 112
Democracy on the Cheap: Is Every Vote Counted? 188
Why Didn’t You Vote? 194
Which Would You Choose? 197
Even His Mother Didn’t Know He Was Running 214
How a Presidential Candidate Is Chosen 225
Hillary Clinton and the Iowa Caucuses: Part Deux 229
Momentum in the Nomination Process 231
Party Campaign Strategies in 2020 250
What the National Parties Probably Know About You 256
Micro-Targeting in 2016: Trumped? 258
Why Did Donald Trump Win in 2016? 264
Campaign Spending: Too Much or Too Little? 277
A Billionaire’s Under-Funded Campaign 280
The One Percent of the One Percent 296
Party Leadership Positions in the House and Senate 307
What Makes a Strong Legislative Party Split? 312
Which Would You Choose? Should Your Representative Listen More Closely to
the Party or to the Constituents 329
The Partisan Backgrounds of U.S. Supreme Court Justices 341
The Battle to Replace a Supreme Court Justice 344
Party Differences on Major Issues: The 2016 Party Platforms 355

xxii
 FOREWORD
Why should you be interested in studying political parties? The short answer
is that virtually everything important in America’s “great Experiment” in
democracy is rooted in party politics. Political parties are at the core of
American politics and make it what it is today—just as they have virtually
from the Founding.
A slightly longer answer is that, today as I write this during the 2016
elections, the parties are newsworthy on two major fronts. They are, at one
and the same time, the major structuring feature of the elections—indeed
more so over this current generation than in generations preceding—and yet
they are today as front and center for their own divisions, especially over
this year’s presidential nominations. The Democratic contest was surprisingly
divided over Hillary Clinton, perhaps the central figure in Democratic party
politics, and Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist for much of his long
political career. The Republican contest is perhaps best described as
“shockingly” divided, as Donald Trump’s rise to nomination as a total
outsider (never having held office or even been a Republican until recent
years) created chaos on the campaign trail and division within the established
party leadership.
Why should you use this book to guide you in the search for understanding
democratic politics in America? The short answer is that this book is the
best guide you can have, and it has been the best guide in this search for
quite a long time.
A longer answer for this question is that I first encountered this text at the
same stage in my life you are in now: as an undergraduate, although in my
case that was back in the 1960s. At that point, the book was authored by an
up-and-coming scholar named Frank Sorauf.1 Following on the heels of his
important study of the effect of political parties on the Pennsylvania
legislature,2 Party Politics in America established him as arguably the leading
scholar of political parties of his generation. In those days—less so today—it
was common for a “textbook” (i.e., a book designed to be used in class) to
do more than just tell you what others had written about its subject. Rather,
books written for undergraduates were also designed to make a coherent
argument about its subject matter—to engage you, the reader, intellectually.
So it was then, and with this book, so it remains today.
In the sixth edition, published in 1988, Frank brought in Paul Allen Beck
as coauthor. Paul took over the authorial duties beginning with that edition,
and Marjorie Randon Hershey did so beginning with the ninth edition in
2001, leading to the book that you are about to read today. Each did so

