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 Contents vii

Summary 52
Key Terms 53

PART II A N ATION OF I MMIGRANTS : A N O VERVIEW OF THE

E CONOMIC AND P OLITICAL C ONDITIONS OF S ELECTED
R ACIAL AND E THNIC G ROUPS 55
Immigration, the Economy, and Government 55
Commercial Capitalism and the Slave Society: 1600s–1860s 57
Colonial Society and Slave Labor 57
Civil War: The Southern Plantation Oligarchy versus Northern Entrepreneurs 58
Immigrant Laborers in the North 58
Western and Global Expansion 58
Industrial Capitalism: 1860s–1910s 59
Industrial Capitalism and Government Expansion Overseas 59
African Americans: Exclusion from Western Lands 59
Southern and Eastern European Immigrants 60
European Immigrants and Black Americans 60
Advanced Industrial (Multinational) Capitalism: 1910s–2010s 61
Mexican Immigrants 61
Large Corporations and the U.S. Business Cycle 61
The Postwar Era: The United States and the World 61
Government Involvement Overseas and Asian Immigration 62
Latin American Immigration 62
Middle Eastern Immigration 63
Immigration Restrictions 63
Summary 64
Key Terms 64

Chapter 3 English Americans and the Anglo-Protestant Culture 65

The English Migrations 66

Some Basic Data 66
The First Colonial Settlements 67
Later Migration 68
Other Protestant Immigrants 69
The Invention of the “White Race” 70
viii Contents

Nativist Reactions to Later European Immigrants 71

More Fear of Immigrants 71
Nativism and Racism Since 1890 72
The Dominant Culture and Major U.S. Institutions 73
Language 73
Religion and Basic Values 75
Education 76
Political and Legal Institutions 76
Officeholding 77
Economic Institutions 78
Direct Participation in the Economy 78
Contemporary Elites 79
English Americans as a Group: Economic and Other Demographic Data 80
English Americans Today 80
Summary 82
Key Terms 83

Chapter 4 Irish Americans and Italian Americans 84

Irish Americans 85
Irish Immigration: An Overview 85
The Eighteenth-Century Migration 85
Early Life 86
Stereotypes 86
The Ape Image 86
Changing Attitudes 87
Protest and Conflict 88
Early Conflict 88
Conflict with Other Groups 88
Politics and Political Institutions 89
Political Organization in the Cities 89
Pragmatism in Politics 90
National and International Politics 91
The Only Irish Catholic President to Date 91
The Irish in the Economy 92
Upward Mobility 92
Recent Successes 93
Education 94
 Contents ix

Religion 94
Assimilation Theories and the Irish 95
Patterns of Structural Assimilation 96
Is There an Irish American Identity Today? 96
Italian Americans 97
Italian Immigration 98
Many Immigrants 98
Life for the Immigrants 98
Stereotypes 99
Stereotypes of Inferiority in Intelligence 99
The Mafia Myth 100
Stereotypes and Discrimination 101
Conflict 102
Legalized Killings 102
Conflict and Cooperation with African Americans 102
Politics 103
City Politics 103
State and National Politics 103
The Economy 105
Early Poverty and Discrimination 105
Upward Mobility 106
Recent Decades 107
Some Persisting Problems 107
Education 108
Religion 108
Assimilation or Ethnogenesis? 109
Structural Assimilation 109
An Italian Identity? 110
A Note on Ethnic Diversity among White Americans 112
Summary 113
Key Terms 113

Chapter 5 Jewish Americans 114

Migration 115
From 1500 to World War II 115
From World War II to the Present 116
Prejudice and Stereotypes 116
x Contents

Oppression and Conflict 118

Organized Anti-Semitism and Hate Crimes 118
Religious Discrimination and Conflict 120
Jewish Americans Fight Back 120
Jewish–Black Relations 120
Politics 122
Jewish Americans and Political Parties 122
Unions and Community Organizations 123
The Economy 124
Establishing an Economic Niche: A “Middleman Minority”? 124
From the Depression to the 1950s 125
Individual and Family Success 126
Persisting Discrimination 126
Education 127
Discriminatory Quotas for Jewish Students 127
Affirmative Action Programs 127
Continuing Achievements in Education 128
Religion and Zionism 129
Trends in Religious Practice and Identity 129
Israel and Zionism 130
Assimilation or Pluralism? 130
Patterns of Assimilation 130
Intermarriage 132
Recent Immigrants: Strong Jewish Identity 132
Contemporary Jewish Identity and the Future of the Community 133
Accepting and Challenging White Privilege 135
Summary 136
Key Terms 136

Chapter 6 Native Americans 137

Conquest by Europeans and European Americans 138

Early Cultural Borrowing 139
Geographical Location and Relocation 140
The Colonial Period 140
Treaties, Reservations, and Genocide 140
Myths about Conflict 141
White Massacres of Native Americans 142
 Contents xi

Racist Images and Stereotypes 142

Politics 145
Native American Cultures and Societies: Before European Influence 145
The Politics of the European Invasion 146
From the Dawes Act to the New Deal 146
The Termination Policy 147
The Controversial Role of the BIA 147
Growing Pressures for Political Participation 148
Protest and Conflict 149
Confrontation with the Federal Government 150
Leonard Peltier: A U.S. Political Prisoner 150
Anti-Indian Racism and Sports Mascots 151
Recent Gains and Continuing Protests 152
Honoring Treaties: Fishing Rights and Land Claims 152
Fighting for Fairness: Suing the Department of Agriculture 154
Activism and Self-Determination 154
The Economy 155
Poverty and Land Theft 155
Land, Minerals, and Industrial Development 155
Persisting Economic Problems 156
Recent Economic Developments 158
Education 159
Religion 161
Revitalization Movements as Protest 161
Indigenous Americans Overseas 162
Assimilation and Colonialism 162
Assimilation Perspectives 162
Power-Conflict Perspectives 164
Summary 166
Key Terms 167

Chapter 7 African Americans 168

Forced Migration and Slavery 169

The European Trade in Human Beings 169
The Lives of Africans under Slavery 170
Active Resistance 171
Outside the Rural South 172
xii Contents

