Collecting quantitative demographic data from illiterate populations continues to be a major drawback in the study of demographic phenomena. The problems of illiteracy and lack of numeracy are more acute in Africa where the majority of the rural populations are not well educated. This article describes a method of collecting quantitative data using simple techniques of drawing and modelling. Using a small semi-nomadic population of the Tembomvura people of Zambezi Valley, northern Zimbabwe, the study concludes that it is possible to collect birth history data from illiterate populations. A combination of the traditional questionnaire approach and the "participatory" methods proposed in this article provide a more reliable method for collecting birth history data. With large populations aiming for nationally representative samples, the method would be very time consuming and costly. The approach is more useful for studying small populations or small samples. The major strength is that it gives the respondents a chance to express their knowledge in simple numeric form.
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