Everyones An Author With Readings Second Edition
Everyones An Author With Readings Second Edition
Everyones An Author With Readings Second Edition
(Second Edition)
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[ vii ]
BY CENTURY BY YEAR
100,000,000 1%
Book
1,000,000 0.01%
authors Blog
authors Twitter
10,000 authors 0.0001%
Facebook
authors
100 0.000001%
1
1400 1600 1800 2000 2005 2010 2013
Time
Number of authors who published in each year for various media since 1400 by century (left)
and by year (right). Source: Denis G. Pelli and Charles Bigelow, “A Writing Revolution,” Seed-
magazine.com, 20 Oct. 2009, Web, 3 Jan. 2012.
2. Deborah Brandt, “Writing at Work,” Hunter College, New York, 12 Nov. 2011, Lecture.
[ viii ] P R E FAC E
Highlights
• On social media. We’ve tried to bridge the gap between the writing stu-
dents do on social media sites and the writing they do in college. We
reject the notion that Google is making us stupid; in fact, we find that
student writers are adept at crafting messages that will reach their in-
tended audiences because they do so every day on Facebook and other
such sites. Chapter 30 shows how the rhetorical strategies they use in-
stinctively in social media are used in academic writing—and also how
social media is now used in academia.
[x] P R E FAC E
• On style. We pay attention to style, with guidelines that will help stu-
dents think carefully and creatively about the stylistic choices open
to them. Chapter 29 defines style as a matter of appropriateness, and
Chapter 31 covers “How to Write Good Sentences.”
• Many new examples about topics students will relate to. From a descrip-
tion of how Steph Curry shoots a basketball and a rhetorical analysis of
what makes Pharrell’s “Happy” so catchy to a blog post from a student
NASCAR driver and a visual analysis of the New Yorker’s Bert and Er-
nie cover, we hope that all students will find examples and images that
will make them smile—and inspire them to read and write.
What’s Online
ease, and click on online examples—and can be viewed and synched on all
computers and mobile devices.
Norton/write. Find a library of model student papers; more than 1,000 online
exercises and quizzes; research and plagiarism tutorials; documentation
guidelines for MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles; MLA citation drills, and
more—all just a click away. Free and open, no password required. Access the
site at wwnorton.com/write.
Author videos. Andrea Lunsford, Lisa Ede, Beverly Moss, Carole Clark
Papper, and Keith Walters answer questions they’re often asked by other
instructors: about fostering collaboration, teaching multimodal writing,
taking advantage of the writing center, teaching classes that include both L1
and L2 students, and more. View the videos at wwnorton.com/instructors.
Available in a tabbed three-ring binder that will also hold your own class
notes, this guide offers practical advice and activities from Lisa Ede for teach-
ing all the chapters and readings in the book, including a new chapter by
Michal Brody on how to use the companion Tumblr site with your students.
In addition, it offers detailed advice from Richard Bullock, Andrea Lunsford,
Maureen Daly Goggin, and others about teaching writing more generally:
how to create a syllabus, respond to student writing, help students whose
primary language isn’t English, and more. Order a print copy or access the
online version at wwnorton.com/instructors.
Acknowledgments
We are profoundly grateful to the many people who have helped bring Ev-
eryone’s an Author into existence. Indeed, this text provides a perfect ex-
ample of what an eighteenth-century German encyclopedia meant when
it defined book as “the work of many hands.” Certainly this one is the work
of many hands, and among those hands none have been more instrumental
than those of Marilyn Moller: the breadth of her vision is matched by her
meticulous attention to detail, keen sense of style and design, and ability
to get more work done than anyone we have ever known. Throughout the
process of composing this text, she has set the bar high for us, and we’ve
tried hard to reach it. And our deep gratitude goes to Tenyia Lee, whose as-
tute judgment and analytical eye have guided us through this edition. A big
thank you as well to Marian Johnson for making time to read and respond
to many of the chapters in the first edition—and especially for stepping in
at the eleventh hour of this second edition to make it happen! Thanks also
to John Elliott, whose careful and graceful line editing helped shape the first
edition.
We are similarly grateful to many others who contributed their talents
to this book, especially Carole Desnoes and Jane Searle, for all they did to
produce this book in record time (no small undertaking). Thanks as well to
Elizabeth Trammell for her work clearing the many text permissions and
to Ted Szczepanski and Elyse Rieder for their work finding and clearing per-
missions for the many images. Last but certainly not least, we thank Claire
Wallace for undertaking countless tasks large and small with energy and
unprecedented efficiency.