Racist Ideologies and Associated Stereotypes 172

Seeing African Americans as Inferior: White Stereotypes 173
The Pseudoscience of “Intelligence” Testing 173
Contemporary Antiblack Prejudices and Related Views 174
Interracial Conflict 177
Antiblack Violence 177
Black Protest against Oppression 178
The Economy 180
White Enrichment, Black Losses 180
The Migration North 181
Economic Changes Since the 1940s 182
Persisting Discrimination: A Business Example 182
Discrimination in Corporations, Sports, and the Military 183
Government Action and Inaction on Discrimination 185
Unemployment, Income, and Poverty 185
Is There a Distinctive African American “Culture of Poverty”? 187
Discrimination in Housing 188
Politics and Protest 188
From Reconstruction to the 1920s 189
The Limits of Black Progress: Political Discrimination 189
The Federal Government 191
The Republican Appeal to White Voters: A Shift from the Past 191
African American Organization and Protest 192
Progress and Retreat 194
Education 195
The Struggle for Desegregation 196
The Current Situation in Public Schools 196
College Attendance and College Experiences 199
Religion and Culture 200
Recent Immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean 201
Economics and Education 202
Racial History and Racial Discrimination 203
Assimilation for African Americans? 204
Assimilation Theories 204
Power-Conflict Perspectives: The Continuing Significance
of Racism 205
Summary 206
Key Terms 207
 Contents xiii

Chapter 8 Mexican Americans 208

The Conquest Period, 1500–1853 210

The Texas Revolt: Myths and Reality 210
California and New Mexico 210
Past and Present Immigration 211
Braceros and Undocumented Workers: Encouraging Immigration 211
Migration and U.S. Involvement in Latin America 212
The 1986 Immigration Act, the 2006 Secure Fence Act, and Undocumented Immigrants 213
Population and Location 215
Stereotypes and Related Images 215
Early Images 215
Contemporary Stereotypes and Prejudices 216
Views of Immigration and Immigrants 217
Negative Images in the Mass Media 218
Mocking Spanish 219
A Racialized Identity: The Contemporary Situation 219
Conflict and Protest 220
Oppression and Resistance 220
Protests Since the 1960s 221
The Economy 222
Stratification and Discrimination in the Workplace 222
Continuing Language Discrimination 224
Unemployment, Poverty, and Income 225
Problems of Economic Adaptation 226
Immigrant Workers: Targeted for Discrimination 227
Politics and Protest 228
Growing Political Representation 228
Support for the Democratic Party 230
The Courts and the Police 230
The Chicano Political Movement 231
Other Organizations and Protests 232
Unions for Low-Wage Workers 233
Other Recent Challenges: Latinos and African Americans 235
Education 236
Recurring Education Problems 236
Current Education Issues: Segregation and Bilingual Programs 236
Educational Achievement and Continuing Problems 237
xiv Contents

Religion 239
Assimilation or Internal Colonialism? 240
The Limits and Pacing of Assimilation 242
Applying a Power-Conflict Perspective 244
A Pan-Latino Identity 246
Summary 246
Key Terms 247

Chapter 9 Puerto Rican and Cuban Americans 248

Puerto Ricans 249

From Spanish to U.S. Rule 249
Migration to the Mainland 250
Migration Patterns 250
Joined by Other Latinos: Diversity in the New York Area 251
Prejudices and Stereotypes 251
Criminalizing Puerto Ricans 252
Other Negative Images 252
Color Coding and Anglo White Prejudices 253
Economic and Related Conditions: The Mainland 254
Occupation and Unemployment 255
Employment Discrimination 255
Industrial Restructuring 256
Income and Poverty 256
Housing Problems 257
Education 258
Barriers to Social and Economic Mobility 259
Language 259
Official English Policies and Spanish Speakers 259
Politics 260
Local and State Governments 261
Politics and Recent Intergroup Conflict 261
Protest 262
On the Mainland 262
More Community Protest 263
Religion 265
Assimilation or Colonialism? 265
 Contents xv

Assimilation Perspectives 265

Power-Conflict Perspectives 267
Cuban Americans 268
Patterns of Immigration 268
Early Immigration: 1868–1959 268
Recent Immigration: 1959 to the Present 269
The Mariel Immigrants 269
Intergroup Conflict 271
Tensions between Cuban Americans and African Americans 271
Racial Divisions among Cuban Americans 272
Stereotypes and Discrimination 272
The Economic Situation 274
Politics 276
Religion 278
Assimilation or Colonialism? 278
Assimilation Issues 278
A Power-Conflict Perspective? 280
Summary 281
Key Terms 282

Chapter 10 Japanese Americans 283

Introduction: Asian Americans 284

Japanese Americans 284
Migration: An Overview 285
Serial and Chain Migration 285
Early Immigration 285
Mainland Migration 286
More Racist Agitation and Restrictions 286
Stereotypes 287
War Propaganda 288
Recent Distortions, Stereotypes, and Omissions 288
Repression and Violent Attacks 290
The Ugly Specter of U.S. Concentration Camps 290
Why the Camps Were Created 291
Later Impact 292
The Political Arena 292
xvi Contents

Compensation Pressures and Political Progress 292

Government Officials 293
Politics, Stereotyping, and Competition with Japan 294
Protest Organizations and Group Pride 294
The Economy 295
Finding an Economic Niche 295
The Postwar Economy 296
Occupational Mobility, Income, and Persisting Employment Barriers 296
Education 298
Racism and Early Segregation 298
Educational Progress 298
Religion 299
Assimilation Perspectives 300
A Power-Conflict View 303
Criticizing the “Model Minority” Stereotype 304
Summary 306
Key Terms 306

Chapter 11 Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese,

and Asian-Indian Americans 307

Migration: An Overview 308

Chinese Americans 309
Filipino Americans 309
Korean Americans 310
Vietnamese Americans 310
Asian-Indian Americans 311
Asian Women as Immigrants 311
Stereotypes 311
Specific Images of Asian Americans 312
More Stereotyping in the Media and Popular Entertainment 313
Discrimination and Conflict 315
Hate Crimes and Other Racial Attacks 315
Chinese Americans 316
Filipino Americans 317
Korean Americans 317
Vietnamese Americans 319
Asian-Indian Americans 320
 Contents xvii

Organizing and Activism in the Political Arena 320

Pan-Asian Organizations and Coalitions 322
Chinese Americans 323
Filipino Americans 325
Korean Americans 325
Vietnamese Americans 327
Asian-Indian Americans 327
The Economy 328
Chinese Americans 329
Filipino Americans 332
Korean Americans 333
Vietnamese Americans 334
Asian-Indian Americans 335
Education 336
Substantial Achievements amid Persisting Problems 336
Educational Attainment 337
Controversy in Higher Education 338
Full Assimilation for Asian Americans? 339
Assimilation Views 339
Some Questions from a Power-Conflict Perspective 342
Summary 345
Key Terms 345

