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Detailed Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 Aging Today

Why Study Aging?
Ageism
Culture as a Source of Ageism
The Media as a Source of Ageism • Lack of Knowledge as a Source of Ageism
Some Facts on Aging Today
Victimization by Fraud • Effects of Victimization • Fear of Crime • Ageism and the Workplace • The
Ageless Self: Another Form of Ageism • Ageism and the Third Age
Responses to Ageism
Change on the Horizon
The Media • The Senior Market: A New Image of Aging • Education Programs • Intergenerational
Programs • Legislation and Social Action
Conclusion
Summary • Discussion Questions • Notes • Suggested Reading • Websites to Consult
Chapter 2 Theories and Methods

The Study of Aging in the Past
Gerontology Research Today
Is Gerontology a Discipline?
Theories of Aging
Two Levels of Theories
Three Theoretical Perspectives
Interpretive Perspective • Critique of the Interpretive Perspective • Functionalist Perspective • Age
Stratification Theory: An Example of the Functionalist Perspective • INDIVIDUAL AGING • SOCIETAL
CHANGE
Critique of the Functionalist Perspective • The Life Course Perspective: A More Complex Functionalist
Model • NON-NORMATIVE LIFE EVENTS • NORMATIVE, HISTORY-GRADED LIFE EVENTS • NORMATIVE, AGE-
GRADED LIFE EVENTS • Summary of the Life Course Perspective • Conflict Perspective • Critique of the
Conflict Perspective • New Developments in Theory
Research Issues and Methods
APC Effects: A Challenge to Gerontology Researchers • Experimental Research • Cross-Sectional
Designs • Longitudinal Designs • Quantitative and Qualitative Methods • The Humanities •
Information Literacy: The Challenge of the Internet
Ethical Issues in Research
Policy and Programs as the Outcome of Research
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The Future of Gerontological Theory and Methods
Conclusion
Summary • Discussion Questions • Suggested Reading • Websites to Consult
Chapter 3 Demography
Introduction
The Challenge of Population Aging
What Is Population Aging?
The Demographic Transition
Three Types of Societies and Population Aging
The Less Developed Nations • China: A Case Study of Population Aging in a Developing Nation • The
Least Developed Nations • Ghana: A Case Study of Population Aging in a Least Developed Nation •
Summary of Aging in Developing and Least Developed Nations
The Developed Nations
Japan: A Case Study of Population Aging in a Developed Nation
Population Aging in the United States
Increased Numbers of Older People • Increased Median Age of the Population • Increased Proportion
of Older People • Measuring Trends
The Causes of Population Change
Migration • Death Rates • Birth Rates
The Challenges of an Aging Population
The Aging of the Older Population • Ethnic and Racial Variations • Regional Distribution •
Accumulation • Recomposition • Congregation • Interstate Migration • Amenity Migration •
Retirement • Moderate Disability • Major Chronic Disability • Urban–Rural Distribution • Changes in
the Sex Ratio
The Impact of Population Aging
Support (or Dependency) Ratios • Critique of Dependency Ratios
Conclusion
Summary • Discussion Questions • Note • Suggested Reading • Websites to Consult
Chapter 4 Personal Health and Well-Being

Biological Aging
The Effects of Aging on Body Systems
Musculoskeletal System • Sensory Changes • Taste, Smell, and Touch • Sight • Hearing
Personal Health and Illness
Changes in Health Status • Limits on Activity Due to Physical Decline
Coping With Physical Change
Improvements in Technology • Computer Technology as a Form of Functional Support • Assistive
Devices as a Form of Functional Support • Improvements in the Environment • Improvements in Self-
Care • Improvements in Lifestyle • DECREASED SMOKING • BETTER NUTRITION • EXERCISE • STRESS
REDUCTION
Compression of Morbidity Hypothesis
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Successful Aging
Rowe and Kahn’s Model of Successful Aging • The SOC Model of Successful Aging • A Life Course
Model of Successful Aging
Anti-aging Medicine and Science
Social Inequality and Personal Health
Health Literacy
Conclusion
Chapter 5 The Psychology of Aging

Memory and Intelligence
Memory • New Approaches to the Study of Mental Function • Memory and Everyday Life • Experience
and Mental Function in Later Life • Memory and Everyday Life: The Study of Reading • Summary of
Memory Research • Intelligence
New Models of Mental Ability in Later Life
Plasticity and Cognitive Reserve • Stimulating the Brain for Growth in Later Life • Improving Mental
Performance • A Large-Scale Training Program • Social Engagement and Mental Function • Physical
Exercise and the Brain • Summary of Findings on Aging and Mental Potential • The Study of Wisdom
in Later Life • Creativity • Creativity as Measured by Great Works • Creativity as Personal
Expression • Self-Development in Later Life • Spirituality: The Search for Meaning in Later Life
Social Psychological Change
Disengagement Theory • Activity Theory • Continuity Theory
Psychological Disorders: Abnormal Aging
Organic Brain Disorders • INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY • Cognitive Impairment in
Later Life • Functional Disorders • Loneliness • Depression and Suicide • DEPRESSION • SUICIDE
Conclusion
Chapter 6 Race and Ethnicity

Who Are the Minority Elderly?
Why Study Minority Aging?
Demographic Characteristics of Dominant and Minority Group Elders
Whites: The Dominant Group Older Population • Diversity of the Minority Population • Aging of the
Minority Population
Three Theories on Minority Group Aging
Multiple Jeopardy • Critique of Multiple Jeopardy Theory • Leveling Perspective • The Life Course
Perspective • Institutional Completeness: An Example of Life Course Differences • Structured
Inequality and Personal History
The Impact of Minority Group Membership on Aging
A Look at Four Minority Groups
African Americans • HEALTH • INCOME • FAMILYAND COMMUNITY LIFE • SOCIAL SUPPORT • AFRICAN
AMERICAN MEN • THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN AGING • Hispanic Americans • HEALTH • ELDERLY
HISPANICS: THE PARADOXOF POVERTY, GOOD HEALTH, AND LONG LIFE • INCOME • POVERTY • FAMILY AND
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COMMUNITY LIFE • THE FUTURE OF HISPANIC AMERICAN AGING • Asian Americans • HEALTH • INCOME AND
POVERTY • IN DOLLARS • FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LIFE • THE FUTURE OF ASIAN AMERICAN AGING • American
Indians and Alaskan Natives (AIAN) • HEALTH AND INCOME • FAMILYAND COMMUNITY LIFE • THE FUTURE
OF AMERICAN INDIAN AGING
Responses to Minority Group Aging

