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Ebook PDF Etextbook PDF For Social Change 3Rd Edition by Jay Weinstein Full Chapter
Ebook PDF Etextbook PDF For Social Change 3Rd Edition by Jay Weinstein Full Chapter
I
T SHOULD come as no surprise that the years between the publication of the first edition
and the current third edition of this book, 1997 to 2010, have seen rapid and accelerating
rates of change in human relations, from the interpersonal to the international level. The
Internet and other pathways of electronic telecommunication continue to erode the traditional
boundaries once separating people from one another. Globally, the seemingly unstoppable
expansion of multinational organizations—corporations, agencies, and alliances—continue to
standardize the way most of us behave, believe, consume, and even dream. Ours is an age in
which the devastation of war and civil unrest in the Middle East, protests in Canada and
Europe against corporate power, and the triumphs of Olympic competition in China can be
observed in real time throughout the world.
Acknowledgments
I express my thanks to my students Maya Barak, Cathy Collins, Karen Schaumann, Ivy
Forsythe-Brown, Jennifer Corwin, and Maria Marlowe for their assistance in preparing this
book, and to Marcello Truzzi—who passed away during the preparation of the second edition
—Fatos Tarifa, Joanna Scott, Liza Cerroni-Long, Raouf Hanna, Susan Rabinowitz, and Larry
Reynolds for their comments on the previous two editions. A faculty research fellowship
granted by the graduate school of Eastern Michigan University afforded me the opportunity to
complete earlier drafts of this manuscript with a semester’s leave from my teaching duties.
I am especially grateful for the suggestions of the editorial reviewers, whose well-
considered comments made this a much more accurate and more interesting book: York
Bradshaw, Indiana University; James Copp, Texas A&M; Richard Flacks, University of
California, Santa Barbara; John Gagnon, State University of New York, Stony Brook; and
Frank J. Weed, University of Texas, Arlington.
It has been a pleasure and a true learning experience to have worked with Rowman &
Littlefield in bringing out the second and third editions. Dean Birkenkamp initiated the project
that eventuated in the second edition shortly before leaving R&L. Alan McClare saw that
edition through to production and was closely involved throughout the preparation of the third;
I worked closely with him during production, and he exercised great care and concern to
ensure that the technical aspects of the book would be as close to perfect as possible. It came
as a shock and a very sad loss when I learned that Alan died suddenly in November 2009. He
will be greatly missed.
No book of this scope could possibly be a solo effort, but I alone assume responsibility for
all errors of commission and omission.
PART
I
The Study of Change
P ART I surveys the subject matter of social and cultural change, discussing the concepts,
principles, leading authors, and illustrative cases familiar to contemporary sociologists,
anthropologists, and other scholars in the field. Each of the two chapters that make up this
part poses some broad, leading questions, such as “Why study change?” and “What is
progress?” Each provides a few preliminary answers, but we return to these issues several
times throughout the book.1
Chapter 1 is about the social scientific perspective: a way of looking at human relations
that is grounded in theory and is applied to a broad range of contemporary events and issues.
Chapter 2 continues along these lines, considering specifically how social scientists have
grappled with the central but difficult concept of sociocultural evolution.
Those of you who have already taken an introductory course in sociology or anthropology
will recall many of the concepts presented here: interaction, institutions, symbols, values,
fertility control, and so on. You will also recognize the names of some of the classic authors
whose works are cited, such as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim,
and Alfred L. Kroeber. In fact, you probably know a great deal about social and cultural
change from other courses in social science, history, or humanities and from your own life
experiences. In any case, you are aware that change, variability, and instability are very much
part of social life, especially today. These first chapters are meant to reinforce and deepen
your insights into our dynamic world.2
CHAPTER
A
GREAT SOCIOCULTURAL revolution is now sweeping our world. Centered in North
America, Japan, and the urban, industrialized countries of Western Europe, it extends to
the still largely rural, third World nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America and to the
formerly communist-dominated (“second World”) regions of Central and Eastern Europe.
Rapid change, both peaceful and violent, is a fact of life that virtually everyone on Earth today
has come to expect, if not unconditionally accept.
Electronic communication not only has contributed to the globalization of change but also
has been a major force in accelerating the rate at which the old becomes obsolete and the
newer replaces the new. In the 1960s, as the very earliest impacts of the microchip and related
innovations were being felt, one student of cultural change remarked that “more than any other
period in the history of [hu]mankind, ours is a time of change” (Stebbins 1965, 223). In 1990,
these sentiments were expressed with renewed and even greater urgency by sociologist
Anthony Giddens. Our age, he noted, is distinguished by its “sheer pace of change. . . .
Traditional civilisations may have been considerably more dynamic than other premodern
systems, but the rapidity of change in conditions of modernity is extreme” (Giddens 1990, 6).