Chapter 12 Arab Americans and Other

Middle Eastern Americans 346

Middle Eastern Americans 347

Arab Americans 347
Migration 348
The Early Period 348
Later Immigration 349
Stereotyping and Prejudice 349
Classified as an “Inferior Race” 349
Recent Stereotyping and U.S. Politics 350
Stereotypes and Arab American Women 351
Oppression, Discrimination, and Conflict 352
Past and Present Patterns of Discrimination 352
International Politics and Discrimination 353
xviii Contents

Taking Action against Discrimination 355

Local Conflict and Cooperation with Other Groups 355
Politics and Political Emergence 356
Gradual Increase in Political Activity 356
Recent Political Involvement 356
International Politics and Linkages 357
The Economy 358
Education 359
Religion 360
Adaptation and Assimilation Issues 363
Patterns of Assimilation 363
Contemporary Assimilation Issues and Patterns 363
Assimilation and Generational Conflicts 364
Creating a Hybrid Culture 364
Power-Conflict Issues: Identities in the Face of Hostility 365
Summary 366
Key Terms 366

Chapter 13 Ongoing Racial and Ethnic Issues in the United States:

Some Final Considerations 367

A Nation of Immigrants 369

The Melting Pot: Early Images of Immigrant Incorporation 373
Multicultural and Multiracial Democracy Issues 373
Equality and a Pluralistic Democracy 376
An Egalitarian Society? 376
Racial Discrimination: The Present Day 377
Summary and Conclusion 379
Key Terms 380

PART III G LOBAL R EALITIES 381

Global Racism in Systemic Perspective 382

Chapter 14 Colonialism and Postcolonialism:

The Global Expansion of Racism 384

Colonialism and Racism 385

The History and Legacy of Colonialism 386
 Contents xix

To Whom Does Southern Africa Belong? 387

Formation of the State and Apartheid 388
Opposition to Apartheid 389
The Future of South Africa 391
Brazil: The Legacy of Slavery and the Illusion of Equality 391
Ever a Racial Democracy? 393
A Century of Lies 394
Colonialism and Colonizer in France: The Violence of Inclusion and Exclusion 395
The Character of French Colonialism 396
Muslim Immigrants and Racism 396
The Future of Colonialism and Postcolonialism 399
Some General Considerations 399
Colonialism, Capitalism, and Racism: A Note on Contemporary Genocide 400
Summary 402
Key Terms 403

Glossary 405

Notes 411

Index 485
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 Preface
ver the past few decades, numerous scholars,
O journalists, and politicians have argued that
there is now a “postracial America.” Some
speak of a “declining significance of race” or an “end
to racism” in the United States. They have written or
spoken optimistically about a decrease in discrimi-
nation and about improving racial and ethnic rela-
tionships in the United States. Over the same period
of time, however, the scholarly journals and mass
media have been filled with accounts of hate crimes
targeting people of color, accounts of the violent
views and actions of white supremacist groups, col-
lege students and comedians doing openly racist
skits and commentaries, talk-show hosts stereotyp-
ing people of color, public discussions of many law-
suits over racial discrimination in employment and
public accommodations, studies showing wide-
spread housing discrimination, descriptions of com-
munity rebellions against local police brutality
incidents, and controversies over affirmative action
and other antidiscrimination programs. In recent
years, we have also seen intense debates about the
character and impact of recent immigrants to the
United States, many of whom are immigrants of
color from Latin American and Asian countries.
As we move well into the twenty-first century,
much scholarly and public discussion and argument
still focus on continuing racial and ethnic discrimi-
nation, oppression, and conflict. Contrary to what
some scholars and journalists assert about a postra-
cial America, this discussion signals and reflects fun-
damental and foundational social, economic, and
xxi
xxii Preface
political realities in the United States. Today, many
Americans are well aware, or are becoming aware,
of the continuing significance of “race,” racism, and
ethnicity, not only in this country but also in other
countries—from the Republic of South Africa to
Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, the former
Soviet Union, France, Brazil, and the Middle East.
Racial and ethnic oppression and conflict are
extraordinarily important and persisting in the mod-
ern world, and they have the potential to tear apart
any country, including highly industrialized coun-
tries that are said to be “advanced.”
One result of the continuing interest in racial and
ethnic issues in the United States is the creation of
college and university courses that focus on racial
and ethnic divisions, cultural diversity, immigration,
and multicultural or multiracial issues. This ninth
edition of Racial and Ethnic Relations continues to
focus on U.S. racial and ethnic heritages, structures,
developments, conflicts, and coalitions. This text-
book is designed for sociology courses, other social
science courses, and education courses variously
titled “Racial and Ethnic Relations,” “Race Relations,”
“Minority Groups,” and “Minority Relations,” as well
as various other courses on cultural diversity, multi-
culturalism, and racial and ethnic groups offered in
college, business, and governmental settings.
One purpose of this book is to provide readers
with access to the important literature on racial and
ethnic groups in the United States and, to a lesser
extent, in certain other countries around the globe.
We have drawn heavily on a broad array of impor-
tant sources, including articles, books, and other
data analyses by sociologists, political scientists,
social psychologists, anthropologists, historians,
economists, government demographers, investiga-
tive journalists, and legal scholars.
Limited space prevents us from dealing with all
the important racial and ethnic groups in the United
States. Instead, we focus on a modest number of
major racial and ethnic groups, generally preferring
to accent depth rather than breadth in the analyses.
In recent decades, social science analyses have
begun to dig deeper into the “what,” “why,” and
“how” of racial and ethnic oppression, conflict, and
resistance. We draw heavily on this ever-growing
social science research.
The introduction to Part I briefly looks at the ori-
gins of the racial and ethnic mosaic that is the United
States. It serves as an introduction to Chapters 1 and
2, which discuss major concepts and theories in the
study of racial and ethnic relations.
The Part II introduction sketches the political and
economic history of the United States in order to
provide some context for understanding the adapta-
tion and oppression of the various immigrant
groups that have come, voluntarily or involuntar-
ily, to U.S. shores. Only one major group, Native
Americans, cannot be viewed as such immigrants;
indeed, as the original inhabitants of North America,
they were often the victims of actions by the early
immigrants (colonists) from outside the continent.
The situations and experiences of indigenous soci-
eties and the various groups that have immigrated
to North America are considered in Chapters 3
through 13.
In Part III, Chapter 14 moves away from the
United States to look at patterns of racial and ethnic
adaptation, oppression, conflict, and resistance in
several other countries around the world—mainly
France, South Africa, and Brazil. In the latter two
cases, we examine how patterns of racial oppression
and conflict have often been developed or fostered
by the outside European colonizers and their
descendants during the colonial and decolonization
periods in the histories of such countries.
In the ninth edition of Racial and Ethnic Relations we
have made numerous changes and enhancements
that make the text current and accessible to readers.
We have kept the real-life vignettes in numerous
chapters—real-life vignettes that capture for the
readers some poignant aspects of the racial–ethnic
issues raised throughout this textbook. Drawing on
the last edition, we have continued to refine chapter
organization with Big Picture Questions at the begin-
ning of each chapter and with the positioning of
important discussion questions throughout the chap-
ters. In order to accent for readers many of the impor-
tant racial and ethnic terms, we have also kept an
important glossary of key terms at the end of the book,
and have highlighted key terms in each chapter. To
enhance the conceptual analysis, we have further
developed and honed several relatively new social sci-
ence concepts dealing with racial and ethnic matters.
We have significantly revised and updated each
chapter, drawing on many recent research studies
on racial and ethnic issues, including new social sci-
ence research and population analyses published by
the U.S. Census Bureau since our last edition. And
we have incorporated significant material from