Future Issues
Conclusion
Chapter 7 The Health Care System

Three Models of Health Care
The Medical Model • The Social Model • The Health Promotion Model
The U.S. Health Care System Today
Medicare • THE STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAM • MEDICARE COSTS AND FUNDING • Medicaid • Employer-
Sponsored Health Care Plans • Medigap and Long-Term Care Insurance • The Health Care System
and the Cost of Care • Cost of Care and the Older Population • MEDICARE COSTS • MEDICAID COSTS •
The Rising Personal Cost of Health Care • Public Dissatisfaction • Health Care Reform: National
Legislative Action 2010 • Summary of the Legislation • Structural Flaws in the System
Long-Term Care: A Response to Older People’s Needs
Institutional Care • Community-Based Services • Adult Day Care • Respite Services • Home Health
Care Programs • Changes in Funding to Control Costs • Managed Care: Alternative Delivery Methods
• MANAGED CARE WITH A MEDICAL FOCUS • Managed Care With a Community Focus
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Beyond Fitness and Personal Health Promotion
Future Issues in Health Care
Availability • Accessibility • Coordination
Conclusion
Chapter 8 Finances and Economics

Introduction
Historical Development of the U.S. Pension System
The U.S. Retirement Income System Today
Level One: Social Security • Who Gets Social Security? • A Privatized Retirement Income System: The
Cure Worse Than the Disease? • Supplemental Security Income • Level Two: Employment Pensions •
Individual Pension Plans • Defined Contribution Pension Plans • The Cost of Living (a Long Time) •
Level Three: Personal Assets and Other Income
The Impact of the Retirement Income System on Older People’s Incomes
Inequality in Later Life
Age Differences and Income • Gender and Income • Marital Status and Income • Minority Status and
Income • Further Effects of Poverty
Pension Reform
Social Security Reform • Family Care • Spousal Pensions • Widows’ Benefits • Income Limits •
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Supplemental Security Income Reform • Improved Benefits • Improved State Supplements • Higher
Enrollment Rates • Private Pension Reform • Vesting • Portability and Indexing • Better Private Plan
Insurance
The Future
Conclusion
Chapter 9 Retirement and Work

The Social Origins of Retirement
Retirement in the United States Today
A Note on Retirement and the Great Recession • Labor Force Participation • Women and Retirement •
Minorities and Retirement
Alternatives to Retirement
Early Retirement • Partial Retirement • Second Careers • Encore Careers
Personal Responses to Retirement
Preretirement Planning (PRE)
Social Structures and Retirement
The Dual Economy • Displaced Workers • The Challenge of Workforce Reentry
The Future of Retirement
Conclusion
Chapter 10 Housing and Transportation

Introduction
Living Arrangements
An Ecological Model of Housing
Housing Options
Single-Family Homes • Home Modification • Home Equity Conversion Loans (Reverse Mortgages) •
Apartment Living • Age Segregation vs. Age Integration • Normal Design vs. Special Design •
Congregate Housing and Assisted (Apartment) Living • Congregate Housing • Assisted Living
Apartments • Subsidized Housing • Single Room Occupancy • Supportive Housing • Board and Care
Homes • Nursing Homes • Accessory Dwelling Units • Home Sharing • Retirement Communities •
NATURALLY OCCURRING RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES (NORCS) • PLANNED RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES •
Cohousing • Continuing Care Retirement Communities • Low-Income, Rural, and Minority Housing •
Homelessness
The Future of Housing
Transportation
Public Transportation • Private Transportation • Age-friendly Communities
Conclusion
Summary • Discussion Questions • Note • Suggested Reading • Websites to Consult
Chapter 11 Leisure, Recreation, and Education

Introduction
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Leisure
Age and Leisure • Gender and Leisure • Minority Status and Leisure • Leisure Education
New Activities in Old Age
Outdoor Recreation • Fitness, Health, and Well-Being • Programs That Overcome Barriers to Active
Living • Masters Athletes and the Senior Olympics
Senior Centers
Education
Formal Higher Education • Informal Educational Options • Road Scholar (Elderhostel) • Lifelong
Learning Institutes • The Future of Education for Older People
Community Service and Volunteer Work
Volunteer Opportunities • THE SENIOR CORPS • THE PEACE CORPS • THE EXPERIENCE CORPS
Conclusion
Chapter 12 Family Life and Relationships
Marriage and Widowhood

Marital Status • The Advantages and Disadvantages of Marriage • Remarriage • Common-Law
Unions and Cohabitation • Divorce • Lifelong Singlehood • Widowhood • Male and Female Responses
to Widowhood • Future Research Questions • Dating • Sexuality • Sexuality in Long-Term Care
Settings • Physical Changes and Sexual Adaptations • Gay and Lesbian Older Adults
Grandparenting
The Grandparent-Grandchild Relationship • Grandparenting and New Family Structures •
Grandparents as Surrogate Parents
The Future of the Family
Conclusion
Chapter 13 Social Support

What Is Informal Social Support?
Family Life and Family Supports • Informal Supports for Older People • Three Models of Informal
Support • The Role of Formal Supports • Community Care • Spousal Support • Adult Children as a
Source of Support • Siblings as a Source of Informal Support • Supports for Childless Older People •
Friends and Neighbors • Pets as a Source of Social Support • Minority Differences in Social Support •
Technology and Social Support
Caregiving
Gender Roles and the Challenge of Caregiving • Caregiver Burden • The Rewards of Caregiving •
Care for the Caregiver • The Future of Informal Support • Eldercare and the Workplace • Older People
as Family Supporters • The Future of Social Supports • Elder Abuse and Mistreatment • Theories of
Abuse and Risk Factors • Elder Abuse Interventions and Policies • Future Issues in Elder Abuse
The Future of Social Supports
Conclusion
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Chapter 14 Death and Dying
Death and Society

Death in Old Age
The Experience of Dying in Old Age
Institutional Death
Changes in the Treatment of the Dying
Stages of Death and Dying • Hospice Care • Hospice Program Goals • Palliative Care • Palliative Care
for the Elderly
Ethical Issues
Advance Directives • Minorities and Advance Directives • Beyond Advance Directives: The
Importance of Communication • New Methods of Communication • Euthanasia and Physician-
Assisted Suicide
Mourning and Grief
Widowhood and Bereavement • Supports for Widows and Widowers
Conclusion
Chapter 15 Politics and Policies