Preface [ xiii ]
The design of this book is something we are particularly proud of, and
for that we offer very special thanks to several amazing designers. Stephen
Doyle created the spectacular cover that embodies a key message of our
book: that we live in a world made of words and images. Carin Berger cre-
ated the illuminated alphabet, also made of text, that opens every chap-
ter. JoAnne Metsch did the lovely interior design. And Debra Morton-Hoyt,
Rubina Yeh, Michael Wood, and Tiani Kennedy oversaw the whole thing as
well as adding their own elegant—and whimsical!—touches inside and out.
Best thanks to all of them.
Everyone’s an Author is more than just a print book, and we thank
Erica Wnek, Kim Yi, Mateus Teixeira, Ava Bramson, and Cooper Wilhelm
for creating and producing the superb ebook and instructors’ site. And we
again want to thank Cliff Landesman for his work in creating the fantastic
Tumblr site.
Special thanks to the fabled Norton Travelers, who have worked so hard
to introduce teachers across the country to what Everyone’s an Author can
offer them. And a big thank you to Megan Zwilling, Maureen Connelly, Lib
Triplett, and Doug Day for helping us keep our eye on our audience: teachers
and students at colleges where rhetorics of this kind are assigned. Finally,
we are grateful to Roby Harrington, Julia Reidhead, and Steve Dunn, who
have given their unwavering support to this project for more than a decade
now. We are fortunate indeed to have had the talent and hard work of this
distinguished Norton team.
An astute and extremely helpful group of reviewers has helped us more
than we can say: we have depended on their good pedagogical sense and
advice in revising every chapter of this book. Special thanks to Stevens Ami-
don, Indiana University-Purdue Fort Wayne; Georgana Atkins, University of
Mississippi; Kristen Belcher, University of Colorado, Denver; Samantha Bell,
Johnson County Community College; Dawn Bergeron, St. Johns River State
College; Cassandra Bishop, Southern Illinois University; Erin Breaux, South
Louisiana Community College; Ellie Bunting, Edison State College; Maggie
Callahan, Louisiana State University; Laura Chartier, University of Alaska,
Anchorage; Tera Joy Cole, Idaho State University; Anne-Marie Deitering,
Oregon State University; Debra Dew, Valparaiso University; Robyn DeWall,
Idaho State University; Patrick Dolan Jr., University of Iowa; Maryam El-
Shall, Jamestown Community College; Lindsay Ferrara, Fairfield University;
Maureen Fitzpatrick, Johnson County Community College; Kitty Flowers,
University of Indianapolis; Robin Gallaher, Northwest Missouri State Uni-
versity; Tara Hembrough, Southern Illinois University; Samuel Head, Idaho
[ xiv ] P R E FAC E
Ede Smith, Andrew Ede, Sara Ede Rowkamp, Jeffrey Ede, Michele Ede Smith,
Laurie Ede Drake, Robert Ede, and Julie Ede Campbell. She also thanks her
colleagues in the Oregon State School of Writing, Literature, and Film for
their encouragement and support. Special thanks go to the school’s director,
Anita Helle, and to their amazing administrative staff: Ann Leen, Aurora
Terhune, and Felicia Phillips.
Beverly Moss thanks her parents, Harry and Sarah Moss, for their love,
encouragement, and confidence in her when her own wavered. In addition,
she thanks her Ohio State and Bread Loaf students, who inspire her and
teach her so much about teaching. She also wants to express gratitude to
her colleagues in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy at Ohio State for their
incredible support. Finally, she thanks two of her own former English teach-
ers, Dorothy Bratton and Jackie Royster, for the way they modeled excellence
inside and outside the classroom.
Carole Clark Papper would like to thank her husband, Bob, and wonder-
ful children—Dana, Matt, Zack, and Kate—without whose loving support
little would happen and nothing would matter. In addition, she is grateful
to the Hofstra University Writing Center faculty and tutors, whose dedica-
tion and commitment to students always inspire.
Keith Walters thanks his partner of thirty years, Jonathan Tamez, for
sharing a love of life, language, travel, flowers, and beauty. He is also grate-
ful to his students in Tunisia, South Carolina, Texas, and Oregon, who have
challenged him to find ways of talking about what good writing is and how
to do it.