media sources on current racial and ethnic issues of
consequence in the United States and, particularly in
the last chapter, in other countries. In addition, we
have taken into consideration recent analyses of cer-
tain dramatic racial–ethnic events in U.S. society,
such as intense debates and demonstrations over
immigration issues and the nomination and election
of Barack Obama, the first African American to serve
as president of the United States.
To summarize our general perspective, the chap-
ters of this textbook are designed to achieve the fol-
lowing educational goals:
1. To analyze fully the historical eras of migration
that have diversified the United States and kept
it demographically healthy while many other
western industrialized countries have faced
serious population difficulties or decline.
2. To develop a sense of the socioeconomic posi-
tion of, and changes for, each major racial and
ethnic group, both in the past and in the present.
3. To understand, for the past and the present,
what each racial and ethnic group’s members
have experienced in dealing with racial-ethnic
framing and other systemic racial-ethnic oppres-
sion in their everyday lives.
4. To assess the role and impact of U.S. economic
and educational institutions in each racial and
ethnic group’s experiences in the United States.
5. To investigate the importance and character of
family issues and religion in each racial and
ethnic group’s experiences in the United States.
6. To make sense of the difficulties each racial and
ethnic group has encountered in dealing with
the political systems and how its members have
countered them.
7. To assess the character of resistance and coun-
tering actions that each racial and ethnic group
has developed in reaction to the hostility, indi-
vidual discrimination, and systemic oppression
its members have faced in the past and in the
present.
8. To consider and evaluate how major social sci-
ence theories, especially assimilation theories
and power-conflict theories, have been used,
or might be used, to assess and interpret the
oppressive, adaptive, and resistance experi-
ences of each racial and ethnic group examined.
Throughout the chapters, and especially in
Chapter 13, we examine the implications for the
United States of the forecasts by demographers that
Preface xxiii
by the middle of the twenty-first century the United
States will become a country whose population
majority is no longer European American but com-
posed of Latino, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and
Native Americans. The United States has long been
an interacting mosaic of many groups, and that mix
is becoming ever more complex, interesting, and sig-
nificant as the decades pass.
Census Update
2010 Census Update—Features fully updated data
throughout the text—including all charts and
graphs—to reflect the results of the 2010 Census.
AShort Introduction to the U.S. Census—A brief
seven-chapter overview of the Census, including
important information about the Constitutional man-
date, research methods, who is affected by the Cen-
sus, and how data is used. Additionally, the primer
explores key contemporary topics such as race and
ethnicity, the family, and poverty. The primer can be
packaged at no additional cost, and is also available
online in MySearchLab, as a part of MySocLab.
A Short Introduction to the U.S. Census Instructor’s
Manual with Test Bank—Includes explanations of
what has been updated, in-class activities, home-
work activities, discussion questions for the primer,
and test questions related to the primer.
MySocKit 2010 Census Update gives students the
opportunity to explore 2010 Census methods and
data and apply Census results in a dynamic inter-
active online environment. It includes a series of
activities using 2010 Census results, video clips
explaining and exploring the Census, primary
source readings relevant to the Census, and an
online version of A Short Introduction to the U.S.
Census.
Supplements
Instructor’s Manual with
Tests (0-205-84212-7)
For each chapter in the text, this valuable resource
provides a detailed outline and a list of objec-
tives. In addition, test questions in multiple-choice,
true/false, and essay formats are available for
each chapter; the answers to all questions are page-
referenced to the text.
xxiv Preface
MyTest (0-205-84213-5)
This computerized software allows instructors to
create their own personalized exams, to edit any or
all of the existing test questions, and to add new
questions. Other special features of this program
include random generation of test questions, cre-
ation of alternate versions of the same test,
scrambling question sequence, and test preview
before printing. The MyTest is available to adopters
at www.pearsonhighered.com.
PowerPoint Slides (0-205-84214-3)
The Lecture PowerPoint slides follow the chapter
outline and feature images from the textbook inte-
grated with the text. They are available to adopters
at www.pearsonhighered.com.
MySocKit (0-205-01482-8)
MySocKit is an online supplement that offers book-
specific learning objectives, chapter summaries,
flashcards, and graded practice tests, as well as
video clips and activities to aid student learning and
comprehension. Also included in MySocKit is
MySearchLab, a valuable resource that includes
tools for writing and conducting Internet research
projects. It includes access to the EBSCO Content
Select Database, MySocLibrary, as well as Social
Explorer, an interactive program for analyzing Cen-
sus Data from 1790 to the present.
MySocKit is available with Racial and Ethnic Rela-
tions, Ninth Edition, when a MySocKit access code
card is packaged with the text at no additional
charge, or can be purchased separately.
Acknowledgments
In writing this and previous editions of this text-
book, we have received useful comments and sug-
gestions from numerous colleagues, students,
teachers, correspondents, editors, and reviewers. We
are indebted to those whose advice, suggestions, and
insights have made this a better book.
Among these are Edward Múrgía, Jóse Cobas,
Elizabeth Aranda, Susan Eichenberger, Louwanda
Evans, Ruth Thompson-Miller, Leland Saito, Gary
David, Amir Marvasti, Nijole Benokraitis, Nestor
Rodríguez, Melvin Sikes, Hernán Vera, Jim Fenelon,
Kristin Lavelle, Jennifer Mueller, Glenn Bracey, Ruth
Thompson-Miller, Chris Chambers, Rosalind Chou,
Joane Nagel, Howard Winant, Edna Bonacich, Karyn
McKinney, Eileen O’Brien, Leslie Inniss, Richard
Alba, Debra Van Ausdale, Robert Parker, Daniel
Duarte, Teun Van Dijk, Harriett Romo, Alice Little-
field, Wendy Ng, John R. Sosa, Jaime Martinez, Bud
Khleif, Howard Leslie, Larry Horn, Doris Wilkin-
son, Anthony Orum, James Button, Ward Churchill,
S. Dale McLemore, Gideon Sjoberg, Gilberto Carde-
nas, Nikitah Imani, David Roth, Joseph Lopreato,
John Butler, Eric Woodrum, Andrew Greeley, Gra-
ham Kinloch, Lester Hill, Chad Oliver, Marcia A.
Herndon, Rogelio Nuñez, Tom Walls, Samuel Heil-
man, Phylis Cancilla Martinelli, José Limon, Devon
Peña, Diana Kendall, Robena Jackson, Mark Chesler,
David O’Brien, Bradley Stewart, John Arthur, Bar-
bara Mori, Robert Parker, William Smith, Leslie
Houts Picca, Peter Chua, Lenard Wynn, Kenneth
Stewart, Timothy Fong, Diane Wolf, Yanick St. Jean,
Laurel Davis-Delano, Roberta Rosenberg Farber,
Celestino Fernández, Tomás Jimenez, Akil Kokayi
Khalfani, Deirdre Rouster, and Carol Ward. We are
indebted to Natasha Ball, Louwanda Evans, and
Shari Valentine for some library research assistance
on this edition. We also thank Louwanda Evans for
her help on proofreading and revising the test item
guide and index for this edition. We are also
indebted to many other colleagues and undergrad-
uate and graduate students for their helpful com-
ments on previous editions. We are especially
indebted to Pinar Batur for revising Chapter 14.
We gratefully acknowledge the publisher’s
reviewers for this ninth edition:
Sharon Austin, University of Florida
Momodou Darboe, Shepherd University
Judi Kessler, Monmouth College
Sharon Kim, California State University, Fullerton
Frances Moulder, University of Connecticut
Xuefeng Zhang, Westmont College
We thank them for their timely and useful
comments.
We hope that you find this ninth edition inform-
ative and intellectually stimulating. We welcome
your comments. Please write to us at the Depart-
ment of Sociology, Mailstop 4351, Texas A&M Uni-
versity, College Station, Texas 77843-4351.