Voting
Participation Trends Among Older Voters • Will Older People Form a Voting Bloc?
Holding Political Office
Advocacy
The Limits of Advocacy
The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act and the Medicare Modernization Act: Two Case Studies in
Senior Advocacy
The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act • The Medicare Modernization Act
Activism
Government and Aging Policy
The Older Americans Act
Generational Equity
Conflict Ahead? • Ideology and Aging Policy
Civic Engagement
The Future of Aging, Politics, and Policy
Conclusion
Works Consulted
Glossary of Terms
Index
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Preface
Some years ago I attended a sociology department meeting to present my first proposal for a course on aging.
After some questions from the committee, the committee chair (a professor of comparative culture) leaned
forward and squinted at me. “I have no objection to you teaching this course,” he said. “You have an interest in
the subject and knowledge of the area. But, tell me, what in the world will you talk about for an entire
semester in a course on aging? People get old, then they die. What else is there to say?”
This colleague wouldn’t ask these questions today. Every day, newspaper and magazine articles bring us
new knowledge about aging and our aging society. In the United States today, there are more older people in
the population than ever before. Studies report findings on diet, exercise, pensions, family life, and housing.
Televised reports suggest ways to stay healthy and live a long life. Almost everyone knows something about
aging today, and the growth in popular books on this subject suggests that people want to know more.
Issues in aging will grow in importance as more people enter middle and later life. Most university and
college students today will face these issues in their careers. For example, the Baby Boom generation has
entered old age and will move like a glacier into this stage of life in the next few years. This mass of people
will want services from professionals who understand their needs and concerns. Students in gerontology
classes, whatever their major or field of study, will need to know about this aging population.
This book presents facts and information about aging today. It covers the issues that older people and their
families will face. And it deals with issues that an aging society will raise for all of us. Whether you are older
yourself, have older parents, relatives, and friends, or plan to work with older people, the information in this
text will help you understand aging today.
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Special Features
This book has an underlying theme: successful aging. The text presents a full picture of aging—problems and
all. But it emphasizes the opportunities and advantages of later life. This theme makes more sense today than
ever before.
Longer life and more years of activity and good health have changed the landscape of later life. Late old age
still brings physical decline. But better health and nutrition at every stage of life, along with advances in
medicine, extend the active years of middle age. The saying “60 is the new 40 and 70 the new 50” may have
begun as clever remarks. But they describe the reality of aging today for more and more people. Relatively few
older people today (age 65 and over) fit the stereotypical image of the poor and decrepit senior. Better pension
plans, better health, and more opportunities for personal expression and social engagement all have
transformed later life. This book documents that transformation and the new ecology of aging today.
Some years ago, French gerontologists coined the term the Third Age to describe this new stage of life. This
concept defines a time of life between adulthood (the Second Age) and late old age (the Fourth Age). It refers to
the healthy active years around retirement before the physical decline of old age sets in. Researchers Moen and
Spencer (2006, p. 128) define this as a time of transition, a “midcourse between the career- and family-building
tasks associated with adulthood, but before any debilitating infirmities associated with old age.” This stage
may begin in the fifties and go on to age 80 or more.
Two phenomena led to the emergence of the Third Age today. The first is demography. More people than
ever before (the Baby Boomers) have entered the Third Age. This group will soon fit the traditional age
category of old age (age 65 and over). But Baby Boomers will look and act more like people in middle age than
like the stereotypical older person. The second factor is longevity. People, on average, live longer today than
ever before. And they will live these added years, sometimes called the “longevity bonus,” in better health than
past generations (Moen & Spencer, 2006, p. 128). Add to this changes in technology that allow people to stay
productive longer, opportunities to stay engaged through volunteer work, and the practice of lifelong learning.
All of these changes mean that Third Agers will remain active and engaged in second careers, leisure, and
social service. They will redefine the concept of retirement and of later life.
Moen and Spencer (2006, p. 134) call the traditional view of old age “outdated” and “obsolete.” The old model
no longer fits the complexity and emergence of the Third Age. The rapid social change at the start of the 21st
century—technological change, a globalized economy, unstable work careers, demographic change,
convergence of male and female career opportunities—calls for new models to fit new patterns of social
experience.
The existence of the Third Age as a large-scale phenomenon causes some rethinking of assumptions about
aging. The Senior Olympics, for example, have existed for a number of years. But, in the past, people who took
part in these events seemed like odd specimens. Today, large numbers of people in their fifties and older run
marathons, take up surfing, and climb mountains. These Third Agers shatter the stereotype of the older person.
They force a new look at what we call old age.
Social institutions such as business and industry need to adapt to this new population of Third Agers. As
Baby Boomers retire from the workplace, they may leave behind a labor shortage. The smaller age groups
behind them will provide fewer workers to the labor force. This will change the way that business and industry
view retirement and the retiree. Some companies will rehire retirees, while others will give people incentives to
delay retirement.
On my campus, an interim president came out of retirement for 2 years to manage the campus while we
searched for a new leader. The campus then hired our administrative vice president, who delayed retirement to
serve as our new president. He then brought back a retired senior administrator to serve as vice president to
manage a troublesome unit. These administrators all had many years of successful experience. This pattern will
occur more and more often in varied industries and institutions in the years ahead.
Third Agers will engage in activities that express their interests and passions. And they will create
institutions to meet these needs. They will form lifelong learning institutes and volunteer programs to expand
their knowledge and use their skills.
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This fourth edition of Issues in Aging links the generations through the life course perspective. The
emergence of the Third Age demands this approach. The Third Age blurs the meaning of retirement and old
age. It asks for a view of aging that looks at the whole of adult life—the discontinuities (e.g., retirement) and
the continuities (e.g., lifelong learning). A life course perspective shows where and how a person’s life has
continuity. It also shows how the generations depend on one another. Many Boomers will play the role of
caregiver to their aging parents and to their children and grandchildren. They will deal with their own
retirement and health issues as they age. And they will affect the younger generations through their use of
services, their social contributions, and their ability to improve society as they age.
Finally, as Baby Boomers enter the Third Age, they will put pressure on existing programs and services. The
Social Security system, corporate pension programs, and the health care system will have to adapt to this large
number of older people. Some of these changes have begun already. For example, the Social Security program
raised the age for entitlement to full benefits. In general, these systems and others may shift the cost of a
program or service to the individual. This marks a change from the way that programs and services developed
during the 20th century. During the past century, government and corporate programs provided greater
benefits to older people. The 21st century will ask people to take more responsibility for their own pension
planning and health care costs.
Novelli and Workman (2006, p. 12) list five threats to the well-being of the big generation entering the Third
Age:
1. Lack of preparation by Boomers for their long period in retirement

