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ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

The cover image, His Effort, is a painting by the late Ernie Barnes (1938–2009),
an internationally known artist, a former professional football player, and an
unforgettable friend.
Barnes is best known for his unique figurative style of painting, and he
is widely recognized as the foremost African American artist of his genera-
tion. His paintings first became known to millions of people when used as
the cover theme for the hit television show Good Times and as the cover art
on such popular albums as Marvin Gaye’s I Want You, Donald Byrd’s Donald
Byrd and 125th Street, NYC, and B. B. King’s Making Love Is Good for You.
Barnes’s ability to capture the powerful energy and movement of sports
earned him recognition as “America’s Best Painter of Sports” by the American Sports Museum. In 1984
he was appointed official artist for the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. His sports commis-
sions include paintings for the Los Angeles Lakers, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Oakland
Raiders, and New England Patriots, as well as a painting displayed at the Naismith Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the National Basketball Association.
One of the remarkable features of Barnes’s work is his use of elongation and distortion to represent
energy, power, grace, intensity, and fluidity in his art. His sports background provided a distinct vantage
point for observing bodies in movement, and he used his unique understanding of the human anatomy
to portray not only athletes but everyday mannerisms in delayed motion. As a result, his images com-
municate an intimate sense of human physicality.
For many people, Ernie Barnes captures the spirit and determination of athletes as they express
themselves through movement. His images present to us the kinesthetic soul of sports.
This is the sixth consecutive cover of Sports in Society that presents the art of Ernie Barnes. When
Ernie spoke to students in Los Angeles, he usually brought copies of the book with him to show that
art, sport, and academic learning could come together in their lives. This particular cover image was
chosen to represent Barnes’s legacy based on his effort to represent the wonder and endurance of the
human spirit.
Much of Barnes’s work can be viewed at ErnieBarnes.com. My thanks go to Ernie’s longtime friend
and assistant, Luz Rodrigues, and his family for sharing His Effort for this edition of Sports in Society.

vii
CONTENTS

Preface xi
How Do Sports Affect Our Lives? 68
Summary: Who Plays and What Happens? 77

1 The Sociology of Sport: What Is It

and Why Study It? 2
About This Book 4 4 Sports for Children: Are Organized
Programs Worth the Effort? 80
About This Chapter 4 Origin and Development of Organized Youth
Using Sociology to Study Sports 4 Sports 82
Defining Sports 6 Major Trends in Youth Sports Today 86
What Is the Sociology of Sport? 9 Informal, Player-Controlled Sports: A Case of the
Generation Gap 93
Why Study Sports in Society? 13
Youth Sports Today: Assessing Our Efforts 95
Summary: Why Study the Sociology of Sport? 21
The Challenge of Improving Youth Sports 98
Recommendations for Improving Youth Sports 100

2 Producing Knowledge About

Sports in Society: What Is the Role
of Research and Theory? 24
Summary: Are Organized Programs Worth the
Effort? 102

Producing Knowledge in the Sociology of Sport

Doing Research and Using Theory in the Sociology
of Sport: A Case Study 28
26
The Impact of Sociology of Sport Knowledge 42
Using a Critical Approach to Produce Knowledge 44
Summary: How Is Knowledge Produced in the
Sociology of Sport? 48
5 Deviance in Sports: Is It Out of
Control? 106
Defining and Studying Deviance in Sports 108
Challenges Faced When Studying Deviance in
Sports 108
Research on Deviance in Sports 119
Performance-Enhancing Substances: A Case Study of
Deviant Overconformity 130

3
Summary: Is Deviance in Sports Out of Control? 142
Sports and Socialization: Who Plays
and What Happens to Them? 50
What Is Socialization? 52
Becoming and Staying Involved in Sports
Changing or Ending Sport Participation
54
58
6 Violence in Sports: Does It Affect
Our Lives? 146
What Is Violence? 148
Being Involved in Sports: What Happens? 62 Violence in Sports Throughout History 149

viii
 Contents ix

Violence on the Field 150 Global Inequalities and Sports 284

Violence off the Field 162 Economic and Career Opportunities in Sports 286
Violence Among Spectators 165 Sport Participation and Occupational Careers
Terrorism: Planned Political Violence at Sport Among Former Athletes 293
Events 173 Summary: Do Money and Power Matter in Sports? 298
Summary: Does Violence in Sports Affect Our
Lives? 175

10 Age and Ability: Barriers

to Participation and

7 Gender and Sports: Is Equity

Possible? 178
Cultural Origins of Gender Inequities 180
Inclusion? 302
What Counts as Ability? 304
Constructing the Meaning of Age 308
Orthodox Gender Ideology and Sports 184 Constructing the Meaning of Ability 315
Mainstream Sports Reaffirm Orthodox Gender Sport and Ability 326
Ideology 188
Disability Sports 331
Progress Toward Gender Equity 195
Technology and Ability 340
Gender Inequities Remain 199
To “Dis ” or Not to “Dis ” 345
Barriers to Equity 209
Summary: Are Age and Ability Barriers to
Gender Equity and Sexuality 213 Participation? 346
Strategies to Achieve Equity 217
Summary: Is Equity Possible? 222

11 Sports and the Economy:

What Are the Characteristics

8 Race and Ethnicity: Are They

Important in Sports? 224
Defining Race and Ethnicity 226
of Commercial Sports? 350
Emergence and Growth of Commercial Sports
Commercialization and Changes in Sports 362
352

Creating Race and Racial Ideologies 227
Sport Participation Among Ethnic Minorities in the
United States 240
Race, Ethnicity, and Sport in a Global Perspective 254
The Dynamics of Racial and Ethnic Relations in
Sports 257
Summary: Are Race and Ethnicity Important in
Sports? 261
The Organization of Professional Sports in North
America 367
The Organization of Amateur Sports in North
America 375
Legal Status and Incomes of Athletes in Commercial
Sports 377
Summary: What Are the Characteristics of
Commercial Sports? 385

9 Social Class: Do Money and Power

Matter in Sports? 264
Social Class and Class Relations 266
12 Sports and the Media: Could
They Survive Without Each
Other? 388
Sports and Economic Inequality 267 Characteristics of the Media 390
Social Class and Sport Participation Patterns 273 Sports and Media: A Two-Way Relationship 400
x SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies www.mhhe.com/coakley11e

Images and Narratives in Media Sports 410 High School and College Sports Face
Experiences and Consequences of Consuming Media Uncertainty 488
Sports 419 Summary: Do Competitive Sports Contribute to
Sport Journalism 423 Education? 503
Summary: Could Sports and the Media Survive
Without Each Other? 425

15 Sports and Religions: Is It a

Promising Combination? 506

13 Sports and Politics: How Do

Governments and Global
Political Processes Influence
How Do Sociologists Define and Study
Religion? 508
Similarities and Differences Between Sports and
Sports? 428 Religions 510
Modern Sports and Religious Beliefs and
The Sports–Government Connection 431
Organizations 513
Sports and Global Political Processes 443
The Challenges of Combining Sports and Religious
Politics in Sports 458 Beliefs 530
Summary: How Do Governments and Global Summary: Is It a Promising Combination? 535
Political Processes Influence Sports? 460

