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Practicing Texas Politics (MindTap

Course List) 16th Edition, (Ebook PDF)


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Economic Development 337 The Criminal Justice
CHAPTER 12:
Legislative Powers of the Governor 338 System 436
Message Power 339
Bill Signing Power 339 Elements of the Criminal Justice System 438
Veto Power 340 Criminal Justice Law 438
Special Sessions Power 341 Criminal Justice Policy 440
Judicial Powers of the Governor 341 The Death Penalty 441
Appointment and Removal of Judges and Justices 341 Reinstitution of the Death Penalty 442
Acts of Executive Clemency 342 Reviewing the Death Penalty 443
The Plural Executive 343 Correction and Rehabilitation 445
The Lieutenant Governor 344 The Texas Department of Criminal Justice 445
The Attorney General 345 Local Government Jails 452
The Comptroller of Public Accounts 346 Private Prisons 452
The Commissioner of the General Land Office 347 Juvenile Justice 453
The Commissioner of Agriculture 348 State and Local Agencies 453
The Secretary of State 350 Procedures 454
Problems and Reforms: Implications for Public
Public Policy and
CHAPTER 10: Policy 454
Administration 357 Overcrowding and Mental Illness in Prison 455
Technology 455
State Agencies and State Employees 358 Exoneration Issues 456
State Agencies and Public Policy 359 Racial Bias in the Criminal Justice System 457
The Institutional Context 359 Misconduct by District Attorneys 458
State Employees and Public Policy 361
Education 366 CHAPTER 13: Finance and Fiscal
Public Schools 367 Policy 463
Colleges and Universities 373
Health and Human Services 378 Fiscal Policies 464
Human Services 383 Taxing Policy 465
Health and Mental Health Services 384 Budget Policy 467
Employment 386 Spending Policy 468
Economic and Environmental Policies 387 Revenue Sources 468
Economic Regulatory Policy 387 The Politics of Taxation 469
Business Promotion 390 Revenue from Gambling 475
Environmental Regulation 393 Other Nontax Revenues 476
The Public Debt 479
CHAPTER 11: The Judicial Branch 403 Budgeting and Fiscal Management 480
Budgeting Procedure 481
State Law in Texas 404 Budget Expenditures 484
Sources of Law 405 Budget Execution 485
Code Revision 405 Purchasing 485
Courts, Judges, Lawyers, and Juries 406 Facilities 486
Trial and Appellate Courts 406 Accounting 486
Selecting Judges and Justices 415 Auditing 487
Disciplining and Removing Judges and Justices 417 Future Demands 487
Lawyers 418 Public Education 487
Juries 420 Public Higher Education 491
Judicial Procedures in Civil Cases 423 Public Assistance 496
Civil Trial Procedure 424 Infrastructure Needs 497
Trial and Appeal of a Civil Case 425
Judicial Procedures in Criminal Cases 426
Criminal Justice System 426
Glossary 504
Criminal Trial and Appeal 427 Endnotes 513
Index 546

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List of Selected
Readings
Chapter 1 Julian Aguilar, Report: Immigrants’ Economic Strength Increases

Chapter 2 Cindy Casares, Five Hundred Years in the Making: The Tejano Monument

Chapter 3 Emily Ramshaw, Conditions, Health Risks Sicken Colonias Residents

Chapter 4 Forrest Wilder, What Must Happen for Texas to Turn Blue?

Chapter 5 Alana Rocha, Campaigns Contend With Vitriol on Social Media

Chapter 6 Bill Minutaglio, The Faces of Race

Chapter 7 ~a, Unsung Hero of Civil Rights: “Father of LULAC” a Fading Memory
Hector Saldan

Chapter 8 Charles Jerry Wilkins and Lyle C. Brown, Recent Congressional Redistricting in Texas:
Legislation, Litigation, and Jeff Wentworth’s Proposal

Chapter 9 Jeff Key, High-Tech Investing in Texas After Governor Perry

Chapter 10 Terrence Henry, Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale—Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie

Chapter 11 Honorable J. D. Langley, Judge, 85th District Court, A Short History of Texas Courts

Chapter 12 Edgar Walters, Report: Texas Leads Nation in 2013 Exonerations

Chapter 13 Renee C. Lee, Universities to Offer Four-Year Fixed-Tuition Rates

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Letter to Instructor
Dear Texas Government Instructor:
Texas is a state in transition. The economy and tax system hold fast to the Lone Star State’s land-based
roots, while the Austin area is often called the new Silicon Valley and biotechnology and nanotechnol-
ogy flourish in the state’s metropolitan areas. Although Texas’s population is now majority minority,
Anglos continue to hold almost all statewide offices, seats in the state legislature, judicial benches, local
offices, and appointive positions on boards and commissions. At the same time the state has eight
emerging universities vying for Tier 1-university status, it continues to have the highest number of high
school dropouts in the nation. Texas’s current economic success attracts thousands of new residents
each week, but limited water resources and a decaying infrastructure threaten the state’s economic
success and growth. Government will play an active role in negotiating and resolving these issues. The
students in our classrooms will be the ones who select the policymakers and policies to deal with the
multiplicity of concerns that face the Lone Star State in the 21st century. Understanding their govern-
ment is critical to our students’ future role as active, informed citizens.
• Practicing Texas Politics analyzes the practices and policies of the Lone Star State by giving stu-
dents a realistic introduction to how public policymaking is conducted in Texas. The state’s individu-
alistic and traditionalistic political culture is referenced throughout to aid students in placing policy
decisions in a historical and cultural context. Students are introduced to current policymakers, their
decisions, and the impact of the resulting policies. The roles of political parties, special interest
groups, voters, and the media in influencing public policy are also explored. Policymaking and proc-
ess are integrated within each chapter throughout the book with a special emphasis on public edu-
cation, higher education, social services, and infrastructure needs both as policy issues in Chapter
10, “Public Policy and Administration,” and from a budgetary perspective in Chapter 13, “Finance and
Fiscal Policy.”

Through learning outcomes, learning checks, and other pedagogical features, students are given an
organizational structure that helps them learn, understand, and remember the material.

New to This Edition


• Numbered learning objectives drive each chapter’s organization with a learning objective tied to
each major section and each paragraph of the chapter summary. Critical thinking questions are now
presented with nearly every photo and figure, offering plentiful opportunities for instructors and stu-
dents to meet this important Texas GOVT 2306 required core objective.
• A new Chapter 6, “The Media and Politics,” integrates scholarship with application on the roles
and influence of the media, incorporates history as it relates to current roles and issues, and juxta-
poses how Texas reflects national patterns with how it differs from them.
• A new Chapter 11, “The Judicial Branch,” is dedicated solely to a discussion of the Texas judicial
system and the court structure.
• A new Chapter 12, “The Criminal Justice System,” focuses on the criminal and juvenile justice sys-
tems in the state.
• Updates of new laws passed by the 83rd regular and special sessions are included.
• A timely selected reading—11 are new—appears at the end of every chapter prior to the chapter-
ending pedagogy. Readings include two Learning Check questions.

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
• Endnotes have been moved from the end of each chapter to the end of the book.
• Marginal social media icons signal new coverage of the use and transformative role of electronic
technology, and particularly social media, in Texas politics.