2. The shift of pension risk and responsibility to workers by corporations
3. Poor financing and organization of government programs, including health care, Social Security, and
social services
4. A health care system that focuses on paying bills but not on health promotion
5. Lack of clear options and opportunities for a well-educated, healthy, and active Boomer population.
Each of these threats puts the Boomer generation at risk. These items point to weaknesses in America’s
preparation for an aging society.
This book looks at these and other issues related to aging and society today. For example, all older people
encounter negative stereotyping, many minority older people face low incomes, and some older workers retire
without sound pension plans due to economic change. Rising health care costs threaten to bankrupt individuals
and burden society. All of us need to understand these and other issues. This calls for knowledge that sorts the
myths from the realities of aging.
I have designed this book for easy use and enjoyable reading. Each chapter presents issues around a single
theme—for example, housing, health care, or income security. I present the facts on that theme, the issues
related to that theme, and creative responses to these issues.
Each chapter begins with a list of expected learning outcomes. These serve as a summary of the chapter’s
contents. They also serve as a way for you to check your understanding after reading the chapter.
Chapters also include graphs and tables for the display of complex information. In almost every case, these
displays have an accompanying explanation. I have also tried to give the meaning of new concepts in the text.
You will also find definitions of key terms throughout the text, so that you can read along without reference to
a glossary. However, for your convenience, you will find a glossary of all terms at the back of the book. I have
included photos and case studies of older people. Some of these people I have met informally or through my
research. Other cases come from insightful articles in the popular press. These additions show the human side
of aging. The various boxed features show the diversity of older people and their unique circumstances. Some
of these features show the lighter side of aging.
The end of each chapter includes a summary of main points, questions for discussion or study, suggested
readings, and relevant websites. These resources will help you explore a topic further and begin independent
research.
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20
Organization
Issues in Aging first looks at large-scale social issues—social attitudes, the study of aging, and demographic
issues. It then explores how these conditions affect individuals and social institutions. The book concludes with
a look at political responses to aging and how individuals can create a better old age for themselves and the
people they know.
Chapters 1 and 2 introduce students to the study of aging. Chapter 1 looks at attitudes toward older people.
It corrects many of the myths about aging. It also examines the origins of negative attitudes toward older
people and ways to change these attitudes. This edition includes quizzes on ageism and new material on the
denial of aging: anti-aging and amortality. Chapter 2 looks at how best to study aging. It reviews the theories
and methods gerontologists use in their research. New material in this edition includes an in-depth discussion
of the life course perspective and life events. The chapter concludes with a discussion of applied research and
evidence-based practice.
Chapter 3, a chapter on demography, places aging in the United States in a world context. The chapter first
reviews aging in underdeveloped, developing, and developed societies. It then presents information about aging
in the United States. Chapter 3 looks at the increase in the number and proportion of older people in the U.S.
population. This is the foundation for the chapters that follow.
Chapters 4 through 6 discuss how individuals age. Chapter 4 covers the issue of personal health and well-
being. This edition reports the increased research on exercise, diet, and new ways to cope with physical change
in later life. New material focuses on women and health as well as the importance of health literacy.
Chapter 5 discusses psychological and developmental issues related to aging. This chapter reviews changes
in memory and intelligence. This edition reports the latest research on mental potential in later life. Terms in
the literature such as reserve capacity, plasticity, and adaptability all describe a more positive view of mental
ability in old age. New material introduces research findings from studies of brain chemistry and magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) research. Researchers have also begun to explore the effects of training, physical
exercise, and creative activity on mental ability. This edition highlights this new thinking about mental
potential in later life.
Chapter 6 examines race, ethnicity, and culture. The older population in the future will be more racially,
ethnically, and culturally diverse than ever before. This will lead to different experiences of aging for people
with different characteristics. An older white male with a good pension and a poor older Hispanic woman will
experience aging differently. They will have had different life experiences and they will bring different
resources with them into old age. This diversity will create challenges for professionals and programs that
serve older people.
Chapters 7 through 10 explore current issues related to health care, income security, retirement, and
housing. These chapters show that all these institutions face challenges related to population aging.
Chapter 7 reports on the 2010 federal government health care reform bill, the “Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.” This chapter looks at how this legislation affects health care for older people.
Controversy over this legislation continues as this edition goes to print. An attempt to repeal and replace this
act has begun. The result of this effort and how changes in the law (should they come about) would affect
older people remains unclear at this time. Still, the overall system of health care service to older people will
remain in place. New material in this chapter looks at the expansion of community care and the development
of telehealth through use of the Internet.
Chapter 8 includes a discussion of funding for the Social Security program. It provides upto-date information
on the current and future solvency of Social Security. (Hint: The program will likely survive and be around for
future generations.) The chapter also looks at reform proposals such as private retirement accounts and the
move to defined contribution pension plans. These approaches to retirement funding shift the investment risk
from the government and corporations to the individual. The chapter looks at recent data on pockets of poverty
—minority group members, widows—that exist within the older population. The chapter includes a discussion
of the recent economic recession and its effect on older people’s incomes.
Chapter 9 reports on the latest trends in workforce participation. Recent data show a reversal in a decades-
21
long trend toward early retirement. A number of social and economic forces, including a drop in stock market
values, the recent recession, and longer life expectancy, all encourage people to postpone retirement. The
recent recession and corporate closures have also led some older workers to leave the workforce early. The
chapter documents the problems older workers have in finding new jobs if they get laid off. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of new career options for older workers and retirees.
Chapter 10 looks at some of the latest trends in senior housing. This includes the development of green
homes, universal design (to suit people of all ages), and smart homes. This chapter picks up a theme that
