Death, Society, and Human Experience

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 Contents vii

Relief of Pain and Suffering 162

Hospice Access, Decision Making, and Challenges 166
Dame Cicely Saunders’s Reflections on Hospice 170
Summary 173
Glossary 174
For Further Thought . . . 174
References 175

6 END-OF-LIFE ISSUES AND DECISIONS 179

From Description to Decision Making 180
Who Should Participate in End-of-Life Decisions? 180
The Living Will and Its Impact 181
Right-to-Die Decisions That We Can Make 182
A Right Not To Die? The Cryonics Alternative 189
Organ Donation 192
Funeral-Related Decisions 195
Summary 197
Glossary 198
For Further Thought . . . 199
References 199

7 SUICIDE 203
What Do the Statistics Tell Us? 205
What About Suicide Attempts? 208
Four Problem Areas 209
Some Cultural Meanings of Suicide 221
A Powerful Sociological Theory of Suicide 224
Some Individual Meanings of Suicide 226
Facts and Myths about Suicide 231
Suicide Prevention 232
Emerging Issues and Challenges 235
Summary 238
Glossary 239
For Further Thought . . . 240
References 240
viii Contents

8 VIOLENT DEATH: MURDER, TERRORISM, GENOCIDE, DISASTER,

AND ACCIDENT 247
Murder 251
Terrorism 261
9/11 and Its Consequences 266
Accident and Disaster 271
Summary 276
Glossary 277
For Further Thought . . . 278
References 278

9 EUTHANASIA, ASSISTED DEATH, ABORTION, AND THE RIGHT TO DIE 283

“I Swear by Apollo the Healer”: What Happened to the Hippocratic Oath? 285
Key Terms and Concepts 287
Our Changing Attitudes Toward a Right to Die 292
The Right-to-Die Dilemma: Case Examples 293
Terri Schiavo: Who Decides? 298
A Slippery Slope or the Power of Hope: The Case of Jahi McMath 302
Dr. Kevorkian and the Assisted-Suicide Movement 302
Assisted Death in the United States 308
Induced Abortion 311
Summary 314
Glossary 315
For Further Thought . . . 315
References 316

10 DEATH IN THE WORLD OF CHILDHOOD 321

Respecting the Child’s Concern and Curiosity 322
Adult Assumptions about Children and Death 323
Children Do Think about Death 324
Research Case Histories 328
Concepts and Fears: Developing Through Experience 332
How Do Children Cope with Bereavement? 342
The Dying Child 347
Sharing the Child’s Death Concerns: A Few Guidelines 352
The “Right” to Decide: Should the Child’s Voice be Heard? 353
 Contents ix

Summary 354
Glossary 356
For Further Thought . . . 356
References 357

11 BEREAVEMENT, GRIEF, AND MOURNING 363

Some Responses to Loss 364
Defining Our Terms: Bereavement, Grief, Mourning 366
Cultural Variations in Mourning 371
What Kind of Grief? 374
Theories of Grief 376
How do People Recover from Grief? 382
Bereavement in Later Life 389
Are Bereaved People at Higher Risk for Death? 390
How Well Do We Support the Bereaved? 391
Meaningful Help for Bereaved People 392
Widows in Third World Nations 395
On the Future of Grieving and Mourning 396
Summary 398
Glossary 399
For Further Thought . . . 399
References 400

12 THE FUNERAL PROCESS 407

Some Responses to the Dead 408
What Do Funerals Mean to Us? 411
From Dead Body to Living Memory: A Process Approach 413
Making Death “Legal” 422
What Does the Funeral Process Accomplish? 423
Memories of Our People: Cemeteries in the United States 429
The Place of the Dead in Society: Yesterday and Today 432
The Funeral Director’s Perspective 438
Improving the Funeral Process 440
Spontaneous Memorialization in Response to Violent Death 443
Integrity and Abuse in the Funeral and Memorial Process 444
x Contents

Summary 446
Glossary 447
For Further Thought . . . 447
References 448

13 DO WE SURVIVE DEATH? 453

Concept of Survival in Historical Perspective 454
Heavens and Hells 459
The Desert Religions and Their One God 459
What Other People Believe Today 462
Does Survival Have to be Proved—And, If So, How? 465
When Spiritism Was in Flower 470
Near-Death Experiences: Evidence for Survival? 473
Should We Survive Death? 478
But What Kind of Survival? 479
Assisted and Symbolic Survival 480
The Suicide–Survival Connection 483
Summary 484
Glossary 485
For Further Thought . . . 486
References 486

14 HOW CAN WE HELP? CAREGIVING AND DEATH EDUCATION 491

“Compassionate Fatigue”: Burnout and the Health-Care Provider 493
Death Educators and Counselors: The “Border Patrol” 497
Death Education and Counseling: The Current Scene 501
Counseling and the Counselors 503
How We All Can Help 505
Summary 507
Glossary 508
For Further Thought . . . 508
References 509

15 GOOD LIFE, GOOD DEATH? TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL 513

The Space between Bad and Good Deaths 515
A Father Dies: A Mission Begins 516
A Shift in the Meaning of Life and Death? 517
 Contents xi

Good Death and the State of End-of-Life Care 519

Are we Live or on Tape? The Life-and-Death Challenges of Virtual Reality 520
Utopia: A Better Death in a Better Place? 522
Religious Understandings of a Good Death 526
“The Good Death”: Fantasy or Reality? 527
Extinction: Death of Life or Death of Death? 531
From Good Life to Good Death: A Personal Statement 534
Summary 535
Glossary 536
For Further Thought . . . 536
References 537

Photo Credits 539

Index 541
Is death our greatest fear, as many observers have
concluded? Perhaps they should have added, “That’s
why it can be such a thrill to dance at the edge of
existence.”
 CHAPTER

1
As We Think About Death

Union General John Sedgwick was killed during the battle of Spotsylvania on
May 8, 1864, while watching Confederate troops. His last words were, “They
couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist . . . .”
—quoted by John Richard Stephens (2006, p. 161)

One man was stretchered away after he was hit in the back by a bull with its
horn and another man who had tripped had a lucky escape when the animal
simply tripped over him . . . “You’re not even thinking. You’re just sprinting.
The elation at the end of it. You’re just ecstatic,” said a 23-year-old accountant
from Adelaide, Australia, Jim Atkinson
—CNN (2004)

“His brow was perfectly calm. No scowl disfigured his happy face, which
signifies he died an easy death, no sins of this world to harrow his soul as it
gently passed away to distant and far happier realms.”
—U.S. Civil War Confederate soldier, quoted by
Drew Gilpin Faust (2008, p. 21)

In the land of the Uttarakurus grows the magic Jambu tree, whose fruit has the
property of conferring immunity from illness and old age, and, by means of this
fruit, they lengthen their lives to a thousand years or even, in some accounts, to
eleven thousand years . . . among other things, their realm includes landscapes
of precious stones and trees from whose branches grow beautiful maidens.
—Gerald J. Gruman (2003, p. 33)