MindTap
As an instructor, MindTap is here to simplify your workload, organize and immediately grade your stu-
dents’ assignments, and allow you to customize your course as you see fit. Through deep-seated inte-
gration with your Learning Management System, grades are easily exported and analytics are pulled
with just the click of a button. MindTap provides you with a platform to easily add in current events vid-
eos and RSS feeds from national or local news sources. Looking to include more currency in the course?
Add in our KnowNow American Government Blog link for weekly updated news coverage and
pedagogy.
Our goal, first and foremost, is to help you develop your students into active, informed participants
in their democracy. We have attempted to present a realistic and up-to-date picture of how Texas poli-
tics is practiced in all branches and at both local and state levels of government. We welcome your
feedback on any material or feature in this book.

Sincerely,

The Practicing Texas Politics Author Team

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Letter to Student
Dear Student:
Welcome to Texas government. Whether you’re a native-born Texan or a newly arrived Texan, you can
feel the energy of change all around you. You live in a state that no longer has a majority population
from any race or ethnic group and in a few short years will have a majority Latino population. Despite
the economic downturn that affected the rest of the world, you’re in a state that created more new jobs
than any other state for five consecutive years (2009–2013). Job growth has occurred in two economic
sectors: energy and technology. The number of people who live here increases by almost 1,100 every
week. The fastest growing metropolitan area by number of new residents (Houston-The Woodlands-
Sugar Land) and the fastest growing city by rate of growth (Austin-Round Rock) are here in the Lone
Star State. This same state, however, has the most uninsured children in the nation, the highest dropout
rate in the country, and one of the greatest gaps in earnings between the wealthy and the poor in the
United States. A decaying transportation infrastructure and depleted water resources will require
multi-billion-dollar solutions. And who will solve these problems? You, the future voters and taxpayers
of Texas will have that responsibility. That’s why you need to understand your role and how the system
works so you can keep Texas the vibrant state we all want it to be. Helping you become an effective
participant in that system is why we wrote Practicing Texas Politics.
In this book you’ll be introduced to today’s important policymakers and learn what we all have a
right to expect of them. You’ll meet students, just like you, who have chosen to get involved and make
a difference at their colleges, in their communities, and in this state. You’ll learn about ways you can
become involved through internships and other programs, as well as by voting and through political
campaigns. You’ll see how Texas compares to other states, and you’ll be exposed to the diversity of the
Lone Star State–home of the first all-female Supreme Court (all the way back to 1924), a host of musi-
cians from Los Lonely Boys to Beyonce to Willie Nelson, and four former U.S. presidents (Dwight Eisen-
hower, Lyndon Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush). You’ll come to understand what this
state could be in the future and how you can shape the outcome.
• Updated “Students in Action” features in each chapter help you make a personal connection to the
content, highlighting how Texas students like you have participated in the community or providing
information on internships and other opportunities for interested students.
• “Point/Counterpoint” examines a key controversial issue in Texas politics from both sides of the
controversy and asks you to consider your position on each issue.
• “Learning Checks” provide a few factual questions at the end of major sections and at the end of
each chapter’s reading for you to use in checking your knowledge. Answers are provided at the end
of the chapter.
• “How Do We Compare?” boxes compare Texas with other states.
• A Marginal Glossary allows you to access terms as they are needed for easier understanding of the
text.
• Following the Selected Reading, end-of-chapter materials include a conclusion that wraps up the
chapter and offers final thoughts for you to consider, a chapter summary organized by learning out-
come, Key Terms, and Learning Check answers.
• Critical thinking questions ask you to think about your political opinion and beliefs on a variety of
important issues in this state.
• Charts, graphs, and maps are used to give you a visual image for understanding concepts.
• Social media icons mark explanations of the ways social media is influencing government, affecting
political campaigns, and transforming the media.
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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
The Benefits of Using Mindtap as a Student
As a student, the benefits of using MindTap with this book are endless. With automatically graded prac-
tice quizzes and activities, automatic detailed revision plans on your essay assignments offered through
Write Experience, an easily navigated learning path, and an interactive eBook, you will be able to test
yourself in and outside of the classroom with ease. The accessibility of current events coupled with
interactive media makes the content fun and engaging. On your computer, phone, or tablet, MindTap is
there when you need it, giving you easy access to flashcards, quizzes, readings, and assignments.
You are the people who will guide Texas through the 21st century. It is our hope that when you
understand how to get involved in Texas politics, you will choose to do so. And that once you are
involved, you will use your vote and influence to create the kind of Texas in which you want to live. It is
to you, the students of Texas, that we dedicate this book.

Sincerely,

The Practicing Texas Politics Author Team

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Resources for Students
and Instructors
Students…
Access your Practicing Texas Politics resources by visiting
www.cengagebrain.com/shop/isbn/9781285853109
If you purchased MindTap or CourseReader access
with your book, enter your access code and click
“Register.” You can also purchase the book’s resour-
ces here separately through the “Study Tools” tab
or access the free companion website through the
“Free Materials” tab.

Instructors…
Access your Practicing Texas Politics resources via
www.cengage.com/login.
Log in using your Cengage Learning single sign-on
user name and password, or create a new instructor account by clicking
on “New Faculty User” and following the instructions.

Practicing Texas Politics – Text Only Edition


ISBN: 9781285861050
This copy of the book does not come bundled with
MindTap.

MindTap for Practicing Texas


Politics
ISBN for Instant Access Code: 9781285872780
ISBN for Printed Access Code: 9781285860640
MindTap for Practicing Texas Politics is a highly per-
sonalized, fully online learning experience built upon
Cengage Learning content and correlating to a core
set of learning outcomes. MindTap guides students
through the course curriculum via an innovative
Learning Path Navigator where they will complete
reading assignments, challenge themselves with

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
focus activities, and engage with interactive quizzes. Through a variety of gradable activities, MindTap
provides students with opportunities to check themselves for where they need extra help, as well as
allowing faculty to measure and assess student progress. Integration with programs like YouTube, Ever-
note, and Google Drive allows instructors to add and remove content of their choosing with ease, keeping
their course current while tracking local and global events through RSS feeds. The product can be used
fully online with its interactive eBook for Practicing Texas Politics, 2015-2016 Edition, or in conjunction with
the printed text.

Instructor Companion Website for Practicing Texas


Politics—for instructors only
ISBN: 9781285872766
This Instructor Companion Website is an all-in-one multimedia online resource for class preparation,
presentation, and testing. Accessible through Cengage.com/login with your faculty account, you will
find available for download: book-specific Microsoft PowerPoint presentations; a Test Bank compati-
ble with multiple learning management systems; an Instructor Manual; Microsoft PowerPoint Image
Slides; and a JPEG Image Library.
The Test Bank, offered in Blackboard, Moodle, Desire2Learn, Canvas, and Angel formats, contains
Learning Objective-specific multiple-choice, critical thinking short answer questions, and essay ques-
tions for each chapter. Import the test bank into your LMS to edit and manage questions, and to create
tests.
The Instructor’s Manual contains chapter-specific learning objectives, an outline, key terms with
definitions, and a chapter summary. Additionally, the Instructor’s Manual features a critical thinking
question, lecture launching suggestion, and an in-class activity for each learning objective.
The Microsoft PowerPoint presentations are ready-to-use, visual outlines of each chapter. These
presentations are easily customized for your lectures and offered along with chapter-specific Micro-
soft PowerPoint Image Slides and JPEG Image Libraries. Access the Instructor Companion Website
at www.cengage.com/login.