Joe R. Feagin
Clairece Booher Feagin
Racial and Ethnic Relations
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 P A R T
The Racial and Ethnic Mosaic
BIG PICTURE QUESTION
 Why did the United States begin as a country that
was substantially democratic but also rooted in
racial oppression?
ore than two hundred years ago, the new
M United States severed its colonial ties with
Europe. Born in revolution, this new nation
was portrayed as centrally dedicated to freedom and
equality. Over the next two centuries, a vigorous
society would emerge, with great racial and ethnic
diversity.
However, the new society had its seamy side.
Racial and ethnic oppression and conflict were
imbedded in the founding period and in the subse-
quent history of the new republic. The European im-
migrants often took the lands of indigenous societies
by force. By the end of the seventeenth century, the
enslavement of Africans and African Americans was
fundamental to the economy of the North American
colonies, and resistance and revolt by these enslaved
Americans were recurring problems for white slave-
holders. In succeeding centuries other non-European
peoples, such as Mexican and Chinese Americans,
would suffer serious yokes of racial oppression.
However, non-Europeans were not the only ones to
face oppressive conditions. Discrimination against
European immigrant groups was also part of the
sometimes forgotten history of both the pre- and
post-revolutionary periods.
In the earliest period, the colonial population on
the prospering Atlantic coast was predominantly
English in its origins and basic social institutions.
Because of England’s huge appetite for raw mate-
rials and new markets, English authorities encour-
aged non-English immigration to the colonies.
However, there was popular opposition, verbal and
violent, to the long line of new European immigrants.
“Foreigners” soon became a negative category for
I
many colonists. “Despite the need for new settlers,
English colonials had mixed feelings about foreign
arrivals. Anglo-Saxon mobs attacked Huguenots
in Frenchtown, Rhode Island, and destroyed a
Scotch-Irish frontier settlement in Worcester, Massa-
chusetts.”1 In the 1700s, colonies such as Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island attempted to restrict
non-British immigrants.2
The basic documents of the new republic reflected
its patterns of racial subordination and privilege,
and some of the republic’s first laws were aimed
at oppressing and hampering groups of non-
English origin. A relatively radical Declaration of
Independence, prepared mostly by the young
Thomas Jefferson, originally contained language
accusing King George III of pursuing slavery,
of waging “cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
in the persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating them and carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
miserable death in the transportation thither.”3 Jef-
ferson further noted that the English king had not
attempted to prohibit the slave trade and had
encouraged enslaved Africans to “rise in arms”
against white colonists. But because of pressure
from white slaveholding interests in the South and
slave-trading interests in New England, this strong
critique of the slave trade was omitted from the
final version of the Declaration.
Even in this revolutionary period, the grand new
doctrines of freedom and equality could not be
extended to the black population, for criticism of
King George III on the issue of slavery was in fact
1
2 PART I The Racial and Ethnic Mosaic
criticism of much of the North American social and
economic system. Jefferson himself was a major
slaveholder, whose prosperity and wealth were
closely tied to an extremely oppressive, slaveholding
agricultural system.
The U.S. Constitution (1787) explicitly recog-
nized racial subordination in several important
places. First, as a result of a famous compromise
between northern and southern representatives to
the Constitutional Convention, Article I originally
stipulated that three-fifths of a given state’s en-
slaved population was to be counted in the total
for apportioning the state’s (white) legislative
representation—that is, each enslaved American
was officially viewed as three-fifths of a person.
Significantly, at the Constitutional Convention
white southern slaveowners, seeking to enhance
their own representation in the new U.S. Congress,
pressed for full inclusion of the enslaved African
Americans in the population count, while north-
ern interests were generally opposed.
In addition, a section was added to Article I
permitting the slave trade to continue until 1808.
The Constitution also incorporated a fugitive slave
provision that required the return of runaways to
their owners, a provision opposed by very few
whites at the time.4 Neither the statement in the
Declaration of Independence that “all men are
created equal” nor the Constitution’s soon-to-be-
added Bill of Rights was seen as applying to Amer-
icans of African descent. Slavery, ironically, would
last much longer in the new “democratic” republic
of the United States than in the older aristocratic
Britain.5
African Americans and Native Americans were
not the only groups to suffer from the new govern-
ment’s action. Numerous other non-English groups
continued to find themselves much less than equal
under the law. Anti-immigrant legislation in the late
1700s and early 1800s included the Alien, Sedition,
and Naturalization Acts.6 Irish, German, and French
immigrants were growing in number by the late
eighteenth century, and concern about the political
sentiments of the new immigrants was great. The
Naturalization Act stiffened residency requirements
for citizenship from five to fourteen years; the Alien
Act gave the president the power to expel foreigners.
President John Adams was pressed to issue orders
deporting immigrants under the Alien Act and did
so. Shiploads of European immigrants left the coun-
try because of fear of exclusion.
Inequality in life chances and wealth along racial
and ethnic lines was a fundamental fact of the new
country’s institutions. At first, substantial liberty and
justice were reserved for men of British descent. This
situation did not go unchallenged. By the late eigh-
teenth century, many Irish and German immigrants
had come to the colonies. Indeed, a significant pro-
portion of the 4 million persons enumerated in the
first U.S. census in 1790 were of non-English origins.
Over the next two centuries, English domination
was modified by the ascendance of other northern
Europeans, such as the Irish. These groups in turn
were later challenged by southern and eastern Euro-
pean and non-European groups trying to move up
in the social, economic, and political systems. Grad-
ually, the new society became an unprecedented
mixing of diverse peoples.
Most in the non-British immigrant groups gradu-
ally came to adopt the English language and adjust to
English-shaped economic, political, and legal institu-
tions. All newly entering groups adapted, to some de-
gree, to the dominant white Anglo-Saxon-Protestant
culture and ways. European immigrant groups soon
became viewed as “whites” and eventually gained
substantial power and status in the process.
In contrast to white immigrants, the voluntary
and involuntary immigrants from Africa, Asia, and
Latin America, as well as Native Americans, have
generally remained subordinate to white Americans
in political, cultural, and economic terms. Racial and
ethnic inequality and oppression were and continue
to be part of the foundation of U.S. society. Nonethe-
less, racially oppressed Americans have long chal-
lenged their subordinate status, and they continue to
do so. If current demographic trends continue,
Americans of color will become the majority of the
U.S. population by the middle of the twenty-first
century. They already are the majority in several
states and numerous large cities.
Today, as in the past, issues of oppression, immi-
gration, adaptation, inequality, and ideology are at
the heart of the sociological study of racial and eth-
nic relations in the United States. They will contin-
ue to be central issues for the foreseeable future. In
the two chapters of Part I, we will define basic terms
used by social scientists and examine these concepts
from a critical perspective. Chapter 1 examines
 PART I The Racial and Ethnic Mosaic 3