14 Sports in High School and

College: Do Competitive
16 Sports in the Future: What Do
We Want Them to Be? 538
Envisioning Possibilities for the Future 540
Sports Contribute to
Current Trends Related to Sports in Society 542
Education? 462
Factors Influencing Trends Today 546
Arguments for and Against Interscholastic
Becoming Agents of Change 551
Sports 464
The Challenge of Transforming Sports 555
Interscholastic Sports and the Experiences of High
School Students 464 Summary: What Do We Want Sports to Be? 558
Intercollegiate Sports and the Experiences of College References 561
Students 472 Name Index 648
Do Schools Benefit from Varsity Sports? 481 Subject Index 663
PREFACE
PURPOSE OF THIS TEXT
The eleventh edition of Sports in Society: Issues
and Controversies provides a detailed introduc-
tion to the sociology of sport. It uses sociological
concepts, theories, and research to raise critical
questions about sports and explore the dynamic
relationship between sports, culture, and society.
The chapters are organized around controver-
sial and curiosity-arousing issues that have been
systematically studied in sociology and related
fields. Research on these issues is summarized so
that readers can critically examine them.
Chapter content is guided by sociological
research and theory and based on the assump-
tion that a full understanding of sports must take
into account the social and cultural contexts in
which sports are created, played, given mean-
ing, and integrated into people’s lives. At a time
when we too often think that a “website search”
provides everything we need to know, I intend
this text as a thoughtful scholarly work that
integrates research on sports as social phenom-
ena, makes sense of the expanding body of work
in the sociology of sport, and inspires critical
thinking.
FOR WHOM IS IT WRITTEN?
Sports in Society is written for everyone taking
a first critical look at the relationships between
sports, culture, and society. Readers don’t need
a background in sociology to understand and
benefit from discussions in each chapter; nor do
they need detailed knowledge of sport jargon
and statistics. My goal is to help readers iden-
tify and explore issues related to sports in their
personal experiences, families, schools, commu-
nities, and societies.
The emphasis on issues and controversies
makes each chapter useful for people concerned
with sport-related policies and programs. I’ve
always tried to use knowledge to make sports
more democratic, accessible, inclusive, and
humane, and I hope to provide readers with the
information and desire to do the same.
WRITING THIS REVISION
As soon as the tenth edition of Sports in Society
went to press I began research for this edition.
This involves reading six newspapers each day,
including USA Today, The New York Times, The
Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. I
also read two sports magazines—Sports Illus-
trated and ESPN The Magazine—and three or
four other magazines that often carry articles
about sports. But most of my research involves
reading every abstract for every article published
in the major journals dealing with sports as
social phenomena. I regularly survey the tables
of contents of a few dozen journals in sociology
and related fields to find articles on sport-related
topics. Although I do not read every article or
every book in the field, I read many and take
notes as I do.
Finally, I track photos that I might buy for the
edition, and I take thousands of photos myself,
xi
xii SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
always hoping to have ten to twenty new ones for
each new edition. I regularly ask friends to take
photos if they are in unique sport settings. In the
final photo selection I usually review 250 photos
for every one I choose to include in the book.
In all, this amounts to thousands of hours of
research, writing, and discussing issues with peo-
ple from many walks of life in the United States
and other parts of the world I’ve had opportu-
nities to visit.
CHANGES TO THIS ELEVENTH EDITION
This edition is new in many respects, and most
sections of the book, including tables and fig-
ures, have been updated. However, as new mate-
rial was added, other material had to be deleted
or put in the Online Learning Center. New
chapter-opening quotes, photos, and examples
maintain the timeliness of content. This edition
also is more carefully and clearly linked with
the corresponding website (www.mhhe.com/
coakley11e), and the Online Learning Center
contains additional substantive materials related
to each chapter topic.
New research and theoretical developments
are integrated into each chapter. There are about
1400 new references included in this edition—
nearly 2200 references in all—to assist those
writing papers and doing research. Most new
references identify materials published since the
manuscript for the previous edition left my hands.
The sociology of sport has expanded so much
in recent years that Sports in Society is now an
introduction to the field more than a compre-
hensive overview.
Revision Themes and New Materials
This edition presents reorganized chapter open-
ers consisting of a photo, provocative quotes
from popular sources, a brief Chapter Outline,
and Learning Objectives. At the end of each
chapter are new lists of Supplemental Readings
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
that are featured in the Online Learning Center
(OLC), along with selected sport management
discussion issues related to the chapter content.
The most significant change in this edition is
a new chapter on age and ability. Research and
knowledge about variations in sport participa-
tion patterns by age and abilities have increased
dramatically over the past decade. This serves
as a foundation for discussions of how and why
participation declines after early adolescence and
is consistently low among people with specific
physical or intellectual impairments. There are
detailed discussions of age- and ability-segregated
events, such as Masters competitions for older
people and the Paralympics and Special Olympics
for people with impairments currently defined as
performance-limiting in sports. The chapter con-
cludes with a discussion of the use of movement
enabling technologies in sports.
Another major change is that the chapter
on gender is rewritten so the coverage of ideo-
logical issues and structural inequities (for girls
and women) matches the sequence used in the
chapters on race and ethnicity, social class, and
age and ability. This continuity enables readers
to see similarities in the dynamics of exclusion
and inclusion across these socially significant
attributes.
Chapter 1 now introduces “the great sport
myth”—the widespread belief that all sports are
essentially pure and good, and that their purity
and goodness are transferred to those who par-
ticipate in or watch sports. This concept helps
readers understand how and why sports are per-
ceived in such positive terms worldwide and why
it is difficult to promote critical thinking about
sports in society. References to the great sport
myth appear in most of the chapters. Chapter 1
also has a new explanation of ideology to give
readers a clearer idea of how sports are cultural
practices linked with our everyday lives and
other spheres of society.
Chapter 2 contains new figures on the
knowledge production process and the primary
data collection methods in sociology of sport

research. There is a new explanation of gender
as meaning, performance, and organization in
social worlds, and new discussions of the dif-
ferences between quantitative and qualitative
research and the use of the telephone for con-
ducting interviews. There is a new section, “The
Impact of Sociology of Sport Knowledge,” that
explains why we do research and produce knowl-
edge about sports in society. A new Reflect on
Sports box focuses on “Critical Feminist Theory
Today: From the Margins to Mainstream.”
The history chapter from the tenth edition is
now accessible through the OLC, and the chap-
ter on socialization is now Chapter 3, following
the knowledge production chapter. It contains a
new section on “Family Culture and the Sport
Participation of Children,” which examines fam-
ilies as the immediate contexts in which socializa-
tion into sports is initiated and nurtured. There
also are new discussions of the transition out of
competitive sports careers, of recent research on
the sport experiences of gay and lesbian athletes,
and current approaches to sports and socializa-
tion as a community process.
Chapter 4, on youth sports, presents a new
discussion of how the culture of childhood play
has nearly disappeared in most segments of
post-industrial society. There’s also an expanded
discussion of the possibility that in the United
States some upper-middle-class parents use
youth sports as a way to create mobility opportu-
nities and reproduce privilege for their children.
Finally, there is a discussion of how and why
youth sports in the United States are program-
matically fragmented and exist independently
of any theory-based approach to teaching age-
appropriate physical skills and promoting life-
long involvement in sports and physical activities.
Chapter 5, on deviance, contains a new dis-
cussion of the relationship between deviant
overconformity and injuries, concussions, and
repetitive head trauma in sports. There’s also
an explanation of how widespread acceptance
of the great sports myth leads people to deny or
ignore certain forms of deviance in sports and
Preface xiii
use punitive social control methods that focus
on individuals rather than the systemic prob-
lems that exist in various forms of sport. This
is followed by a discussion of new surveillance
technologies being used to police and control
athletes, especially in connection with the use of
performance-enhancing substances.
Chapter 6, on violence in sports, contains
new discussions of the NFL’s investigation of
players’ and coaches’ alleged use of bounties as
incentives to injure opponents and why violent
sports have become commercially successful in
certain cultures. The issue of concussions and
head trauma is also discussed in connection with
the culture of violence that is widely accepted
in heavy-contact sports. The highly publicized
violent sexual assault involving members of the
high school football team in Steubenville, Ohio,
is also discussed relative to issues of gender and
violence. Finally, there is an expanded discussion
of how the threat of terrorism is perceived and
how it influences the dynamics of social control
at sport events.
Chapter 7, on gender and sports, introduces
the concept of orthodox gender ideology to help
readers understand the cultural origins of gen-
der inequality and why sports are one of the
last spheres of social life in which the two-sex
approach is accepted in a way that normalizes
gender segregation. The term orthodox is used
to show that this view of gender represents a
way of thinking that many people have inter-
nalized as unchanging “truth” and often link to
their religious beliefs or an overall sense of right
and wrong. This chapter also contains a new
section on “Progress Toward Gender Equity,”
which identifies girls’ and women’s increased
participation as the single most dramatic change
in sports over the past two generations. There
is an updated Reflect on Sports box that examines
Title IX compliance and “what counts as equity
in sports.” A new Reflect on Sports box deals
with how football impacts policies and prog-
ress toward gender equity. A new table pres-
ents data on female and male athletes at recent
xiv SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
Paralympic Games, and a new section, “The
Global Women’s Rights Movement,” discusses
the belief that girls and women are enhanced as
human beings when they develop their intel-
lectual and physical abilities. New discussions
of the media coverage of women in sports and
the impact of budget cuts and the privatization
of sports are presented to show that programs
for women and girls remain vulnerable to cuts
because they lack a strong market presence and
have not been profit producing.
Chapter 8, on race and ethnicity, presents a
revised discussion of how racial ideology influ-
ences sports participation. There is a new Reflect
on Sports box dealing with “Vénus Noire: A legacy
of Racism After 200 years,” and a new discussion
of the isolation often experienced by women of
color participating in or coaching college sports.
New research is presented to show the ways that
some Japanese parents use youth sports leagues
to establish relationships with other Japanese
families and connect their children with Asian
American peers. Finally, there is a new section
on race, ethnicity, and sports in a global perspec-
tive in which efforts to control the expression of
racism at sport events is discussed.
Chapter 9, on social class, has expanded dis-
cussions of whether building a new stadium trig-
gers new jobs for the surrounding community
and how the economic downturn has impacted
sports participation in the United States. There
is a new discussion of research on whether local
boxing gyms help participants bond with one
another and acquire forms of social capital that
alter their structural position in society, as well
as a new discussion of data on the impact of
wealth, as opposed to income, on sport partici-
pation patterns.
Chapter 10, written with Elizabeth Pike, my
colleague from the University of Chichester in
England, is new and focuses on issues and con-
troversies related to age and ability in sports. The
framework of this chapter is built on research
showing how social definitions of age and abil-
ity impact the provision of sport participation
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
opportunities and the decisions made by people
to become involved and stay involved in sports.
The sections on masters events, the Paralympics,
the Special Olympics, and related forms of sport
provision illustrate the complexity of sports
when they are viewed in a general social and cul-
tural context in which age and ability influence
how people are perceived and they include phys-
ical activities in their lives.
Chapter 11 deals with the commercialization
of sports. It contains a new section on how the
NFL and other major sport organizations have
used their nonprofit status to avoid paying taxes
while they generate billions of dollars in income
and pay executives up to $30 million per year.
There also is a discussion of how the great sport
myth is used to appropriate public money to
build sport venues and subsidize sport teams.
Labor relations in sports are discussed in more
depth, with explanations of collective bargaining
agreements, lockouts, and the role of players’
associations.
Chapter 12, on sports and the media, contains
much new material on the changing media land-
scape and how it is related to sports. There is a
new discussion of fantasy sports as an arena in
which participation is influenced by gender and
the quest to sustain white male privilege. There’s
also new material on how social media are used
by established sport organizations and by ath-
letes practicing parkour and other emerging
sport activities around the world. A new section
focuses on the rapid escalation of media rights
fees and how they are driving up the costs for
cable and satellite TV providers and consumers.
Changes in media coverage are discussed, with
attention given to how masculinity and sexuality
are presented in sports media. Finally, there is a
new discussion of how entertainment journalism
has replaced investigative journalism in sports
media.
Chapter 13, on politics, government, and
global processes, is updated in its coverage of
sport and national identity in global relations,
and how the Olympics and men’s World Cup