IAC Cognero for Practicing Texas Politics, 2015–2016


Edition – for instructors only
ISBN: 9781305081321
Cengage Learning Testing Powered by Cognero is a flexible, online system that allows you to author,
edit, and manage test bank content from multiple Cengage Learning solutions; create multiple test ver-
sions in an instant; and deliver tests from your LMS, your classroom, or wherever you want. The test
bank for Practicing Texas Politics, 2015-2016 Edition contains Learning Objective-specific multiple-choice,
critical-thinking short answer, and essay questions for each chapter.

Free Companion Website


ISBN: 9781285872773
This free companion website for Practicing Texas Politics, 2015-2016 Edition is accessible through cenga-
gebrain.com and allows students access to chapter-specific interactive learning tools including flash-
cards, glossaries, and more.

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
CourseReader for
Texas Politics
ISBN for CourseReader 0-30 Instant Access Code: 9781133350279
ISBN for CourseReader 0-30 Printed Access Code: 9781133350286
CourseReader: Texas Politics allows instructors to create their reader, their way, in just minutes. This
affordable, fully customizable online reader provides access to thousands of permissions-cleared read-
ings, articles, primary sources, and audio and video selections from the regularly-updated Gale research
library database. This easy-to-use solution allows instructors to search for and select just the material
they want for their courses. Each selection opens with a descriptive introduction to provide context
and concludes with critical-thinking and multiple-choice questions to reinforce key points.
CourseReader is loaded with convenient tools like highlighting, printing, note-taking, and down-
loadable PDFs and MP3 audio files for each reading. CourseReader is the perfect complement to any
Political Science course. It can be bundled with your current textbook, sold alone, or integrated into
your learning management system. CourseReader 0-30 allows access to up to 30 selections in the
reader. Instructors should contact their Cengage sales representative for details. Students should check
with their instructor to see if CourseReader 0-30 is required for their specific course.

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Acknowledgments
We are indebted to many personal friends, government officials and their staffs, political acti-
vists, lawyers, and journalists who have stimulated our thinking. Likewise, we owe much to
librarians and archivists who located hard-to-obtain facts, photos, and new readings. We also
appreciate the professional assistance rendered by the editorial, production, and marketing staff
of Cengage Learning. Without the benefit of their publishing experience, this textbook and its
ancillaries would be of much less value to students and instructors.
Of course, expressions of appreciation are due to spouses, family members, and many others
who helped to produce this new edition of our book and have learned to cope with the irregular
working hours of authors struggling to meet deadlines. We are especially grateful to the many
students who assisted us in writing Practicing Texas Politics, especially those who willingly gave
of their time and expertise in the production of the Students in Action feature, as well as those
who assisted us by providing input to some of our early drafts. We give special thanks for the as-
sistance and support of Janice Hitchcock, Alexandra Fleming, and Jonathan Armstrong, all of
Collin College; Jessica Thibodeau from the University of Texas at Austin; and Kirsten Anderson
of Austin Community College.
We would also like to thank Patrizio Amezcua from San Jacinto College–North, for author-
ing this edition’s Instructor’s Manual, and author Ryan Rynbrandt from Collin College, for
authoring this edition’s Test Bank. Our hope is that through the efforts of all, this book will help
Texas students better understand the practice of Texas politics and their role as participants.

Reviewers
We would also like to thank the instructors who have contributed their valuable feedback through
reviews of this text:

Previous Edition Reviewers:


Mario Marcel Salas, Northwest Vista College
Brian R. Farmer, Amarillo College
Billy Hathorn, Laredo Community College
Amy S. Glenn, Northeast Lakeview College
Jim Startin, University of Texas at San Antonio

New Reviewers:
Sandra Creech, Temple College
Patrizio Amezcua, San Jacinto College North
Debra St. John, Collin College Preston Ridge Campus
Evelyn Ballard, Houston Community College
Southeast College
Aaron Knight, Houston Community
College Northeast College

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
About the Authors
Lyle C. Brown, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Baylor University, served as departmental
director of graduate studies and director of Baylor’s Foreign Service Program. His international
academic experience includes teaching at Mexico City College (now University of the Americas) and
postgraduate study at the Instituto Tecnolo gico de Monterrey in Mexico. He received his M.A. from the
University of Oklahoma and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Brown served as
president of the Southwest Council of Latin American Studies. His writing experience includes co-
editing Religion in Latin American Life and Literature and authoring numerous articles.

Joyce A. Langenegger teaches government at Blinn College and is the college’s Director of
Professional Development. She received M.A. and J.D. degrees from Baylor University and an M.A. and
Ph.D. from Fielding Graduate University. Dr. Langenegger has been named to “Who’s Who Among
America’s Teachers” and received a NISOD Award for Teaching Excellence, Teacher of the Year for
Blinn College-Bryan, and “Most Valuable Player” award from San Jacinto College for her work as a
professor and administrator at that institution. She is a frequent workshop presenter on innovative
teaching strategies. Before beginning her teaching career, she practiced law in Houston.

Sonia R. Garcıa is a Professor and Coordinator of Women’s Studies at St. Mary’s University in San
Antonio. She has also served as Chair and Graduate Director of the Political Science Department. Dr.
Garcıa received her Master’s from the University of Arizona and her Ph.D. from the University of
California, Santa Barbara. She has published articles on Latina politics and is a co-author of Mexican
Americans and the Law: El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido and lead author of Polıticas: Latina Public
Officials in Texas.

Ted A. Lewis taught government at Texas colleges for more than 25 years before becoming Vice
President for Academic Affairs at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. He
holds an M.S. from the University of North Texas, and a doctorate from the University of Texas at
Austin. Dr. Lewis has conducted workshops on Texas election procedure for the Texas Secretary of
State. He has served as a county party chair, on state executive committees, and on campaign advisory
committees. A frequent workshop presenter, he has also published articles on political science and
student-oriented course design and learning strategies. Dr. Lewis is listed in both “Who’s Who in
American Politics” and “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.”

Robert E. Biles, Professor Emeritus and former chair of Political Science at Sam Houston State
University, has taught college students about Texas politics in Texas, Colombia, and Ecuador. He
received his M.A. and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University-School of Advanced International
Studies. Dr. Biles is the author of numerous books and articles. His involvement in politics includes
serving as a school board member, county party chair, county election supervisor, and staff member of
the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has advised state agencies and held leadership
positions in statewide lobbying groups and professional organizations. Dr. Biles has received four
Fulbright grants as well as awards for his research, teaching, and administrative service.

Ryan Rynbrandt is a Professor of Political Science and former Director of the Honors Institute at
Collin College in Plano, Texas, where he teaches courses in American and Texas Government. Professor
Rynbrandt works to increase student civic engagement. He is especially committed to initiatives that
bring the resources of higher education to bear in addressing problems in the broader community. He
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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
received his master’s degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he received multiple
teaching awards and served as President of the Graduate Association of Political Scientists. He has
been active in politics at the local, state, and national levels.

