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 Contents   vii

PA RT I V N E W F RON T I E R S
21. Survey Experiments: Managing the Methodological Costs
and Benefits 483
Yanna Krupnikov and Blake Findley
22. Using Qualitative Methods in a Quantitative Survey Research
Agenda 505
Kinsey Gimbel and Jocelyn Newsome
23. Integration of Contextual Data: Opportunities and Challenges 533
Armando Razo
24. Measuring Public Opinion with Social Media Data 555
Marko Klašnja, Pablo Barberá, Nicholas Beauchamp,
Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker
25. Expert Surveys as a Measurement Tool: Challenges and
New Frontiers 583
Cherie D. Maestas
26. The Rise of Poll Aggregation and Election Forecasting 609
Natalie Jackson

Index 633
 Contributors

Alex N. Adams is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University
of New Mexico. His research interests focus on political psychology and survey
methodology.
Prakash Adhikari is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Central Michigan
University. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of comparative pol-
itics and international relations, with specific focus on civil war, forced migration, and
transitional justice.
R. Michael Alvarez is a Professor in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at
the California Institute of Technology. His primary research interests are public opinion
and voting behavior, election technology and administration, electoral politics, and sta-
tistical and computer modeling.
Stephen Ansolabehere is the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard
University where he studies elections, democracy, and the mass media. He is a Principal
Investigator of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and his principal areas
are electoral politics, representation, and public opinion.
Lonna Rae Atkeson is a Professor and Regents Lecturer in the Department of Political
Science at the University of New Mexico where she directs the Institute for Social
Research and the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy. Her primary
interests are the areas of survey methodology, election science and administration, and
political behavior.
Pablo Barberá is an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science in the
Methodology Department at the London School of Economics. His primary areas of re-
search include social media and politics, computational social science, and comparative
electoral behavior and political representation.
Nicholas Beauchamp is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northeastern
University. He specializes in U.S. politics (political behavior, campaigns, opinion, polit-
ical psychology, and social media) and political methodology (quantitative text analysis,
machine learning, Bayesian methods, agent-​based models, and networks).
Lindsay J. Benstead is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield
School of Government and Interim Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC)
at Portland State University, Contributing Scholar in the Women’s Rights in the Middle
x   Contributors

East Program at Rice University, and Affiliated Scholar in the Program on Governance
and Local Development (GLD) at the University of Gothenburg and Yale University. Her
research interests include survey methodology and the Middle East-North Africa region.
Justin A. Berry is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at
Kalamazoo College. His research and teaching interests include American politics, po-
litical attitudes & behavior, race & ethnic politics, public opinion, immigration policy,
education policy, social movements, and methodology & research design.
Paul Brace is the Clarence L. Carter Professor of Political Science at Rice University. His
areas of interest include state and intergovernmental politics, judicial decision making,
and the presidency.
Lisa A. Bryant is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fresno. Her
teaching and research interests include political behavior and voter behavior, campaigns
and elections, election administration, public opinion, the media, political psychology,
state politics, gender politics, and political methodology, focusing on experimental and
survey research methods.
Youssef Chouhoud is a PhD student at the University of Southern California in Political
Science & International Relations. His research interests include comparative democ-
ratization, political tolerance, Middle East politics, and Muslim minorities in the West.
Blake Findley is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook
University. He does research in political psychology, political communication, and po-
litical methodology.
Andrew Gelman is the Higgins Professor of Statistics, Professor of Political Science, and
Director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. His research spans a
wide range of topics in statistics and social sciences, survey methodology, experimental
design, statistical inference, computation, and graphics.
Jeff Gill is a Distinguished Professor, Department of Government, Professor, Department
of Mathematics and Statistics, and member of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at
American University. His research applies Bayesian modeling and data analysis (decision
theory, testing, model selection, and elicited priors) to questions in general social science
quantitative methodology, political behavior and institutions, and medical/​health data.
Kinsey Gimbel is Director of the Customer Experience Division at Fors Marsh Group.
Her primary areas of experience are qualitative research, survey design and administra-
tion, data analysis and reporting, and program evaluation.
James G. Gimpel is a Professor of Government at the University of Maryland. His
interests lie in the areas of political behavior, political socialization, and the political ge-
ography of American politics.
D. Sunshine Hillygus is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Initiative on
Survey Methodology at Duke University. Her research and teaching specialties include
 Contributors   xi

public opinion, political behavior, survey research, campaigns and elections, and infor-
mation technology and society.
Jonathan Homola is an Assistant Professor at Rice University. He is a political method-
ologist and a comparativist. His substantive research interests include party competi-
tion, representation, political behavior, gender and politics, and immigration.
Natalie Jackson is a Survey Methodologist at JUST Capital with experience running
survey research programs in academic, media, and nonprofit settings. She was in charge
of the election forecasting models and poll aggregation at The Huffington Post during
the 2014 and 2016 election cycles. She has a PhD in political science and researches how
people form attitudes and respond to surveys, as well as how the survey process can
affect reported attitudes.
William G. Jacoby is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan
State University. His main professional interests are mass political behavior (public
opinion, political attitudes, and voting behavior) and quantitative methodology (meas-
urement theory, scaling methods, statistical graphics, and modern regression).
Jane Junn is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California. She
is the author of five books on political participation and public opinion in the United
States. Her research focuses on political behavior, public opinion, racial and ethnic poli-
tics, the politics of immigration, gender and politics, and political identity.
Jeffrey A. Karp is a Professor of Political Science at Brunel University in London. He
specializes in public opinion, elections, and comparative political behavior.
Marko Klašnja is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University,
with the joint appointment in the Government Department and the Edmund A. Walsh
School of Foreign Service. He specializes in comparative politics, political behavior, and
political economy of democratic accountability.
Yanna Krupnikov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at
Stony Brook University. Her research and teaching focus on political psychology,
political communication, political persuasion, political behavior, and empirical
methodology.
Ines Levin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the
University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on quantitative research methods
with substantive applications in the areas of elections, public opinion, and political
behavior.
Cherie D. Maestas is the Marshall A. Rauch Distinguished Professor of Political Science
in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte where she also directs the Public Policy Program. She
studies political communication, political psychology, risk attitudes, and legislative
responsiveness.
xii   Contributors

Susanna Makela is a PhD student in the Statistics Department at Columbia University.