have become tools for generating profits for the
International Olympic Committee and FIFA
at the same time that the countries hosting
these games incur increasing debt for debat-
able returns. Research on recent sport mega-
events is used to discuss the challenges and the
pros and cons of hosting such events. There
is an expanded discussion of the new political
realities of sports—where team ownership and
event sponsorship have become global in scope,
where athletes seek opportunities worldwide,
where global media make it easy to follow the
sporting events of teams from all over the world,
and where fans’ loyalties are no longer limited
to teams from their own regions or countries.
Research is presented to show that these realities
are linked with corporate expansion, the global
flow of capital, the business strategy of global
media companies, and processes of glocalization
through which global sports are integrated into
people’s everyday lives on a local level.
Chapter 14, on high school and college
sports, includes new research findings related
to issues such as the rising costs of sport pro-
grams, who benefits from the revenues gener-
ated by certain sports, the dramatic increase of
inequality between programs at both the high
school and college levels, and young people’s
perceptions of athletic and academic achieve-
ment in schools with high-profile sport pro-
grams. There also are new sections on budget
issues and the uncertainty that faces school
sports today, and the issues currently faced by
the NCAA as it tries to control a college sport
system that is increasingly unmanageable and
inconsistent with the goals of higher education.
Chapter 15, on religion and sports, presents
new information on world religions and how
they influence conceptions of the body, evalu-
ations of physical movement, and sport partici-
pation. There also is updated information about
the ways in which individuals and organizations
combine sport with religious beliefs, and how
this has spread beyond the United States in
recent years.
Preface xv
Chapter 16 has been shortened and now
focuses primarily on the process of making
change in sports rather than describing what the
future of sports might be. This is because there
is a need for us to acknowledge the power of
corporations in shaping sports to fit their inter-
ests and to develop strategies for creating sport
forms that directly serve the needs of individuals
and communities.
Supplemental Readings and New Website
Resources
Each chapter is followed by a list of Supplemen-
tal Readings that provide useful information
about topics in the chapters. The Supplemental
Readings have been expanded for each chapter
and can be found in the Online Learning Center
(OLC).
New Visual Materials
There are 120 photos, 20 figures, and 31 car-
toons in this edition; 61 of the photos are new.
These images are combined with new diagrams,
figures, and tables to illustrate important sub-
stantive points, visually enhance the text, and
make reading more interesting.
Online Learning Center
The website www.mhhe.com/coakley11e is an
important feature associated with the eleventh
edition of Sports in Society. The site contains gen-
eral information about this edition, along with
links to supplemental materials associated with
each chapter. Those materials include
• Supplemental Readings that add depth and
background to current chapter topics
• Group projects
• Previous chapters on coaches, competition,
history (from the 10th edition), and social
theories (from the 9th edition)
• True/false self-tests for each chapter
xvi SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
• A cumulative 230-page bibliography that
lists all references from this and the last six
editions of Sports in Society
• A complete glossary of key terms integrated
into the index
ANCILLARIES
Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank
An instructor’s manual and test bank are avail-
able to assist those using Sports in Society in col-
lege courses. It includes the following:
• Chapter outlines. These are full outlines that
provide a section-by-section topic list for
each chapter. They are useful for test reviews
and organizing lectures, and they may be
reproduced and given to students as study
guides.
• Test questions (multiple choice). These
questions are designed to test students’
awareness of the central concepts and ideas
in each chapter. For the instructor with large
classes, these questions are useful for creating
chapter and midterm tests, as well as final
exams.
• Discussion/essay questions. These questions
can be used for tests or to generate
classroom discussions. They’re designed to
encourage students to synthesize and apply
materials in one or more of the sections in
each chapter. None of the questions asks
the students to simply list points or give
definitions.
Computerized Test Bank
A computerized version of the test bank for the
instructor’s manual is available in both IBM and
Macintosh formats to qualified adopters. This
software provides a unique combination of user-
friendly aids and enables the instructor to select,
edit, delete, or add questions and to construct
and print tests and answer keys.
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book draws on ideas from many sources.
Thanks go to students, colleagues, and friends
who have provided constructive criticisms over
the years. Students regularly open my eyes to new
ways of viewing and analyzing sports as social
phenomena. Special thanks go to friends and col-
leagues who influence my thinking, provide valu-
able source materials, and willingly discuss ideas
and information with me. Elizabeth Pike, Chris
Hallinan, and Cora Burnett influenced my think-
ing as I worked with them on versions of Sports
in Society for the United Kingdom, Australia/
New Zealand, and Southern Africa, respectively.
Peter Donnelly, co-author of past Canadian ver-
sions, has provided special support for this edi-
tion and influenced my thinking about many
important issues. Laurel Davis-Delano deserves
special thanks for her constructive critiques of
recent past editions. Thanks also go to photog-
raphers and colleagues, Lara Killick, Barbara
Schausteck de Almeida, Elizabeth Pike, Bobek
Ha’Eri, Becky Beal, Kevin Young, Jay Johnson
Michael Collins, Tim Russo, Basia Borzecka
and my daughter, Danielle Hicks, for permission
to use their photos. Once again, I thank Ossur
(www.ossur.com)—a company that designs and
manufactures prosthetics and orthotics—for
photos used in this and previous editions. Rachel
Spielberg, a recent Smith College grad, coach,
and artist contributed new cartoons to this edi-
tion; thanks to her for working with me.
Thanks also to Nicole Bridge, who organized
my often heavily revised drafts for production,
and to Jessica Portz and Sara Jaeger who coor-
dinated this edition through a slalom-like course
of deadlines.
Finally, thanks go to Nancy Coakley, my life
partner and best friend, who has lived through
eleven editions of Sports in Society and assisted with
each one in more ways than I can list here. She keeps
me in touch with popular culture sources related
to sports, and tells me when my ideas should be
revised or kept to myself—a frequent occurrence.