In fact, it sometimes seems as if the world is changing too quickly, “starting very slowly but
gaining impetus as it goes along, until today it accelerates at an almost frightening rate” (Blum
1963, 33).2
Scale
The scale of change can vary from the small or microlevel to the large or macrolevel,
depending on the number of individuals and relationships that are involved. As a result, there
are two relatively distinct ways in which to understand how and why particular changes occur.
Consider, for instance, an increase in the activities of a social protest movement such as the
U.S. Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. At the microlevel, the focus is on individuals: their
recruitment, leadership capabilities, and interests and motives for participating, remaining
uninvolved, or even joining an opposition movement. At the macrolevel, emphasis is placed on
the organizations associated with the movement (such as the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference) and on the effects of international events and government policies on the
movement’s progress.
Of course, the two levels do not operate independently: the motives and interests of leaders
undoubtedly affect the functioning of the organizations they lead, and vice versa. In fact,
macrolevel change consists of several interconnected microlevel variations so that, in
principle, explanations focusing on individuals and small groups should build up to
explanations of interinstitutional and international relations. However, so many microlevel
events are occurring so rapidly that such complete explanations are never possible in practice.
Thus, the study of sociocultural dynamics has been, of necessity, somewhat compartmentalized.
In the discipline of sociology, in particular, the microlevel has been most thoroughly
explored within the subfields of symbolic interactionism and group dynamics, and the
macrolevel is most often identified with “social change” and, within social change studies,
with the specialization in political movements and revolutions. This macrolevel orientation
also defines the kinds of changes researchers consider to be most important and how these
episodes are tied to larger historical trends and institutional crises (Tilly 1984).
This image of radiating, higher-order impacts symbolizes how social scientists treat
intention as relative. We know that people act collectively with purposes in mind and that
bringing about social and cultural change is often one of their goals. Seeking change, they work
in groups, make alliances, accumulate resources, and enter into communication networks.
These social relations in which they participate very much affect the chances that their goals
will actually be achieved. Yet, as plans are enacted, several other factors enter the situation to
give rise to higher-order impacts.
Some of the factors are nonpurposeful, such as the size of the population in which the
change is sought, the specific cultural values that prevail, and the characteristics of the
organizations involved. But also included are the intentional acts of other actors: people who
may be seeking different, even contradictory goals. These relations always complicate the path
that joins intent with outcome. Depending on how others react and on the nonpurposeful
influences, the potential results of intentional change, from the point of view of one who
consciously seeks it, can thus range from direct success to partial realization and to dismal
failure.
Actual outcomes depend on many things, some of which may be (at least temporarily)
beyond our control. When we deal with complex, dynamic events and societies—especially
over the course of decades—we find that there are highly elaborate causal chains linking
intentional acts with their ultimate effects. In the case of transforming events such as the four
critical episodes, this principle is realized in the form of historical ironies, simultaneous
triumphs and setbacks, personal and interpersonal conflict, and a generally puzzling
combination of progress and regress. No one would doubt, for instance, that a major outcome
of the Nazi movement and the Holocaust was the humiliation of the German nation in the eyes
of most of the world, including many German citizens. Yet, this was as far as possible from the
goals of the perpetrators, who sought to establish a “thousand-year reign” of German
nationalism over all of humanity.
Evolutionary Impact
The ideas of progress and regress and the possibility that change can lead to significant
improvements and deterioration in social relations are closely tied to the concept of
sociocultural evolution. This connection is discussed briefly here and again in chapter 2, of
which it is the main topic. Because everything is always changing, it is never a simple matter
to decide among those trends and variations that demand scientific attention and those that can
be safely ignored. The possibility that some trends may be leading humanity in a specific
direction (that we may wish to encourage or avoid) has guided researchers to focus on critical
episodes, such as the Holocaust, and to be less concerned with (apparently) inconsequential
changes, such as growth in the pizza delivery business.
Evolution is a leading concept in the history of social science, in part because it addresses
the problems of survival, that is, why some populations and their socio-cultural traits persist
and grow over the generations whereas others decline and even become extinct. Contemporary
researchers are keenly aware that there are both benefits and serious limitations in applying
this (or any) type of organic metaphor to human relations, for sociocultural change is a
superorganic process in which consciousness, intent, and meaning intervene between the
organism and the environment in ways unknown among other species.6
One major advantage of the evolutionary perspective is that it underscores how a people’s
very existence may be at stake when its society and culture change. In fact, in the larger
evolutionary scheme of things, our sociocultural systems, in themselves, can be viewed as
general and often highly effective survival adaptations (Huxley 1953, chap. 6).