xxiii
xxiv Foreword

with considerable respect for the substance and the perspective that
characterized the previous editions. This has brought a high degree of
intellectual continuity to Party Politics in America. Most of all, Sorauf, Beck,
and Hershey very effectively use a three-part division in the discussion of
political parties, considering the political party in its electoral, governing,
and organizational roles. These three aspects of a party create a coherent
system that (sometimes loosely, sometimes more tightly) provides a degree of
integration to the diverse workings of any one political party.
When Sorauf first wrote, the three pieces were rather loosely integrated.
Partisanship in the public, for example, was nearly as strongly held as today,
but the party in government was deeply divided, especially the majority
party, the Democrats (into North and South, or pro- and anti-civil rights),
but also the minority Republican Party (into “Wall Street” and “Main
Street,” or urban vs. suburban, small town, and rural). Today, partisanship
is as strong as always. Democratic officeholders, however, are much more
strongly united than they were then, and so too are the Republicans, even if
they are in some ways divided. They are divided not so much on ideology but
on how best to defeat the Democrats in government and enact more
conservative legislation than now possible. In addition, the party organizations
are much stronger than they were then (and vastly better financed) making
their ability to conduct highly partisan campaigns ever more effective.
Even with a highly polarized party system (as this great divide between
Republicans and Democrats is called), there are serious strains among the
various parts. What, for example, would you do if you were an adviser to the
Republican Party faced with the following choice? Do you advise the
Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (Wisc.), to follow the lead of
many of your members and work with congressional Democrats to find a
solution to our problems? Or do you follow the lead of the former Tea Party
and currently House Freedom Caucus calls for holding tight to party
positions, not compromising on principle to work with Democrats, expecting
that a tough stand will yield electoral rewards in the future?
The second continuity is that Sorauf, Beck, and Hershey see the two major
political parties together in the United States as a system. The two-party
system has long played a central role in the evolution of American politics
(see especially Chapter 7). Although this two-party system has important
implications for political dynamics, they also see the two-party system as a
part of the intermediary groups in society. By this, the authors mean that the
parties serve as points of contact between the public and its government
(see Figure 1.2, a figure that I believe has graced this book for all of its
editions now).
The third continuity is that each author is a terrific scholar of political
parties, and although these continuities have allowed this book to keep its
unique intellectual stamp, the transition among authors has also allowed
each to bring to the work his or her particular strengths. In the end, this has
made the seventeenth edition of the book richer and stronger than ever
 Foreword xxv
before. As I noted earlier, Frank Sorauf used his expertise to explain the role
of the political party in government. Since then, he became one of the nation’s
leading experts on the role of money in politics and in later editions reflected
that increasingly important but perennially controversial subject.3 Paul Beck
brought a distinguished career of scholarship, examining the role of political
parties in the electorate and adding nicely to Frank’s expertise about the
governing role.4 Paul is, like Frank and Marjorie Hershey, an expert on
American politics. However, Paul is also, more than most of us who study
American politics, genuinely knowledgeable about comparative politics.
Marjorie Randon Hershey, through her expertise, has made important
contributions to one of the most difficult questions to study: How do
candidates and their campaigns shape and how are they shaped by electoral
forces?5 This interaction links the two most important components of the
party, elections and governance, into a more coherent whole. It has allowed
her to bring clarity to what has become an increasingly confused portion of
the field. Marjorie has also closely studied the role of gender in politics, a
dimension of party politics that not only has been of long-standing importance
from at least the granting of women’s suffrage but has also become especially
critical with the emergence and growth of the “gender gap.”6 Finally, she has
made a long series of contributions to help us understand how to bring
meaning to complex events.7 One special feature of this book is the increased
use of narratives from well-known and little-known party figures alike,
narratives that serve to bring the subject matter to life.
Not only does each author add a unique and innovative understanding to
political parties as they join the continuity of leading scholars who have
shaped this book, but also each edition adds new life to the text by considering
the politics of the time. This seventeenth edition is not an exception. Here,
then, are some of the facets of particular relevance to contemporary politics
that I find particularly worth considering (by you that is).
One issue that is critical to all who study American politics is the way that
an understanding of politics matters in your life. This is your government,
and the political parties are ways in which you can help shape what your
government and elected officials do. This is one of the most important
meanings of American political parties. They, and the government that they
create, are the consequences of you and your political actions. So saying
allows me to move more directly to the longer answer about the study of
political parties themselves.
At the outset, I mentioned that you should want to study political parties
because they are so important to virtually everything that happens in
American politics and because political parties are so central to the workings
of any democracy. Great, but you are probably asking, “So what questions
should I keep in mind as I read this book? What questions will help me
understand the material better?” Let me propose as guidelines three questions
that are neither too specific nor too general. We are looking, that is, for
questions somewhere in between “Are parties good?” on the one hand and
xxvi Foreword