*
2 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
L
IFE IS SUPPOSED to go on. Yes, there is death,
but not here, not now, and surely not for us.
We wake to a familiar world each day. We
splash water on the same face we rinsed yesterday.
We talk with people whose faces are familiar. We
see so much of what we have seen many times
before. It is so comforting . . . this ongoingness of
daily life. Why disturb this pattern? Why think of
death? Why make each other anxious? And why do
anything that would increase our risk? Here are a
few quick, if perhaps not entirely satisfying answers:
• General Sedgwick led an eventful life, but is
remembered now for his inadvertently famous
last words. Did he deny his immediate danger
to set a bold example for his troops, to cover up
his own fear, or perhaps just because he would
not think of taking advice from a junior officer?
Denial of vulnerability can be a fatal gesture.
• Who can resist the opportunity to be scared
out of their wits on a diabolical rollercoaster
or gored and trampled by a bull? Each year so
many people crowd into the northern Spanish
town of Pamplona that they become almost as
much a menace to each other as the six bulls
who rush down cobblestone streets. (Fifteen
have died and hundreds have been injured since
the first bull run in 1911.) The “ecstasy” of
outrunning death is hard to understand for those
who organize themselves around the avoidance
of mortal anxiety. Our friend “Anonymous” tries
out the biggest and baddest rollercoasters, and
does it over and over again. It’s the thrill of
terror and the joy of survival (see edge theory, this
chapter).
• In mid-nineteenth-century United States, people
thought often and intensely about death. No
family was secure from the threat of virulent epi-
demics and lethal infections, especially during
or after childbirth. Fortunately, they knew how
they were supposed to think about death.
Guidebooks for Christian living and dying were
relied on by many families. The Civil War
brought death on an unprecedented scale and
in horrifying forms. The loss of young lives was
devastating to families on both sides of the
conflict. What made these losses all the more
unbearable was the fact that sons, brothers,
husbands, and fathers had died far from home,
bereft of comfort and spiritual ministry, and
possibly in a despairing state of mind. The
Confederate soldier quoted by Faust at the
beginning of this chapter was providing a
welcome service when he described his cousin’s
death in such positive terms in a condolence
letter. It was best if his relatives could be made
to believe that their young man had ended his
life at peace with himself and God. How people
died reflected on how they had lived and hinted
at what would be their estate in the afterlife (see
also the good death in Chapter 15).
• Through the centuries, most people died before
what we now would consider to be midlife.
Many did not even survive childhood. Perhaps
this is one reason why the folklore of ancient
times is filled with stories about fortunate people
who lived so long that they hardly needed to
think about death. The Uttarakurus were sup-
posed to live in the far north of India, but similar
tales flourished in Greek, Persian, Teutonic,
Hindu, and Japanese lore, among others. One of
the oldest Hebrew legends speaks of the River
of Immortality, which some scholars believe
provided the background for Christ being
identified with the Fountain of Life. The idea that
in a faraway place there were refreshing waters
that could extend life and perhaps also renew
youth was still credible enough to gain funding
for Ponce de Leon’s expedition to Florida
(although skeptics suggest it was gold lust all
the way). Fear of dying could be attributed to
the prevailing short life expectancy. If only we
could do something about death, we wouldn’t
have to be thinking about it so often!
Some families today cherish fading photographs
of relatives who died years ago of pneumonia,
tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, scarlet fever, infantile
paralysis, and other widespread diseases. One hoped
to survive the diseases that threatened children and
young adults. One hoped for the chance to realize
personal dreams for a good life. Perspectives have
changed about what to do when life isn’t good.
There are now increasing demands for release from

life when the quality of that life has been reduced
by painful or incapacitating illness. Death, once the
problem, is being regarded as the answer by a
growing number of people.
In this chapter we begin our exploration of
thoughts, knowledge, attitudes, and feelings about
death. We will consider many world societies,
although our focus is on the United States. It is not
enough, though, to attend only to the way other
people think about death; therefore, this chapter
also provides the opportunity to take stock of our
own dealings with mortality. First, we gather around
the campfire and spare a few thoughts for our
ancestors.
A HISTORY OF DEATH
We have already touched a little on the history of
death. In fact, one might grumble that all of history
is just death warmed over. The people who did
those things, or had those things done to them—their
lives, no matter how lively, have been absorbed
into yesteryear. Grumbles aside, the history of death
is so interwoven with life that scholars have hesi-
tated to take it on. Try to encompass life and death
in the big picture, leaving nothing out and placing
everything in balanced perspective. Good luck with
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 3
Sanitation workers are just
doing their job, but
anthropologist (and fellow
employee) Robin Nagel observes
many people anxiously
associate the disposal of trash
with their own mortality in a
throw-away society that has
difficulty in facing the realities
of impermanence and death.
that! Therefore, in this book we offer historical per-
spectives in many specific areas, e.g., hospice care,
euthanasia, terrorism, and afterlife beliefs. One
scholar stands out, however, for his effort to identify
basic themes in attitudes toward death over an
extended period. Phillipe Aries had already made
substantial contributions to the history of family life
(1987) and the social construction of childhood
(1962). Aries’ influential work (1981) energized the
study of death from a historical perspective. He
attempted to reconstruct the history of European
death attitudes, focusing on approximately a
thousand years after the introduction of Christian-
ity up to the present time. He drew most of his
observations from burial practices and rituals
surrounding the end of life. Aries’ book is a treasure
of information regarding how our ancestors lived
with death.
What does Aries extract from this daunting mass
of observations? Four psychological themes and
their variations: awareness of the individual; the defense
of society against untamed nature; the belief in an afterlife;
and belief in the existence of evil. These themes have
unfolded through the centuries.
Death was primarily a community event in the
earliest human societies. The community or tribe
could be seriously weakened by the loss of its mem-
bers, and the survivors feared even more for their
4 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
lives. Nature was dangerous, so the death of the
individual was relatively “tame.” How the com-
munity would keep itself strong and viable was the
challenge.
Ritualization was a way of protecting fragile
human society from the uncontrollable perils of
nature and malevolent gods. Death and the dead had
to be dealt with constantly. Much of the danger
resided in potential harm from the dead, who might
return with a vengeance. The dead as well as death
were tamed by requiring them to return only under
specified occasions and conditions. Mostly, the early
Christian dead were assigned the role of peaceful
sleepers. Speak not ill of them.
About a thousand years into the Christian era,
a darker shadow fell over prevailing attitudes: the
death of the self became the most intense concern.
People became more aware of themselves as
individuals. This was associated with a heightened
sense of vulnerability. It was their very own life, their
very own soul that was at stake. And there was a
lot more to life. The quality of life was improving,
so people were reluctant to surrender the pleasures
of earthly life unless postmortem bliss was assured.
The hour of death became the most important hour of life.
The Ave Maria became a fervent prayer for a good
death. Death was no longer simply a natural part of
life: it was make-or-break with individual destiny.
This transformation became evidence in burial
practices: the body and face were now covered and
concealed, taken out of nature.
Next came what might be called twisted death.
Rationalism and science were contributing to an
increasingly progressive and sophisticated world-
view; however, at the same time, death became more
entwined with both violence and sexuality. In other
words, death had become strange, alien, and
sometimes perverted.
Furthermore, a specific dark fear becomes “viral”
throughout the world: being buried alive. Horror is
on the loose as people recoil but are fascinated at the
image of life and death so closely mingled, perhaps
with forbidden sexuality as a terrifying temptation.
Sex and death would remain strange bedfellows as
a cross-cultural theme still having its say.
Attitude change did not stop at this point.
Next into prominence came the death of the other.
This took place within the context of widespread
technological advances and the growing importance
of family life and privacy. People lived more as
members of a tight-knit family than as cogs in the
larger society. Death had become more personal—
individual grief breaking through communal ritual.
“What the survivors mourned was no longer the
fact of dying but the physical separation from
the deceased” (Aries, 1981, p. 610). Death now was
neither tame nor wild. It could be viewed as a
beautiful adventure. This social reconstruction of
death was made possible by the dismissal of purg-
atory, Hell, and an eternity of suffering. Death was
revisioned as a guilt-free trip. One could therefore
contemplate the mysteries and wondrous trans-
formations rather than tremble at the threshold of
damnation. Best of all, death meant reunion with
loved ones. Heaven had been improved with an
extreme makeover that promised reunion with loved
ones, a projection of the earthly good life into a
forever space.
Next? The invisible death made its impact in the
nineteenth century and continues its dominance
today. It does not revoke the death of the other, but
takes us to a different place in the mind. “Death
became dirty, and then it became medicalized”
(p. 612). Why? Because “success” had become every-
thing. The opposite of absolute success was absolute
failure, and that was the new role assigned to
death. This meant that it was a kindness to protect
people from knowledge of their imminent death:
enter denial! Avoidance, misrepresentation, and
denial had an effect that could hardly have been
more unthinkable in earlier eras. It was spiritual
deprivation—deprived of the opportunity for that
transformative deathbed moment. Distracted from
their own final passage and shorn of interpersonal
support and communal ritual, people now died
neither in grace nor in peril of damnation. If death
were no longer an evil, it was no longer a sacred pass-
age either. It was just, well, failure of the machine.
Aries offers many examples in support of his
conclusions. His book is little short of a revelation
for those who have never attended to the connec-
tion between our social constructions and how we
live and die. Nevertheless, Aries’ conclusions have
not escaped challenge. It is possible to read history
in more than one way. Perhaps he emphasized
one source of data too much while ignoring others.