My appreciation also goes to the following
reviewers, whose suggestions were crucial in
planning and writing this edition:
Maureen Smith, California State University–
Sacramento State
Brooke Estabrook–Fishinghawk, Texas Tech
University
Mark Vermillion, Wichita State University
Thomas Rotolo, Washington State University
Andrew Meyer, Baylor University
Preface xvii
Marc Postiglione, Union County College
Gary Sailes, Indiana University
Finally, thanks to the many students and col-
leagues who have e-mailed comments about
previous editions and ideas for future editions.
I take them seriously and appreciate their
thoughtfulness—keep the responses coming.
Jay Coakley
Fort Collins, CO
This page intentionally left blank
SPORTS IN SOCIETY
chapter
1
THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT
What Is It and Why Study It?
Our sports belong to us. They came up from
the people. They were invented for reasons
having nothing to do with money or ego. Our
sports weren’t created by wealthy sports and
entertainment barons like the ones running
sports today.
—Ken Reed, Sport Policy Director,
League of Fans (2011).
HOW DO YOU distinguish sports from
entertainment, fakery from reality, when the two
are so inseparable?
—Selena Roberts , sports journalist,
The New York Times (2007)
(Source: Jay Coakley)
Competitive cheer may, some time in the future,
qualify as a sport under Title IX. Today, however,
the activity is still too underdeveloped and
disorganized to be treated as offering genuine
varsity athletic participation opportunities for
students.
—U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill
(in Moltz, 2010)
Sports is real. . . . Sports is Oprah for guys. . . .
Sports is woven deeper into American life than
you know. You may change religion or politics, but
not sport teams.
—Rick Reilly (2009)
Chapter Outline

About This Book

About This Chapter
Using Sociology to Study Sports
Defining Sports
What Is the Sociology of Sport?
Why Study Sports in Society?
Summary: Why Study the Sociology of Sport?

Learning Objectives

• Explain what sociologists study about
sports and why sociology of sport
knowledge is different from information in
sports media and everyday conversations.
• Understand issues related to defining
sports and why a sociological definition
differs from official definitions used by high
schools and universities.
• Explain what it means to say that sports are
social constructions and contested activities.
• Explain why sociology of sport knowledge
may be controversial among people
associated with sports.
• Understand the meaning of “ideology” and
how ideologies related to gender, race, social
class, and disability are connected with sports.

3
4 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
ABOUT THIS BOOK
If you’re reading this book, you have an inter-
est in sports or know people who play or watch
them. Unlike most books about sports, this one
is written to take you beyond scores, statistics,
and sports personalities. The goal is to focus on
the “deeper game” associated with sports, the
game through which sports become part of the
social and cultural worlds in which we live.
Fortunately, we can draw on our emotions
and experiences as we consider this deeper
game. Take high school sports in the United
States as an example. When students play on a
high school basketball team, we know that it can
affect their status in the school and the treat-
ment they receive from both teachers and peers.
We know it has implications for their prestige
in the community, self-images and self-esteem,
future relationships, opportunities in education
and the job market, and their overall enjoyment
of life.
Building on this knowledge enables us to
move further into the deeper game associated
with high school sports. For example, why do so
many Americans place such importance on sports
and accord such high status to elite athletes? Are
there connections between high school sports
and widespread beliefs about masculinity and
femininity, achievement and competition, plea-
sure and pain, winning and fair play, and other
important aspects of U.S. culture?
Underlying these questions is the assump-
tion that sports are more than games, meets, and
matches. They’re important aspects of social life
that have meanings going far beyond scores and
performance statistics. Sports are integral parts
of the social and cultural contexts in which we
live, and they provide stories and images that
many of us use to evaluate our experiences and
the world around us.
Those of us who study sports in society are
concerned with these deeper meanings and sto-
ries associated with sports. We do research to
increase our understanding of (1) the cultures
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and societies in which sports exist; (2) the social
worlds created around sports, and (3) the experi-
ences of individuals and groups associated with
sports.
ABOUT THIS CHAPTER
This chapter is organized to answer four questions:
1. What is sociology, and how is it used to
study sports in society?
2. What are sports, and how can we identify
them in ways that increase our understand-
ing of their place and value in society?
3. What is the sociology of sport?
4. Who studies sports in society, and for what
purposes?
The answers to these questions will be our
guides for understanding the material in the rest
of the book.
USING SOCIOLOGY TO STUDY SPORTS
Sociology provides useful tools for investigat-
ing sports as social phenomena. This is because
sociology is the study of the social worlds that people
create, maintain, and change through their relation-
ships with each other.1 The concept of social world
refers to an identifiable sphere of everyday actions
and relationships (Unruh, 1980). Social worlds are
created by people, but they involve much more
than individuals doing their own things for their
own reasons. Our actions, relationships, and col-
lective activities form patterns that could not be
predicted only with information about each of us
as individuals. These patterns constitute identi-
fiable ways of life and social arrangements that
1
Important concepts used in each chapter are identified in
boldface. Unless they are accompanied by a footnote that
contains a definition, the definition will be given in the text
itself. This puts the definition in context rather than sepa-
rating it in a glossary. Definitions are also provided in the
Subject Glindex.