appears in several earlier chapters—the use of technology to support successful aging. The use of technology in
homes includes video monitoring devices, computerized lighting systems, and safety devices like anti-scalding
water systems. New trends in housing include cohousing—supportive communities of seniors with similar
interests. This chapter reports on the growth of the “Aging Friendly Communities” movement. These
communities provide social and health care support to members who otherwise live independently.
Technology will also change the way older people drive cars. Auto safety features include video cameras to
help people back up and alarms to warn a driver if he or she gets too close to a car in front. Improvements to
road signs will make driving safer for older people (and everyone else).
Chapter 11 tracks the growing interest in recreation and education among older people. It also describes the
diversity of recreational interests based on racial and ethnic differences. In particular, studies show a growth in
the use of computers among older people. This includes participation in online communities, communication
with family and friends, and the use of the Internet for education. Future advances in technology will open
new educational opportunities for older people. It will especially benefit homebound older people or those who
live at a distance from their families. Volunteering and community service also provide outlets for older people
to find meaning in retirement and give back to their communities.
Chapters 12 and 13 look at the personal lives of older people—family life and social supports. Each of these
topics has its own large literature and deserves its own focus. Chapter 12 looks at intimacy and our
relationships with those we love. This chapter presents new information on gay couples, widowhood, couples
that live apart, and dating. It describes older singles’ use of Facebook and Twitter to meet new people. A
section on HIV/AIDS describes an issue that few people associate with the older generation. This chapter also
describes an unusual adaptation to singlehood in later life—polyamory. This refers to people who have intimate
relationships with multiple partners. This chapter includes a discussion of grandparenting—an experience
common to most older people today. Chapter 13 looks at the differences between male and female care-givers.
It also describes the experience of caregiver burden. Many caregivers face this challenge. Eldercare programs in
the workplace can help people cope with the stress of caregiving.
Chapter 14 raises questions and issues related to the treatment of older people at the end of life. It explores
topics such as physician-assisted suicide and prolonging life through technology. This edition looks at how
different cultural groups in the United States look at death and dying. This discussion returns to the theme of
diversity within the older population. It urges sensitivity to cultural differences around end-of-life care. The
chapter also describes new ways to communicate end-of-life preferences through advance directives.
Chapter 15 provides information on politics and social policy. It deals with the current political system and
how it might address the issues raised in earlier chapters. Topics include voting behavior, political
participation, and support for senior programs. The chapter also criticizes the “Merchants of Doom” who
predict generational conflict due to population aging. More moderate voices call for intergenerational
cooperation and support.
Taken together, these chapters give an overview of aging in American society. This edition expands on
changes first noted in earlier editions. These include a more positive view of aging, new responses to an aging
society, and the entry of new cohorts of people into later life.
22
Acknowledgments
Authors often say that a book takes a team effort. It’s certainly true for a complex work like this. The team at
Taylor & Francis has given me support and encouragement from the first day. They also supplied expertise in
fields that an author can never master. My colleagues include copyeditors, photo archivists, marketing
specialists, and designers. Some of these people I got to know well. Others worked behind the scenes to
produce this work. These people have all earned my gratitude and respect. A few people deserve special
mention.
First, thanks to Jeff Lasser at Pearson who saw the potential in this book from the start. Thanks also to Karen
Hanson, Christine Dore, and Roberta Sherman, who oversaw this third edition. Thanks to Samantha Barbaro
for taking it on at Routledge, and Jennifer Fester and Christina Faria deserve thanks for their careful
copyediting. The errors that remain are my responsibility alone.
Special thanks to an outstanding group of reviewers, including Marcia B. Wynn, Southeastern University;
Diane Ferrero-Paluzzi, Iona College; Linda Barrett, Miami University; Muhammad Amin, Miami University;
Pamela Brown, Winston-Salem State University; Donna Sullivan, Marshall University; Mary Hart, California
University of Pennsylvania; April Temple, James Madison University; Donna Hoskins, Bridgewater College;
Sarah Hahn, Miami University; Dara Bourassa, Shippensburg University; Darlene Yee, San Francisco State
University; Jasleen Chahal, Miami University; Elizabeth Fugate-Whitlock, University of North Carolina
Wilmington; Jo Anna Kelly, Walsh University; Clarence Williams, Grambling State University; Rochelle
Rowley, Emporia State University; and Karel Kalaw, Miami University. These individuals spent hours on the
review of a text by an anonymous author. This puts the ideal of colleagueship to the test. They passed the test
with honors. They raised questions, provided detailed comments, and suggested sources that improved this
work. I thank each of them for the time and effort they put into helping me. The students who use this book
will benefit from their advice. I alone take responsibility for the book’s shortcomings.
Students in my Sociology of Aging courses told me what they would want to see in a ger-ontology text. I
would also like to thank my Canadian colleagues at Nelson/Thomson Canada. I have worked with them on
gerontology projects for many years, and they have always given me their support.
The librarians at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library at San Jose State University helped me with
database searches. Dean Ruth Kifer supervised an exceptional staff, who worked hard to get me the resources I
needed to complete this text. I thank them all for their support.
A few people serve as my support group every day. Tanya Snyder, my administrative assistant, helped me
find time to work on the text. I thank her for her patience and good cheer.
My mentor and good friend Hans Mohr inspires all of my work. I can never repay him, only thank him for
his support and friendship.
My wife, Mona, gave up many hours of family time so that I could complete this work. Some of this work
went late into the night in order to meet publication deadlines. She showed patience and support as deadlines
approached.
My son Daniel assisted at points along the way. He’s watched me work on this book for several years. Now
he has become a scholar himself and plans an academic career. Someday I may help him with one of his books.
I dedicate this book to my mother-in-law, Sylvia Kravis. She passed away during the writing of this book.
She is a great-grandmother many times over. She drove her own car into her late eighties and lived
independently until near the end of her life. She raised a happy and productive family. A recent photo shows
her surrounded by her children and their spouses, her grandchildren and their spouses, and her great-
grandchildren. She beams with pride at the camera, her youngest great-grandchild in her lap. She’s been a role
model of successful aging, and I thank her and remember her for the support she’s given all of us through the
years.
23
24
Supplements for the Instructor
Please visit the eResources website at