In any event, he does not delve into the history of
death attitudes and practices in Africa, Asia, and
the Pacific Islands. A fair assessment is that Aries
has made a remarkable contribution for one scholar
as he pioneered a vast and neglected realm of human
experience.
For a brief, intensive immersion in the history
of death, a top recommendation is Barbara W.
Tuchman’s (1978) authoritative and richly illustrated
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Here
we find death raw, up close, and personal, and in
command of town and country, crown and church.
Another informative read is John R. Hall’s (2009)
Apocalypse. He traces the history of doom-saying
from antiquity to the twenty-first century. If you have
ever wondered about the end of the world, here is
the opportunity to catch up with what others have
been imagining through the centuries. Many entries
on specific historical developments are offered in
the encyclopedias listed at the end of this chapter.
Our books, Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs
and Experiences in World Religions (Moreman, 2017),
which offers an overview of afterlife beliefs from a
wide range of major religious traditions and also
explores the purported evidence for an afterlife from
individual experiences, and On Our Way: The Final
Passage Through Life and Death (Kastenbaum, 2004),
are both excellent resources to consult.
Philosophers were most active in pondering
death when abstract thought burst through with
unprecedented enthusiasm during the Golden Age
of Greek antiquity. Socrates himself suggested that
all philosophy was ultimately geared towards
death. What is the world made of? What is really
real, and what is illusion? How do we know any-
thing, and how do we know that we know it? What
is the good? And what are we to make of this limited
run on Earth? For a reliable overview of the current
state of philosophical discourses surrounding death,
see Stephen Luper’s Cambridge Companion to Life and
Death (2014), and also Luper’s own text on The
Philosophy of Death (2009). As a challenging sample
of early philosophical thought, here is what one
maverick passed along:
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us,
since so long as we exist, death is not with us, but
when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 5
then concern either the living or the dead, since for
the former it is not and the latter are no more.
(Epicurus, third century B.C.)
Neither the living nor the dead should be
concerned about death. Instead, we should cultivate
a pleasurable life of learning and friendship.
Epicurus illustrated this approach by creating a
garden community that welcomed people of all
backgrounds who wanted to live here and now in
a peaceful and friendly manner. It is said that,
remarkably, this community endured for 500 years.
Is that a philosophy we should live by—are we
entitled too, or are we condemned to worry about
our mortal endings?
NOT THINKING ABOUT DEATH:
A FAILED EXPERIMENT
As a society, we have tried not thinking about death.
Most of us completed our school days without
being exposed to substantial readings and
discussions about dying, death, grief, and suicide.
Who would have taught us, anyway? Our teachers
were products of the same never-say-die society.
Death did surface sporadically as an event remote
from our own experiences. For example, X many
gunmen murdered each other in a famous shoot-out.
Some king or other died and somebody else grabbed
the throne on a date we might need to remember
for the exam. Occasionally, interesting people died
or people died in interesting ways; otherwise, death
had little to do with us.
Students who persevered to a graduate degree
received only further lessons in death avoidance.
Nurses, physicians, psychologists, social workers,
and others who would be relied on to provide human
services were not helped to understand their own
death-related feelings, let alone anybody else’s.
During these long years, even clergy often felt un-
prepared to cope with the death-related situations
they would face. Few of their instructors had them-
selves mastered the art of ministering to the dying.
The media also cooperated. Nobody died. Nobody
had cancer. Lucky “Nobody”! Instead, people would
“pass away” after a “long illness.” Deaths associated
with crime and violence received lavish attention,
6 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
then as now, but silence had settled over the deaths
of everyday people. When a movie script called for
a deathbed scene, Hollywood would offer a senti-
mental and sanitized version. A typical example
occurs in Till the Clouds Go By (1946), a film that
purported to be the biography of songwriter Jerome
Kern. A dying man tries to communicate to a friend
his realization that this will be the last time they see
each other, but the visitor obeys the Hollywood
dictum of avoidance and pretense. As a result, the
friends never actually connect, never offer significant
words of parting to each other. A physician then
enters the room and nods gravely to the friend, who
immediately departs. Another mortal lesson from
Hollywood: The moment of death belongs to the
doctor, not to the dying person and the bereaved.
Audiences today see this scene as shallow and
deceptive. One student spoke for many others in
complaining, “It was as phony as can be—what a
terrible way to end a relationship!” A new question
has arisen, though: Does the fascination with grisly
corpses and mangled body parts on television
programs such as CSI literally depersonalize death?
In “Dead,” an episode of Viceland’s documentary
series, Balls Deep, Thomas Morton remarks on how
much easier the autopsy becomes the more parts of
the body are removed and the less the remaining
masses of flesh resemble a person. Is immersion in
gory details just another maneuver to avoid emo-
tional confrontation with the death of a person?
Not thinking about death was a failure. People
continued to die, and how they died became an
increasing source of concern. Survivors continued
to grieve, often feeling a lack of understanding and
support from others. Suicide rates doubled, then
tripled, among the young, and remained excep-
tionally high among older adults. Scattered voices
warned us that in attempting to evade the reality of
death, we were falsifying the totality of our lives.
Who were we kidding? Neither an individual nor a
society could face its challenges wisely without
coming to terms with mortality.
It is still difficult to think about death, especially
when our own lives and relationships are involved.
Nevertheless, enforced silence and frantic evasion
seem to be less pervasive. There is an increasing
readiness to listen and communicate.
Listening and Communicating
More physicians are now listening and com-
municating. Patients and family members feel more
empowered to express their concerns, needs, and
wishes. Physicians feel more compelled to take these
concerns, needs, and wishes into account.
Some people have a ready-made answer that
dismisses open discussion of death: “There’s nothing
to think about. When your number’s up, it’s up.” This
idea goes back a long way. The Ancient Greeks
spoke of the Three Fates—Clothos, Lachesis, and
Atropos—minor divinities that spun, measured, and
cut the string of each person’s life. It is part of that
general view of life known as fatalism. Outcomes are
determined in advance. There’s nothing we can do
to affect the outcomes, so why bother? There is some-
thing to be said for respecting the limits of human
knowledge and efficacy. But there is also something
to be said for doing what we can to reduce suffering
and risk within our limits. The person who is quick
to introduce a fatalistic statement often is attempting
to end the discussion before it really begins. It is what
communication experts call a silencer.
Fatalistic attitudes in today’s world are perhaps
more dangerous than ever. As we will see, many
deaths in the United States can be attributed to
lifestyle. Our attitudes, choices, and actions con-
tribute to many other deaths across the entire life
span. Ironically, it is the belief that there is no use
in thinking about death and taking life-protective
measures that increase the probability of an
avoidable death.
YOUR SELF-INVENTORY OF
ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, AND
FEELINGS
We have touched briefly on a few of the death-
related questions and beliefs that are current in
our society. Perhaps some of your own thoughts
and feelings have come to mind. One of the most
beneficial things you can do for yourself at this point
is to take stock of your present experiences, attitudes,
beliefs, and feelings. This will give you not only a
personal data baseline but will also contribute further