Finally, we thank those who have taught us—who first helped us learn
to hold a pencil and print our names, who inspired a love of language and of
reading and writing, who encouraged us to take chances in writing our lives
as best we could, who prodded and pushed when we needed it, and who
most of all set brilliant examples for us to follow. One person who taught
almost all of us—about rhetoric, about writing, and about life—was Edward
P. J. Corbett. We remember him with love and with gratitude
—Andrea Lunsford, Michal Brody, Lisa Ede,
Beverly Moss, Carole Clark Papper, Keith Walters
contents
Preface v
Introduction: Is Everyone an Author? xxix
1 Thinking Rhetorically 5
First, Listen 8
Hear What Others Are Saying—and Think about Why 9
What Do You Think—and Why? 10
Do Your Homework 11
Give Credit 12
Be Imaginative 13
Put In Your Oar 15
2 Rhetorical Situations 18
Genre 20
Audience 21
Purpose 22
Stance 23
Context 23
Medium and Design 24
3 Reading Rhetorically 25
To Understand and Engage 27
Across Media 33
Across Genres 38
Across Academic Disciplines 38
[ xvii ]
[ xviii ] Contents
READINGS
jan brideau, Lydia’s Story 175
melanie luken, Literacy: A Lineage 180
michael lewis, Liar’s Poker 190
larry lehna, The Look 196
24 S
ynthesizing Ideas /
Moving from What Your Sources Say to What You Say 505
Synthesizing the Ideas in Your Sources 506
Moving from What Your Sources Say to What You Say 508
Entering the Conversation You’ve Been Researching 510
30 T
weets to Reports /
On Social Media and Academic Writing 652
Participating in Conversations 653
Sharing Information 656
Representing Yourself in Your Writing 657
Establishing an Appropriate Tone 659
Connecting to Audiences 660
Contents [ xxv ]
Blogs 767
Wikis 770
Audio Essays 772
Video Essays 774
Posters 776
Managing a Multimodal Project 778
Readings 815
Credits 1093
About the Authors 1102
About the Alphabet 1104
Submitting Papers 1107
Author / Title Index 1109
Glossary / Index 1119
MLA and APA Directories 1148
introduction
Is Everyone an Author?
[ xxix ]
[ xxx ] I ntroduction
• You get your next assignment in your college writing class and set out
to do the research necessary to complete it. When you’re finished, you
turn in your twelve-page argument to your instructor and classmates
for their responses—and you also post it on your webpage under “What
I’m Writing Now.”
Redefining Writing
If the definition of author has changed in recent years, so has our under-
standing of the definition, nature, and scope of writing.
Writing, for example, now includes much more than words, as images
and graphics take on an important part of the job of conveying meaning. In
addition, writing can now include sound, video, and other media. Perhaps
more important, writing now often contains many voices, as information
from the web is incorporated into the texts we write with increasing ease.
Finally, as we noted above, writing today is almost always part of a larger
conversation. Rather than rising mysteriously from the depths of a writer’s
original thoughts, a stereotype made popular during the Romantic period,
writing almost always responds to some other written piece or to other
ideas. If “no man [or woman] is an island, entire of itself,” then the same
holds true for writing.
Writing now is also often highly collaborative. You work with a team to
produce an illustrated report, the basis of which is used by members of the
team to make a key presentation to management; you and a classmate carry
out an experiment, argue over and write up the results together, and pres-
ent your findings to the class; a business class project calls on you and others
in your group to divide up the work along lines of expertise and then to pool
your efforts in meeting the assignment. In all of these cases, writing is also
performative—it performs an action or, in the words of many students we
have talked with, it “makes something happen in the world.”
Perhaps most notable, this expanded sense of writing challenges us
to think very carefully about what our writing is for and whom it can and
might reach. Email provides a good case in point. In the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks, Tamim Ansary, a writer who was born in Afghani-
stan, found himself stunned by the number of people calling for bombing
Afghanistan “back to the Stone Age.” He sent an email to a few friends ex-
pressing his horror at the events, his condemnation of Osama bin Laden
and the Taliban, and his hope that those in the United States would not act
on the basis of gross stereotyping. The few dozen friends to whom Ansary
wrote hit their forward buttons. Within days, the letter had circled the globe
more than once, and Ansary’s words were published by the Africa News Ser-
vice, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Evening Standard in London, the San
Francisco Chronicle and many other papers in the United States, as well as
on many websites.