www.routledge.com/9781138214750
25
Chapter 1
Aging Today
Patrick Ward/Alamy
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter you will be able to:
LO1 Describe the goals of gerontology.

LO2 Recognize ageism and understand its effect on older people.
LO3 Recognize the sources of ageism in Western society.
LO4 Replace myths about aging with factual knowledge.
LO5 Explain some of the ways that thieves attempt to steal from older people through fraud, and the
effects of victimization.
LO6 Criticize workplace discrimination and its effects on older workers.
LO7 Explain what gerontologists mean by “the ageless self.”
LO8 Describe the reason for the emergence of the “Third Age” and “the Fourth Age.”
LO9 Point to changes that can moderate ageism including educational programs and social policies.
Jessie Taylor called for a cab and headed downtown for her last appointment of the day. She works for the
state office on aging. She monitors nursing home standards and teaches staff ways to improve patient care.
Jessie is 63 years old. She has a pear-shaped figure, a pixie grin, and a mop of gray hair. As she got out of the
cab, the driver got out, too. He grabbed her elbow, ushered her across the street, and deposited her on the
sidewalk. “You can’t be too careful crossing the street these days,” he said, then smiled and waved goodbye.
Jessie said that when she goes to her local supermarket, the checkout clerk often asks other customers to wait a
moment while she checks Jessie’s things through. Then, one of the workers helps her to her car with her
groceries.
All of this used to surprise Jessie. After all, she works at a job like everyone else, drives her own car when
she travels out of town, and serves as a leader in her profession. Yet sometimes people treat her like a frail old
woman. People see her kind face, gray hair, and wrinkles and they want to help her. They imagine that she
needs help doing simple things because of her age. I asked Jessie whether she ever tells people that she doesn’t
need their help. She said that sometimes she does, but she doesn’t want to discourage these people from
26
helping someone in the future, so often she goes along and grins to herself.
Jessie knows that stereotypes can be useful. They help us get along in a complex world where we know only
a fraction of the people we see and meet every day. But stereotypes can lead to problems. Jessie sees
stereotyping every day in her work. She listens as nursing home aides call patients “dearie” and “sweetie.” She
watches as workers use baby talk with their adult patients.
Stereotypes can lead us to misjudge people, to treat them inappropriately, and in the case of older people, to
assume that they need help.1 Stereotyping can also lead to prejudice, a negative attitude toward a person, and
to discrimination, unfair treatment based on prejudice rather than merit. Gerontology, the systematic study
of aging, attempts to counteract stereotyping and prejudice. It presents a more balanced view of later life. This
chapter looks at (1) the benefits of studying aging, (2) the social basis of age stereotyping, and (3) changes in
society that will lead to new images of later life.
Key Terms
stereotyping to believe unfairly that all people with a particular characteristic are the same.
prejudice a negative attitude toward a person based on their social characteristic such as age, gender,
ethnicity, or race.
discrimination unfair treatment based on a prejudice rather than merit.
gerontology the systematic study of aging.
27
Why Study Aging?
Everyone can benefit from the study of aging. First, gerontology can help you understand current social issues.
A society with an increasingly older population, for example, will experience changes in social institutions.
Consider the following changes that will occur in three institutions: the family, the health care system, and
recreation programs.
More people than ever before will live in what some gerontologists call beanpole families. These
families have three, four, or more generations alive at the same time. Each generation has relatively
few members due to smaller numbers of children being born. Older people in these families will live
into late old age. Some of them will need caregiving help from their younger family members. Others
will live independently or with some formal help in late old age.
Older people will get more of their health care services in the community. Programs such as visiting
nurse services, Meals on Wheels, and foot clinics at senior centers will help keep seniors in their homes
longer.
Older people will take part in more active recreation programs, including fitness programs, adventure
travel, and university courses.
These changes will lead to different social service needs, and this will require a shift in economic resources.
Should the government give more money to older people? Will this mean less money for other age groups?
Will it lead to tensions between the generations? Answers to these questions will shape public policy in the
future. The study of aging allows you to understand and respond sensibly to such issues.
The second reason for studying aging is that you might plan to work in a field that serves older people.
Students in nursing, social work, or physiotherapy will almost certainly work with older people. Students in
recreation studies, architecture, or family studies will also benefit from understanding aging. Even students in
business programs need to know about aging. Companies from banks to restaurants to travel agencies now see
older customers as an important part of their clientele. You will work with older people in almost any field you
choose. Knowledge of aging will give you a better understanding of your clients and their needs.
Third, most of us live in families with older members. Your parents and grandparents will soon face many of
the issues discussed here. You can help them deal with the issues of later life by studying aging.
Jeanne, a student in one of my classes, used her knowledge of aging to help her grandmother stay involved
in family life. She noticed that her grandmother had begun to avoid Sunday family dinners. Jeanne discovered
that her mother had told her grandmother not to bother making the potato salad for dinners anymore. Jeanne’s
mother wanted to make life easier for her grandmother, whose arthritis had gotten worse.
The grandmother felt that she had lost an important role in the family. If she couldn’t help cook the family
dinner, she decided she wouldn’t come at all. Jeanne explained the situation to her mother, and they arranged
for Jeanne to work with her grandmother in preparing the potato salad. The grandmother enjoyed teaching
Jeanne her recipe, Jeanne got to know her grandmother in a new way, and her grandmother started coming to
Sunday dinners again. Greater awareness of aging issues can make you a resource to your community, your
family, and yourself.
Most people know something about aging before they study the subject. They know about aging from their
personal experiences, from their contact with older people in their families and neighborhoods, and from the
media. Still, this gives a limited view of aging, one that sometimes mixes truth with bias and myth. A person
who has watched a relative or friend die of Alzheimer’s disease, for example, may fear aging. But relatively
few people contract this disease. Most older people are healthy into late old age. The Federal Interagency
Forum (2012, p. 29) said that between 2008 and 2010, “76 percent of people age 65 and over rated their health as
good, very good, or excellent.” Even at age 85 and over, 67 percent of people report good or better health.
Older people form a diverse group. Some people have problems, while others report high life satisfaction.
“Apart from dementia,” Zarit said, “older people have lower rates of mental disorders than other adult age
groups and generally report higher emotional well-being. … This is a finding supported by virtually every
28
epidemiological survey” (2009, pp. 675–676). Zarit concluded that “older people may, in fact, be somewhat
better off—happier, less depressed, and even less lonely than the other adult age-groups” (p. 678).
Jivraj and colleagues (2014) conducted a long-term study of people age 50 and over in England. They found
high subjective well-being among their subjects. They also found that, compared to younger cohorts in their
study, older cohorts report higher levels of subjective well-being. They found this pattern well into old age
when poor health and widowhood led to decline. The researchers said that
Satisfaction with life … seems to increase in older cohorts and increase at a faster rate when controlling for marital and health status. … [this]
shows that as people age, their health declines and they have less partnership support, they nevertheless become more satisfied with their
circumstances, and are happier in their situation than they would have been if they had been younger.
(p. 939)
In spite of results like this, Hummert (2011) said that, with respect to aging, “the number of negative
stereotypes exceeds that of positive stereotypes” (p. 251). Gerontologists work to replace myths and stereotypes
with facts and knowledge. They have conducted many studies that look at current images of aging and
attitudes toward old age.
29
Ageism