to your appreciation of the ways in which other
people view death.
Before reading further, please begin sampling
your personal experiences with death by com-
pleting Self-Inventories 1–4. Try to notice what
thoughts and feelings come to mind as you answer
these questions. Which questions make you angry?
Which questions would you prefer not to answer?
Which questions seem foolish, or make you want
to laugh? Observing your own responses is part of
the self-monitoring process that has been found
invaluable by many of the people who work
systematically with death-related issues.
Each of the inventories takes a distinctive per-
spective. We begin with your knowledge base,
sampling the information you have acquired
Inventory 1
Your Knowledge Base
Fill in the blanks or select alternative answers as accurately as you can. If you are not sure of the answer,
offer your best guess.
1. Your friend wants to live as long as possible—
and would change species to do it.
Which of the following species has the longest
verified life span?
a. Bat _________
b. Cat _________
c. Lobster _________
d. Queen termite _________
2. Most baby boomers:
a. Do not believe in Heaven _________
b. Believe in Heaven, but not in ghosts
_________
c. Believe in Heaven, but do not expect to
go there _________
d. Believe in Heaven, and expect to go
there_________
3. How many deaths are there in the United States
each year? ________
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 7
regarding various facets of death. This is followed
by exploring your attitudes and beliefs. We then
move on to your personal experiences with death.
Finally, we look at the feelings that are stirred in
you by dying, death, and grief. Our total view of
death comprises knowledge, attitudes, experiences,
and feelings—and it is useful to identify each of
these components accurately. For example, if I fail
to distinguish between my personal feelings and
my actual knowledge of a death-related topic, I
thereby reduce my ability to make wise decisions
and take effective actions.
Please complete the Self-Inventories now.
4. The leading cause of death for the population in
general is ________
5. A person born in the United States a century
ago had an average life expectancy (ALE) of
about ________ years.
6. A person born in the United States today has
an ALE of about _________ years.
7. In the nation of _________, ALE dropped from
69 in 1987 to only 41 in 2002. Why?
8. There is a new entry among the ten leading
causes of death in the United States. This is
___________
9. What is the leading cause of fatal accidental
injuries in the United States? __________
10. A seriously ill person is in the hospital and not
expected to recover. How much time is this
person likely to spend alone each 24-hour day?
Continued
8 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
11. Homicide rates in the United States have been
consistently highest in:
New England _______
Mountain states _______
Southern states _______
West north central states _______
12. Does your state recognize an advance directive
for end-of-life medical care as a legal and
enforceable document?
Yes _______ No _______
13. A suicide attempt is most likely to result in death
when made by a/an:
a. Young woman
b. Young man
c. Elderly woman
d. Elderly man
14. Cryonic suspension is a technique that is
intended to preserve a body in a hypothermic
(low-temperature) state until a cure is
discovered for the fatal condition. How many
people have actually been placed in cryonic
suspension, and how many revived? ________
15. The earliest childhood memory reported by
most adults is an experience of ________.
16. The number of states that have legalized
physician-assisted death is ________.
Answers to self-inventory questions are found later in this chapter. Not going to peek, are you?
Inventory 2
My Attitudes and Beliefs
Select the answer that most accurately represents your belief.
1. I believe in some form of life after death:
Yes, definitely ______
Yes, but not quite sure ______
No, but not quite sure ______
No, definitely ______
17. Palliative care most often has relief from
________ as its top priority.
18. In the United States, cremation is now chosen
by about one person in ________.
19. Near-death experience reports have several key
elements in common. How many can you
name? ________
20. Jack Kevorkian, M.D., “assisted” in the death of
more than 100 people. How many of these
people were terminally ill? ________
21. “Periodic mass extinctions” have totally
eliminated many species and taken a
tremendous toll of life. The three most recent
mass die-offs are thought to have been caused
by _______.
22. The Harvard Criteria offered an influential guide
to the diagnosis of ________.
23. ________is the philosopher who turned
down the opportunity to escape his unjust
execution, and instead used the occasion to
explain to his friends why death should not
be feared.
24. PTSD has been receiving increased media
attention lately. What is it? ________
2. I believe that you die when your number comes
up. It’s in the hands of fate.
Yes, definitely ______
Yes, but not quite sure ______

No, but not quite sure ______
No, definitely ______
3. I believe that taking one’s own life is:
Never justified ______
Justified when terminally ill ______
Justified whenever life no longer seems
worth living ______
4. I believe that taking another person’s life is:
Never justified ______
Justified in defense of your own life ______
Justified when that person has committed a
terrible crime ______
5. I believe that dying people should be:
Told the truth about their condition
______
Kept hopeful by sparing them the facts
______
Depends upon the person and the
circumstances ______
6. In thinking about my own old age, I would
prefer:
To die before I grow old ______
To live as long as I can ______
To discover what challenges and
opportunities old age will bring ______
7. To me, the possibility of nuclear warfare or
accidents that might destroy much of life on
Earth has been of:
No concern ______
Little concern ______
Some concern ______
Major concern ______
8. To me, the possibility of environmental
catastrophes that might destroy much of life
on Earth has been of:
No concern ______
Little concern ______
Some concern ______
9. Drivers and passengers should be required to
wear seat belts.
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 9
Yes, agree ______
Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______
No, disagree ______
10. The availability of handguns should be more
tightly controlled to reduce accidental and
impulsive shootings.
Yes, agree ______
Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______
No, disagree ______
11. A person has been taken to the emergency
room with internal bleeding that is likely to
prove fatal. This person is 82 years of age and
has an Alzheimer’s disease-type dementia.
What type of response would you recommend
from the ER staff?
Comfort only ______
Limited attempt at rescue ______
All-out attempt at rescue ______
12. You have been taken to the emergency room
with internal bleeding that is likely to prove
fatal. You are now 82 years of age and have an
Alzheimer’s disease-type dementia. What type
of response would you hope you receive from
the ER staff?
Comfort only ______
Limited attempt at rescue ______
All-out attempt at rescue______
13. Another round of chemotherapy has failed
for a woman with advanced breast cancer.
The doctor suggests a new round of
experimental therapy. She replies, “I wish
I were dead.” What do you think should be
done—and why?
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
10 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death

Inventory 3

My Experiences with Death

Fill in the blanks or select the most accurate alternative answers.

1. A. I have had an animal companion who died. Several people ________

Yes No Many people ________

B. How I felt when my pet died can be 9. I have provided care for a dying person.
described by words such as __________ and Never _______
__________. One person _________
Several people ________
2. The following people in my life have died:
Many people ________
Person How Long Ago?
A. _______________________ _______________ 10. I have known a person who attempted suicide.
B. _______________________ _______________ Not to my knowledge ______
One person ______
C. _______________________ _______________
Several people ______
D. _______________________ _______________
11. I have known a person who committed suicide.
E. _______________________ _______________
Not to my knowledge ______
3. The death that affected me the most at the time One person ______
was ____________. Several people ______
4. How I felt when this person died can be 12. I have known a person who died in an accident.
described by words such as ________ and Not to my knowledge ______
________. One person ______
5. This death was especially significant to me Several people ______
because ________________________________ 13. I have known a person who was murdered.
________________________________________
Never ______
________________________________________
One person ______
________________________________________
Several people ______
6. In all the circumstances surrounding this
14. I have known a person who died of AIDS-related
person’s death, including what happened
disease.
afterward, my most positive memory is of
Not to my knowledge ______
____________________________________
One person ______
7. My most disturbing memory is of Several people ______
________________________________________
15. I know a person who has tested positive for the
________________________________________
AIDS virus.
8. I have conversed with dying people. Not to my knowledge ______
Never _______ One person ______
One person _________ Several people ______
 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 11

Inventory 4

My Feelings
Select the answer that most closely represents your feelings.

1. I would feel comfortable in developing an 8. I fear that I will die too soon.
intimate conversation with a dying person. Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______ Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
9. I have no fear of death as such.
2. I would hesitate to touch someone who was Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
dying. Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
10. I have no fears associated with dying.
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
3. My hands would tremble if I were talking to a Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
dying person.
11. I feel good when I think about life after death.
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______ Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
4. I would have more difficulty in talking if the
dying person was about my age. 12. I am anxious about the possible death of
somebody I love.
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______ Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
5. I would avoid talking about death and dying
with a person who was terminally ill. 13. I am grieving over somebody who has already
died.
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______ Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
6. I would avoid talking with a dying person if
possible. 14. I have a hard time taking death seriously: It feels
remote to me, and not really connected to my
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
own life.
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
7. I have had moments of anxiety in which I think Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______
of my own death.
Never ______ Once ______ 15. I have some strong, even urgent, feelings
Several times ______ Often ______ regarding death these days.
Yes, agree ______ Tend to agree ______
Tend to disagree ______ No, disagree ______