are maintained or changed over time as people
interact with one other.
Social worlds can be as large and impersonal
as an entire nation, such as the United States or
Brazil, or as personal and intimate as your own
family. But regardless of size, they encompass
all aspects of social life: (a) the values and beliefs
that we use to make sense of our lives; (b) our
everyday actions and relationships; and (c) the
groups, organizations, communities, and soci-
eties that we form as we make choices, develop
relationships, and participate in social life.
Sociologists often refer to society, which is a
relatively self-sufficient collection of people who main-
tain a way of life in a particular territory. In most
cases, a society and a nation are one and the
same, such as Brazil and Brazilian society. But
there are cases where a society is not a nation,
such as Amish Mennonite society as it exists
in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other parts of the
United States.
The goal of sociology is to describe and explain
social worlds, including societies—how they
are created, re-created, and changed; how they
are organized; and how they influence our lives
and our relationships with each other. In the
process of doing sociology we learn to see our
lives and the lives of others “in context”—that
is, in the social worlds in which we live. This
enables us to identify the social conditions that
set limits or create possibilities in people’s lives.
On a personal level, knowing about these influ-
ential conditions also helps us anticipate and
sometimes work around the constraints we face
at the same time that we look for and take advan-
tage of the possibilities. Ideally, it helps us gain
more control over our lives as well as an under-
standing of other people and the conditions that
influence their lives.
Key Sociology Concepts
Sociologists use the concepts of culture, social
interaction, and social structure to help them
understand sports as social activities.
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 5
Culture consists of the shared ways of life and
shared understandings that people develop as they live
together. Once a culture exists, it influences rela-
tionships and social interaction.
Social interaction consists of people taking
each other into account and, in the process, influ-
encing each other’s feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Through interaction we learn to anticipate the
thoughts and actions of others and predict how
others may respond to what we think and do.
Social structure consists of the established pat-
terns of relationships and social arrangements that
take shape as people live, work, and play with each
other. This is the basis for order and organization
in all social worlds.
These three concepts—culture, social inter-
action, and social structure—represent the cen-
tral interconnected aspects of all social worlds.
For example, a high school soccer team is a
social world formed by players, coaches, team
parents, and regular supporters. Over time every
team creates and maintains a particular culture or
a way of life consisting of values, beliefs, norms,
and everyday social routines. Everyone involved
with the team engages in social interaction as they
take each other into account during their every-
day activities on and off the playing field. Addi-
tionally, the recurring actions, relationships, and
social arrangements that emerge as these people
interact with each other make up the social struc-
ture of the team. This combination of culture,
social interaction, and social structure comprises
the team as a social world, and it is connected
with the larger social world in which it exists.
Peer groups, cliques, and athletic teams are
social worlds in which participants are known
to one another. Communities, societies, concert
crowds, and online chat rooms are social worlds
in which participants are generally unknown to
each other. This means that the boundaries of
social worlds may be clear, fuzzy, or overlap-
ping, but we generally know when we enter or
leave a social world because each has identify-
ing features related to culture, social interaction,
and social structure.
6 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
We move back and forth between famil-
iar social worlds without thinking. We make
nearly automatic shifts in how we talk and act
as we accommodate changing cultural, inter-
actional, and structural features in each social
world. However, when we enter or participate
in a new or unfamiliar social world, we usually
pay special attention to what is happening. We
watch what people are doing, how they inter-
act with each other, and we develop a sense of
the recurring patterns that exist in their actions
and relationships. If you’ve done this, then
you’re ready to use sociology to study sports
in society.
Sociological Knowledge Is Based
on Research and Theory
My goal in writing this book is to accurately
represent research in the sociology of sport and
discuss issues of interest to students. At a time
when online searches provide us with infinite
facts, figures, and opinions about sports, I am
primarily interested in the knowledge produced
through systematic research. I use newspaper
articles and other media as sources for examples,
but I depend on research results when making
substantive points and drawing conclusions.
This means that my statements about sports
and sport experiences are based, as much as
possible, on studies that use surveys, question-
naires, interviews, observations, content analy-
ses, and other accepted methods of research in
sociology.
The material in this book is different than
material in blogs, talk radio, television news
shows, game and event commentaries, and most
of our everyday conversations about sports. It is
organized to help you critically examine sports
as they exist in people’s lives. I use research find-
ings to describe and explain as accurately as pos-
sible the important connections between sports,
society, and culture. I try to be fair when using
research to make sense of the social aspects of
sports and sport experiences. This is why over
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1700 sources are cited as references for the
information and analysis in this book.
Of course, I want to hold your attention
as you read, but I don’t exaggerate, purposely
withhold, or present information out of con-
text to impress you and boost my “ratings.” In
the process, I hope you will extend your critical
thinking abilities so you can assess what people
believe and say about sports in society. This will
enable you to make informed decisions about
sports in your life and the social worlds in which
you live.
DEFINING SPORTS
Most of us know enough about the meaning of
sports to talk about them with others. How-
ever, when we study sports, it helps to precisely
define our topic. For example, is it a sport when
young people choose teams and play a base-
ball game in the street or when thirty people of
various ages spend an afternoon learning and
performing tricks at a skateboard park? These
activities are sociologically different from what
occurs at major league baseball games and X
Games skateboard competitions. These dif-
ferences become significant when parents ask
if playing sports builds the character of their
children, when community leaders ask if they
should use tax money to fund sports, and when
school principals ask if sports are valid educa-
tional activities.
When I say that I study sports, people ask if
that includes jogging, double-dutch, weight lift-
ing, hunting, scuba diving, darts, auto racing,
chess, poker, ultimate fighting, paintball, piano
competitions, ballroom dancing, skateboarding,
Quidditch, and so on. To respond is not easy,
because there is no single definition that pre-
cisely identifies sports in all cultures at all times.
According to definitions used widely in
North America and much of Europe, sports are
physical activities that involve challenges or competi-
tive contests. They are usually organized so that

Is “Competitive Cheer” or cheerleading a sport? The
answer to this question is important because it will
impact the budgets, participation rates, and gender
equity decisions in U.S. high school and college
sport programs. Sociologists study why certain
activities are considered to be sports in particular
social worlds, who has the power to make such
decisions, and how those decisions affect people’s
lives. (Source: Jay Coakley)
participants can assess their performances and
compare them to the performances of others or
to their own performances from one situation to
another. However, the organization, meaning,
and purpose of sports often vary from one cul-
tural context to another.
Some sports are organized to emphasize
free-flowing, playful action and exist primarily
for the pleasure of the participants. Examples
include 5K fun runs, spontaneous games of
Ultimate in open areas, and skateboarding in
the streets or local skate parks. In contrast, other
sports are organized to include scheduled and
regulated action with participants displaying
their skills for the pleasure of spectators. These
include professional and other elite sports that
people follow through media and pay to see in
person. NFL games, matches in professional
soccer leagues, and major golf tournaments are
examples.
Most sports, however, are organized in ways
that fall somewhere between these two extremes.
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 7
They are formally organized and, even though
people may watch them, they exist mostly for par-
ticipants, who enjoy them, value the skills needed
to play them, and receive external rewards, such
as peer or family approval, social status, or formal
awards for playing them. Softball leagues, sched-
uled volleyball tournaments, and most organized
youth sports are examples.
Scholars who study sports as social phe-
nomena generally use a flexible and inclusive
definition of sport. Although past research
in the sociology of sport has focused mainly
on what you and I would describe as “orga-
nized sports,” current research often focuses
on physical culture, which includes all forms of
movement and physical activities that people in par-
ticular social worlds create, sustain, and regularly
include in their collective lives. This could be tai
chi done in a Beijing park, capoeira in a Sao
Paulo plaza, parkour in a Paris neighborhood,
or break-dancing in New York City’s Central
Park. Of course, organized sports are a cen-
tral and often dominant component of physi-
cal culture in many societies today, but it has
not always been this way and there continue
to be societies in which traditional folk games
and expressive forms of movement are more
important than formally organized, competitive
sports. Research on physical culture is impor-
tant because it helps us understand how people
think and feel about their bodies and how they
define movement and integrate it into their lives
(Dworkin and Wachs, 2009; Silk and Andrews,
2011). Additionally, it provides a foundation for
critically examining the deeper game associated
with sports in society.
Official Definitions of Sports
Defining sport in official terms and choosing spe-
cific activities that qualify as sports is an impor-
tant process in organizations, communities, and
societies. Being classified as an official sport gives
special status to an activity and is likely to increase
participation, funding, community support, and
8 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
general visibility. For example, in Switzerland
and the Scandinavian countries, walking, bicy-
cling, and certain forms of general exercise are
considered to be “sports.” Therefore, those who
participate regularly in these activities often see
themselves as “sportspersons” and are treated
that way by their peers. Additionally, public
policies are likely to provide common spaces for
these activities and financial support for events
that include them.
The official definitions of sport used by orga-
nizations and officials in the United States are
more exclusive in that they give priority to for-
mally organized, competitive activities. There-
fore, even though walking is encouraged for
general health purposes, most people in the U.S.
would not consider walking a sport, nor would
they ever describe walkers as sportspersons. This
is important because it also may mean that walk-
ing trails and walking events will receive much
less financial and political support than stadiums
and arenas in which elite and professional sports
are played and watched—because these are seen
as the “real” or official sports.
According to most people in the United
States, Canada, and a growing number of other
societies, sports involve rules, competition, scor-
ing, winners and losers, schedules and seasons,
records, coaches, referees, and governing bodies
that set rules and sponsor championships. Addi-
tionally, organizations such as local park and
recreation departments, state high school ath-
letic federations, the National Collegiate Ath-
letic Association (NCAA), and the United States
Olympic Committee use their own criteria for
defining sport and selecting activities for official
recognition as sports for purposes of funding
and support.
Official definitions of sport have impor-
tant implications. When a definition empha-
sizes rules, competition, and high performance,
many people will be excluded from participa-
tion, decide that they are not fit to play, or avoid
other physical activities that are defined as “sec-
ond class.” For example, when a 12-year-old is
cut from an exclusive club soccer team, she may
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not want to play in the local league sponsored
by the park and recreation department because
she sees it as “recreational activity” rather than
a real sport. This can create a situation in which
most people are physically inactive at the same
time that a small number of people perform
at relatively high levels for large numbers of
spectators—a situation that negatively impacts
health and increases health-care costs in a society
or community. When sport is defined to include
a wide range of physical activities that are played
for pleasure and integrated into local expressions
of social life, physical activity rates will be high
and overall health benefits are likely.
Sports Are Social Constructions
Understanding the sociology of sport is eas-
ier if you learn to think of sports as social
constructions—that is, as parts of the social world
that are created by people as they interact with one
another under particular social, political, and eco-
nomic conditions. This means that the kinds of
sports that exist and gain popularity in particular
social worlds often tell us much about the val-
ues and orientations of those who play, watch, or
sponsor them. They also tell us about who has
power in a social world.
Just as defining and identifying official sports
is part of a political process, with outcomes
that benefit some people more than others, so
is the process of creating and sustaining sports
in a social world. This becomes apparent when
we examine the struggles that often occur over
whose ideas will be used when making decisions
about the following sport-related issues:
1. What is the meaning and primary purpose
of sports, and how should sports be
organized to fit that meaning and purpose?
2. Who will play sports with whom, and under
what conditions will they play?
3. What agencies or organizations will sponsor
and control sports?
Heated debates occur when people dis-
agree on these issues. History shows that some