terms such as race, racism, ethnic group, and prejudice. What are the problems with
Chapter 2 reviews major conceptual frameworks, describing the United States as
including a variety of assimilation theories and just a “nation of immigrants”?
power-conflict theories, for interpreting the complex
structure and long-term development of racial and
ethnic relations in the United States.
 C H A P T E R 1

Basic Concepts in the Study of

Racial and Ethnic Relations

BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS

 Why and how have human beings developed the
powerful ideas of “race” and ethnicity?
 How does racial or ethnic discrimination
become institutionalized?
 How do people respond to racial and ethnic
oppression in the United States?

4
 CHAPTER 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Racial and Ethnic Relations
n the 1980s, Susie Guillory Phipps, a woman
I living in Louisiana, went to court to try to get
the racial designation on her birth certificate at
the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records changed
from “colored” to “white.” A 1970 Louisiana “blood”
law required that persons with one thirty-second
(1/32) or more “Negro blood” (ancestry) were to be
designated as “colored” on birth records; before
1970, “any traceable amount” of African ancestry
had been used to define a person as colored. The
light-skinned Phipps was the descendant of an eigh-
teenth-century white plantation owner and an
enslaved black American, and her small amount of
African ancestry was enough to get her classified as
“colored” on her official government birth certifi-
cate. Phipps lost her case.1
This significant controversy raises the question
of how a person comes to be defined as white or not
white in U.S. society. Only under traditional racist
assumptions does having one black ancestor make
one black, whereas having one white ancestor
does not make one white. If one white ancestor
made a person white under Louisiana law, many
black residents there—those who have at least one
white ancestor (often a white slaveholder)—could
be classified as white! This revealing case illustrates
that racial categories are constructed and defined
socially and politically, not scientifically.
A logical place to start in making sense out of this
U.S. system of racial and ethnic categorization is
with basic terms and concepts. People have often
used such terms as racial groups and prejudice with-
out specifying their meaning. Because these are basic
concepts in the study of intergroup relations, we will
analyze them in detail.
Issues of Race and Racism
Racial Groups and Racialized Hierarchies
Both racial group and race have been used in a num-
ber of senses in social science and popular writings.
Human race, Jewish race, white race—such terms in the
literature suggest a range of meanings. In sixteenth-
and early seventeenth-century Europe, the concept
or word race was typically used for descendants of
a common ancestor, emphasizing kinship linkages
rather than physical characteristics such as skin
color, hair type, or facial features. Only in the eigh-
teenth century did race generally come to mean a
5
category of human beings with distinctive physical char-
acteristics transmitted by descent, and set in a clearly
racialized hierarchy.2
Soon, racial hierarchy, a stratification of and substan-
tial inequality among physically distinct groups, came to
be widely accepted, with white Europeans at the top.
The often darker-skinned people from African and
Native American societies were relegated by Euro-
pean observers to the bottom, in part because of their
physical characteristics and allegedly “primitive”
cultures, but also because they were subordinated
by Europeans. Economic and political oppression
resulted in a low position in the white classification
system, or what can be termed racial subordination.3
Immanuel Kant’s use of the German phrase for
“races of mankind” in the 1770s was one of the early
uses of the term race in the modern sense of biolog-
ically distinct, hierarchical categories of human be-
ings. In 1795, Johann Blumenbach, a prominent
German anatomist, established a racial classification
system that became an influential typology. At the
top of his racial hierarchy were the Caucasians (Eu-
ropeans), followed in order by the Mongolians
(Asians), the Ethiopians (Africans), the Americans
(Native Americans), and the Malays (Polynesians).
Blumenbach was the first to use the term Caucasian;
he felt that the Europeans in the Caucasus Moun-
tains of Russia were “the most beautiful race of
men.” Ever since, people of European descent have
been called by a racist term that originally applied
only to a small area of Europe.4
The concept of race as a biologically distinctive,
hierarchical category was fully developed by north-
ern Europeans who, for much of their histories, had
been largely isolated from contact with people who
differed from them physically or culturally. Before
the development of large sailing ships in the late
1400s, Europeans had little contact with people from
Asia, Africa, or the Americas. Soon, however, colo-
nizing Europeans established slave systems in the
Americas. Slave colonies were rationalized by colo-
nizing Europeans, including the English, who clas-
sified enslaved Africans as a “lesser race.” The idea
of race was not developed from scientific observa-
tions of all human beings. Rather, it was a social
“classification, a product of popular beliefs about
human differences that evolved from the sixteenth
through the nineteenth centuries.”5
From the eighteenth century to well into the
twentieth century, most white biologists, physical
6 PART I The Racial and Ethnic Mosaic
anthropologists, and other scientists accented this
socially determined classification of what were seen
as biologically distinctive groups. These scientists
reflected their own racial prejudices and those of the
white public. “The scientists themselves undertook
efforts to document the existence of the differences
that the European cultural worldview demanded
and had already created.”6 Basic to this increasingly
prevalent racist framing and worldview was the
theory of a specific number of biologically distinct
“races” with differing physical characteristics and
the belief that these characteristics were hereditary
and thus created a “natural” hierarchy of groups.
By the late nineteenth century, numerous European
and U.S. scientists and popular writers were system-
atically downgrading all peoples not of northern
European origin, including southern and eastern
Europeans (such as Polish and Jewish Europeans), as
inferior “races.”7
Thus, for four centuries of North American de-
velopment, racialization has been the process by
which those in the dominant white group, especially its
elites, have defined and constructed certain groups as
being racially inferior or superior for the purposes of so-
cietal placement and of group enrichment, segregation,
or oppression. Racialization has historically operated
in somewhat different ways for particular groups,
but the process has generally been under the con-