Note: Questions 1–6 are part of a scale introduced and updated by Bert Hayslip.
12 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
SOME ANSWERS—AND THE
QUESTIONS THEY RAISE
Here are the answers to Self-Inventory #1:
1. Lobster it is, at age 170. Bat, 30; cat, 36; queen
termite, 50 (Kirkwood, 2010). If lobstering
does not satisfy your friend, suggest morphing
into a bristlecone pine tree, some of which
have survived for thousands of years. Perhaps
you can outdo your friend as a hydra, which is
(theoretically) immortal.
2. Most members of the baby boomer generation
believe in ghosts and in their own acceptance into
Heaven, though they judge that many other
people will not make it (Chapter 13).
3. More than 2 million people die in the United
States each year. The most recent data report lists
2,626,418 deaths (Chapter 3).
4. Heart disease continues to be the leading cause
of death in the United States (Chapter 3).
5. A person born in the United States in 1900 had
an ALE of 47 years (Chapter 3).
6. A person born in the United States today has an
ALE of nearly 79 years (Chapter 3).
7. Zimbabwe, beset by AIDS, poverty, and societal
disorder, suffered a severe reduction in ALE
(Chapter 3), after having previously achieved
one of the highest levels ever in Africa. Since
2002, ALE has increased back to 59 due to
international efforts to address the HIV/AIDS
epidemic there. HIV/AIDS remains the primary
cause of death in Zimbabwe and other parts of
Africa.
8. Alzheimer’s disease has become the sixth leading
cause of death in the United States, an unfor-
tunate consequence of the aging of the popu-
lation and the limited success so far in preventing
or treating this condition (Chapter 3).
9. In 2014, the year for which we have the most
recent data, 135,928 Americans died due to
unintentional injuries. The primary type of acci-
dental injury resulted from poisoning (42,032
deaths), which includes alcohol and drug
overdoses. Car accidents accounted for 33,736
deaths, while falling caused 31,959 deaths. Fire-
arms accidents resulted in only 461 deaths
(Chapter 3).
10. Seriously and terminally ill people were alone
almost 19 hours a day, according to a hospital
study (Chapter 4).
11. Homicide rates have been consistently the
highest in Southern states (Chapter 9). Outside
of Washington, DC (which had a 2015 murder
rate of 24.2 per 100,000), Louisiana is the state
with the highest murder rate at 10.3, followed
by Mississippi (8.7), Maryland (8.6), Missouri
(8.3), South Carolina (8.2), Alaska (8), and
Alabama (7.2). In total, in 2014 there were 15,872
murders committed in the United States, among
which 11,008 committed by firearm.
12. Yes—all states do! (Chapter 6).
13. A suicide attempt is most likely to be fatal when
it is made by an elderly man (Chapter 7).
14. Fewer than 100 human bodies have been
placed in cryonic suspension worldwide, and no
known attempts have been made to resuscitate
(Chapter 6).
15. A death or other loss experience is most often
the earliest childhood memory recalled by adults
(Chapter 10).
16. Six (plus one District). These are: California,
Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washing-
ton, and the District of Columbia. New York is
currently considering similar legislation, and
the issue has been debated across the country
(Chapter 9).
17. Relief from pain is most often the top priority
for palliative care or hospice programs. Relief
from other symptoms is also provided as much
as possible (Chapter 5).
18. About 48 percent of people in the United States
now choose cremation. There is much variation
in frequency of choosing cremation within the
United States and among nations (Chapter 12).
19. Many people who report having had a near-
death experience (NDE) describe seeing deceased
loved ones, a being of light, a tunnel leading to
a bright light, and feel as though they are outside
of their own bodies (Chapter 13).
20. Less than a third of the patients whose lives
Kevorkian helped to end were actually termin-
ally ill at the time (Chapter 9).

21. Scientists now believe that asteroids were
responsible for the three most recent mass
die-offs or extinctions, though other theories
continue to be debated, including climate
change, flooding, volcanic activity, and others
(Chapter 15).
22. The Harvard Criteria have been applied to
determine whether a nonresponsive person
should be considered brain-dead (Chapter 2).
23. Socrates (Chapter 15).
24. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a disabling con-
dition that is related to overwhelming experi-
ences, such as warfare and disaster (Chapter 3).
Attitudes, Experiences, Beliefs,
Feelings
Attitudes refer to our action tendencies. I am ready
or not ready to act. I am ready to approach or to
avoid this situation. Beliefs refer to our worldview.
Fatalism, already mentioned, is one type of belief.
Feelings provide us with qualitative information, a
status report on our sense of being. I feel safe
or endangered, happy or sorrowful, aroused or
lethargic. Two people may hold identical beliefs
and attitudes but differ greatly in their feelings.
On Inventory 2, question 10, for example, these
two people may answer, “Yes, agree: The availability
of handguns should be more tightly controlled
to reduce accidental and impulsive shootings.”
However, one of these people may have relatively
little feeling attached to this view. Perhaps this
person thinks that it is risky to have a lot of handguns
around on general principles. The other person might
be the widow of a physician who was shot to death
by an emotionally disturbed person who did not
even know him. Her feelings could hardly be more
intense. (This is a real person, the former owner of
a home my wife and I [Robert] purchased. Incredible
as it may seem, the young widow herself became
the recipient of death threats because she spoke up
in favor of gun control.)
Personal experience influences our attitudes,
beliefs, and feelings. For example, people who
have had near-death experiences while in a life-
threatening situation often develop a different
perspective on life and death (Chapter 14). A
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 13
paramedic who has responded to a thousand motor
vehicle accidents is likely to have a stronger attitude
and more intense feelings when noticing children
without seat belts in a car. A person who has never
suffered the death of a loved one may be more
impatient with a bereaved colleague who does not
seem to “snap back” right away.
There is a profound experiential difference between
people who have had a personally significant death and
those for whom death has remained a distant topic, or
even just a word. Death stopped being just a word
for a graduate student of social work when both her
parents were killed in an automobile accident. She
could not go on with her own life until she fully
realized their deaths as well as her own mortality.
“Before all this happened, it was just a word to me,
death. I could hear death. I could say death. Really,
though, it was just a word. Now it’s like something
under my own skin, if you know what I mean.”
Simply knowing intellectually that people die was
not enough; she now had to connect death with life
in a very personal way.
This challenge is ours as well. If we have
experienced a death that “got” to us—whether the
death of a person or an animal companion—then
we are also more likely to realize what other people
have been going through. This is one of the most
powerful dynamics at work in community support
groups. Organizations such as Compassionate
Friends and Widow-to-Widow provide emotional
support for bereaved persons from those who have
already experienced the sorrow and stress of loss.
New support groups continue to be formed to help
people with specific types of death-related stress
(for parents whose child has been killed by a drunk
driver or for persons with AIDS). However, there
are limits to the value of experience. Just because a
person has had a particular kind of loss experience
does not necessarily enhance his or her ability to
support others. Furthermore, some people have
proven helpful to the dying, the grieving, and the
suicidal, even if they have not had very similar
experiences in their lives. The basic point to consider
is whether at this time in your life you are someone
who has experienced death in an undeniably
personal way, or whether you still have something
of an outsider’s perspective.
14 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
Some people have an inner relationship with
death that goes beyond basic realization. The sense
of being dominated or haunted by death can emerge
from one critical experience or from a cluster of
experiences. Perhaps you have mourned the deaths
of so many people that you could not even list them
in the space provided. Perhaps several people died
unexpectedly at the same time. Perhaps you are still
responding strongly to the death of one person who
had been at the center of your life. The question
of whether your life is being highly influenced by
death-related experiences cannot be answered by
examining a simple list. We would need to appreciate
what these people meant to you, and what lingers
in your mind regarding the deaths themselves, the
funeral, and the memorialization process. Further-
more, we would need to examine your own
involvement in the situation. Perhaps you have a
vivid memory of your last visits with a person who
was a very important part of your life. On the other
hand, perhaps you were thousands of miles away
when this person died and had no opportunity to
be with your loved one. We may be much influenced
by how a person has died as well as by the fact of
death itself. A death by suicide, for example, has
often been considered tainted, resulting in additional
stress and social isolation for the bereaved family.
How Does State of Mind Affect Death-
Related Behavior?
Much remains to be learned about the link between
what goes on in our minds and how we actually
behave in death-related situations. Here are a few
studies that have addressed some of the questions:
• The living will: why most of the living won’t.
The document known as the living will (Chapter 6)
has been available since 1968. Although this docu-
ment was designed to meet the growing public
interest in controlling end-of-life decisions, most
people did not choose to use it. Why? VandeCreek
and Frankowski (1996) found that most people had
not thought much about their own deaths and also
believed that their last days were a long way off.
The authors conclude that “completing living wills
connotes personal death, and this appears to be a
substantial barrier to completing the document”
(1996, p. 80). Over the past few years there has been
an increase in the number of people signing an
advance health care directive (a successor to the
living will) because this option is now part of
established hospital policy—but many hospital
personnel still have not gotten around to completing
their own document because, well, they’d rather not
think about it. Spoelhof and Elliot (2012) identified
physician discomfort with the topic and patient
expectation that the physician should begin the
discussion as barriers to the writing of advance
directives. Ask your favorite health-care provider if
he or she has completed a living will or other
advance directive: It could be an interesting
conversation.
• Should I sign an organ donation card?
All states, as well as the District of Columbia, have
enacted some version of the Uniform Anatomical
Gift Act (Chapter 6). Despite the widespread avail-
ability of the organ donation option in association
with the driver’s license, relatively few people sign
and carry organ donor cards (Lock, 2002). Personal
attitudes play a major role in this decision. Non-
donors tend to be more anxious about death and to
have the specific fear of being declared dead
prematurely (Robbins, 1990). Additionally, people
who think of themselves as effective and self-reliant
are more likely to sign the donation cards. The
decision to donate organs to save another person’s
life seems closely related to the individual’s general
attitude, spiritual beliefs, and personal fears and
anxieties. A great deal of current research has been
directed to finding ways to increase comfort with
becoming an organ donor.
• Stepping off the curb.
Is there a relationship between state of mind and
risk-taking behavior in everyday life? Laura Briscoe
and I (Kastenbaum & Briscoe, 1975) observed 125
people as they crossed a busy street between the
Detroit Art Institute and Wayne State University.
There were equal numbers of street crossers in five
risk categories. People classified as Type A, the safest
pedestrians, stood at the curb until the light changed
in their favor, scanned traffic in both directions,