The human animal lacks the physical advantages of other species, such as running speed,
powerful teeth and claws, the ability to endure long periods without food and water, the
capacity of newborn individuals to fend for themselves, and the ability to fly. Instead, we have
developed cooperative mechanisms and elaborate systems of symbols and tools, embodied in
our sociocultural heritage, that compensate for these shortcomings. If somehow a human
population suddenly lost its ability to cooperate and transmit cultural material within and
between generations, one can imagine how impotent its members would be in coping with their
potentially hostile environment, including other species and more advantaged humans. It
certainly could not survive very long.
Some social and cultural changes have greater impact than others do on a population’s
capacity to adapt to its always-changing environment. For this reason, major discoveries, such
as the development of electronic media, and massive movements, such as Third World
nationalism, have received prime attention from theorists and researchers. Because these have
clearly contributed to the ability of human populations to survive, they represent significant
changes. Whether or not they should be properly termed “advances” is another matter, an issue
that chapter 2 explores.
Beginning in the early 1980s, a movement surfaced in the United States, France, and other
nations that styled itself “Holocaust Revisionism” (Anti-Defamation League 1993). Its aim is
to challenge the validity of the historical record that documents the major events surrounding
the Holocaust and, in many instances, to challenge the very existence of the episode. As such,
most scholars more properly refer to it as Holocaust denial. A leading spokesperson for the
denial movement is David Irving. Irving has written extensively on the subject and has
consistently claimed that no evidence exists to prove that millions of Jews died in Auschwitz
and the other camps. As is true of other deniers, his position is that the accounts of the
Holocaust were largely fabricated by Jews for monetary gain and in support of the State of
Israel.
In the early 1990s, historian Deborah Lipstadt published an important book on the
Holocaust denial movement (Lipstadt 1993). In it she argued that Irving is a fraud, a neo-
Nazi, and an anti-Semite, whose “research” amounts to little more than pseudo-scholarship.
Because of her pointed criticism of Irving and other leaders of the denial movement, Lipstadt
achieved wide recognition and was in great demand as a lecturer and guest on talk shows.
In response to this notoriety, Irving filed a lawsuit in 2000 against Lipstadt and her
publisher, Penguin Books, Ltd., claiming that he had been libeled. According to English law,
the burden of proof is on the defendant in such a case, that is, Lipstadt and Penguin were
forced to prove their case about Irving. Following a dramatic trial in London’s High Court of
Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, on April 11, 2000, Presiding Justice Hon. Gray rendered
the following judgment acquitting Lipstadt and the publisher:
The charges which I have found to be substantially true include the charges that Irving has for his own ideological
reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he
has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and
responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and
that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism. In my judgment the charges against Irving
which have been proved to be true are of sufficient gravity for it be clear that the failure to prove the truth of the
matters set out in paragraph 13.165 above does not have any material effect on Irving’s reputation. In the result
therefore the defence of justification succeeds.
One of the most significant features of this enormous demographic change is that it was so
purposeful: well organized and highly bureaucratized.8 It occurred largely under the legitimate
auspices of national authorities (Laqueur 1980; Wistrich 1985). It was institutionalized through
a social movement, and it became official policy in several countries. At the same time,
democratic institutions were systematically disassembled in Germany and in other Axis
powers (Linz 1988). In place of a secular, democratic government, the regime was made
sacred, worshiped as the true embodiment of a “superior race” (Cristi 2001).
This extraordinary authority was then used to destroy members of “lesser races”: through
invasion where the “inferiors” had a national territory and through internal “solutions” when
the people had no homeland. The latter applied especially to political refugees, Jews, and the
Sinti and Romani people (“Gypsies”; Lewy 2000; Ramati 1986). This was the most complete
and most manifest application of a long-standing heritage of racism and anti-Semitism in
Europe (Goldhagen 1996; Weinstein and Stehr 1999).
The legal and moral impact of the Holocaust has been enormous. The Nuremberg Tribunal,
held in the fall of 1945, served to change the structure of international law (Taylor 1992;
Woetzel 1962). The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem occurred in 1961 (Arendt 1964).
And numerous government and academic forums have been held to examine the events. In these
contexts, questions have been raised concerning the limits of state power, human rights,
complicity with immoral commands from social superiors, the meaning of evil, and countless
other dilemmas that were revealed in their harshest light during World War II (Furet 1989; Levi
1988; Roth and Berenbaum 1989).9
Syllabus
Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis
of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro
children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—even
though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may
be equal.
(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on
public education.
(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of
conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full
development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.
(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public
schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children
of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities
and other “tangible” factors may be equal.
(e) The “separate but equal” doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has
no place in the field of public education.
(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions
relating to the forms of the decrees.
We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no
place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason
of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such
segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The African American churches played a historically central role in the movement. At the
head of many of these marches was a Protestant minister from Atlanta who had studied the
anticolonial strategies of Gandhi: Martin Luther King Jr. Another man inspired by the Third
World independence movement was a Muslim minister from Michigan, Al Haj Malik al
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
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.