Her areas of interest include the application of statistical and quantitative methods to
global health issues.
Daniel E. Moreno Morales is Executive Director and founding member of Ciudadanía,
Comunidad de Estudios Sociales y Acción Pública, a local research NGO in Bolivia. He
holds a PhD in Political Science from Vanderbilt University. He is an expert in public
opinion and has worked on areas such as ethnic and national identity, citizenship, dem-
ocratic values, and quality of democracy.
Jonathan Nagler is a Professor of Politics, Affiliated faculty in the Center for Data
Science, and a Co-​Director of the Social Media and Political Participation Laboratory
at New York University. His areas of interest and research include quantitative method-
ology, voting behavior, social-​media, turnout, and the impact of the economy and infor-
mation on elections.
Jocelyn Newsome is a Senior Study Director at Westat who manages a range of data
collection efforts. She specializes in the use of qualitative methods for questionnaire de-
velopment, including cognitive testing, behavior coding, and focus groups.
Daniel L. Oberski is an Associate Professor of Data Science Methodology in the
Methodology & Statistics Department at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the
problem of measurement in the social sciences.
Efrén O. Pérez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University,
and a Co-​Director of its Research on Individuals, Politics, & Society (RIPS) experi-
mental lab. His research encompasses political psychology and public opinion, with an
emphasis on racial and ethnic politics.
Kim Proctor is a Technical Director, Division of Business and Data Analysis (DBDA)
at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) where she oversees the statistical
analysis of Medicaid data and operational information to design analytic studies and
inform Medicaid policy. She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of New
Mexico.
Armando Razo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at
Indiana University and a Founding Scientific Leadership Team member of the Indiana
University Network Science Institute. His research lies within political economy of de-
velopment, with a focus on the interaction of informal institutions, political-​economic
networks, and public policies across political regimes.
Anthony M. Salvanto is an Elections & Surveys Director at CBS News. His specialties
include U.S. Politics & Elections, Voting, Polling, and Public Opinion.
Brian F. Schaffner is the Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tufts University. His
research focuses on public opinion, campaigns and elections, political parties, and leg-
islative politics.
 Contributors   xiii

Saundra K. Schneider is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan

State University and the Director of the Inter-​university Consortium for Political and
Social Research Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research at the University
of Michigan. Her main research interests are public policy and methodology, with a
focus on state-​level program spending, health care policymaking, and public attitudes
toward governmental disaster relief.
Mitchell A. Seligson is the Centennial Professor of Political Science and Professor of
Sociology at Vanderbilt University and serves as a member of the General Assembly
of the Inter-​American Institute of Human Rights. He is the founder and Senior
Advisor of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), which conducts the
AmericasBarometer surveys that currently cover 27 countries in the Americas.
Yajuan Si is a Research Assistant Professor in the Survey Methodology Program, located
within the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research on the University
of Michigan-​Ann Arbor campus. Her research lies in cutting-​edge methodology devel-
opment in streams of Bayesian statistics, complex survey inference, missing data impu-
tation, causal inference, and data confidentiality protection.
Betsy Sinclair is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University in
St. Louis. Her research interests are American politics and political methodology with
an emphasis on individual political behavior.
Steven A. Snell is a Principal Research Scientist and Survey Methodologist at Qualtrics
and a fellow at the Qualtrics Methodology Lab. He holds a PhD in Politics from
Princeton University and researches best practices in online sampling, longitudinal
survey methods, and data quality in survey research.
Joshua A. Tucker is a Professor of Politics and affiliated Professor of Russian and Slavic
Studies and Data Science at New York University, the Director of the NYU Jordan
Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, and a Co-​Director of the NYU Social Media
and Political Participation (SMaPP) laboratory. His research interests are mass political
behavior, the intersection of social media and politics, and post-​communist politics.
Jack Vowles is a Professor of Comparative Politics at Victoria University of Wellington.
His research is primarily in comparative political behavior and New Zealand politics.
Christopher Warshaw is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George
Washington University. His areas of research are American politics, representation,
public opinion, state and local politics, environmental politics and policy, and statistical
methodology.
Herbert F. Weisberg is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State
University (PhD, Michigan 1968). He joined OSU in 1974 from the University of
Michigan where he was a (tenured) Associate Professor. An American politics scholar,
he is known for his research and teaching on American voting behavior and Congress,
as well as his work on survey research and political methodology.
T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

P OL L I N G
A N D SU RV E Y
M E T HOD S
 I n t rodu c t i on to P olling
a n d Su rvey Method s

Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

Introduction

In recent years political polling has been in a state of visible crisis. Recent “polling
misses” have been well-​publicized: the Brexit election, the peace agreement refer-
endum in Colombia, and the U.S. presidential election. In the first example, the Brexit
vote in the United Kingdom was a close call that missed its mark, while in Colombia
polls regarding a referendum on a peace deal that took more than seven years to pro-
duce suggested that 66% of eligible voters supported it. However, when the votes were
counted on election day the referendum failed by a very close margin, with 50.2% of
voters rejecting it.
In the United States another important miss was the failure of polls conducted in the
competitive battleground states to predict a Donald Trump presidential win at nearly
any point in the election. A recent report from the American Association of Public
Opinion Research (AAPOR) argued that while the national polls in 2016 were quite ac-
curate, the state-​by-​state polling in important battleground states suffered from meth-
odological issues that appear to account for much of their inaccuracy (AAPOR 2017).
Moreover, poll aggregators such as fivethirtyeight.com and the Huffington Post pro-
vided odds that Hillary Clinton would win by very safe margins. For example, the final
election odds from fivethirtyeight.com gave Clinton a 71% chance of winning the elec-
tion, the lowest percentage of any poll aggregator, and the Huffington Post gave Clinton
a 98% chance of winning the election, the highest of any poll aggregator.
These polling misses are highly consequential. Not only have they provided pundits,
media, and the public with misleading information, but by being so seemingly unreli-
able they may even make people skeptical and distrustful of polling in general. Because
of these highly visible “misses,” political polling has an image problem, as a recent
2    Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