“Briar Rose” (aka Sleeping Beauty) is only a kiss away
from waking to Prince Charming’s love, and living
happily ever after. Fantasy to the rescue when we don’t
feel up to facing reality!
entered the crosswalk, moved briskly across the
street, and checked out traffic from the opposite
direction lanes before reaching the halfway point.
At the opposite extreme were Type E pedestrians
who crossed in the middle of the block, stepped out
from between parked cars with the traffic lights
against them, and did not look at traffic in either
direction (miraculously, all 25 in this study did
survive their crossings). All street crossers were
interviewed when they reached the other side. The
observed street-crossing behavior was closely related
to their general attitudes toward risk taking. For
example, the high-risk pedestrians also classified
themselves as high-risk drivers, and judged that
they put their lives in jeopardy about 16 percent of
the time in an average week, as compared with only
2 percent for Type A crossers. The Type E crossers
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 15
were four times more likely than the Type A crossers
to have contemplated or attempted suicide. They also
reported a higher level of frustration with life. Within
the limits of this study, it was clear that people’s
general attitudes and feelings can be expressed in
behavior choices that either increase or decrease the
probability of death.
• In God they trust.
Cardiovascular surgery has come a long way in
recent years. Many distressing symptoms have
been relieved, many lives extended. Nevertheless,
the recovery and rehabilitation process is effortful
and sometimes punctuated by medical compli-
cations or episodes of discouragement. A thought-
provoking study (Ai, Park, Huang, Rodgers, & Tice,
2007) followed patients through their postoperative
period and found that those with “positive religious
coping styles” experienced less pain and distress.
These people were secure in their faith, trusting in
a higher and benevolent power. They were also able
to draw on social support from other people who
shared their faith and helped to sustain their hope.
Other studies have also hinted at improved health
outcomes, including reduced mortality, for people
with secure religious faith and peer support. (Ozden
& Gulten, 2013). Doubt and conflict in religious belief
seems to have a negative effect on health outcomes,
although more research is needed to firmly establish
these findings.
MAN IS MORTAL: BUT WHAT
DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH
ME?
Our attitudes toward life and death are challenged
when a person close to us dies. In The Death of Ivan
Ilych, Leo Tolstoy provides an insightful portrait of
the confusions and urgencies that can afflict
everybody in the situation. Consider just one passage
from a novel that has lost none of its pertinence and
power over the last century:
The thought of the sufferings of the man he had
known so intimately, first as a schoolmate, and later
16 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
as a grown-up colleague, suddenly struck Peter
Ivanovich with horror . . . “Three days of frightful
suffering, then death! Why, that might suddenly, at
any moment, happen to me,” he thought, and for a
moment felt terrified. But—he himself did not know
how—the customary reflection at once occurred to
him, that this had happened to Ivan Ilych and not to
him. . . . After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt
reassured, and began to ask with interest about the
details of Ivan Ilych’s death, as though death were
an accident natural to Ivan Ilych, but certainly not
to himself (1960, pp. 101–102).
Peter Ivanovich knows that we are all called
mortals for a good reason. Yet he is playing a
desperate game of evasion. Consider some of the
elements in Peter Ivanovich’s response:
1. He already knows of Ivan Ilych’s death, but it is
only on viewing the corpse that the realization
of death strikes him. There is a powerful
difference between intellectual knowledge and
emotional realization. For one panicked moment,
Peter feels that he himself is vulnerable. How
could that be?
2. Peter Ivanovich immediately becomes concerned
for Peter Ivanovich. His feelings do not center
on the man who has lost his life or the woman
who has lost her husband.
3. Yet he cannot admit that his outer line of defenses
has been penetrated. He is supposed to show
concern for others, not let them see his own
distress. Furthermore, he hopes to leave this
house of death with the confidence that death
has been left safely behind.
4. Peter Ivanovich’s basic strategy here is to dif-
ferentiate himself from Ivan Ilych. Yes, some
people really do die, but not people like himself.
The proof was in the fact that Peter was the
vertical and mobile man while Ivan (that luckless,
inferior specimen) was horizontal and immobile.
We witness Peter Ivanovich, then, stretching and
tormenting his logic in the hope of arriving at
an anxiety-reducing conclusion.
5. Once Peter Ivanovich has quelled his momentary
panic, he is able to discuss Ivan Ilych’s death.
Even so, he is more interested in factual details
than in feelings and meanings. He has started to
rebuild the barriers between himself and death.
Whatever he learns about how his friend died
Count Leo Tolstoy,
author of The Death of
Ivan Ilych and other
powerful novels,
entrances his
grandchildren with a
more lighthearted story.