“What role did Boehner’s violation of the informal ‘Hastert Rule’ play in his
decision to resign as Speaker in late 2015?” on the other hand.
You are well aware that today politicians can appear magnanimous and
statesmanlike if they say that they will be nonpartisan and if they call for
Congress to “rise above” partisan politics to be bipartisan. Yet essentially
every elected official is a partisan, and essentially every elected official chooses
to act in a partisan way much of the time. Why do politicians today, you might
ask, speak as if they are of two minds about political parties? Perhaps they
actually are. Even if you dismiss this rhetoric as just words, it is the case that
the public is of two minds about parties, too. This book, like virtually all
written about American political parties, includes quotes from the Founding
Fathers warning about the dangers of party and faction, often quoting such
luminaries as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Yet these
very same men not only worried about the dangers of party but were the
founders and leaders of our first political parties. So the first question is, “Why
are people—leaders and followers, founders and contemporary figures alike—
both attracted to and repulsed by political parties?”
Let me suggest two books that might give you additional ways to think
about this question. One is Richard Hofstadter’s The Idea of a Party System:
The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969). This book is a series of
public lectures that Hofstadter gave in which he roots political parties deeply
in the American democratic tradition, arguing that they represent the
outward manifestation of a change in philosophic understanding of the
relationship between citizens and leaders in this, the world’s first practicing
democracy. Another is Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, It’s Even
Worse than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided
with the New Politics of Extremism (New York: Basic Books, 2016). Mann
and Ornstein are both political scientists who also worked at major think
tanks (The Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute,
respectively) applying scholarship to practical politics. In this book, they
have made one of the strongest cases for the dangers of hyper partisanship in
politics in a partisan polarized era, adding a contemporary account of the
classic question of the “idea of a party system.”
This question of the purpose of parties in our democracy, both theoretical
and practical, leads easily to a second major question that should be in your
mind as you work through this book and your course: “How does the
individual connect to the political party?” There are two aspects to this
question. One is fairly direct—what do parties mean to the individual and
how, if at all, has this changed over time? The great work that laid out this
relationship in the modern era is The American Voter by Angus Campbell,
Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1960). Many argue that this connection has changed
fundamentally. At one extreme, Martin P. Wattenberg has written about the
declining relevance of political parties to the voter, such as in his The Decline
 Foreword xxvii
of American Political Parties, 1952–1996 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998), using such striking evidence as a dramatic decline in
the willingness or ability of citizens to say what they like or dislike about
either of our two major political parties. Others disagree with Wattenberg.
Larry Bartels, and in a completely different way, Green, Palmquist, and
Schickler, for example, have shown that partisanship remains as influential
in shaping the vote as ever.8 It is certainly the case that today we hear people
say, “The government, they …,” and not “The government, we …” I suspect
that few of us think that way. It is certainly common to hear politicians call
for a tax cut by claiming that doing so will give the people back their money.
Such a statement would not make sense if we thought of the government as
being composed of us, ourselves, and thus thought of our taxes as using our
money to work in our government, doing our bidding by enacting our
preferences into legislation selected by our representatives whom we chose.
The question can, however, be cast even more broadly, asking whether the
people feel removed from social, cultural, economic, and political institutions,
generally, with political parties and the government therefore only one more
symptom of a larger ill. This is certainly a part of the concerns that motivated
Robert D. Putnam in his Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Today that
sometimes comes out in the sense that the debate among the politicians in
Washington seems to be more about scoring points over the partisan
opposition and less about working in the public’s interest. This sense of
remove peaked during the summer of 2011 in the debate over whether to
raise the debt ceiling, in which the elected figures in each party appeared to
put the country’s economic recovery at risk merely to win their side of a
policy dispute.9
The change from a trusting, supportive, identified public to one apparently
dramatically less so is one of the great changes that took place in American
politics over the past half century. A second great change is “polarization,”
a growing distance between the elected officials of the two parties. That is,
compared with 50 years ago, today the Democrats are more liberal and
consistently more so than Republicans, who in turn are much more
conservative. Although this is not to say that there is anything close to an
identical set of beliefs by the members of either party, there is a greater
coherence of opinion and belief in, say, the congressional delegations of each
party than in earlier times. Even more undeniable is a much clearer divergence
between the policy interests and choices of the two parties in Washington
than, say, 50 years ago. You might refer to Polarized Politics: Congress and
the President in a Partisan Era (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), edited by
Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher, for a variety of fairly early indications of
this fact. The question, then, is not whether there is greater polarization
today; the question is whether this relative clarity of polarization matters. As
usual, there are at least two ways to understand the question. One is simply
to ask whether a more polarized Congress yields policies very different from
xxviii Foreword