U.S. poll finding shows that only 37% of the public trusts public opinion polls a great deal
or a good amount.1
Election polling is an especially unique industry and academic enterprise because it
is one of the few social sciences in which predictions can be validated against outcomes,
therefore providing the opportunity to assess issues related to survey error. Although
comparing predictions to outcomes provides a sense of when polls are off track, there
are many places in the survey design in which errors can be introduced, and thus being
attentive to innovation and best practices in all aspects of design is critical for a reliable
and valid survey.
Problems with polling usually stem from a variety of factors, including issues with the
sampling frame and nonresponse bias. Because of these issues, and because of the many
complex designs, which often involve multiple modes, panels, or oversamples, there
may be unequal probabilities of respondent selection, variation in response rates across
subgroups, or departures from distributions on key demographic or other variables
within the data, such as party identification, which may result in a variety of postsurvey
adjustment weighting strategies. Indeed, pollsters today do a great deal of postsurvey
adjustment weighting to create data sets that are representative of the population under
study. While there is certainly a science to weighting data, methodological differences
in how data are statistically weighted can lead to different results and different predicted
winners.
For example, in an experiment during the 2016 election the same raw data set was
given to four different pollsters for postsurvey adjustments; the result was four different
election predictions, from Trump up one point to Clinton up four points.2 Another dif-
ficult problem for pollsters in an election environment is identifying likely voters. Yet
other problems may have to do with nonresponse bias, which may lead some types of
voters to refuse to participate in the poll. Shy respondents may cause problems for a
survey if, for example, they are associated with a particular candidate or particular issue
position.
In developed countries, changes in survey research over the last fifteen years have
been tumultuous. The growth of the Internet, the decline in household use of landlines,
and the dramatic increase in cell phone use has made it both easier and more difficult to
conduct surveys. While the “gold standard” for survey research has traditionally been
probability based sampling, today many polls and surveys use nonprobability designs,
such as opt-​in Internet panels for online surveys. Furthermore, surveys that begin with a
random sample often have such low response rates (less than 10% is now very common)
that the quality and accuracy of inferences drawn from the resulting sample may be
problematic.
For general population studies, the increase in Internet surveys has also meant
that researchers are relying today more on respondent-​driven surveys than on the
interviewer-​driven designs that dominated the field in previous decades. The preva-
lence of Internet surveys has also led to a greater number of panel designs and to consid-
eration of unique issues that arise with panel data. Survey researchers are also relying on
many more modes and combining them more often.
 Introduction to Polling and Survey Methods    3

In the developing world, in-​person surveys are still the norm, but technology is
allowing the development of innovative new methodologies, such as the use of com-
puter assisted personal interview (CAPI) systems or Global Positioning System (GPS)
devices, both of which may improve survey quality and reduce total survey error. But
other issues abound in surveys conducted in many developing areas, in particular
survey coverage and the representativeness of many survey samples.
In addition, there are many new opportunities in the field and many new data sets.
Table 0.1 presents a list of all the academically collected and freely accessible data sets
discussed in this Handbook. The number of readily accessible data sets is impressive and
affords researchers the chance to answer new and old questions in different contexts. But
using these data sets also presents some challenges, in particular understanding how
complex survey designs affect how researchers use them. In addition to the wide range
of survey data readily available today, there are also innovations in using surveys to in-
terview experts, social media as public opinion data, poll aggregation, the integration of
qualitative methods with survey designs, and the expanded use of survey experiments.
Technological advances in computing and statistics have also provided new and better
methods to assess opinion in subnational contexts and have created opportunities for
better methods to estimate and use latent constructs. In addition, the art of displaying
data has advanced significantly, allowing researchers to use graphics to inform their
decision-​making process during the survey and modeling process, as well as after the
fact in how the data are communicated to consumers.
These changes present new opportunities and challenges and make this Oxford
University Press Handbook on Polling and Survey Methods timely. Polls, of course, tend
to focus on a single question, and simple analysis of a substantive single question usually
relies on simple two-​variable crosstabs with demographic variables, whereas surveys
focus on the answers to many questions in which a research design is often embedded.
The goals of the Handbook are to outline current best practices and highlight the
changing nature of the field in the way social scientists conduct surveys and analyze and
present survey data. The Handbook considers four broad areas of discovery: survey de-
sign, data collection, analysis and presentation, and new frontiers. Following is a discus-
sion of the main contributions and points of interest of each chapter.

Survey Design

The first section of the Handbook focuses on general survey methodology considera­
tions. Because survey methodology is the study of the sources of error in surveys,
with the intention of limiting as many of those sources of error as possible to pro-
duce an accurate measure or true value of the social or political world, it begins with
an essay by Herbert F. Weisberg that explains the total survey error and total survey
quality approach. Survey error is the difference between what the actual survey pro-
cess produces and what should be obtained from it. Total survey error considers both
4    Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