will strengthen this barrier: all that was true of
Ivan obviously is not applicable to him.
These evasive strategies, and others, are not
confined to the pages of a Russian novel. You might
see them in operation when people in your life are
confronted by what researchers today refer to as
mortality salience. How will you deal with these
situations?
ANXIETY, DENIAL, AND
ACCEPTANCE: THREE CORE
CONCEPTS
Three concepts that are central to understanding
death attitudes are interwoven through this excerpt
from Tolstoy’s masterpiece. Peter Ivanovich felt
tense, distressed, unwell, and apprehensive. Death
anxiety is the term most often applied to such
responses. Anxiety is a condition that seeks its own
relief. To reduce the painful tension, a person might
try many different actions—taking drugs or alcohol,
for example, or fleeing from the situation. One form
of avoiding death anxiety has received most of the
attention from counselors and researchers: denial.
This is a response that rejects certain key features of
reality in the attempt to avoid or reduce anxiety.
Peter Ivanovich denies the basic fact that he is as
mortal as Ivan Ilych in order to distance himself from
the death.
Many writers have urged that we should accept
death. However, it is not always clear what they
mean by acceptance: How does this response differ
from resignation or depression? Precisely what
should we accept—and on whose authority? And
what is it that makes acceptance the most desirable
response? Does a “good death” (Chapter 15) require
acceptance? In Tolstoy’s novel, Ivan Ilych even-
tually does achieve a sense of acceptance, but
Peter Ivanovich seems to be as self-deceived and
befuddled as ever.
Anxiety, denial, and acceptance are not the only
death attitudes that we encounter, although most
research has concentrated on these concepts. People
often experience depression and a sense of loss when
death is near. Although sorrow and anxiety are both
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 17
distressing states of being, neither can be reduced
to the other, and both can be experienced at once
(Kastenbaum & Heflick, 2010–2011). Sorrow is
oriented toward the past, anxiety toward the future.
Furthermore, neuroscientists (Izard, 2009; Mobbs,
Petrovic, Marchant, & Hassabis, 2007) are finding
that strong emotional states have differential path-
ways of operation. Still another strategy is to identify
with death. Some people attempt to reduce their own
death anxieties by joining forces with death and
killing others, whether in reality or in games and
fantasies. How much harm have people done to
each other when they have tried to control their
own anxiety by becoming instruments of death?
STUDIES AND THEORIES OF
DEATH ANXIETY
Death anxiety has attracted much attention from
researchers and theorists. What has been learned?
We will review the main findings, and then acquaint
ourselves with the theories and their implications.
Self-report questionnaires are widely used in
studies of death anxiety. Self-report instruments
have the advantage of brevity, convenience, and
simple quantitative results. There are limitations to
what we can learn from them, however (Kasten-
baum, 2000b):
1. Low scores on death anxiety scales are difficult
to interpret. Do they mean low anxiety or high
denial?
2. How high is high anxiety, and what is a “normal”
level? Little has been learned about the level of
death anxiety that is most adaptive in various
situations because little information is acquired
about how the questionnaire responses relate to
real-life behavior.
3. Respondents often are selected opportunistically.
College students continue to be overrepresented,
and members of ethnic and racial minorities
continue to be underrepresented.
4. The typical study is a one-shot affair. How the
same respondents might express their attitudes
at another time or in another situation is seldom
explored.
18 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
Despite these limitations, some findings have been
obtained repeatedly and are worth our attention.
Death anxiety research has also become somewhat
more sophisticated in recent years.
MAJOR FINDINGS FROM SELF-
REPORTS OF DEATH ANXIETY
Several patterns have emerged from self-report
studies of death anxiety.
How Much Do We Fear Death?
Self-report studies consistently find a low to
moderate level of death anxiety. Should we take
these results at face value? Or should we suspect
that most people are trying to convince themselves
and others that death holds no terror? However we
interpret the results, it appears that most people do
not consider themselves to be very anxious about
death as they go about their everyday lives. I (Robert)
am inclined to believe that the self-report instruments
measure death anxiety only when the scores are
very high: when the respondent is in a genuine state
of alarm—and that seldom is the situation when the
questionnaire is presented.
The few studies that have used laboratory
experiments find that people could be cool, calm,
and collected on the verbal level while at the same
time experiencing a strong emotional response on
the neurophysiological level (e.g., Feifel & Brans-
comb, 1973; Cai, Tang, Wu, & Li, 2017). Most often,
though, we can only speculate about what the
respondents were feeling when they were providing
their moderate replies.
Are There Gender Differences in
Death Anxiety?
Women tend to have higher death anxiety scores
on self-report scales. This pattern is confirmed by a
survey of studies conducted in 15 nations (Lester,
Templer, & Abdel-Khalek, 2006–2007; cf. Pierce,
Cohen, Chambers, & Meade, 2007). Does this mean
that women tend to be “too” anxious? Probably not.
Women are more comfortable than men in dealing
openly with their thoughts and feelings on many
emotionally intense subjects, not only on those that
are death-related.
Over the years, I (Robert) have observed that
women almost always outnumber men decisively
in seminars and workshops that deal with dying,
death, and grief. I have met many more women
than men in hospice and other caregiving situations
as well (also see Chapter 5). If this is anxiety, perhaps
we should be grateful for it, since relatively few
“low death anxiety” men have responded to these
challenges. In any event, research findings reveal a
gender difference, but do not demonstrate that
women are “too” anxious. Most nurses reported a
higher level of death anxiety than the general pop-
ulation, yet they also accepted death as an integral
part of life. Furthermore, some of the anxiety could
be attributed to their limited training in caring for
people with life-threatening or terminal conditions
(Brisley & Wood, 2004). Level of death anxiety tells
us something, but not everything, about the way a
person interprets and responds to death-related
situations.
Are There Age Differences in Death
Anxiety?
Do we become more anxious as the years pass and
the distance from death decreases? If so, then elderly
adults might be expected to express a higher level
of death anxiety. Not so. Studies show either no age
differences or somewhat lower death anxiety for
elders. Having seen and learned much from life,
many people have come to terms with death as they
move through their later years. The fear of becoming
helpless and dependent on others may increase,
but with death itself regarded as a natural ending
to their lives. Elderly participants in a cardiac fitness
program were totally aware of their continuing
risk, but had found their own individual ways to
experience a meaningful life without the sharp edge
of death anxiety (Kastenbaum, 2010).
Episodes of intense death anxiety in elderly
people often are related to relationship loss, in-
creased health concerns, or uncertainties and also
often can be relieved when the person is helped to
feel safe again (Kastenbaum, 2000a). There is still

another side to death anxiety in the later adult years:
Some people experience so much distress from
bereavement, social isolation, financial concern,
and physical ailments that they feel ready to have
their lives come to an end (Kastenbaum, 2009a).
This attitude is also reflected in the high completed
suicide rates for elderly white men. Low death
anxiety might then be related to dissatisfaction with
the quality and prospects of life.
Death anxiety tends to be relatively high in
adolescence and early adulthood (Twelker, 2004;
Robin & Omar, 2014). The younger respondents also
had more specific worries about dying before they
could do everything they wanted to do, dying alone,
not being remembered, and what to expect after
death. It is possible that such concerns are moderated
as one’s life becomes more settled and predictable.
On the other hand, it is also possible that death
anxiety goes underground through much of the
adult life course, not so much overcome as sent back
to the closet. Death anxiety is apt to rise again in
later middle age, perhaps occasioned by the death
of friends and family and signs of one’s own aging.
After this rise, there is a decline to a new low in death
anxiety for people in their seventies.
A study by Russac, Gotliff, Reece, and Spotts-
wood (2007) gives us something else to think about.
Death anxiety peaked at around age 20 for both men
and women. It was also found that women—but not
men—experienced a secondary peak in death anxiety
as they entered their fifties. Death anxiety decreases
for women as they enter their sixties, and continues
relatively low for men. Why? The researchers suggest
that for women the age 50 spike is related to the end
of their reproductive careers and therefore a
depressing reminder that they are growing older.
They also note that the peak of death anxiety occurs
at the same time that men and women reach the
height of their reproductive capabilities. These are
the researchers’ speculations. What do you think?
Here Come the Boomers
Most of the studies reviewed here are cross-sectional.
In the Russac et al. study, for example, they were
not able to wait for 20-year-old respondents to
become 50 or 80 years old. It is probable that there
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 19
are generational as well as age differences at work.
The baby boomer generation is a case in point.
The term has usually been applied to people in the
United States and the United Kingdom who were
born between 1946 and 1964. Experts, however,
see two population waves with significantly differ-
ent cultural experiences (e.g., Gillon, 2004). Those
born soon after the end of World War II are the
true boomers because there are so many of them,
the product of a spike in the birth rate (roughly,
1945–1955). They became the first television-from-
the-cradle and rock-and-roll generations and came
of age during the Vietnam War era, with its tensions
and dissensions. By the mid-1960s, the population
increase had subsided, coincident with the newly
available birth control pills.
Babies no more, boomers are now eligible for
Social Security. Many have earned the right to be
called the sandwich generation because they have had
the challenge of caring for their long-lived parents
as well as their children. Aging is not popular with
this active and achieving generation. They are not
the first generation with the preference to stay young
and live forever (Grossman, 2000), but perhaps the
most dynamic in trying to accomplish this feat.
Boomers are falling into the many nets laid about
by researchers. Benton, Christopher, and Walter
(2007) have found a close connection between aging
anxiety and existential death anxiety (see also below).
Retirement can reduce social status and amputate
part of one’s identity. Other losses include the death
of family members and friends and physical changes
that the mirror impudently reports. There will be
more research and more insights from the boomers
themselves, but it is clear that belonging to a
particular generation influences our view of death
as well as our style of life.
Is Death Anxiety Related to Mental
Health and Illness?
Death anxiety that is high enough to be disabling
may warrant the attention of professional caregivers.
Generally, self-reported death anxiety is higher in
people with diagnosed psychiatric conditions. Death
anxiety can rush to the surface when a person’s ego
defenses are weakened and can no longer inhibit the
20 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
impulses, fears, and fantasies that are ordinarily
suppressed. However, death concern is not limited
to people who are emotionally disturbed. For exam-
ple, it is not unusual to experience an upsurge of
death anxiety when we realize how close we have
come to being killed in a motor vehicle accident. The
sudden, unexpected death of another person can
have a similar effect. Situations in which people feel
alone and unprotected can also arouse a passing
sense of separation anxiety, which often is indis-
tinguishable from death anxiety.
There are reasons to be both anxious about death
and to keep our anxiety within bounds. People with
a sound mental health status have learned to avoid
the extremes of too much anxiety and too heavy a
reliance on defenses against anxiety. It has also been
found that people with a knack for regulating their
thoughts in general are less likely to have anxious
and defensive responses to death-related situations
(Gailliot, Schmeichel, & Baumeister, 2006).
Does Religious Belief Lower or Raise
Death Anxiety?
The influence of religion in death anxiety has been
a subject of controversy for many years. Bronislaw
Malinowski (1948), a pioneering anthropologist,
concluded that religion has the basic function of
“High anxiety” has two
meanings: fear of heights and a
general state of elevated
apprehension and dread. This
steel worker 750 feet above New
York City’s famous Broadway
district seems well equipped,
mentally and equipment-wise,
to cope with at least the first
type of high anxiety.
reducing the individual’s intense fear of death. A
fellow anthropologist, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (1952)
came to just the opposite conclusion: Religion gives
rise to fear of evil spirits, punishment, torment, and
hell. Both sets of observations were based primarily
on an outsider’s observations of preliterate societies,
and leave untouched the question of whether or not
religion serves the same function in societies at a
higher level of general development.
There are substantial differences in religious
belief and practices. In many tribal societies, death
is believed to be followed by a life similar to the one
that has just been concluded (Chapter 13). There
may be anxiety about the journey through death
to the next life (Kastenbaum, 2004), but the outcome
is neither annihilation nor some frightening new
state of being. By contrast, spirit possession is a
major component in some religions, so interactions
between the living and the dead are vital concerns.
Fear of the dead may be more intense than fear of
death (Frazer, 1966). People in one society may fear
eternal damnation, while in another there might be
an intense taboo against contact with a dead body.
A longitudinal study in the United States (Wink
& Scott, 2005) found no support for the assumption
that highly religious people would report the lowest
level of death anxiety in their later adult years.
Strong religious belief did not provide an effective