Veronica Reyna is Associate Professor of Government and Assistant Dean of Social and Behavioral
Sciences for Austin Community College. She has been faculty advisor to a civil rights organization at
ACC. Professor Reyna earned her M.A. in Political Science from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio,
where she taught as adjunct faculty. Her political involvement has included interning for Congressman
Ciro Rodriguez, working as a union organizer, and volunteering in various Texas campaigns. She has
also taught Texas politics at colleges and universities in San Antonio.

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
QUICK START GUIDE

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Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
The Environment of
1 Texas Politics

Learning Objectives

1.1 Describe how political culture has


shaped Texas’s politics,
government, and public policy.

1.2 Explain the differences among


the geographic regions of Texas.

1.3 Analyze the relationship between


the social history of Texas and
the political characteristics of the
state’s diverse population.

1.4 Describe both the four land-


based industries that formed the
historic basis for the Texas
economy and the diversification
of the modern Texas economy.

1.5 Identify five major policy


challenges Texas faces in the
21st century.
The drought that began in 2011 has had major implications
for Texas politics and governance.
Scott Stantis/Town hall

CRITICAL THINKING
What impact has the drought that began in 2011 had on the Texas
economy and government?

1
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2 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that.
It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the
extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it
and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing
their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quar-
rel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of
space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squab-
bles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps
stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf,
city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate
possession of all Texans.
—John Steinbeck, 1962

Everything Is Changing in Texas


They say everything is bigger in Texas. Even the stereotypes are big—big
trucks, big belt buckles, big hair—but if that’s all you know about the Lone
Star State, you don’t know today’s Texas. Perhaps the biggest things about
Texas are the changes it has seen and the diversity that has resulted. It’s the
land of Willie Nelson, for certain; but it’s also the land of Los Lonely Boys,
Pantera, Erykah Badu, Kelly Clarkson, the Geto Boys, and the Reverend
Horton Heat. It’s still the land of cattle barons and oil tycoons; but it’s also
the land of high-tech pioneers, international traders, defense contractors,
manufacturers, and service providers. Texas’s stunning growth in recent
decades has brought massive transformation and breathtaking variety in its
people, economy, and politics.
If you live here, these transformations and the way our political system
handles them have a significant impact on your life. Better understanding your
home state and its political system will help you navigate these changes and
contribute to the development of a better government. If you don’t live here,
pay attention anyway; the Texas experience is a preview of the changes facing
the United States as a whole. The Lone Star State’s successes and failures in
negotiating these changes and balancing diverse interests will provide lessons
for the rest of the nation. And you’ll probably end up moving here anyway—
everyone else seems to be. Nearly 8 million people since 1990 have told their
place of origin what David Crockett allegedly told the people of his district:
‘‘You may all go to hell, and I’ll go to Texas.’’ This growth increases both
opportunities and challenges, like the persistent water shortages referenced in
the cartoon above. Because of the sheer size of Texas, what happens here also
has an impact on the direction of the United States as a whole.1 The 2010
census ranked Texas second largest among the 50 states, with a population
that has now exceeded 25 million. That places the Lone Star State between
California with its 37 million residents and New York with 20 million.
Substantial changes and diverse interests put democratic institutions of
government to the test. The increased population of the Lone Star State

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 3

includes more than 18 million men and women of voting age (18 years or
older). Our analysis of the politics of Texas’s state and local governments will
help you understand political action and prepare you to be an active and
informed participant in the political life of the state and its counties, cities,
and special districts. As Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan once said,
‘‘The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport.’’ It’s time to
suit up and play. To help you play effectively, we will introduce you to the
playing field (government, political culture, land, and economy of the state),
the players (citizens, activists, politicians, public employees, and opinion lead-
ers), and the rules of the game (constitution, laws, and political processes).

Political Behavior Patterns


LO1.1 Describe how political culture has shaped Texas’s politics,
government, and public policy.
There has never been full agreement in democratic societies about the proper
size and role of government. Views on that question vary widely and are
held deeply. Yet aside from a handful of anarchists, there is agreement that
society needs rules, or ‘‘public policies,’’ by which to live. Making, imple-
menting, and enforcing these policies is the job of government. The govern-
ment of the State of Texas is modeled on that of the United States, with the
power to make policy divided among legislative, executive, and judicial
branches. Each branch has its own powers, and each has some check on the
power of the others. The state government also delegates some policymaking
power to local governments, including counties, cities, and special districts.
As a result, public policies take different forms.

Government, Politics, and Public Policy in Texas


Many policies are laws passed by the legislature, approved by the governor,
implemented by an executive department, and interpreted by the courts.
Others are constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature and rati-
fied by the voters of Texas. Some policies derive from rules promulgated by
state agencies and ordinances passed by local governments. What all of
these efforts share in common is that they are attempts to meet a public need
or reach a public goal. Government tries to meet public needs by allocating ...............................................
resources. In practice, resources are allocated when a state or local govern- government
ment formulates, adopts, and implements a public policy, such as raising A public institution with
authority to formulate,
taxes to pay for more police protection or better streets and highways. Gov-
adopt, implement, and
ernment tries to meet public goals by using policy to encourage or discour- enforce public policies for
age specific behaviors. The state can encourage some behaviors using a society.
incentives—for example, establishing scholarships or student loans to en-
public policy
courage getting an education. It can discourage other conduct with punish- Government action
ments, such as imposing penitentiary time for selling drugs. In addition, the designed to meet a public
government can encourage or discourage behaviors through public relations need or goal as determined
and information campaigns such as the famous ‘‘Don’t Mess with Texas’’ by a legislative body or
campaign against littering. other authorized officials.

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4 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