Some years ago, Robert Butler (1969) coined the term ageism to describe these negative attitudes toward aging.
The International Longevity Center (2006, p. 21) defined ageism as “Ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and practices on
the part of individuals that are biased against persons or groups based on their older age.” Ageism “reflects a
deep-seated uneasiness on the part of the young and middle-aged—a personal revulsion to and distaste for
growing old, disease, disability; and fear of powerlessness, ‘uselessness,’ and death” (Butler, 1969, p. 243; also
Butler, 2005).
Palmore (2001) reported that, in one sample of older people, 77 percent said they had experienced more than
one incident of ageism. They most often reported disrespect or the assumption that they had an illness. The
World Economic Forum (2012, p. 10) found that ageism “is prevalent worldwide.”
Hess (2006, p. 384) reviewed the psychological literature on aging stereotypes. He found that overall “the
literature suggests an underlying negative component to most categories of older adults.” Achenbaum (2015)
said that “ageism remains virulent” as much today as in the past. Laboratory studies of attitudes about aging
show a consistent bias against older people. Nosek, Banaji, and Greenwald (2002) compared subjects’ attitudes
toward race, gender, and age. They found stronger negative associations with age than with race or gender.
Studies (Hummert, 2011; also Ouchida & Lachs, 2015; Davis & Friedrich, 2010) find that older people
themselves hold negative age stereotypes and these lead to “biased behaviour toward older persons, even from
members of the older age group” (p. 254). Hummert said that older people who stereotype fellow seniors
display the “black sheep effect.” This “occurs when group members derogate in-group members whose
characteristics threaten positive perceptions of the group” (p. 253). In an earlier study, Hummert, Garstka, and
Shaner (1997) found that, compared to younger people, older people applied more negative stereotypes when
shown the faces of very old people. The researchers said that the very old faces threatened the older
participants’ positive view of themselves.
Older people may try to distance themselves from being old in everyday life. Graham (2010, p. 4), editor of
AARP—The Magazine, tells the following story. She and fellow editors attended a Bruce Springsteen concert in
New Jersey in October 2009. A woman approached them and asked, “Why would you wear an AARP [formerly
the American Association of Retired Persons] T-shirt to a Springsteen concert?” Graham explained that she
worked for AARP and that, by the way, Springsteen himself was 60 years old. The woman took this in, then
asked, “But why would you want people to know you’re old?”
Graham said this response would make sense from a teenage Springsteen fan. But this woman was in her
sixties. Graham said a friend of hers calls this attitude “chronological racism.” Ageism makes life unpleasant
and in some cases difficult for the older person. Comedian Carole Montgomery, 55, wrote an article for the
Huffington Post. She titled it “WAIT, I’m Not Dead, I’m Just Over 50” (Montgomery, 2013). She said, “The first
time I read Harry Potter I remember thinking how cool would it be to have an invisibility cloak? And then I
turned 50 and voila, my cloak was me.”
She then asked, “What’s so bad about getting old? Are the young so afraid of aging because that means
you’re closer to death? Or is it that we’ve brainwashed our youth to believe that only tight skin and shiny hair
are the epitome of perfection?”
A national study of perceptions of aging in the United States found that fewer than half of older people
reported “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problems with health, crime, income, and loneliness. But this
same group of older people thought that nearly all older people had “very serious” or “somewhat serious”
health, safety, income, or relationship problems (Cutler, Whitelaw, & Beattie, 2002). Palmore (2015), in a
summary of the literature on ageism, said “even older people continue to believe the negative stereotype that
most old people are weak, sick, or senile” (p. 873).
Some older people, for example, refuse to use bus passes that give discounts to seniors. They would rather
pay the higher fares than admit their age. A 72-year-old man I met on a bus told me he was going to visit the
“old folks” at a local nursing home. He does not see himself as an old person. Most people, it seems, feel that
“old” is 5 years older than they are.
Some years ago, Kalish (1979) and Estes (1979) described a new ageism. This refers to the desire to help
30
older people who need special treatment due to poor health, poverty, or lack of social supports. Although this
positive form of ageism tries to do good, it supports the stereotype of old age as a time of decline and loss.
Binstock (1983, 2005a) calls this a compassionate stereotype or compassionate ageism. This stereotype
attempts to create sympathy for older people, but it doesn’t give a true picture of later life.
Estes found that a federal bureaucracy to care for older people, what she calls the aging enterprise, grew
out of compassionate stereotyping. Supporters of older people created the stereotype of older people as poor,
frail, and dependent. This image created sympathy for older people and led to programs such as Medicare, the
Older Americans Act, and improved Social Security. These programs did improve older people’s lives, but
they also set the stage for the current round of scapegoating.
Some people now question whether the old deserve such apparently lavish treatment. Some policy analysts
and the press declare that older people have plenty of money and political power and they cost too much to
care for. Stereotyping, whether negative or compassionate, in the end decreases public support for the older
person who really needs help.
Key Terms
social institution a stable social organization such as the family, the government, or the education
system.
ageism “Ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and practices on the part of individuals that are biased against persons or
groups based on their older age” (International Longevity Center (2006, p. 21).
new ageism the desire to help older people who need special treatment due to poor health, poverty, or
lack of social supports.
compassionate stereotype attempts to create sympathy for older people, but it doesn’t give a true picture
of later life.
aging enterprise the federal bureaucracy that has grown up to care for older people.
Medicare the federal government health care plan to serve older people.
Older Americans Act legislation enacted in 1965 that authorizes a range of home and community-based
services such as Meals on Wheels, transportation, and legal services.
Social Security the federal government income system to support older people.
scapegoating singling out a person or group to blame for a situation.
31
Figure 1.1 The Challenges of Aging
Note: Asked of adults 18–64, n = 1,631; and adults 65+, n = 1,332.
Source: Pew Research Center. (2009). Growing old in America: Expectations vs. Reality. Retrieved April 10, 2016,
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2009/06/29/growing-old-in-america-expectations-vs-reality/. Reprinted with permission.
The Pew Research Center conducted a study of 2,969 adults to learn about the views of aging held by
younger and older people. Figure 1.1 shows the results of a question that asked about the challenges
people face in old age.
In every case, compared to seniors, younger people held a more negative view of later life. The large
majority of older people (80 percent) do not report feeling sad or depressed. Only 9 percent of older people
report not feeling needed, and only 10 percent said they feel like they are a burden.
Table 1.1 The Benefits of Growing Older (Percent Who Feel This Way)
More time with family 70
Not working 66
More time for hobbies/interests 65
More financial security 64
Less stress 59
More respect 59
Volunteer work 52
More travel 52
Second career 14
Adapted from: Pew Research Center. (2009). Growing old in America: Expectations vs. Reality. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2009/06/29/growing-old-in-america-expectations-vs-reality/
The Pew Research Center looked at what older people liked about later life. They consulted 1,332 older
adults to get their views. The responses to this survey (Table 1.1) show a generally positive view of old
age. This, in part, reflects the benefits of retirement from work. Retirement allows seniors to spend more
32
time on hobbies, with family, in volunteer roles, and on travel. In response to an open-ended question,
seniors rated time with family, especially grandchildren, as the best thing about old age. About three-
quarters of seniors (in response to another question) said they were “pretty happy” or “very happy.” The
Pew report concludes that “the phrase “golden years” is something more than a syrupy greeting card
sentiment.”
Box 1.1 Quiz: Are You Age Aware?
Find out if you are age aware or age averse by taking this simple quiz.
1. When referring to people over the age of 75, what term do you use?
Elderly
Older woman/older man
Seniors or senior citizens
Old Age Pensioner
Geriatrics
Old-timer or golden-ager
2. How would you complete this sentence? Old age means …
A physically older version of myself