Table 0.1 Publicly Available National Surveys

Data Set URL

American National Election Studies http://​www.electionstudies.org

Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
Pew Research Center
The British Election Study
The Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies
The French National Election Study
German Federal Election Studies
The Swedish National Election Studies
The American Panel Survey
Candidate Emergence Study
UCD Congressional Election Study
The Varieties of Democracy Project
US Census
Cooperative Congressional Election
Study
Latin American Public Opinion Project
National Opinion Research Center
Arab Barometer
World Values Survey
Afro​barometer
Pew Global Research
Asian Barometer
Gallup World Poll
Comparative National Elections Project
European Social Survey
European Election Studies
Eurobarometer
http://​www.cses.org/​
http://​www.people-​press.org/​datasets/​
http://​www.britishelectionstudy.com/​
http://​www.dpes.nl/​en/​
http://​www.cevipof.fr/​fr/​eef2017/​fnes/​
http://​www.gesis.org/​en/​elections-​home/​
germanfederal-​elections/​
http://​valforskning.pol.gu.se/​english
http://​taps.wustl.edu
http://​ces.iga.ucdavis.edu
http://​electionstudy.ucdavis.edu/​
https://​v-​dem.net/​en/​
http://​www.census.gov/​ces/​rdcresearch/​
http://​projects.iq.harvard.edu/​cces
http://​www.vanderbilt.edu/​lapop/​
http://​www3.norc.org/​GSS+Website/​
http://​www.arabbarometer.org/​
http://​www.worldvaluessurvey.org/​wvs.jsp
http://​www.afrobarometer.org/​
http://​www.pewglobal.org/​about/​
http://​www.asianbarometer.org
http://​www.gallup.com/​services/​170945/​world-​poll.aspx
http://​u.osu.edu/​cnep/​
http://​www.europeansocialsurvey.org/​
http://​eeshomepage.net/​
http://​ec.europa.eu/​public_​opinion/​index_​en.htm

observational and nonobservational errors. Observational error, or what is usu-

ally considered measurement error, focuses on survey questions and their relation-
ship to the underlying attribute one is interested in measuring. Measurement error in
this context is the difference between the true value and the measured value. Errors of
nonobservation focus on problems in estimating the mean and distribution of a variable
from a sample instead of the full population. Although the goal in a survey is always to
minimize both observational and nonobservational errors, there are constraints within
the survey environment, including costs, timing, and ethics. The total survey quality
 Introduction to Polling and Survey Methods    5

approach extends the total survey error approach to consider additional criteria, in-
cluding providing usable and quality data to the researcher.
The next several chapters consider various survey design issues related to the method
of data collection. Survey researchers often have to ask: What is the best method to
collect the data I need for my research project? Data collection methods come in two
basic forms, interviewer-​administered surveys or self-​administered surveys, but data
collection efforts must also consider the nature of the survey and whether it is cross-​
sectional or longitudinal. Panel surveys interview the same respondent over time to
track attitudes and behavior, thus measuring individual-​level changes in attitudes
and behavior, which cross-​sectional surveys cannot easily assess. Hillygus and Snell
consider the unique challenges and opportunities related to using longitudinal or
panel designs, including the tension between continuity across panel waves and in-
novation, panel attrition, and potential measurement error related to panel condi-
tioning of respondents and seam bias. Both the Atkeson and Adams chapter and the
Ansolabehere and Schaffner chapter address issues related to survey mode. The former
chapter focuses on the advantages and disadvantages associated with using mixed
mode surveys, which have become increasingly popular. Mixed mode surveys are
those that involve mixtures of different contact and response modes. They pay par-
ticular attention to how the presence or absence of an interviewer influences survey
response, especially social desirability, and item nonresponse. Thus, they compare
mail/​Internet surveys to in-​person/​telephone surveys across a variety of dimensions
and consider best practices. Ansolabehere and Schaffner focus their attention on the
quality of surveys that use opt-​in online nonprobability survey panels, the Cooperative
Congressional Election Study (CCES), and compare that to traditional probability
samples.
Gimpel’s chapter considers the geographic distribution of respondents and how
context, characterized as a respondent’s location, influences attitudes and behavior.
Traditional sampling designs, for example, focus on strategies that allow researchers
to make inferences about the population, which often limit the geographical space in
which respondents are found. This tends to create small sample sizes that have limited
utility in helping to understand a primary interest of social scientists, how spatial context
influences opinion. Because sometimes social scientists are interested in representing
places and people, they need to consider a different sampling design; Gimpel’s chapter
identifies when and how one can sample for context.
Oberski considers another important aspect of survey design, question wording.
While many survey methodology textbooks discuss the “art” of writing questions,
Oberski takes a more systematic approach, arguing that by using experiments we can
better differentiate good or reliable survey questions from the bad and unreliable. To this
end, Saris et al. (2012) over many years built up a large question data set that estimated
the reliability and common method variance or quality of those questions, coded
characteristics of those questions that related to their quality, and predicted question
quality based on a meta-​analysis. They then created a free Web-​based application that
allows researchers to input questions and obtain an estimate of their quality. The bulk
6    Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

of Oberski’s chapter focuses on explaining the Survey Quality Predictor (SQP) tool and
how researchers can use it to make question design a solid science and less of an art.

Data Collection

The Handbook’s next section begins with a discussion of postelection exit polling. Exit
polls offer the first look at who is voting, how they are voting, and why they are voting
that way; they also offer valuable insights into political behavior, especially vote choice.
These types of surveys have been part of our election landscape since 1967, and as new
modes of voting have developed, especially early and mail voting, exit polls have had to
be modified to ensure they accurately reflect voters. Salvanto’s chapter provides an over-
view of the history and value of exit polls and much needed information on how exit poll
operations are managed.
Many researchers are interested in studying the attitudes and behavior of hard-​to-​
reach populations. These individuals can be hard to reach for many different reasons.
For example, some groups of people may be hard to identify (e.g., protestors), or they
may be hard to locate, such as the LGBT community, which is a very small group whose
members live everywhere, so that finding them in the population can be difficult and
expensive. It might be hard to persuade some populations to participate, for example,
politicians or their staff or people engaging in socially undesirable or illegal activities.
The chapters by Adkihari and Bryant and by Berry, Chouhoud, and Junn both focus
on these difficult-​to-​locate populations. Adkihari and Bryant consider hard-​to-​reach
populations in international or developing contexts, while Berry et al. focus on low-​in-
cidence populations in the United States. Adkihari and Bryant build their story around a
research design in Nepal that examined citizens who either fled their homes or decided to
stay during the Maoist insurgency between 1996 and 2006. To examine important theo-
retical questions related to internally displaced people (IDP), the study first had to iden-
tify displacement patterns so that a sample of both those who decided to stay and those
who fled could be drawn. The study also had to solve problems related to difficult terrain,
lack of infrastructure, low-​education populations, and other factors to develop a strong
survey design. Berry, Choudhoun, and Junn, on the other hand, focus their chapter on
the United States and on low-​incidence populations, who make up a relatively small pro-
portion of the public that could be characterized as new immigrants, racial or ethnic
minorities, religious minorities, or small populations that are relatively dispersed, such as
gays or lesbians. They outline a strategy that uses a tailored or targeted approach to cap-
ture these hard-​to-​reach populations. They consider various attributes of these groups,
such as whether the group is geographically concentrated or dispersed or the degree
of uniformity among its members, and how these attributes help to make good design
decisions related to sampling, making contact and gaining cooperation, and analysis.
Both chapters provide best practices, useful advice, and important considerations on suc-
cessfully interviewing hard-​to-​reach populations.
 Introduction to Polling and Survey Methods    7