of these debates have caused bitter feelings
and led to lawsuits, government intervention,
and the passage of laws. For example, people
often disagree about the meaning, purpose,
and organization of cheerleading in U.S. high
schools. Most school officials say that cheer-
leading is not a sport because its primary
purpose is to support high school teams. But
others argue that the cheerleaders at many
schools are now organized as teams, they train
like other athletes, and they compete in cham-
pionships and bring recognition and rewards to
their schools. This debate over the purpose of
cheerleading will continue because the stakes
are high: being designated an official high
school sport brings funding and other support
that affects the organization of cheerleading
and the meaning it has in schools, communi-
ties, and American society.
Disagreements and struggles over the pur-
pose, meaning, and organization of sports occur
most often when they involve the funding pri-
orities of government agencies (Eichberg, 2008).
For example, if the primary purpose of sport is
to improve health and fitness for everyone, then
funding should go to sports that provide wide-
spread recreational participation resulting in
net positive effects on physical well-being. But
if people see sports as “wars without weapons”
with the purpose being to push the limits of
human ability, then funding should go to sports
organized to produce high-performance ath-
letes who can achieve competitive victories. This
issue is regularly contested at the national and
local levels of government, in universities and
public school districts, and even in families, as
parents decide how to use their resources to sup-
port their children’s physical activities.
These examples show that sports are con-
tested activities—that is, activities for which
there are no timeless and universal agreements
about what they mean, why they exist, or how
they should be organized. This is also illus-
trated by historical disagreements over who is
allowed to play sports and the conditions under
which certain people can play. Cases involving
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 9
extended struggles are listed in the box, “Who
Plays and Who Doesn’t” (p. 10).
The third issue that makes sports contested
activities focuses on who should provide the
resources needed to play them and who should
control them. When people see sports con-
tributing to the common good, it is likely that
sport facilities and programs will be supported
by government agencies and tax money. When
people see sports as primarily contributing to
to individual development, it is likely that sport
facilities and programs will be supported by indi-
viduals, families, and private-corporate sponsors.
However, in both cases there will be struggles
over the extent to which sponsors control sports
and the extent to which sports are organized to
be consistent with community values.
Struggles over these three issues show that
using a single definition of sports may lead us to
overlook important factors in a particular social
world, such as who has power and resources and
how meanings are given to particular activities
at different times in a community or society.
Being aware of these factors enables us to put
sports into context and understand them in the
terms used by those who create, play, and sup-
port them. It also helps us see that the definition
of sports in any particular context usually rep-
resents the ideas and interests of some people
more than others. In the sociology of sport, this
leads to questions and research on whose ideas
and interests count the most when it comes
to determining (1) the meaning, purpose, and
organization of sports; (2) who plays under what
conditions, and (3) how sports will be sponsored
and controlled. Material in each of the follow-
ing chapters summarizes the findings of this
research.
WHAT IS THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT?
The sociology of sport is primarily a subdisci-
pline of sociology and physical education that studies
sports as social phenomena. Most research and
writing in the field focuses on “organized,
10 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
reflect on Who Plays and Who Doesn’t
SPORTS Contesting a Place in Sports
Being cut from a youth sport team is a disappoint-
ing personal experience. But being in a category
of people that is wholly excluded from all or some
sports is more than disappointing—it is unfair and
occasionally illegal. Most cases of categorical exclu-
sion are related to gender and sexuality, skin color
and ethnicity, ability and disability, age and weight,
nationality and citizenship, and other “eligibility”
criteria. Struggles occur in connection with questions
such as these:
• Will females be allowed to play sports and, if they
are, will they play the same sports at the same time
and on the same teams that males play, and will the
rewards for achievement be the same for females
and males?
• Will sports be open to people regardless of social
class and wealth? Will wealthy and poor people
play and watch sports together or separately?
• Will people from different racial and ethnic
backgrounds play together or in segregated
settings? Will the meanings given to skin color
or ethnicity influence participation patterns or
opportunities to play sports?
• Will age influence eligibility to play sports, and
should sports be age integrated or segregated?
competitive sports,” although people increas-
ingly study other forms of physical activities that
are health and fitness oriented and informally
organized. These include recreational, extreme,
adventure, and virtual sports as well as fitness
and exercise activities (Atkinson, 2007, 2009;
Honea, 2007; Kusz, 2007; Leonard, 2009;
Mincyte, Casper, and Cole, 2009; Mansfield,
2009; Peterson, 2008; Rinehart, 2000; Rinehart
and Syndor, 2003; Skille, 2010; Thorpe and
Wheaton, 2011a, 2011b, 2013; Vivoni, 2009;
Wheaton, 2013).
Research in the sociology of sport generally
seeks to answer the following questions:
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Will people of different ages have the same access
to participation opportunities?
• Will able-bodied people and people with
disabilities have the same opportunities to
play sports, and will they play together or
separately? What meanings will be given to the
accomplishments of athletes with disabilities
compared to the accomplishments of able-bodied
athletes?
• Will lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transsexuals
play alongside heterosexuals and, if they do, will
they be treated fairly?
• Will athletes control the conditions under which
they play sports and have the power to change
those conditions to meet their needs and interests?
• Will athletes be rewarded for playing, what
form will the rewards take, and how will they be
determined?
Federal and local laws may mandate particular
answers to these questions. However, traditions, local
customs, and personal beliefs often support various
forms of exclusion. The resulting struggles illustrate
that sports can be hotly contested activities. What
forms of formal or informal exclusion remain in sports
and are they justifiable?
1. Why are some activities, and not others,
selected and designated as sports in particu-
lar groups and societies?
2. Why are sports created and organized in dif-
ferent ways at different times and in different
places?
3. How do people include sports and sport par-
ticipation in their lives, and does participa-
tion affect individual development and social
relationships?
4. How do sports and sport participation affect
our ideas about bodies, human movement
work, fun, social class, masculinity and
femininity, race and ethnicity, ability and