In the political realm, you may think of public policy as the product, and
government as the factory in which it is made. If that’s the case, then
politics is the process that produces public policy. In fact, the government
has at times been compared to a sausage factory—even if you like the prod-
uct it produces, the process isn’t always very pleasant to watch. The politics
of policymaking often involves conflict among government officials, politi-
cal parties, interest groups, media figures, citizens, noncitizen residents, and
other groups that seek to influence how policies in Texas are enacted and
implemented. Such conflict over power and resources can encourage the
worst behavior in people, and opportunities for corruption and greed
abound. Yet politics also requires cooperation and can inspire noble and
courageous action. In sum, politics is the moving force by which govern-
............................................... ment produces public policy, which in turn determines whether and how we
politics use the power of the state to address our challenges and take advantage of
The process of our opportunities.
policymaking that involves
conflict and cooperation
between political parties
and other groups that seek Political Culture
to elect government Politics is influenced by a political culture that consists of the values, atti-
officials or to influence tudes, traditions, habits, and general behavioral patterns that develop over
those officials when they time and shape the politics and public policy of a particular region. Political
make public policy, such
as enacting and
culture is the result of both remote and recent political experiences. According
interpreting laws. to political scientist Daniel Elazar (1934–1999), ‘‘Culture patterns give each
state its particular character and help determine the tone of its fundamental
political culture
Attitudes, habits, and relationship, as a state, to the nation.’’2 Elazar identified three distinct cultures
general behavior patterns that exist in the United States: moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic.
that develop over time and In the moralistic culture that originated in Puritan New England, people
affect the political life of a view government as a public service. The role of government is to improve
state or region. conditions for the people and to create a just society. The people expect gov-
moralistic culture ernment to provide goods and services that advance the public good. Citi-
This culture influences zens see it as their duty to become active in governmental decision making
people to view political through participation in politics and government, and they hold the govern-
participation as their duty
and to expect that
ment accountable to their high expectations.
government will be used The individualistic culture grew out of westward expansion throughout
to advance the public the 19th century. Frontier areas to which settlers moved had no government
good. to provide goods and services for them. They became more self-reliant, and
individualistic culture the notion of the ‘‘rugged individualist’’ emerged. The business community
This culture looks to also advanced the individualistic culture, often viewing government as an
government to maintain a adversary that taxed and regulated them; therefore, they wanted to limit its
stable society but with size and scope. Individualistic culture does not consider government a vehi-
minimum intervention in
cle for creating a just society and believes government intervention in pri-
the lives of the people.
vate life should be limited. Today, the individualistic culture is dominant in
traditionalistic culture a majority of the midwestern and western states.
A product of the Old The traditionalistic culture grew out of the Old South and is rooted in
South, this culture uses
government as a means of
feudal-like notions of society and government that developed in the context
preserving the status quo of the agrarian plantation economy. In the slave states, property and income
and its leadership. were unequally dispersed. Governmental policymaking fell to a few powerful

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 5

families or influential social groups who designed policies to preserve the


social order, and a one-party system developed. The poor and minorities were
often disenfranchised. In the traditionalistic culture, government is a vehicle
for maintaining the status quo and its hierarchy. Today the traditionalistic
culture remains dominant throughout the South.

Texas Political Culture


Texas exudes pride in its own uniqueness. The state’s distinctive historical,
geographical, and cultural identity has created a political culture that influ-
ences the Lone Star State’s style of government, politics, and policy. As with
all states, this culture is a mix of moralistic, individualistic, and traditional-
istic subcultures. Although elements of each subculture exist in Texas, indi-
vidualists and traditionalists have historically dominated the state and
controlled the direction of the political system.

Texas Moralism The moralistic subculture in Texas has historically been


the domain of those who lack power, yet moralists have helped shape Texas
as well. Throughout its history, Texas has seen movements to use govern- ...............................................
ment for the betterment of society. The Radical Republicans of the post– progressive
Civil War era sought to use government to end a white supremacist political Favoring and working for
progress in conditions
system and achieve racial equality. Radical Republican Governor E. J.
facing the majority of
Davis’s aggressive use of state government power in an effort to protect society or in government.
African American political participation made him many enemies in the
white power structure that regained control of the government when Recon- African American
A racial classification
struction ended. Reaction to his administration resulted in the decentralized, applied to Americans of
weak government established by the 1876 Texas Constitution, which is still African ancestry. The term
in operation today. is commonly applied on
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, progressive groups like the the basis of skin color,
Farmers’ Alliance, the Populist Party, and even the Socialist Party surged in omitting white Americans
whose ancestors
popularity in Texas as they challenged government to control the damaging
immigrated from Africa
effects of rising corporate capitalism.3 Throughout the 1800s and into the and including black
early 1900s, a powerful Temperance movement in Texas sought to use Americans whose
government to end the sale and consumption of alcohol. From the earliest ancestors immigrated from
days of the civil rights struggle, African Americans and Latinos in Texas the Caribbean, Latin
engaged in organized political activism to change the traditionalistic politi- America, and Europe.
cal structure of the state. Latino
For most of its history Texas has been a one-party-dominant state. An ethnic classification of
Whether the dominant party was Democratic or Republican, conservative Mexican Americans and
others of Latin American
majorities faced opposition from liberals who support the use of government origin. When applied to
to improve the lives of middle- and low-income Americans, one of the key females, the term is
identifiers of a moralistic political subculture. Latina. We will use this
term throughout the book
Texas Individualism Daniel Elazar asserted that the political culture of in addition to the term
‘‘Hispanic,’’ which refers
Texas is strongly individualistic, in that those in positions of power have to people who trace their
tended to believe that government should maintain a stable society but ancestry to Spanish-
intervene as little as possible in the lives of the people. speaking countries.

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6 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

An important source of Texas’s individualism is the Anglo settlers’ fron-


tier experience. In the early 19th century, a growing number of colonists from
the United States entered Texas individually or because they were recruited by
empresarios, such as Stephen F. Austin. These settlers, without significant
government backing, established farms and communities and persevered
through extreme hardships.4 With this objective, settlers displaced Native
Americans from a large region. Resistance by Native Americans led to thou-
sands of Native Americans as well as settlers—men, women, and children—
slain on the Texas frontier from the 1820s to the mid-1870s. This period of
frontier warfare lasted longer in Texas than in most other states.
After the Texas frontier was secured, the task of establishing law and
order remained. In some areas, range wars, cattle rustling, and other forms
of violence continued into the 20th century. Without an extensive govern-
ment structure for imposing order, many Texans grew accustomed to strug-
gling for survival and using force to settle disputes. In 1995, when the
legislature legalized the licensed carrying of concealed handguns, some
interpreted the action as another influence of frontier days, when many
Texans carried concealed weapons or wore pistols openly in holsters. Two
assumptions, often advanced by gun rights groups, underlie the concealed
weapons law: first, that Texans do not need to rely on law enforcement for
protection; second, that citizens of the Lone Star State have an individual
right to possess and carry weapons.
The power of Texas individualists is reflected in the government struc-
ture they helped create and continue to dominate. Compared with other
heavily populated states, Texas has a limited government with restricted
powers: a legislature that meets biennially, with low salaries that can be
increased only after approval by Texas voters; a governor who has limited
budgetary, appointment, and removal powers; and an elected judiciary.
Government spending for social services and public education on a per cap-
ita basis is consistently among the lowest in the nation. Including independ-
ent school districts, Texas has more than 3,000 special districts that perform
services not provided by city or county governments.
The public perception of government and elected officials remains
negative, although this viewpoint appears more directed to the federal gov-
ernment. Recent Texas governors have been elected to multiple terms in
office. In 1998, George W. Bush became the first Texas governor elected to a
second four-year consecutive term (although he resigned two years into his
second term, following his election as U.S. president in 2000). In 2010, Rick
Perry was elected to an unprecedented third four-year term, making him the
longest serving governor in Texas history.