trol of the dominant group, which, from the late
1600s forward, defined itself as “white.” Since the
seventeenth century, the dominant racial group has
put into place a pervasive racial hierarchy, with a
racial-status continuum that places white Ameri-
cans at the top and African Americans and other
Americans of color at or near the bottom. Over
time, as we will see in later chapters, the white elite,
assisted by rank-and-file whites, has determined
where new immigrant groups, such as Irish or
Chinese immigrants, are placed and where they
are racialized within that already established racial
hierarchy.
The singling out of people within the human
species in terms of a strongly biologized “race”
hierarchy seems to have been a distinctively Euro-
pean and Euro-American idea that has spread
across all continents over recent centuries. In con-
trast, many indigenous peoples “have observed
and appreciated cultural diversity as variations on
cosmological themes. As a rule, the indigenous
worldview encompasses all humanity.”8 In the
view of M. Annette Jaimes, many indigenous
peoples across much of the globe have been
more likely than Europeans to emphasize building
alliances across various human groups. U.S.
examples include the assistance in agricultural
techniques given by indigenous Americans to
early European colonists and later to Japanese
Americans who were imprisoned during World
War II (see Chapter 10) in U.S. concentration camps
located near indigenous communities in the west-
ern United States.9
How has the concept of “race” as
a biologically distinctive category
changed, or not changed, over
several centuries?
Ideological Racism
The early development of ideological racism is
rooted in the European global expansion that began
in earnest in the late 1400s. We can define
ideological racism specifically as an ideology that
considers a group’s unchangeable physical characteris-
tics to be linked in a direct, causal way to psychological
or intellectual characteristics and that, on this basis,
distinguishes between superior and inferior racial
groups.10 The “scientific racism” of such European
analysts as Blumenbach and Count Joseph Arthur
de Gobineau, an influential French analyst in the
nineteenth century, was used to justify the spread
of European colonialism in Asia, Africa, and the
Americas. A long line of racist theorists followed
in Blumenbach’s and Gobineau’s footsteps, includ-
ing the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Some-
times they even applied the ideology of racial
inferiority to culturally distinct European groups,
such as Jewish Europeans. In a racist ideology, real
or alleged physical characteristics are generally
linked to cultural traits that the dominant group
considers undesirable or inferior.
Significantly, the word racism, first used system-
atically in the 1930s by the German scholar Magnus
Hirschfeld, is relatively new. Hirschfeld regularly
used it for the ideology of biologically determined
“races” accented by German Nazis and other Euro-
peans to buttress their well-institutionalized system
of racially oppressive practices. In its blatant and
subtle forms, ideological racism has long been com-
mon in the United States. For example, in 1935, an
 CHAPTER 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Racial and Ethnic Relations
influential white University of Virginia professor
wrote this blatantly racist analysis:
The size of the brain in the Black Race is below the
medium both of the Whites and the Yellow-Browns,
frequently with relatively more simple convolu-
tions. The frontal lobes are often low and narrow.
The parietal lobes voluminous, the occipital pro-
truding. The psychic activities of the Black Race
are a careless, jolly vivacity, emotions and passions
of short duration, and a strong and somewhat
irrational egoism. Idealism, ambition, and the co-
operative faculties are weak. They love amusement
and sport but have little initiative and adventurous
spirit.11
This example of crude ideological racism clearly
links physical and personality characteristics. Al-
though this extreme, biologized, racist portrait
passed for science before World War II—and in
today’s white supremacist organizations, it still
does—it is pseudoscience. Modern biologists and an-
thropologists have demonstrated the wild-eyed irra-
tionality of this racist mythology.
Found in many versions today, including some
much more subdued, ideological racism accepts as
true various stereotyped characteristics traditionally
applied by whites to “outsider” groups of color. The
assumption of this commonplace racist thinking
is that physical differences such as skin color are
intrinsically, even unalterably, tied to meaningful
differentials in intelligence, culture, or “civilization.”
Yet, despite assertions of such a linkage by many
people, including the pseudoscientists, no real scien-
tific support for this assumed intrinsic linkage exists.
Indeed, there is no distinctive and enduring bio-
logical reality called “race” that can be determined by
objective scientific procedures. Since at least the
1940s, the social, medical, and physical sciences have
demonstrated this in numerous research studies.
Nonetheless, in recent years a renewed insistence on
the genetic reality of “races” has been triggered by a
few dissenting white geneticists and social scientists.
However, the older evidence and more recent re-
search and analysis still strongly refute the notion of
“races” being good categories for describing human
genetic or biological diversity.12 Given the constant
blending and interbreeding of human groups over a
great many centuries and into the present, it is impos-
sible to sort human beings into unambiguously dis-
tinctive “races” on genetic grounds. There is far too
7
much overlapping of genetic characteristics across
various human populations. Two randomly select-
ed individuals from the world’s population would
have in common, on average, about 99.8 percent of
their genetic material. Even more important is the
fact that most of the genetic variation with regard to
human populations “occurs within populations, not
between them.”13 There are genetic differences be-
tween geographically scattered human populations,
but these differences are slight and exist because of
different histories and geographical locations. The
racial importance of the modest dissimilarities such
as skin color variations is socially, not scientifically,
determined.
Human populations singled out as “races” are
simply groups with visible differences that certain
people have collectively decided to emphasize as
important in traditional social, economic, and polit-
ical relationships. Such racial categorizing is neither
objective nor scientific, but highly subjective. There
are many different ways of classifying human pop-
ulations in terms of physical and genetic character-
istics: “One such procedure would group Italians
and Greeks with most African blacks. It would
classify Xhosa—the South African ‘black’ group to
which [former South African] President Nelson
Mandela belongs—with Swedes rather than Nige-