disability, achievement and competition,
pleasure and pain, deviance and conformity,
and aggression and violence?
5. How do various sports compare with other
physical activities in producing positive
health and fitness outcomes?
6. How do sports contribute to overall com-
munity and societal development, and why
do so many people assume that they do?
7. How is the meaning, purpose, and organi-
zation of sports related to the culture, social
structure, and resources of a society?
8. How are sports related to important
spheres of social life such as family,
education, politics, the economy, media,
and religion?
9. How do people use their sport experiences
and knowledge about sports as they interact
with others and explain what occurs in their
lives and the world around them?
10. How can people use sociological knowledge
about sports to understand and participate
more actively and effectively in society,
especially as agents of progressive change?
For those of us doing research to answer
these and other questions, sport provides win-
dows into the societies and cultures in which
they exist. This means that the sociology of
sport tells us about more than sports in society;
in reality, it tells us about the organization and
dynamics of relationships in society, and about
how people see themselves and others in relation
to the world at large.
The Great Sport Myth and Resistance
to the Sociology of Sport
As organized sports have spread around the
world, so has the myth that sport is essentially
pure and good, and that its purity and goodness
is transferred to all who participate in it. This
myth supports related beliefs that sport builds
character, and that anyone who plays sport will
be a better person for doing so. The great sport
myth is outlined in Figure 1.1.
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 11
Sport is essentially pure and good,
and its purity and goodness are transferred
to anyone who plays, consumes, or sponsors sports.
THEREFORE
There is no need to study and evaluate sports for
the purpose of transforming or making them better,
because they are already what they should be.
FIGURE 1.1 The great sport myth.
Evidence clearly shows that the essential
purity and goodness of sport is a myth and that
merely participating in or consuming sports does
not guarantee any particular outcomes related to
character development or increased purity and
goodness. In fact, we hear every day about cases
that contradict the great sport myth. But that
doesn’t seem to weaken its uncritical acceptance
by many people. In fact, when the actions of ath-
letes, coaches, spectators, and others associated
with sports are inconsistent with the perceived
inherent purity and goodness of sport, those who
accept the myth dismiss them as exceptions—as
the actions of people so morally flawed that they
resist the lessons that are inherent in sports.
Widespread acceptance of the great sport
myth leads people to see little need to study
sports or seek ways to make them better. The
sociology of sport is unnecessary, say the myth-
believers, because sport is not the problem;
rather, it is the morally flawed individuals who
must be purged from sports so that goodness and
purity will prevail. Sport, for the myth believers,
is already as it should be—a source of inspiration
and pure excitement that is not available in any
other activity or sphere of life.
Throughout this book, we will see how the
great sport myth influences many important
decisions—from creating and funding organized
sport programs for “at-risk” youth to making
12 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
multibillion-dollar bids to host the Olympic
Games, the FIFA Men’s World Cup, and other
sport mega-events. The myth supports a strong
belief in the power of sports to bring purity and
goodness to individuals in the form of posi-
tive character traits and to cities and nations in
the form of revitalized civic spirit and desired
development.
Using the Sociology of Sport
Those of us who study sports in society often
try to expose the invalidity of the great sport
myth. This is because knowledge produced by
research in the sociology of sport can be useful
to athletes, coaches, parents, and people in sport
management, recreation, physical education,
public health, and community planning and
development. For example, it can
inform parents and coaches about Sociology has always
the conditions under which youth attempted to defatalize
sport participation is most likely and denaturalize the
to produce positive developmental present, demonstrating
effects (NASPE, 2013). It explains that the world could be
why some sports have higher rates
otherwise. —Editor,
of violence than others and how to
Global Dialogue (2011)
effectively control sports violence
(Young, 2012).
Like knowledge produced in other fields,
sociology of sport knowledge can be used for
negative and selfish purposes unless it is com-
bined with concerns for fairness and social
justice. For example, it can inform football
coaches that they can effectively control young
men in U.S. culture by threatening their mas-
culinity and making them dependent on coaches
for approval of their worth as men. And it also
shows that this strategy can be used to increase
the willingness of young men to sacrifice their
bodies “for the good of the team”—an orienta-
tion that some coaches favor and promote.
This example shows that the sociology of
sport, like other scientific disciplines, is neither
a pure nor objective enterprise. Like others who
produce and distribute knowledge, those of us
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
who study sports in society must consider why
we ask certain research questions and how our
research findings might affect people’s lives. We
can’t escape the fact that social life is complex
and characterized by inequalities, power differ-
ences, and conflicts of interests between different
categories of people. Therefore, using knowl-
edge in the sociology of sport is not a simple
process that automatically brings about equal
and positive benefits for everyone. In fact, it must
also involve critical thinking about the potential
consequences of what we know about sports in
society. Hopefully, after reading this book you
will be prepared and willing to do the following:
1. Think critically about sports so you can iden-
tify and understand the issues and controver-
sies associated with them.
2. Look beyond performance
statistics and win–loss records
to see sports as social con-
structions that can have both
positive and negative effects on
people’s lives.
3. Learn things about sports that
enable you to make informed
choices about your sport
participation and the place of
sports in your family, community, and
society.
4. See sports as social constructions and strive
to change them so they don’t systematically
and unfairly disadvantage some categories
of people as they privilege others.
Controversies Created by the
Sociology of Sport
Research in the sociology of sport can be con-
troversial when it provides evidence that changes
are needed in the ways that sports and social
worlds are organized. Such evidence threatens
some people, especially those who control sport
organizations, benefit from the current organi-
zation of sports, or think that the current organi-
zation of sports is “right and natural.”

People in positions of power know that social
and cultural changes can jeopardize their control
over others and the privileges that come with it.
Therefore, they prefer approaches to sports that
blame problems on the weaknesses and failures
of individuals. When individuals are identified
as the problem, solutions emphasize the need to
control individuals more effectively and teach
them how to adjust to social worlds as they are
currently organized.
The potential for controversy created by a
sociological analysis of sports is illustrated by
reviewing research findings on sport participa-
tion among women around the world. Research
shows that women, especially women in poor
and working-class households, have lower rates
of sport participation than do other categories of
people (Donnelly and Harvey, 2007; Elling and
Janssens, 2009; Tomlinson, 2007; Van Tuyckom
et al., 2010). Research also shows that there are
many reasons for this, including the following
(Taniguchi and Shupe, 2012):
1. Women are less likely than men to have the
time, freedom, “cultural permission,” and
money needed to play sports regularly.
2. Women have little or no control of the facil-
ities where sports are played or the programs
in those facilities.
3. Women have less access to transportation
and less overall freedom to move around at
will and without fear.
4. Women often are expected to take full-time
responsibility for the social and emotional
needs of family members—a job that seldom
allows them time to play sports.
5. Most sport programs around the world are
organized around the values, interests, and
experiences of men.
These reasons all contribute to the fact that
many women worldwide don’t see sports as
appropriate activities for them to take seriously.
It is easy to see the potential for controversy
associated with these findings. They suggest
that opportunities and resources to play sports
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 13
should be increased for women, that women and
men should share control of sports, and that new
sports organized around the values, interests,
and resources of women should be developed.
They also suggest that there should be changes
in ideas about masculinity and femininity, gen-
der relations, family structures, the allocation of
child-care responsibilities, the organization of
work, and the distribution of resources in society.
People who benefit from sports and social
life as they are currently organized are likely to
oppose and reject the need for these changes.
They might even argue that the sociology of
sport is too critical and idealistic and that the
“natural” order would be turned upside down
if sociological knowledge were used to organize
social worlds. However, good research always
inspires critical approaches to the social condi-
tions that affect our lives. This is why studying
sports with a critical eye usually occurs when
researchers have informed visions of what sports
and society could and should be in the future
(Frisby, 2005). Without these visions, often born
of idealism, what would motivate and guide us
as we participate in our communities, societies,
and world? People who make a difference and
change the world for the better have always been
idealistic and unafraid of promoting structural
changes in societies.
Regardless of controversies, research and
popular interest in the sociology of sport has
increased significantly in recent years. This
growth will continue as long as scholars in the
field do research and produce knowledge that
people find useful as they seek to understand
social life and participate effectively as citizens in
their communities and societies (Burawoy, 2005;
Donnelly et al., 2011).
WHY STUDY SPORTS IN SOCIETY?
We study sports because they are socially sig-
nificant activities for many people, they rein-
force important ideas and beliefs in many
14 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
societies, and they’ve been integrated into
major spheres of social life such as the family,
religion, education, the economy, politics, and
the media.
Sports Are Socially Significant Activities
As we look around us, we see that the Olym-
pic Games, soccer’s World Cup, American
football’s Super Bowl, the Rugby World Cup,
the Tour de France, the tennis championships
at Wimbledon, and other sport mega-events
attract global attention and media coverage. The
biggest of these events are watched by billions
of people in over two hundred countries. The
media coverage of sports provides vivid images
and stories that entertain, inspire, and provide
for people the words and ideas they often use to
make sense of their experiences and the world
around them. Even people with little or no
interest in sports cannot ignore them when fam-
ily and friends insist on taking them to games
and talking about sports.
People worldwide increasingly talk about
sports—at work, at home, in bars, on campuses,
at dinner tables, in school, with friends, and even
with strangers at bus stops, airports, and other
public places. Relationships often revolve around
sports. People identify with teams and athletes
so closely that the outcomes of games influence
their moods, identities, and sense of well-being.
In a general sense, sports create
opportunities for conversations In the space of a few
that enable people to form and
decades, the world has
nurture relationships and even
enhance their personal status as come to take sport
they describe and critique athletes, more seriously than
games, teams, coaching decisions, ever before. —Simon Kuper,
and media commentaries. When journalist, The Financial Times (2012) use it to explain what is and what
people use sports this way, they
often broaden their social networks related to
work, politics, education, and other spheres of
their lives. This increases their social capital, that
is, the social resources that link them positively to social ticular category of people and are presented as
worlds (Harvey, Levesque and Donnelly, 2007).
www.mhhe.com/coakley11e
When people play sports, their experiences
are often remembered as special and important
in their lives. The emotional intensity, group
camaraderie, and sense of accomplishment that
often occur in sports make sport participation
more memorable than many other activities.
For all these reasons, sports are logical topics
for the attention of sociologists and others con-
cerned with social life today.
Sports Reaffirm Important Ideas and Beliefs
We also study sports because they often are
organized to reaffirm ideas and beliefs that influ-
ence how people see and evaluate the world
around them. In fact, a key research topic in the
sociology of sport is the relationship between
sports and cultural ideologies.
Ideologies consist of interrelated ideas and
beliefs that people in a particular culture use to give
meaning to and make sense of what occurs in their
social worlds. Ideologies are important because
they embody culturally shared principles, per-
spectives, and viewpoints that underlie widely
shared feelings, thoughts, and actions.
We are not born with ideologies. We learn
them as we interact with others and accept ideas
and beliefs that are generally taken for granted in
our culture. When ideas and beliefs are related
to a socially important part of our lives, they
often form an ideology. An ideology is a shared
interpretive framework that people
use to make sense of and evalu-
ate themselves, others, and events
in their social worlds. None of us
automatically adopts an ideol-
ogy, but when people around us
accept it without question and
should be in our lives, we are
forced to take it into account, even if we don’t
agree with it.
Most ideologies serve the interests of a par-
accurate and truthful representations of the