Texas Traditionalism The dominance of traditionalistic culture in Texas


also can be traced to the early 19th century. The plantation system thrived
in East Texas, and cotton was king. Before Texas’s entry into the Confeder-
acy, much of its wealth was concentrated in a few families. Although slave
owners represented only a quarter of the state’s population and one-third of
its farmers, these slave owners held 60 to 70 percent of the wealth and

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 7

controlled state politics.5 After the Civil War (1861–1865), ‘‘Jim Crow’’ laws
limited African Americans’ access to public services. In the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, poll taxes and all-white primaries further restricted
voting rights.
Today, many Texans are the descendants of migrants from traditionalis-
tic states of the Old South, where conservatism, elitism (upper-class rule),
and one-party politics were entrenched. Although urbanization and industri-
alization, together with an influx of people from other states and countries,
are changing Texas, Elazar insisted that the traditionalistic influence of the
Old South lingers. Participation in politics and voter turnout remain low.
Turnout is less than 50 percent for presidential elections and is consistently
less than 30 percent for gubernatorial elections. Elazar noted that many Tex-
ans have inherited southern racist attitudes, which for a century after the
Civil War were reflected in state laws that discriminated against African
Americans and other minority groups. It was not until 2000 that two
Confederate-themed Civil War plaques were removed from the Texas
Supreme Court building, as demanded by the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Similar symbols of Texas’s role in
the Confederacy remain in public places throughout the state and continue
to cause controversy.
The traditionalistic influence of Mexico is also discernible among Tex-
ans of Mexican ancestry, who were affected by a political culture featuring
the elitist patrón (protective political boss) system that dominates certain ...............................................
areas of South Texas. For more than four decades, however, the old political
Jim Crow laws
order of that region has been challenged—and, in many instances, defeated— Ethnically discriminatory
by new generations of Mexican Americans.6 Compared with other areas of laws that segregated
the state, however, voter turnout remains much lower in counties along the African Americans and
Mexican border. denied them access to
The traditionalistic culture can also be seen in the state’s economic con- public services for many
decades after the Civil
servatism and deference to the power of wealthy individuals and corpora- War.
tions. Texas has a climate favorable to business owners. It remains one of
the few states without a personal or corporate income tax and has adopted patrón system
A type of boss rule that
‘‘right to work’’ laws, which make it difficult to form and operate labor has dominated areas of
unions. City councils have drawn criticism for publicly financing corporate South Texas and Mexico.
ventures or providing certain businesses with property tax abatements. The
right to work laws
City of Arlington drew attention for its use of local tax dollars and eminent Laws that limit the power
domain to remove people from their homes to make way for Jerry Jones’s of workers to bargain
new Dallas Cowboys stadium.7 Other powerful individuals and families con- collectively and form and
tinue to play an important role in local and state politics and influence pub- operate labor unions,
lic policies. increasing the power of
employers relative to their
employees.
A Changing Culture? eminent domain
Since the mid-1970s, Texas has experienced massive population influx from The power of the
government to take private
other areas of the nation and from other countries. Many of these new Tex- property for public uses, so
ans come from places with more heavily moralistic political cultures. This long as just compensation
in-migration raises an important question: How long will the historical is paid.

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8 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

Texas State Capitol


Building
Courtesy of the Texas House
of Representatives

CRITICAL THINKING
In what ways is Texas’s political culture (moralism, individualism, and traditionalism)
reflected in politics, policies, and the people’s attitudes about, and expectations of,
government today?

dominance of individualism and traditionalism continue to be the primary


1.1 Learning Check influences on Texas’s style of politics and government? Will population
1. True or False: The goal changes shift the state toward the moralistic culture? Texas’s political-
of public policy is to cultural identities, inherited largely from the 19th century, face the transfor-
influence people’s
behavior.
mative power of widespread urbanization, industrialization, education,
2. Which two types of communication, and population change. Change is inevitable, but the direction,
political culture have scope, and impact of the change remain to be seen.
traditionally been
dominant in Texas?

Answers on p. 39.
............................ The Land
LO1.2 Explain the differences among the geographic regions of
Texas.
Texas’s politics and public policy have always been shaped by the
state’s size. Its large area and diverse physical geography create strong
regional interests and distinct subcultures. The state is bounded by New
Mexico to the west; Oklahoma to the north; Arkansas, Louisiana, and
the Gulf of Mexico to the east, and borders Mexico to its south. This interna-
tional boundary follows the Rio Grande (known as Rio Bravo del Norte in
Mexico) in its southeastern course from El Paso to Brownsville and the Gulf
of Mexico.

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 9

Size
With more than 267,000 square miles of territory, Texas is second only to
Alaska (570,640 square miles) in area and is as large as the combined areas
of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Connecting the
more than 1,200 incorporated cities in Texas requires approximately
222,000 miles of roadways, including more than 80,000 miles of major
highways constructed and maintained under the supervision of the Texas
Department of Transportation. The state’s massive size has an impact on
political campaigns as well. Running for statewide, and in some instances
district-level, office requires a significant investment of financial resources.
Despite the rise of social media as an inexpensive and effective campaign-
ing and organizing tool, traveling the state for rallies and fundraisers while
targeting 20 media markets with advertisements is an expensive undertaking
that requires extensive fundraising.

Regions
Because of the state’s vast size and geographic diversity, Texas developed a
concept of five areas—North, South, East, West, and Central Texas—as five
potentially separate states. In fact, the United States congressional resolution
by which Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845 specifies that up to four
states ‘‘in addition to said state of Texas’’ may be formed out of its territory
and that each ‘‘shall be entitled to admission to the Union.’’ Over the years,
various plans for carving Texas into five states have been proposed to the
Texas legislature. Few Texans have taken those plans seriously. Physical ...............................................
geographers have identified four distinct regions: the Texas Great Plains (a social media
part of the Great Plains originating at the Canadian border), the Gulf Coastal Websites and computer
applications that allow
Plains (extending along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida), the Interior Lowlands, users to engage in social
and the Basin and Range Province (extending to California). The Texas Compt- networking and create
roller’s office identifies 13 separate economic regions in Texas. For simplicity, online communities. Social
we condense these 13 regions down to six (Figure 1.1). media provide platforms
for sharing information and
The West Texas Plains Agriculture is the economic bedrock of the West ideas through discussion
Texas Plains, from the sheep, goat, and cattle production in its southern portions forums, videos, photos,
documents, audio clips,
to the cotton, grain sorghum, and feedlot cattle in the north. The area depends and the like.
heavily on the continually depleting and environmentally sensitive Ogallala
Protestant
Aquifer. The careful management of this underground water-bearing rock for-
fundamentalism
mation will be crucial to the region’s future. Below the Cap Rock Escarpment, A socially and politically
oil production forms the economic base of cities like Odessa and Midland. conservative form of
From the Panhandle down to Odessa, West Texas is known for its social, Protestant Christianity that
economic, and political conservatism. Dominated by white Protestant arose in the late 1800s as
fundamentalism, agriculture, and oil, West Texas is fertile soil for the a reaction against
modernism. Protestant
Republican Party. Democrats have little electoral success here even in the fundamentalists insist that
larger cities of Lubbock and Amarillo. the Christian Bible is
literally true in both
The Border South and Southwest Texas border Mexico. The region produces religious and historical
citrus fruits and vegetables, but increasingly it is international trade that is terms.