Seligson and Moreno’s chapter and Benstead’s chapter focus on issues related to
the developing world. Seligson and Moreno’s chapter looks at the introduction of the
CAPI systems as a quality control measure in face-​to-​face surveys in Latin America.
They argue that CAPI systems improve the quality of the data collected in-person by
eliminating many sources of error and allowing the researcher much more control of
the field process. Benstead examines data collection issues in the Arab world, which is
an often difficult and sometimes inhospitable environment for survey researchers and
for social scientists more generally. Over the past several decades a variety of public
opinion surveys from the Middle Eastern and North African regions have been made
available to researchers (e.g., the Arab Barometer, Afrobarometer), opening up new
opportunities for research in these understudied nations. Many of these nations are
more accessible to researchers than they were previously, and Benstead also considers
unique challenges researchers face when working in this region, as well as best practices
for survey researchers.
The chapter by Perez on the connection between language and opinion rounds out
the section on data collection. Given that there are so many public opinion surveys,
often asking the same questions in different languages across different cultures, Perez
asks what the connection between language and opinion is and how we can isolate
its effects. In particular, Perez highlights how cognitive psychology can assist us in
building theoretical models that help explain how and when language will influence
opinion.

Analysis and Presentation

The next set of essays begins with a chapter by Gill and Homola, who discuss a variety
of issues related to statistical inference and hypothesis testing using survey data. They
highlight several methodological concerns regarding transparency of data, uncertainty
in the process, the margin of error, and significance testing. Levin and Sinclair examine
how including or excluding survey weights affects various matching algorithms. They
find that weights are important to make accurate causal inferences from complex survey
data. Their chapter demonstrates the need to account for characteristics of the sample to
make population-​based inferences.
The next chapter, by Brace, is interested in the study of subnational public opinion.
Accurate and reliable measurement of subnational public opinion is especially valu-
able when researchers are interested in understanding how context, or the political
and social environment, influences opinion, and how opinion influences government
outcomes. One of the many problems with looking at these types of questions is that
there is very little systematic comparative analysis across states, congressional districts,
legislative districts, counties, or cities. Surveys at the subnational level are fairly unique
and are conducted by different polling organizations at different times, using different
methodologies and question wording. Brace discusses the history of this field and the
8    Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

development of various tools and methods to disaggregate national opinion polls to the
subnational level to produce reliable estimates of subnational opinion.
Usually researchers are interested in abstract concepts such as political knowledge,
ideology, and polarization. But these are often measured with single variables that
possess a large quantity of measurement error. Chris Warshaw discusses the value of
latent constructs, the various ways latent constructs have been identified, and new
methodologies that are available for testing latent constructs. Proctor’s chapter follows
with a focus on the application of item response theory to the study of group conscious-
ness. She demonstrates how latent constructs help to clarify the role group conscious-
ness plays in understanding political behavior, using a study of the LGBT community,
and how some of the measurement assumptions underlying group consciousness are
incorrect.
Next, in their chapter Karp and Vowles examine the challenges and opportunities in-
herent in comparative cross-​national survey research. Comparative cross-​sectional re-
search creates opportunities for examining the role differing institutions and cultures
play in political behavior. They use the CSES as a vehicle to evaluate cross-​cultural
equivalence in questionnaire design, survey mode, response rates, and case selection.
Presentation using data visualization is valuable for public opinion researchers and
consumers. Good visualization of survey and poll results can help researchers uncover
patterns that might be difficult to detect in topline and cross-​tabulations and can also
help researchers more effectively present their results to survey and poll consumers.
Therefore, two chapters are devoted to graphing opinion data. The first, by Makela, Si,
and Gelman, argues that graphs are valuable at all stages of the analysis, including the
exploration of raw data, weighting, building bivariate and multivariate models, and
understanding and communicating those results to others. The second chapter, by
Schneider and Jacoby, provides specific guidelines on when a graph and what type of
graph would be most useful for displaying and communicating survey data and analyt-
ical results from survey models. Both chapters provide many useful examples and excel-
lent ideas for ways to explore and report data.

New Frontiers

The last section of the Handbook explores new frontiers in survey methodology.
It begins with an essay by Krupnikov and Findley that outlines the growth in survey
experiments and their usefulness. They argue that survey experiments provide a balance
between internal and external validity that provides needed leverage on opinion for-
mation. However, this is not without some costs, especially related to the participants
chosen, and researchers need to carefully consider their goals when identifying the best
test for their theory.
Gimbel and Newsome turn their attention to the consideration of how qualita-
tive data can both improve survey methodology and help to better understand and
 Introduction to Polling and Survey Methods    9