world as it is or as it should be. Therefore, peo-
ple produce and maintain ideologies because
they serve a particular social function and can be
used to justify certain decisions and actions.
When we study sports in society, it is impor-
tant to know about four ideologies that influence
how sports are organized and who controls and
participates in them. These ideologies are orga-
nized around ideas and beliefs about gender,
race, social class, and ability. Each of these ide-
ologies is explained in terms of how it is related
to sports in our lives.
Gender Ideology
Gender ideology consists of interrelated ideas
and beliefs that are widely used to define masculin-
ity and femininity, identify people as male or female,
evaluate forms of sexual expression, and determine
the appropriate roles of men and women in society.
The most widely shared or dominant gender ide-
ology used in many societies is organized around
three central ideas and beliefs:
1. Human beings are either female or male.
2. Heterosexuality is nature’s foundation for
human reproduction; other expressions of
sexual feelings, thoughts, and actions are
abnormal, deviant, or immoral.
3. Men are physically stronger and more ratio-
nal than women; therefore, they are more
naturally suited to possess power and assume
leadership positions in the public spheres of
society.
Debates about the truth of these ideas and
beliefs have become common worldwide.
They are usually part of larger struggles over
what it means to be a man or a woman; what
is defined as normal, natural, moral, legal, and
socially acceptable when it comes to gender
and expressing sexuality; and who should have
power in the major spheres of life such as the
economy, politics, law, religion, family, edu-
cation, health care, and sports. Today, many
people have come to realize that dominant
CHAPTER 1: The Sociology of Sport 15
gender ideology has long privileged hetero-
sexual males, especially those in positions of
power, and it has disadvantaged women and
anyone who is not socially or biologically clas-
sified as a heterosexual.
Fortunately, ideologies can be changed. But
those whose interests are directly served by a
dominant ideology usually possess the power
and resources to resist changes and demonize
those advocating alternative ideas and beliefs.
For example, the girls and women who first chal-
lenged gender ideology by entering the male
world of sports were generally defined as abnor-
mal, immoral, and unnatural (see Chapter 7;
Griffin, 1998). The demonization of these “gen-
der benders” was especially strong in the case
of women who played sports involving power
and strength and women who did not conform
to norms of heterosexual femininity (Sisjord
and Kristiansen, 2009). Men with power and
resources banned females from certain sports;
refused to fund their participation; excluded
them from sport facilities; labeled them as
deviant; and publicly promoted ideas and beliefs
that supported their discriminatory actions
(Sartore et al., 2010; Stoddart, 2011; Travers,
2011; Vannini and Fornssler, 2011).
The struggles around gender ideology also
influence the lives of men—most directly, those
who don’t conform to prevailing ideas and
beliefs about heterosexual masculinity (Anderson,
2011b; Harrison et al., 2009). In this sense
certain sports, such as American football, ice
hockey, boxing, and mixed martial arts, are orga-
nized, played, and described in ways that reaf-
firm an ideology that privileges certain boys and
men. But as women and gay men increasingly
demonstrate physical skills, strength, and power,
they raise questions about and discredit domi-
nant gender ideology (McGrath and Chananie-
Hill, 2009). This means that sports are sites, or
social places, where ideas and beliefs about gender
are reaffirmed at the same time that oppositional
ideas and beliefs are expressed (Messner, 2011).
In this way, sports become important sites of
16 SPORTS IN SOCIETY: Issues and Controversies
ideological struggles related to the meaning and
implication of gender in society and our every-
day lives.
Racial Ideology
Racial ideology consists of interrelated ideas and
beliefs that are widely used to classify human beings
into categories assumed to be biological and related
to attributes such as intelligence, temperament, and
physical abilities. These ideas and beliefs vary
greatly from culture to culture, due to histori-
cal factors, but racial ideologies are usually divi-
sive forces that privilege a particular category of
people and disadvantage others.
Racial ideology in the United States has been
and continues to be unique. Its roots date back
to the seventeenth century, but it was not fully
developed until slavery came to an end and white
people faced a new reality in which former slaves
could claim citizenship and the rights that came
with it. Fear, guilt, ignorance, rumors, stereo-
types, and a desire to retain power and control
over blacks led whites to develop a complex set
of ideas and beliefs promoting white superior-
ity and black inferiority as facts of nature. The
resulting ideology was organized around these
three major ideas and beliefs:
1. Human beings can be classified into races on
the basis of biologically inherited or geneti-
cally based characteristics.
2. Intellectual and physiological characteris-
tics vary by race, with white people being
intellectually and morally superior to black
people and all people of color.
3. People classified as white have only white
ancestors, and anyone with one or more
black ancestors is classified as black.
This ideology was used to justify segrega-
tion and discrimination based on skin color
and to deny that dark-skinned people are real
“Americans” in the full legal sense of the term.
The connections between racial ideology and
sports are complex (see Chapter 8). Through
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much of the twentieth century whites in the
United States used racial ideology to exclude
African Americans and other dark-skinned peo-
ple from many sports, especially those involving
social contact, such golf, tennis, and swimming.
For many years whites believed that blacks
had physical weaknesses that prevented them
from excelling at certain sports. But when blacks
demonstrated physical skills that rivaled or sur-
passed those of whites, dominant racial ideology
was revised to describe blacks as less evolved
than whites and, therefore, dependent on their
innate physicality for survival. Whites saw them-
selves at a more advanced stage of evolution and
dependent on their innate intellectual abilities
for survival—abilities they believed were not
possessed by blacks.
This racial ideology has been challenged and
factually discredited during struggles over civil
rights. But its roots are so deep in U.S. culture
that it still influences patterns of sport participa-
tion, beliefs about skin color and abilities, and
the ways that people view sports and integrate
them into their lives.
Social Class Ideology
Social class ideology consists of interrelated
ideas and beliefs that are widely shared and used by
people to evaluate their material status; explain why
economic success, failure, and inequalities exist; and
what should be done about economic differences in
a group or society. The dominant class ideology
in the United States is organized around three
major ideas and beliefs:
1. All people have opportunities to achieve
economic success.
2. The United States is a meritocracy where
deserving people become successful and where
failure is the result of inability, poor choices,
and a lack of motivation.
3. Income and wealth inequality is normal
and inevitable because some people work
hard, develop their abilities, and make
smart choices and others do not.
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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