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10 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

1. West Texas Plains


2. The Border
3. Central Texas
4. North Texas
5. East Texas
6. The Gulf Coast 1
4
5

3 6
2

ª 2016 Cengage Learning¤


............................................... Figure 1.1 The 6 Regions of Texas

CRITICAL THINKING
How does Texas’s large geographic size affect its politics and governance? How do the
state’s regions differ in culture, politics, and economy?

vital to its economy, which can thus be sensitive to swings in the Mexican econ-
omy. In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lowered
trade barriers among Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The resulting rise
of maquiladoras, or American factories on the Mexican side of the border,
meant that U.S. companies could take advantage of Mexico’s inexpensive labor
............................................... pool and lax regulation there. Much cross-border investment resulted.
North American Free From El Paso to Brownsville, many Texans near the border have deep
Trade Agreement ties with Mexico and are strongly linked to it through family, friends, media,
(NAFTA) and trade. Spanish is the primary language in many cities, and the Catholic
An agreement among Church is a major part of everyday life. With a large Latino population, the
Mexico, the United States,
and Canada designed to
Democratic Party has substantial electoral success here.
expand trade by
eliminating tariffs among Central Texas Waco, Austin, and San Antonio are all in Central Texas.
the three nations. The region is dominated by universities and colleges, the high-tech sector,

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 11

the state government, tourism, and major military bases. It is also home to
the German Hill Country, an agricultural region that holds onto its Central
European cultural identity and its social and political conservatism.
Despite being the capital of a conservative state, Austin is politically and
socially liberal and self-avowedly ‘‘weird.’’ With a boom in the high-tech
industry, a major university, and a thriving art and music scene, Austin has
experienced rapid growth and in-migration from all over the country and the
world, but particularly from highly educated former residents of the Northeast
and West Coast. Austin also has the highest concentration of millennials in
the nation.8 As a result, the Democratic Party does well in Austin, and also in
San Antonio, though surrounding areas tend toward Republican conservatism.

North Texas This region is home to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex


dividing East and West Texas. This metropolitan area has seen decades of
explosive growth and economic development as national and international
corporations continue to move their headquarters here. Although Fort Worth
still embraces its cowboy past, Dallas seems to prefer diving headlong into
the future. Both cities have become modern centers for high-tech industries,
financial services, defense contractors, and food production.
Fort Worth is home to Wendy Davis, who was the Democratic Party’s
candidate for governor in 2014. Democrats sometimes find electoral success
in the urban centers of the metroplex, but the suburban and rural parts of
the region are conservative Republican strongholds.

East Texas Cotton production, a constant in East Texas for nearly all of its
history, continues in the region but has declined along with oil as the back-
bone of a struggling economy. Timber production in the Piney Woods, cattle
and poultry farming, and some manufacturing have helped fill the gap while
other economic diversification continues.
The westernmost extension of the Deep South, East Texas can seem a
world apart, as references to life ‘‘behind the Pine Curtain’’ suggest. The area
remains racially segregated and dominated by Protestant fundamentalism
and powerful families with deep historical roots in the area. It is firmly a
part of the Republican ‘‘Solid South.’’

The Gulf Coast The coast of the Gulf of Mexico stretches from the Louisi- 1.2 Learning Check
ana border to the Rio Grande. Shipping and fishing are naturally important 1. What is the impact of
to the economy, but so are manufacturing and the presence of major corpo- the Lone Star State’s
rate headquarters. The Spindletop oil well at Beaumont launched the oil age size on Texas’s
politics?
in Texas, and petrochemicals remain fundamental to the region’s economy. 2. True or False: All the
It has thus been sensitive to oil booms and busts, including the 2001 col- regions of Texas
lapse of Enron, which had been deeply integrated into the life of the region depend economically
on the same industries,
before the deep corruption of its executives led to its downfall.
and thus are nearly
Anchored by Houston, the state’s largest and most diverse city, the area identical in culture and
also has the highest concentrations of unions in Texas. As a result, Demo- politics.
crats have some electoral wins in the urban areas. Rural parts of the Gulf Answers on p. 39.
Coast remain reliably Republican, however. ............................

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
12 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

The People
LO1.3 Analyze the relationship between the social history of Texas and
the political characteristics of the state’s diverse population.
I am forced to conclude that God made Texas on his day off, for pure
entertainment, just to prove that all that diversity could be crammed into
one section of earth by a really top hand.
—Mary Lasswell
In every decade since 1850, Texas’s population has grown more rapidly than
the overall population of the United States. According to the federal census
estimate of 2013, Texas’s population totaled 26,448,193—a stunning
increase of 27 percent from 2000. (At the national level, the total population
estimate in 2013 was 316,128,839—an increase of approximately 11 percent
from 2000.) Texas also had five of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in
the nation between 2000 and 2010. By 2014, seven of the 15 fastest growing
cities with populations of at least 50,000 were in Texas.

Population Distribution
Just as Texas’s physical geography makes the state a land of great contrasts,
so does the distribution of its inhabitants. At one extreme is Harris County
in the southeastern part of the state, with approximately 4 million inhabi-
tants. At the other extreme is Loving County, on the New Mexico border,
where the 2010 census counted only 82 people. Today, Texas’s four most
populous counties (Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Tarrant) have a combined pop-
ulation of more than 10 million people. These four urban counties (along

How Do We Compare…in Population?

2013 Population Estimates as Reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census


Most Populous U.S. States
U.S. States Population Bordering Texas Population
California 38,332,521 Arkansas 2,959,373
New York 19,651,127 Louisiana 4,629,470
Florida 19,552,860 New Mexico 2,085,287
Texas 26,448,193 Oklahoma 3,850,568

CRITICAL THINKING
How does a large and rapidly growing population create both opportunities and challenges for Texas?
.....................................................................................................................................................................................

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Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 13

with Travis County) are located within the Texas Triangle, roughly outlined
by segments of interstate highways 35, 45, and 10.
Texas has seen large demographic movements from rural to urban areas
and from large cities to the suburbs and back. Although the shift from rural
to urban areas and the growth of exurbs (extra-urban areas beyond suburbs)
has continued into the 21st century, a repopulation of inner cities has revi-
talized downtowns and attracted new residents. Some rural areas in the Lone ...............................................
Star State have recently experienced rapid population growth as a result of a redlining
resurgence in oil and natural gas production.9 A discriminatory rating
system used by federal
agencies to evaluate the
Urbanization Migration from rural regions to cities results in urbaniza- risks associated with loans
tion. Texas was 80 percent rural at the beginning of the 20th century, but made to borrowers in
today more than 85 percent of the state’s population is urban. Urban areas specific urban
are composed of one or more large cities and their surrounding suburban neighborhoods.
communities. A suburb is a relatively small town or city, usually outside the urban renewal
boundary limits of a central city. The early history of suburbanization was The relocation of
marked by racial segregation, with Anglos in more affluent suburbs and his- businesses and people,
the demolition of
torical minority groups in the inner city and less affluent suburbs. Federal
structures, and the use of
government policies of ‘‘redlining,’’ interstate highway designs, and ‘‘urban eminent domain to take
renewal,’’ along with state and local policies like exclusionary zoning and private property for
racial covenants, were used purposefully to ensure residential segregation. government development
Even when laws and court decisions moved official policies away from projects.
racially discriminatory practices, economic inequality, the phenomenon of exclusionary zoning
‘‘white flight,’’ and the practice of some realtors and lenders ‘‘steering’’ their The use of local
clients into segregated neighborhoods kept integration from fully happening. government zoning
Today, de facto racial segregation (segregation by fact) remains, especially ordinances to exclude
certain groups of people
with regard to suburban areas, though to a lesser extent than in the past.10 from a given community.
Between 1980 and 2010, Texas suburbs experienced explosive growth and
spread into rural areas. racial covenants
Agreements by a group of
property owners,
Metropolitanization Suburbanization on a large scale creates a metropol- subdivision developers, or
itan area, or a core city surrounded by a sprawl of smaller cities and towns. real estate operators in a
Metropolitanization concentrates large numbers of people in urban centers given neighborhood,
that become linked with suburbs in a single geographic entity. Although binding them not to sell,
socially and economically integrated, a metropolitan area is composed of lease, or rent property to
specified groups because
separate units of local government, which include counties, cities, and spe- of race, creed, or color for
cial districts. Since 1910, federal agencies have defined metropolitan areas a definite period unless all
for census purposes. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget establishes agree to the transaction.
statistical areas, currently dividing them into Micropolitan Statistical Areas metropolitanization
(mSA), with a population of 10,000–50,000 and Metropolitan Statistical The development of a
Areas (MSA), with a population of 50,000 plus. residential pattern
By 2010, Texas had 42 mSAs and 44 MSAs. Cities are eager to obtain centered in a core area
the highest possible statistical designation because many congressional containing a large
population nucleus
appropriations are made accordingly. For example, to qualify for mass
together with adjacent
transit funds, an area must be a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). communities economically
Texas’s rate of population growth is consistently greater in the MSAs than and socially integrated with
throughout the state as a whole. Most of these population concentrations are that core.