a less polarized one. The readings in Bond and Fleisher generally support
that position. Others, for example Keith Krehbiel and David W. Brady and
Craig Volden, argue that the Founders’ creation of checks and balances
makes polarization relatively ineffectual in shaping legislation due to vetoes,
compromises necessary between the two chambers, and so on.10 Even more
generally, however, David R. Mayhew has argued that our system generates
important legislation regardless of which party is in control or whether they
share power under divided partisan control of government.11 As you might
expect, there has been considerable interest in the challenge that Mayhew,
Krehbiel, and Brady and Volden have raised. One set of responses can be
seen in the Bond and Fleisher volume, another can be found in The Macro
Polity.12
However, this returns us to one of the original questions: Just how closely
does the party in the electorate align with the party in government? On this,
too, there is considerable disagreement. On the one hand, Alan Abramowitz
argues that the partisan public follows only at a degree of lag the polarization
of the partisan elite in Washington, while on the other hand, Morris Fiorina
argues that the public remains primarily, even overwhelmingly, moderate,
and sees the polarization in Washington, but does not follow it. There is, in
his words, a “disconnect,” presumably caused by political parties and their
leaders.13 And this, of course connects to politics today in a vast number of
ways, such as those just discussed. But it also shapes many other aspects of
politics: Will the new voter identification laws serve to reduce fraudulent
voting or reduce, instead, voter turnout by minorities, young people, and the
elderly?
More recently, scholarship has tended to focus on the negative consequences
of partisan polarization. For example, Danielle Thomsen finds that
polarization affects just who will run for Congress, tending to attract more
polarized and discourage less polarizing and more moderate candidates from
even trying.14 Jamie Druckman et al. show how political polarization shapes
public opinion in a more polarized way.15 On the other hand, David Jones
finds that polarization has led to a degree of increase in collective
accountability of its congressional affiliates in elections.16 And Gary Jacobson
extends that line of argument, in a way, by showing how partisan polarization
has also generated increasingly partisan polarization in the public in terms of
their evaluations of the incumbent president.17
As you can see, we have now reached the point of recently published work.
That is, we are asking questions that are motivating the work of scholars
today and problems that are motivating the public and its leaders today. So,
let’s get on with it and turn to the book and the study of political parties
themselves.
John H. Aldrich
Duke University
 Foreword xxix
Notes
1 Frank Sorauf passed away on September 6, 2013. We miss him.
2 Frank J. Sorauf, Party and Representation: Legislative Politics in Pennsylvania
(New York: Atherton Press, 1963).
3 See, for example, Frank J. Sorauf, Money in American Elections (Glenview, IL:
Scott Foresman/Little, Brown College Division, 1988) or Inside Campaign
Finance: Myths and Realities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
4 He has written a great deal on this subject. One illustration that has long been
one of my favorites is his “A Socialization Theory of Partisan Alignment,” which
was originally published in The Politics of Future Citizens, edited by Richard
Niemi (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1974, pp. 199–219) and reprinted in
Classics in Voting Behavior, edited by Richard Niemi and Herbert Weisberg
(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1992).
5 See especially her books, Running for Office: The Political Education of
Campaigners (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1984) and The Making of
Campaign Strategy (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath-Lexington, 1974).
6 Especially interesting accounts of the ways the political parties reacted to female
suffrage can be found in Anna L. Harvey, Votes Without Leverage: Women in
American Electoral Politics 1920–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998) and J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht, Counting Women’s Ballots:
Female Voters from Suffrage through the New Deal (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016).
7 See, for example, “Constructing Explanations for the U.S. State Governors’
Races: The Abortion Issue and the 1990 Gubernatorial Elections,” Political
Communication 17 (July–September 2000): 239–262; “The Meaning of a
Mandate: Interpretations of ‘Mandate’ in 1984 Presidential Election Coverage,”
Polity (Winter 1995): 225–254; and “Support for Political Women: Sex Roles,”
in John C. Pierce and John L. Sullivan, eds., The Electorate Reconsidered (Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage, 1980), pp. 179–198.
8 Larry M. Bartels, “Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952–1996,” American
Journal of Political Science 44 (2000): 35–50. Donald Green, Bradley Palmquist,
and Eric Schickler, Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social
Identities of Voters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).
9 See the discussion of poll reports in the height of the debate over this concern
(July 14, 2001) at http://people-press.org/2011/07/14/the-debt-ceiling-show-
down-%E2%80%93-where-the-public-stands (accessed November 29, 2011).
10 Keith Krehbiel, Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1998); David W. Brady and Craig Volden, Revolving
Gridlock: Politics and Policy from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 2006).
11 David R. Mayhew, Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking and
Investigations, 1946–1990 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991) and
Partisan Balance: Why Political Parties Don’t Kill the U.S. Constitutional System
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).
12 Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, The Macro
Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
13 Alan I. Abramowitz, The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization
and American Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010); Morris
xxx Foreword
P. Fiorina, Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America, 3rd ed., with Samuel
J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope (New York: Longman, 2011); and Disconnect:
The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics with Samuel J. Abrams
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009).
14 Danielle M. Thomsen, “Ideological Moderates Won’t Run: How Party Fit
Matters for Partisan Polarization in Congress,” The Journal of Politics 76, 3
(2014): 786–797.
15 James N. Druckman, Erik Peterson, and Rune Slothuus, “How Elite Partisan
Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation,” American Political Science
Review 107, 1 (2013): 57–79.
16 David R. Jones, “Partisan Polarization and Congressional Accountability in
House Elections,” American Journal of Political Science 54, 2 (2010): 323–337.
17 Gary C. Jacobson, “Partisan Polarization in Presidential Support: The Electoral
Connection,” Congress & the Presidency: A Journal of Capital Studies 30, 1
(2003).
 PREFACE
Even the most gifted storyteller would have a hard time coming up with a
more outlandish tale than that of the 2016 presidential election. The
candidate who outraised his rivals by millions of dollars at the beginning of
the primaries had quit in defeat three weeks later. The 2012 Republican
presidential candidate called his party’s 2016 nominee a phony and a fraud.
The heartthrob candidate of most young voters was a rumpled, 73-year-old,
self-proclaimed socialist from Vermont. And campaign debate focused not
only on the economy and terrorism but also on the size of one candidate’s
hands as well as his aerodynamically implausible hairstyle.
That’s why books about political parties produce new editions with every
new election. Although geometry workbooks and Spanish texts may not
become outdated quickly, books about American politics do. Consider these
changes in only a two-year period: In 2012, Democratic president Barack
Obama was handily returned to the White House, and an official Republican
study committee acknowledged that voters saw the Republican party as
narrow minded, out of touch, and full of “stuffy old white men.” Yet, in the
2014 congressional elections, Republicans won their biggest majority in the
U.S. House of Representatives since 1930. The job of this new edition of
Party Politics in America is to explain how these rapid changes, and the
drama of the 2016 elections, affect American politics and governance.
But the natural focus on the drama and unexpected results of Donald
Trump’s victory in 2016 should not obscure the important forces that
remained constant. The two major parties continue to be closely balanced at
the national level; the presidential popular vote divided 50–50. Even though
the major-party presidential candidates’ approval ratings were historically
low, minor parties have not gained ground. The Democratic and Republican
coalitions changed only at the margins in 2016, with non-college-educated
white males a bit more prominent among Republican supporters and women
a slightly bigger portion of the Democratic coalition. Party and ideological
polarization reigns. And most worrisome, the harsh rhetoric and barely
veiled calls to violence in the presidential race infused party identification
with unprecedented hostility.