Having more time to do the things I love
Losing my independence/becoming dependent on others
Not being able to stay physically active
Being wiser
Losing my mental capacity
3. Which statement below most closely matches the type of interactions you have with people over
the age of 75, other than your parents or grandparents?
I volunteer with older adults because I enjoy their company

I have no real exposure to people in their 70s and 80s because I avoid old people
whenever possible
I connect with relatives/friends who are over 75 occasionally out of obligation
I have acquaintances who I enjoy chatting with regularly and assist with simple tasks if
they need my help
I don’t have much exposure to older adults, but when I do encounter them I enjoy their
company
4. When you think of people over the age of 75, how would you typically describe them?
Boring with not much to say

Interesting with great stories to tell
Confused and slow-witted
Grumpy and generally miserable
Happy and content with life
It depends on the individual
5. Choose the response that most closely resembles how you would react in the following scenario.
You’re chatting with your mother or grandmother on the phone and she mentions that she’s
feeling under the weather but it’s nothing serious, you…
33
Ask her if she wants you to make her an appointment with the doctor
Hang up the phone and make a doctor’s appointment without consulting her
Take her at her word that it’s nothing serious, she’s a grown woman and knows what’s
best for herself
Tell her that she needs to make an appointment with her doctor, you know what’s best
for her
Ignore her comment completely, older people tend to be hypochondriacs
Source: Revera. (2015). Age is more. Retrieved from http://ageismore.com/ageismore/about/age-aware-

quiz.aspx. Reprinted with permission.
34
Culture as a Source of Ageism
At a conference a few years ago, a sales representative gave me a page of comments about getting older. The
page had his name and phone number in the outside margins. I suppose he thought that people would pass this
page along to colleagues. They would share this bit of humor and his name as well. The page said:
You know you’re getting old when …
Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.

Your pacemaker makes the garage door go up every time a pretty girl walks by.
Your back goes out more often than you do.
The last time you helped a little old lady across the street, it was your wife.
I’ve read these lines to many audiences and classes of students, and people find them funny. But at the risk
of ruining the fun, I suggest that all of these jokes foster ageism. For one thing, they all make older people seem
physically and psychologically weak. They also make older people seem less able to do things or imply that
they cannot control their bodily functions.
The man who gave me this list saw no harm in the humor, and since then I have received copies of this list
from other sources. One copy of this list appeared in Reader’s Digest. Imagine that a similar list had a racial or
ethnic bias. Would you pass it along to your customers or show it to your professor? Would it be published in a
national magazine? Few people see these jokes as ageist at first. All of us have grown up with the stereotype of
older people as run-down and decrepit. Jokes like these and many other sources in our culture support ageist
beliefs.
Great writings from the past, for example, present ageist images of older people. Aristotle’s image of aging
shows many of the biases people express today. Old men, he said,
are sure about nothing and under-do everything. … They are small-minded, because they have been humbled by life: their desires are set
upon nothing more exalted or unusual than what will help them to keep alive. … They live by memory rather than by hope. … This, again, is
the cause of their loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy remembering it. … Their sensual passions have either
altogether gone or have lost their vigour.
(1941, Bk. II: Chapter 13, pp. 1405–1406)
Machiavelli presents the old man in his play La Clizia as a lecher. Shakespeare, at the start of King Lear,
presents the king as a fool. Children’s stories throughout history feature ragmen, bogeymen, and wicked
witches—all caricatures of old people. Psychologist Becca Levy (2003, cited in Dittmann, 2003; also Calasanti,
2006) reported, “Age stereotypes are often internalized at a young age—long before they are even relevant to
people,” and early attitudes tend to be reinforced over their lifetimes.
Psychological learning theory says that early exposure to social information may influence how a child will
think about aging and getting older. And this early exposure may carry on into adulthood. Hollis-Sawyer and
Cuevas (2013) looked at how children’s picture books portray older women. They chose a sample of 90 books.
They found that older people appeared in only about one-third of the books. And the books that did include
older women generally portrayed them negatively in the text and in images.
The books portrayed older women as witches, or crazy, or alone. The authors concluded that “aging-related
and gender stereotypes are pervasive in what is presented to children, from fairy-tales to cartoons.” They went
on to say that from a “life course perspective, the earlier we understand aging in a realistic way, the more
educated our decisions will be throughout life” (Hollis-Sawyer and Cuevas 2013, p. 909).
Thompson, O’Sullivan, Byers, and Shaughnessy (2014) studied 134 students, ages 18 to 24, to learn about
their attitudes toward sexuality in later life. They found that students reported explicit positive attitudes
toward sexuality in later life. But on further examination, they found that students held implicit (covert)
negative attitudes. Their study also found a moderate implicit general bias against older adults. They conclude
that “young adults appear to hold the most negative views of sexuality in older adults compared to children
and middle-aged adults” (p. 259).
35
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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Issues in Aging 4th Edition, (Ebook

Chapter 1 Aging Today

Chapter 2 Theories and Methods

Chapter 4 Personal Health and Well-Being

Chapter 5 The Psychology of Aging

Chapter 6 Race and Ethnicity

Responses to Minority Group Aging

Chapter 7 The Health Care System

Chapter 8 Finances and Economics

Chapter 9 Retirement and Work

Chapter 10 Housing and Transportation

Chapter 11 Leisure, Recreation, and Education

Chapter 12 Family Life and Relationships

Marriage and Widowhood

Chapter 13 Social Support

Death and Society

Chapter 15 Politics and Policies

1. Lack of preparation by Boomers for their long period in retirement

Please visit the eResources website at

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

LO1 Describe the goals of gerontology.

discrimination unfair treatment based on a prejudice rather than merit.

gerontology the systematic study of aging.

scapegoating singling out a person or group to blame for a situation.

Box 1.1 Quiz: Are You Age Aware?

2. How would you complete this sentence? Old age means …

A physically older version of myself

I volunteer with older adults because I enjoy their company

Boring with not much to say

Source: Revera. (2015). Age is more. Retrieved from http://ageismore.com/ageismore/about/age-aware-

Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

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