rians.”14 For example, antimalarial genes are not
found among the light-skinned Swedes or the dark-
skinned southern African groups such as the Xhosas,
but they are commonly found in northern African
groups and among Europeans such as Italians and
Greeks. These antimalarial genes are likely much
more important for human beings than those that
determine skin color variations, yet they are not used
by biological-race thinkers, the pseudoscientists, for
their persisting racial classifications.15
In effect, there is only one human race (Homo
sapiens), to which we all belong. Every human being
is, in fact, distantly related to every other human
being on earth. The indigenous peoples’ view of
human beings, previously noted, is now accepted
by most scientists.16 Nonetheless, the lack of scien-
tific support has not lessened the popularity of
blatantly racist ideologies of various types. Ashley
Montagu, among many others, noted the extreme
danger of ideological racism, a view shaped in
part by the consequences of the German Nazi
ideology, according to which there were physically
distinct Aryan and Jewish “races.”17 That ideology
8 PART I The Racial and Ethnic Mosaic
lay behind Nazi-generated killings of millions of
European Jews (and other Europeans) during the
1930s and 1940s.
In the case of North America, over several cen-
turies now, variations on an old racist ideology have
long been incorporated as part of a white racial fram-
ing of an ever more diverse society, a concept to
which we will return later.
Racial Groups
Today, social scientists view “race” not as a given bi-
ological reality but as a socially constructed reality.
Sociologist Oliver Cox, one of the first to underscore
this social construction perspective, defined a race
as “any people who are distinguished, or consider
themselves distinguished, in social relations with
other peoples, by their physical characteristics.”18
Similarly, a racial group has been defined by Pierre
van den Berghe as a “human group that defines it-
self and or is defined by other groups as different
from other groups by virtue of innate and im-
mutable physical characteristics.”19
Thus, a racial group is not something generated
naturally as part of the self-evident order of soci-
eties. A person’s race is typically determined by, and
important to, certain outsiders, although a group’s
own self-definition can be important. Here we de-
fine a racial group as a social group that persons in-
side or outside the group have decided is important
to single out as inferior or superior, typically on the basis
of real or alleged physical characteristics selected subjec-
tively. Racial group distinctions are rooted in ideo-
logical racism, which as noted previously links
physical characteristics to “inferior” or “superior”
cultural and intellectual characteristics.
In the United States, numerous groups fit this def-
inition. Asian Americans, African Americans, Na-
tive Americans, and Mexican Americans have had
their physical characteristics—such as skin color, fa-
cial features, and/or eye shape—singled out by the
dominant white group as badges of social, cultural,
and racial inferiority. In addition, this dominant
group has generally viewed its own racially defined
group as superior. Some groups once defined
as racial groups, and as physically and mentally
inferior groups, are no longer defined that way. In
later chapters, we will see that Irish and Italian im-
migrants were for a time defined as inferior “races”
by native-born white Anglo-Protestant Americans.
Later, the social definition of these European immi-
grants as distinctively inferior racial groups was re-
placed by a social construction of them as white and
as ethnic groups, a term we examine later.
The examples of Irish and Italian Americans
make clear that racial definitions are not necessar-
ily fixed essences that last forever, but instead
can be temporary social constructions shaped in
sociopolitical struggles in particular times and
places. Definitions of racial inferiority or superi-
ority can and do change over time, albeit often
slowly.
Why are some physical characteristics, such as
skin color, selected as a basis for distinguishing
racial groups, whereas certain other characteris-
tics, such as eye color, seldom are? These questions
cannot be answered in biological terms. They re-
quire historical and sociological analysis. Some
have argued that such characteristics as skin color
are “easily observed and ordered in the mind.”20
More important than ease of observation, however,
is the way economic or political subordination
creates a need to identify the powerless group in
a certain way. In justifying economic or other
exploitation, the dominant group often defines
the real (or alleged) physical characteristics that
are singled out to typify the exploited group as
distinctive and inferior racial characteristics. For
example, technological differences in weaponry
and firepower between European and African
peoples facilitated the enslavement of Africans in
the American colonies. In turn, the generally dark-
er skin of the Africans and their descendants came
to be used by self-defined “white” groups as an
indicator of subordinate racial and cultural status.
Skin-color characteristics have no inherent mean-
ing; in group interaction, they become important
because they can be used to classify members of
the dominant and subordinate groups.
In addition, knowledge of one’s relatives often af-
fects one’s assignment to a racial group, particularly
for those who lack the socially emphasized physical
characteristics. At various times in many societies,
people have been distinguished not only on the
basis of their own physical characteristics but also
on the basis of a socially determined “rule of
descent.”21 For example, in Nazi Germany, Adolf
Hitler’s officials often identified Jewish Germans
mainly on the basis of their having one or more
Jewish relatives.
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 DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

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

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

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

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

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA

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

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

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

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

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

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

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

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

 FINISHING THE BOTTOM

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

 LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

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

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

 BEATING THE BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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