interpret survey results. They focus on three qualitative tools—​focus groups, in-​depth
interviewing, and cognitive interviewing—​and provide best practices for when and how
to use these tools. Qualitative research is an important part of many public opinion re-
search projects; Gimbel and Newsome provide a great deal of guidance about how to
best conduct this type of opinion research.
Razo considers the important role of context in social research. He argues that the
problem with context in social research is that it is often too vague, and that scholars
need greater guidance on collecting and analyzing contextual data. Razo’s chapter
provides insight into how scholars can better collect and use contextual data in their
analyses of individual-​level opinion and behavior. Next Klašnja et al. discuss using
Twitter as a source of public opinion data. They identify three main concerns with using
Tweets as opinion, including how to measure it, assessing its representativeness, and
how to aggregate it. They consider potential solutions to these problems and outline
how social media data might be used to study public opinion and social behavior.
Many research questions involve the use of experts to identify processes, institutions,
and local environments or other information that only a knowledgeable informant
might have. The chapter by Maestas focuses on the use of expert surveys in providing
these bits of valuable information for researchers. It considers survey and questionnaire
design issues and aggregation procedures, with a focus on enhancing the validity and
reliability of experts’ estimates. Finally, the last chapter, by Jackson, focuses on polling
aggregation and election forecasting, which is interesting to both academics and applied
researchers. Her essay discusses the history of election forecasting and the use of poll
aggregation, the technical and statistical demands of poll aggregation and election
forecasting, and the controversies surrounding it.

Looking Back, and Looking Ahead

This Handbook has brought together a unique mixture of academics and practitioners
from various backgrounds, academic disciplines, and experiences. In one sense, this is
reflective of the interdisciplinary nature of polling and survey methodology: polls and
surveys are widely used in academia, government, and the private sector. Designing,
implementing, and analyzing high-​quality, accurate, and cost-​effective polls and surveys
require a combination of skills and methodological perspectives. Despite the well-​
publicized issues that have cropped up in recent political polling, looking back at the
significant body of research that has been conducted by the authors in this Handbook,
a great deal is known today about how to collect high-​quality polling and survey data.
Over the course of the last several decades, the survey and polling industries have
experienced rapid change. We care about quality surveys and good survey data because
as social scientists we are only as good as the data we produce. Therefore, it is critical to
consider best practices, guidelines, and helping researchers assess a variety of factors so
that they can make good choices when they collect and analyze data. Equally important
10    Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez

is transmitting those results to others in a clear and accessible way. This Handbook goes
a long way toward providing a great deal of current information on the state of the field.
There is a bright future for further development of polling and survey methodology.
Unlike the situation a few decades ago, today there are many opportunities for innovative
research on how to improve polling and survey methodology. Ranging from new tools
to test survey design (e.g., Oberski in this Handbook, or tools found in Montgomery and
Cutler [2013]), to innovations in how interviews are conducted (Seligson and Moreno in
this Handbook), to the use of social media data to study individual opinion and behav­
ior (Klašnja et al. in this Handbook), technology is changing the nature of survey and
polling methodology. We hope that the chapters in this Handbook help researchers and
practitioners understand these trends and participate in the development of new and better
approaches for measuring, modeling, and visualizing public opinion and social behavior.

Acknowledgments
Books, and in particular edited volumes like this one, require a great deal of help and assis-
tance. Of course we thank all of the authors of the chapters in this Handbook, especially for
their patience as we worked to produce this complicated volume. At Caltech, we thank Sabrina
De Jaegher for administrative assistance and for helping us stay organized and on track.
Brittany Ortiz from the University of New Mexico was instrumental in helping us get this proj­
ect started.
And special thanks go to the team at Oxford University Press (current and past), who helped
us to launch, organize, edit, and most important, finish this Handbook. David McBride pro-
vided important guidance, and we also thank Claire Sibley, William Richards, Tithi Jana,
Anitha Alagusundaram, Emily MacKenzie and Kathleen Weaver. Finally, Alexandra Dauler
helped us formulate the basic idea for this Handbook and got us started with this project.

Notes
1. http://​www.huffingtonpost.com/​entry/​most-​americans-​dont-​trust-​public-​opinion-​polls_​
us_​58de94ece4b0ba359594a708.
2. https://​www.nytimes.com/​interactive/​2016/​09/​20/​upshot/​the-​error-​the-​polling-​world-​
rarely-​talks-​about.html.

References
American Association of Public Opinion Research, Ad Hoc Committee on 2016 Election
Polling. 2017. “An Evaluation of 2016 Election Polls in the U.S.” https://​www.aapor.org/​
Education-​Resources/​Reports/​An-​Evaluation-​of-​2016-​Election-​Polls-​in-​the-​U-​S.aspx.
Montgomery, Jacob M., and Josh Cutler. 2013. “Computerized Adaptive Testing for Public
Opinion Surveys.” Political Analysis 21 (2): 172–​192.
Saris, W. E., D. L. Oberski, M. Revilla, D. Z. Rojas, L. Lilleoja, I. Gallhofer, and T. Gruner, (2012).
Final report about the project JRA3 as part of ESS infrastructure (SQP 2002-​2011). Technical
report, RECSM, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, Barcelona.
 Pa rt I

SU RV E Y DE SIG N
 Chapter 1

Total Survey E rror

Herbert F. Weisberg

Introduction

The total survey error (TSE) approach has become a paradigm for planning and
evaluating surveys. The survey field began atheoretically in the early 1900s, when social
scientists simply began asking people questions. Gradually several separate theoretical
elements fell into place, starting with statistical sampling theory and then the social psy-
chology of attitudes (Converse 1987). By the mid-​twentieth century the literature was
recognizing the existence of different types of error in surveys, particularly Hansen,
Hurwitz, and Madow (1953) and Kish (1965). Robert Groves’s (1989) Survey Errors and
Survey Costs systemized the consideration of errors in surveys in the comprehensive
TSE framework.
Groves’s book unified the field by categorizing the types of survey errors and pitting
them against the costs involved in conducting surveys. Each of the several types of
survey error can be minimized, but that takes financial resources, which are neces-
sarily finite. The TSE approach provides a systematic way of considering the trade-​offs
involved in choosing where to expend resources to minimize survey error. Different
researchers may weigh these trade-​offs differently, deciding to spend their resources to
minimize different potential survey errors. The TSE approach was developed when tel-
ephone interviewing was in its prime. It is still useful now that Internet surveys have be-
come prevalent, though Internet surveys raise somewhat different problems regarding
certain potential error sources. Furthermore, the different trade-​offs between survey
errors and costs can vary between interviewer-​driven studies (as in face-​to-​face and tel-
ephone interviewing) and respondent-​driven studies (as in mail and Internet surveys).
Costs are not the only challenge that researchers face in conducting surveys. Time and
ethics also can impose constraints (Weisberg 2005). For example, the time constraints
raised when the news media need to gauge the immediate public reaction to a presiden-
tial speech are very different from when academic researchers have the luxury of being
able to take a month or two to survey public opinion. As to ethics, the concerns that
14   Herbert F. Weisberg