buffer against fear of dying and death. People who
firmly believe or firmly disbelieve in religion and
an afterlife report less anxiety than those with doubts
or “moderate belief.” Other studies continue to find
otherwise, though. Morris and McAdie (2009), for
example, illustrate the ways that religion’s role in
death anxiety continues to confound. In their com-
parison of Christians, Muslims, and non-religious
they found that a strong religious identity equated
to a lowered death anxiety among Christians, but
that the reverse was true with Muslims—in the latter
case, stronger religious belief actually led to higher
levels of death anxiety. On the other hand, some
studies do suggest the importance of meaning in life
as a buffer for death anxiety, and religion can often
support such life-meaning. One study of elderly
participants in Iran (Taghiabadi, Kavosi, Mirhafez,
Keshvari, & Mehrabi, 2017) found that a sense of
spirituality, different from strict adherence to a
particular religious identity, did serve to buffer death
anxiety.
Religion seems to enter into our death orien-
tations in a complex manner. From a practical
perspective, we would probably be more effective
by learning how religion and death are associated
for a particular person or family. We would also
become aware of the many ways in which people
in the United States construct distinctive religious
ideas and practices from a variety of sources instead
of accepting one traditional view.
Situational Death Anxiety
The apprehension and restlessness we carry around
with us in everyday life is sometimes called trait
anxiety. Some of us are more “antsy” than others.
However, there are also situations that tend to make
most people more anxious. We are gradually learn-
ing more about situational factors in death anxiety
(Kastenbaum, 2009a).
Transitional situations often lead to a spike in
death anxiety. A list of transitional situations might
well begin with separation, divorce, and other types
of relationship loss. Even the exercise of imagining
separation from a relationship partner can lead to
more death-related thoughts (Mikulincer, Florian,
Birnbaum, & Malishkevich, 2002). Feeling aban-
Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death 21
doned increases our sense of vulnerability, which,
on the emotional map, is not far from fear of
mortality. Heightened death anxiety might pervade
society during periods of financial distress, violent
episodes, family separation because of military
action, and whatever else can shake a society’s
confidence in its values and competence. And very
little research has yet been conducted on the effects
of persistent exposure to death and mortality cues
among workers whose jobs have them at the front
lines of death and dying. Nurses and firefighters,
for example, have been found to have higher levels
of burnout related to persistent trait death anxiety
(Sliter, Sinclair, Yuan, & Mohr, 2014).
Exposure to death might seem to be a situation
that will increase our anxiety. Often, though, we seal
off such episodes before they can penetrate aware-
ness. Most of us have strategies for limiting the
impact of an exposure to death. For example, it’s too
bad about the neighbor who died of pulmonary
disease, but we don’t smoke the same brand of
cigarettes, so, no worry. However, a delayed stress
reaction often arises some time after the brush with
death. We might have nightmares or sudden
moments of distress without quite knowing why.
Often, this is the death-related experience getting
through to us. A severe response of this type is now
recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The death of another person sometimes becomes
the wake-up call that reminds us of our own
mortality. Often it is the death of a parent, or some
other significant person in our life, whom we had
let ourselves assume always would be there. “When
my father died, it was like Death had me next on
his list,” a colleague confided. The “pecking order
of death” phenomenon is perhaps more common
than realized.
Life-threatening illness can persist for weeks,
months, even years. During this extended period,
people are likely to have a variety of thoughts and
feelings about their situations. The first jolt often
occurs when people discover that illnesses are life-
threatening or terminal. Suicidal thoughts might
occur at this time. A second period of anxiety arousal
may occur later, accompanied by depression, as a
result of continuing physical decline and fatigue.
At this point the anxiety may be focused more on
22 Chapter 1 • As We Think About Death
the fear of abandonment and suffering, rather than
on death itself. Other moments of anxiety can
develop when a new complication arises or a new
treatment is proposed. Nevertheless, drawing upon
their own resources and support from family and
friends, many people can cope with a life-threatening
situation without experiencing intense anxiety.
Effective communication, symptom relief, and a
positive worldview contribute much to anxiety
reduction.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON
DEATH ANXIETY
There are two classic theories of death anxiety, and
they could hardly be more opposed to each other.
Which one seems more convincing to you?
Early Psychoanalytic Theory
Sigmund Freud reasoned that we could not really
be anxious about death:
Our own death is indeed quite unimaginable, and
whenever we make the attempt to imagine it we can
perceive that we really survive as spectators . . . at
bottom nobody believes in his own death, or to put
the same thing in a different way, in the
unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own
immortality (1953, p. 304).
Our “unconscious system” does not respond to
the passage of time, so the end of personal time
through death would just not register. Again, on
the unconscious level, we do not have the concept
of negation, so there is no death to cancel out life.
Furthermore, we have not actually experienced
death. When we express death anxiety it is only a
cover story. For many years psychoanalysts spoke
of thanatophobia as the expressed fear of death that
serves as a disguise for the actual source of dis-
comfort. Their mission was to dig, dig, dig until
unearthing the underlying fear.
What, then, do we fear, if it is not death? Freud’s
answer was not exactly his finest moment: Thanato-
phobia derives from the castration anxiety experi-
enced during our normally abnormal psychosexual
development. Boy loves mother and fears that father
will cut him down to size. Freud’s description of the
Oedipus complex has enjoyed a flourishing career
in fiction, drama, and popular psychology, but not
so much in the behavioral and social sciences. If
people have not been dead before, it is also the case
that very few have been castrated, so, to use Freud’s
own reasoning, how could they be afraid of this
calamity? Castration anxiety is even more a stretch
when applied to females. The assertion that girls feel
they have already been castrated because they don’t
have what boys have deserves all the ridicule it has
reaped.
However, Freud’s castration/death anxiety
theory could be interpreted more generously. He
admitted to making up little stories as a way of
getting new ideas across. Freud might have been
suggesting that the source of death anxiety is the
fear of losing value, love, and security by being less
than a whole person. People who are losing their
sense of security in the world might experience this
generalized confusion and fear as death anxiety.
This is an interpretation that does ring true with
clinical observations. People who feel they cannot
control the frightening things that are happening
(or might happen) to them often do experience an
upsurge in death anxiety (Kastenbaum, 2000a).
The bottom line for the early psychoanalytic
position is clear, even if the explanation is open to
question: Way down deep, we just cannot compre-
hend our own annihilation; therefore, our anxieties
can only seem to be about death.
The Existential Challenge
The existential position takes the opposite approach.
Awareness of our mortality is the basic source of
anxiety. Our fears take many forms but can be traced
back to our sense of vulnerability to death. Ernest
Becker (1973) believed that people with schizo-
phrenia suffer because they do not have enough
insulation from the fear of death. The rest of us
might share the schizophrenic’s panic if our society
did not work so hard to protect us from the ontological
confrontation—the awareness that we are always and
acutely mortal.
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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