xxxi
xxxii Preface

New to This Edition

Here are some of the new features of the seventeenth edition:

• Every chapter is updated to include material about the 2016 elections,

including election results and campaign finance data incorporated
immediately after the election.
• I’ve revamped Chapter 12 on campaign finance to cut through the
complexity with diagrams and a chronological account.
• You’ll find more discussion of the role of big givers to the 2016
campaigns, such as the Koch brothers and their many affiliated groups.
• How has the Donald Trump candidacy affected Republican Party
organizations, its constituency, and its campaign techniques? Chapters
4, 7, and 11 offer answers.
• Chapters 5 (on political activists) and 8 (on party voter turnout activities)
say more about young people’s political attitudes and participation,
including social media use in politics.
• Both parties are facing a rapidly changing population: many more
Hispanic and Latino Americans and a growing group of distrustful
twenty- and thirty-somethings. How can the Republicans, in particular,
respond to this challenge without turning off their white, married,
religious base? See Chapters 6–8 and 16.
• Partisanship has become infused with hostility toward the other side, at
a fast-growing pace. What does this do to party politics among voters
(see Chapters 6 and 15) and public officials (Chapters 13 and 14)?
• A lot of observers asked in 2016 why minor parties don’t compete more
effectively with the Republicans and Democrats. Chapters 1 and 2
remind us why two-party politics is so well entrenched in the U.S., even
though it is not found in most other Western democracies.
• New and updated Instructor’s Resources on the book’s webpage (www.
routledge.com/9781138683686) include test banks for each chapter
with multiple-choice, short answer/identification, and essay questions;
an annotated list of websites and correlated sample assignments; the
book’s appendix incorporating the 2016 election results; and links to a
collection of syllabi (including my own).