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
14 Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics

within the Texas Triangle. The Lone Star State’s MSAs contain more than 80
percent of the state’s population but fewer than 20 percent of the state’s 254
counties. It is politically significant that these 48 counties potentially account
for about four of every five votes cast in statewide elections. Thus, govern-
mental decision makers are answerable primarily to people living in one-fifth
of the state’s counties. Urban voters, however, are rarely of one mind at the
polls; they do not tend to overwhelm rural voters by taking opposing posi-
tions on all policy issues.

Demographics Is Destiny
Like the population of the nation, Texas’s population is aging as the baby-
boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964) enters retirement age. The
Census Bureau estimates that the population of Texans older than 64 will
exceed 5 million by 2030. The elderly are the most powerful and most con-
servative voting bloc, voting and participating in other ways at higher rates
than any other age group and represented by the nation’s largest interest
group—the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
Texas is also diverse in racial, ethnic, and cultural terms. More than
one-half of all Texans are either African American or Latino. The remainder
are predominantly Anglos (non-Hispanic whites), with a small but rapidly
growing Asian American population and approximately 170,000 Native
Americans. More than one-third of all Texans speak a language other than
............................................... English at home.11 In 2012, the Houston metropolitan area replaced New
Anglo York City as the most ethnically diverse city in the country.12
As commonly used in
Texas, the term is not
restricted to persons of
Anglo-Saxon lineage but
Texans Throughout History: From Conflict Toward Cooperation
includes those of European The politics of democracy is about forging a path for diverse groups with
ancestry more generally. sometimes opposing interests to live together peaceably. One of the remark-
Traditionally, the term able facets of Texas is that, though racial and ethnic tensions still exist, its
applies to all whites except diverse population lives together peacefully. Historically, peaceful coexis-
Latinos.
tence was difficult. Texans have a reputation for toughness, and that reputa-
Asian American tion was formed over hundreds of years of surviving an often unforgiving
An ethnic classification for terrain, made harsher by a social atmosphere that historian and political
persons whose ancestry
originates in the Far East,
scientist Cal Jillson has called ‘‘breathtakingly violent.’’13
Southeast Asia, or the
Indian subcontinent. The First Texans Few specifics are known about the people who inhabited
what would become the Lone Star State for more than 10,000 years before
Native American
A term commonly used for Spanish explorers planted the first of Texas’s six flags here in the 1500s.
those whose ancestors When the Spaniards arrived, the land was inhabited by more than 50 Native
were living in the Americas American tribes and nations. Population estimates vary widely, ranging
before the arrival of from 50,000 to perhaps a million people. In East Texas, the Caddo lived in
Europeans and Africans. organized villages with a complex political system. The state’s name comes
Another commonly used
term in the United States
from the word tejas, meaning ‘‘friendly,’’ which was the tribal name for a
is ‘‘American Indian’’ or in group of Indians within the Caddo Confederacy. The Comanches were argu-
Canada ‘‘First Nations.’’ ably the most important tribe in shaping Texas history. Excellent horsemen

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Chapter 1 The Environment of Texas Politics 15

and valiant warriors, they maintained a successful resistance to the north-


ward expansion of Spaniards and Mexicans and the westward expansion of
Anglos. Native American tribes were not unified. For example, the Tonkawa
of Central Texas often allied with Anglos in fights against the Comanches
and the Wichitas, another important South Plains tribe.

European Colonization Accurate estimates of the Native American popula-


tion may not be available, but whatever the true size, their numbers declined
rapidly after European contact in the 16th century. With Spanish explorers and
their African slaves came diseases like cholera that spread through native com-
munities. Though Spain and France claimed Texas, neither country actively
ruled the territory. Their activities were mostly exploring, surveying, and fight-
ing. The area remained sparsely populated through the Mexican Revolution
against Spain in 1810. In 1824, three years after Mexico overthrew Spanish rule,
the area that is now Texas became part of a federal republic for the first time.

Mexican Texas Around the time of Mexican independence, Anglo American


settlers began coming to the Mexican province of Tejas in greater numbers.
Although the first non-Spanish-speaking immigrants to Texas were largely of
English ancestry, some were Scottish, Irish, or Welsh descendants. Others were
French, Scandinavian, and Eastern European, with a few Italians, Greeks, and
other European nationalities. The arrival of Anglo settlers sped the decline of
the Native American population, which had already been reduced to 20,000-
30,000 people. Violence between the native population and immigrant whites
was constant and pervasive. Despite the Mexican government’s authorization
of Stephen F. Austin to offer free land to settlers willing to work it, government
officials were concerned about the immigrants. Many Anglo newcomers
resisted the constitution and laws of Mexico that established Catholicism as the
state religion and abolished slavery. (See chapter 2, ‘‘Federalism and the Texas
Constitution’’ for more discussion of the historical context).
When General Antonio López de Santa Anna was elected president of
Mexico in 1834, most Texans did not expect that he would repudiate the prin-
ciples of the federal democratic republic he was elected to serve. When he did,
a result was the Texas Revolution, with its famous battles at Goliad, the
Alamo, and San Jacinto. A great deal of blood was shed to establish the inde-
pendent Republic of Texas in 1836 that received diplomatic recognition by
the governments of the United States, England, France, Holland, and Belgium.

The Republic of Texas The elected presidents of the Republic, Sam Hous-
ton (twice) and Mirabeau B. Lamar, and the Texas Congress struggled to es-
tablish Texas as an independent nation, even as many in the government
sought to join the United States. The demands of establishing and maintain-
ing an army and navy, operating a postal system, printing paper money,
administering justice, and providing other governmental services were made
difficult by conflicts within and without the Republic’s borders.
Anglo-Indian warfare continued because of increased immigration from
the United States, and because some Texan Anglo leaders pursued policies

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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

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