arise when interviewing on sensitive topics, such as people’s drug use, are very different
from those that exist when seeking to measure attitudes on public policies, such as gov-
ernment welfare programs. Depending on the survey organization, it is now common
for survey researchers to need prior approval from an institutional review board be-
fore going into the field, including approval of the research design and survey questions
(Singer 2008). Thus, there can be trade-​offs between minimizing survey error and the
cost, time, and ethics involved in a survey.
In addition to survey constraints, Weisberg (2005) further emphasized the impor-
tance of another consideration: survey effects. These involve choices that must be
made for which there are no error-​free decisions. For example, there may be question
order effects in a survey, but there is no perfect order of questions. It may be impor-
tant for survey researchers to try to estimate the magnitude of some of these survey
effects, though they cannot be eliminated regardless of how many resources are spent
on them.
While the TSE approach has become important in academic survey research,
the total survey quality (TSQ) approach has become important in government-​
sponsored research. The quality movement developed in the management field
(Drucker 1973; Deming 1986), which recognized that customers choose the pro-
ducer that provides the best quality for the money. That led to management models
such as total quality management and continuous quality improvement. When
applied to the survey field (Biemer and Lyberg 2003; Lyberg 2012), the quality per-
spective leads to emphasis on such matters as the survey’s accuracy, credibility,
relevance, accessibility, and interpretability. For example, many survey clients ex-
pect high-​quality deliverables, including a data set with a complete codebook and
a detailed description of the survey procedures, including sampling and weighting.
Thus, survey organizations must develop procedures to maximize the quality
of their product, but within the context of the trade-​offs between survey errors
and costs.

The Total Survey Error Approach

The TSE approach focuses on a variety of possible errors in surveys. The early work on
surveys dealt with one type of error: the sampling error that occurs when one interviews
a sample of the population of interest rather than the entire population. As later work
identified other sources of errors, it became clear that sampling error was just the “tip
of the iceberg,” with several other potential sources of error also being necessary to
consider.
In preparing a survey effort, the researcher should consider the various potential
sources of error and decide how to handle each one. Typically, the researcher elects to
try to limit the amount of some types of error, such as by choosing how large a sample
 Total Survey Error   15

to take. The researcher may opt to measure the magnitude of other types of error, such
as by giving random half samples different versions of a key question to see how much
question wording affects the results. Inevitably, the researcher ends up ignoring some
other types of error, partly because it is impossible to deal with every possible source of
error under a fixed monetary budget with time constraints.
Of course, survey research is not the only social science research technique that
faces potential errors. Campbell and Stanley’s (1963) distinction between “internal va-
lidity” and “external validity” in experimental research demonstrated how systemat-
ically considering the different types of error in a research approach could advance
a field.
Notice that the TSE approach deals with “potential” errors. It is not saying that these
are all serious errors in every survey project or that mistakes have been made. Instead,
it is alerting the researcher to where errors might be occurring, such as the possibility
that people who refuse to participate in a survey would have answered the questions
differently than those who responded. In some cases there will be no reason to think
that refusals would bias a study, but in other instances those who will not cooperate
might be expected to differ systematically from those who participate. If the research
topic is one likely to lead to this type of error, it might be worth trying to get as much in-
formation as possible about people who fell into the sample but were not interviewed,
so they can be compared with the actual respondents. But if nonresponse is unlikely
to bias the results, then it would be better to focus the survey budget on minimizing
other possible errors. Thus, the TSE approach makes researchers think about the likely
sources of error in their surveys before deciding what trade-​offs to make.
In considering different sources of survey error, it is important to distinguish be-
tween random and systematic error. Random errors are the mistakes that occur by
chance without any particular pattern; they increase the variance of the variable but
should cancel out in large samples. Systematic errors are more serious, since they bias
the results, such as when questions are worded to give only one side of a policy question.
Furthermore, survey errors can either be uncorrelated or correlated. Uncorrelated
errors are the isolated errors, such as when a respondent says “strongly agree” and the
interviewer accidentally happens to press the key corresponding to “agree.” Correlated
errors are more serious because they increase the variance of estimates, making it
more difficult to obtain statistical significance. Cluster sampling, coders coding many
interviews, and a large number of interviews per interviewer all lead to correlated errors.
These procedures are commonly used to cut costs, but it is necessary to recognize that
they increase the variance of estimates.
Figure 1.1 depicts the various types of error covered in descriptions of TSE. Sampling
error is shown as the tip of the iceberg, with the other possible errors potentially being
as large or larger than the sampling error. Each of these types of error is described in the
following sections. Groves et al. (2009) provide an update of Groves (1989) that includes
later research on each type of error. Weisberg (2005) and McNabb (2014) further discuss
the different sources and categories of nonsampling error.
16   Herbert F. Weisberg

Sampling Error

Respondent Selection
Issues
Coverage Error
Nonresponse Error at the Unit Level
Nonresponse Error at the Item Level
Measurement Error Due to Respondents
Response
Accuracy Issues Measurement Error Due to Interviewers

Postsurvey Error
Survey Administration Mode Effects
Issues
Equivalence Error

Figure 1.1 The Different Types of Survey Error.

Source: Weisberg (2005, 19).