This book, long known as the “gold standard” of political parties texts, has
developed and adapted over a long time period, just as the American parties
have. Frank J. Sorauf, a pioneer of modern political science, had the vision
to create Party Politics in America in 1968, and Paul Allen Beck brought the
book into the late 1980s and 1990s, with the intellectual mastery and
comparative perspective that has marked his research on parties and voting
behavior. Their goal for each new edition was to provide students with the
clearest, most comprehensive and engaging understanding of political parties
and partisanship, which in turn are key to understanding the workings of
elections, public opinion, policy making, and leadership.
 Preface xxxiii
Features of This Text
This new edition continues that effort by adding new and updated versions
of the features that were so well received in recent editions. The boxes titled
“A Day in the Life” tell the personal stories of individuals whose experiences
help to illustrate recent changes in the parties. Many of my students see
political parties as remote, abstract, and a bit underhanded—something that
might interest elderly people, but not teens and twenty-somethings. I hope
these compelling stories—for instance, that of a Poli Sci major who spent his
sophomore year running for a state legislative seat—can show readers why
studying party politics is worth their time.
In other chapters, the feature titled “Which Would You Choose?”
illustrates major debates about party politics in summary form: for example,
whether encouraging greater voter turnout would help or harm American
democracy (see Chapter 8). These mini-essays can provoke classroom debate
on fundamental concerns about political parties.
Additional special feature boxes portray examples of “real politics” in
action and are strategically distributed throughout the text.
As in previous editions, I’ve tried to make the reader’s job easier by putting
important terms in boldface and clearly defining them, emphasizing the vital
points, and illustrating them with engaging examples. In addition, for
instructors, I have written each chapter to stand alone, so that teachers can
assign chapters in any order they choose without leaving their students
puzzled because relevant concepts were explained elsewhere.

As elected officials know, good representatives need detailed information

about what their constituents want. I’ve really appreciated hearing from
instructors and students what they like about Party Politics in America and
what they’d like to see changed. I’d like to hear from you as well. You can
reach me at hershey@indiana.edu; I’ll be happy to respond.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It takes a village to create a book. I have received a great deal of help in
researching, writing, and revising this volume: from my graduate and
undergraduate students; present and former colleagues at Indiana University,
particularly Ted Carmines and Bob Huckfeldt, Bill Bianco, Eileen Braman,
Chris DeSante, Mike Ensley, Bernard Fraga, Matthew Hayes, Yanna
Krupnikov, Elinor Ostrom, Leroy Rieselbach, John Williams, and Jerry
Wright; and departmental staff members Amanda Campbell, Steve Flinn,
Sharon Hughes, Sharon LaRoche, Chris McCann, Jan Peterson, James
Russell, and Jessica Williams.
Austin Ranney, Leon Epstein, Jack Dennis, and Murray Edelman
stimulated my interest in party politics and convinced me of the value of
political science. Murray Edelman deserves special mention in that group,
not only as a mentor and model for so many of us but also as a much-
beloved friend. John Aldrich, one of the most insightful and systematic
analysts of political parties, has been kind enough to write the Foreword to
the book. I’ve learned so much as well from Bruce Oppenheimer, Paul Beck,
Nate Birkhead, Tony Broh, Tom Carsey, Richard Fenno, Paul Herrnson,
John Hibbing, Jennifer Hochschild, David Karol, Geoff Layman, Burdett
Loomis, Michael Malbin, Seth Masket, Hans Noel, Kyle Saunders, Kay
Schlozman, Brian Silver, Jim Stimson, and John Zaller. Many others
provided valuable help with this edition, including Alan Abramowitz, Todd
Bradley, Matt Fowler, Audrey Haynes, Scott McClurg, Chuck Prysby, Brad
Warren, and Richard Winger.
I was very fortunate to receive suggestions on this edition from a large
group of talented people: Lawrence Bensky, California State University-East
Bay; David Darmofal, University of South Carolina-Columbia; John Davis,
University of Arkansas-Monticello; Michael Hagen, Temple University;
Adam Lawrence, Millersville University; Geoff Peterson, University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire; Robert Postic, University of Findlay; Charles Prysby,
University of North Carolina-Greensboro; Douglas Roscoe, University of
Massachusetts-Dartmouth; Priscilla Southwell, University of Oregon. They
and reviewers of previous editions have been central to my efforts to keep the
book relevant to students’ and instructors’ changing needs. And it is a great
pleasure to work with the people at Routledge: Jennifer Knerr, Ze’ev Sudry,
Alison Daltroy, and the members of the production team.
Most of all, I am very grateful to my family: my husband, Howard, and
our daughters, Katie, Lissa, Lani, and Hannah, and grandkiddos Chloe,
Parker, Dae’yana, Talan, Jade, and Jack. Everything I do has been made
possible by their love and support.
Marjorie Randon Hershey
xxxiv
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 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