[ xxxii ] I ntroduction
Everyone’s a Researcher
Since all writing responds to the ideas and words of others, it usually draws
on some kind of research. Think for a moment of how often you carry out
research. We’re guessing that a little reflection will turn up lots of exam-
ples: you may find yourself digging up information on the pricing of new
cars, searching Craigslist or the want ads for a good job, comparing two new
smartphones, looking up statistics on a favorite sports figure, or searching
for a recipe for tabbouleh. All of these everyday activities involve research.
In addition, many of your most important life decisions involve research—
what colleges to apply to, what jobs to pursue, where to live, and more. Once
you begin to think about research in this broad way—as a form of inquiry
related to important decisions—you’ll probably find that research is some-
thing you do almost every day. Moreover, you’ll see the ways in which the
research you do adds to your credibility—giving you the authority that goes
along with being an author.
But research today is very different from the research of only a few de-
cades ago. Take the example of the concordance, an alphabetized listing of
every instance of all topics and words in a work. Before the computer age,
concordances were done by hand: the first full concordance to the works of
Shakespeare took decades of eye-straining, painstaking research, counting,
and sorting. Some scholars spent years, even whole careers, developing con-
cordances that then served as major resources for other scholars. As soon as
Shakespeare’s plays and poems were in digital form—voilà!—a concordance
could be produced automatically and accessed by writers with the click of
a mouse.
To take a more recent example, first-year college students just twenty
years ago had no access to the internet. Just think of how easy it is now to
check temperatures around the world, track a news story, or keep up to the
Is Everyone an Author? [ xxxiii ]
minute on stock prices. These are items that you can Google, but you may
also have many expensive subscription databases available to you through
your school’s library. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that the
world is literally at your fingertips.
What has not changed is the need to carry out research with great care,
to read all sources with a critical eye, and to evaluate sources before depend-
ing on them for an important decision or using them in your own work.
What also has not changed is the sheer thrill research can bring: while much
research work can seem plodding and even repetitious, the excitement of
discovering materials you didn’t know existed, of analyzing information in
a new way, or of tracing a question through one particular historical period
brings its own reward. Moreover, your research adds to what philosopher
Kenneth Burke calls “the conversation of humankind,” as you build on what
others have done and begin to make significant contributions of your own
to the world’s accumulated knowledge.
Everyone’s a Student
More than 2,000 years ago, the Roman writer Quintilian set out a plan for ed-
ucation, beginning with birth and ending only with old age and death. Sur-
prisingly enough, Quintilian’s recommendation for a lifelong education has
never been more relevant than it is in the twenty-first century, as knowledge
is increasing and changing so fast that most people must continue to be ac-
tive learners long after they graduate from college. This explosion of knowl-
edge also puts great demands on communication. As a result, one of your big-
gest challenges will be learning how to learn and how to communicate what
you have learned across wider distances, to larger and increasingly diverse
sets of audiences, and using an expanding range of media and genres.
When did you first decide to attend college, and what paths did you take
to achieve that goal? Chances are greater today than at any time in our past
that you may have taken time off to work before beginning college, or that
you returned to college for new training when your job changed, or that you
are attending college while working part-time or even full-time. These char-
acteristics of college students are not new, but they are increasingly impor-
tant, indicating that the path to college is not as straightforward as it was
once thought to be. In addition, college is now clearly a part of a process of
lifetime learning: you are likely to hold a number of positions—and each
new position will call for new learning.
[ xxxiv ] I ntroduction
Citizens today need more years of education and more advanced skills
than ever before: even entry-level jobs now call for a college diploma. But
what you’ll need isn’t just a college education. Instead, you’ll need an educa-
tion that puts you in a position to take responsibility for your own learning
and to take a direct, hands-on approach to that learning. Most of us learn
best by doing what we’re trying to learn rather than just being told about it.
What does this change mean in practice? First, it means you will be doing
much more writing, speaking, and researching than ever before. You may,
for instance, conduct research on an economic trend and then use that re-
search to create a theory capable of accounting for the trend; you may join
a research group in an electrical engineering class that designs, tests, and
implements a new system; you may be a member of a writing class that
works to build a website for the local fire department, writes brochures for a
nonprofit agency, or makes presentations before municipal boards. In each
case, you will be doing what you are studying, whether it is economics, en-
gineering, or writing.
Without a doubt, the challenges and opportunities for students today
are immense. The chapters that follow try to keep these challenges and op-
portunities in the foreground, offering you concrete ways to think about
yourself as a writer—and yes, as an author; to think carefully about the
rhetorical situations you face and about the many and varied audiences for
your work; and to expand your writing repertoire to include new genres,
new media, and new ways of producing and communicating knowledge.
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.