Response Accuracy Issues

Measurement Error Due to Respondents

Measurement error is an important response accuracy problem, particularly when the
respondent does not answer the question accurately. If respondents are not motivated
enough to provide accurate answers, the interviewer can try to increase their motiva-
tion, such as stressing the importance of accurate answers. Unclear question wording
can lead to answers that are inaccurate, making it important to pretest questions. The
most serious problem is biased question wording, which sometimes occurs when in-
terest groups write survey questions and try to word them so as to exaggerate how much
the public agrees with their positions. Some survey questions ask respondents to report
more detail than they can be expected to know, such as when asking sick people ex-
actly how many times they went to a doctor in the last year. Indeed, answering temporal
questions can be very difficult for respondents (Tourangeau, Rips, and Rasinski 2000,
100–​135; Weisberg 2005, 97–​100).
As these examples suggest, measurement error due to respondents is often attribut-
able to the questionnaire construction. This type of measurement error can be lessened
by using survey questions that are well tested and by doing pretests on the question-
naire. One pretest procedure is “think-​aloud protocols,” in which respondents are
asked to report what goes through their minds as they think about how to answer the
questions (DeMaio, Rothgeb, and Hess 1998). More generally, the cognitive aspects of
survey methodology (CASM) movement (Jabine et al. 1984) emphasizes the value of
 Total Survey Error   17

“cognitive interviewing,” in which the cognitive processes used by respondents in an-

swering questions are studied (Miller et al. 2014).
There are two important theoretical developments that help researchers in thinking
through how to minimize measurement error due to respondents. One is Tourangeau,
Rips, and Rasinski’s (2000, 7–​16) delineation of four stages of the response process. The
first stage is for the respondent to comprehend the question. Then the respondent must
retrieve relevant information from his or her memory. The third step is to judge the
appropriate answer. The fourth step is to select and report the answer, such as when a
respondent decides to censor his or her responses by not admitting to socially unac-
ceptable behavior. Measurement error can arise at each of these steps, so the researcher
should try to develop questions for which each stage is as simple for respondents as
possible.
The other important theoretical development is the notion of two response modes: a
high road, in which people carefully think through their answers, versus a low road,
in which people give a response just to move on to the next question. The low road is
termed “satisficing” (Krosnick and Alwin 1987) and is evidenced, for example, when a
respondent “straight-​lines” by simply saying “agree” to a long series of agree/​disagree
questions without really thinking through each question separately, or for that matter,
just saying “don’t know” on all of them.
It is important both to measure the amount of satisficing and to minimize it.
A respondent who gets through a long questionnaire in a very short time might be
satisficing. Giving very short answers to open-​ended questions is another sign of
satisficing. Computerized surveys can be programmed to keep track of how long
it takes to answer questions, to see if satisficing is occurring on particular question
sequences. Keeping questionnaires short is one means of trying to minimize
satisficing. Or, if it is necessary to ask many agree/​disagree questions together, at least
some can be reversed, so that the agree response on some questions means the same
as the disagree response on other questions, so that a person who agrees to every
question would not be scored as being at one extreme of the set of questions. There can
be mode differences on satisficing. For example, Atkeson, Adams, and Alvarez (2014)
find greater nondifferentiation on answers to questions about the perceived ide-
ology of several politicians in self-​administered questionnaires than on interviewer-​
administered questionnaires.
Internet surveys facilitate the use of survey experiments to measure survey effects
(Mutz 2011). Random half samples can be given different wording of key questions, and
the order of response options can be varied randomly. While it is possible to do such
randomization in telephone surveys, the larger sample size that can be achieved at a
reduced cost in Internet surveys makes it feasible to include more such experiments
in a survey. The saving of interviewer salaries permits spending more of the research
budget on these experiments, though there are added costs in programming the survey,
testing the programming, and then handling the experiments appropriately at the data
analysis stage.
18   Herbert F. Weisberg

Measurement Error Due to Interviewers

Interviewers should be facilitating the interview and helping obtain accurate answers,
but they can also introduce error. That error can be random, such as when an interviewer
accidentally records a “yes” answer as a “no,” or it can be systematic, such as when an in-
terviewer always mispronounces a particular word in a question. Giving interviewers
extensive training on good interviewing techniques as well as on the current interview
schedule can minimize interviewer error (Fowler and Mangione 1990, ch. 7). Systematic
interviewer error cumulates the more interviews are taken by each interviewer, so it is
better to have more interviewers take fewer interviews each rather than having a small
number of interviewers each take very large numbers of interviews. The intraclass cor-
relation, which measures the variance associated with interviewers (Kish 1965), and the
average number of interviews taken per interviewer essentially multiply the standard
error of variables, making it more difficult to achieve statistical significance.
There are two schools of thought as to what interviewing style best minimizes
measurement error. The traditional approach has been “standardized interviewing,”
in which interviewers are instructed to ask the identical question the same exact way
to all respondents, not interjecting their own views and not supplying any extra in-
formation to the respondents (Fowler and Mangione 1990, ch. 4). By contrast, in the
“conversational interviewing” (or “flexible interviewing”) approach, interviewers are
instructed to help respondents understand the questions (Conrad and Schober 2000).
On a question that asks people how many pieces of furniture they have bought in the
last three months, for example, the interviewer might be allowed to help the respondent
understand whether a lamp qualifies as a piece of furniture. Allowing interviewers to
clarify the meaning of questions could introduce error into the process, but it could also
help respondents answer what the questions are really trying to ask.
Interviewer error is one form of error that vanishes as a consideration in mail
questionnaires and Internet surveys. On the cost side, these types of surveys save the
large expenses associated with hiring, training, supervising, and paying interviewers.
At the same time, it is important to recognize that response accuracy may decline on
open-​ended questions without an interviewer who can encourage the respondent to
give longer and more complete answers and to think more when replying to questions.

Item-​Level Nonresponse
Response accuracy can also be impaired when there is nonresponse on individual
survey questions. Such missing data occur when people refuse to answer particular
questions, skip questions accidentally, or do not have an opinion (“don’t know”). While
it is usually impossible to eliminate all missing data, motivating the respondent to an-
swer all questions can decrease the problem (Cannell, Oksenberg, and Converse 1977).
Many survey research specialists contend that the problem of missing data is lessened
Another random document with
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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