Coming of age in Samoa

by Margaret Mead

		PAGE
[FOREWORD BY FRANZ BOAS]		xiii
CHAPTER
[I]	INTRODUCTION	1
[II]	A DAY IN SAMOA	14
[III]	THE EDUCATION OF THE SAMOAN CHILD	20
[IV]	THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD	39
[V]	THE GIRL AND HER AGE GROUP	59
[VI]	THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY	74
[VII]	FORMAL SEX RELATIONS	86
[VIII]	THE RÔLE OF THE DANCE	110
[IX]	THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS PERSONALITY	122
[X]	THE EXPERIENCE AND INDIVIDUALITY OF THE AVERAGE GIRL	131
[XI]	THE GIRL IN CONFLICT	158
[XII]	MATURITY AND OLD AGE	185
[XIII]	OUR EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS IN THE LIGHT OF SAMOAN CONTRASTS	195
[XIV]	EDUCATION FOR CHOICE	234
APPENDIX
[I]	Notes to Chapters	249
[II]	Methodology of This Study	259
[III]	Samoan Civilisation as It Is To-day	266
[IV]	The Mentally Defective and the Mentally Diseased	278
[V]	Materials upon Which the Analysis Is Based	282
	a. [Sample Record Sheet]
	b. [Table I.] Showing Menstrual History, Sex Experience and Residence in Pastor’s Household
	c. [Table II.] Family Structure, and Analysis of Table
	d. [Intelligence Tests Used]
	e. [Check List Used in Investigation of Each Girl’s Experience.]
	[Glossary of Native Terms Used in the Text]	295

ILLUSTRATIONS

[WITH HIBISCUS IN HER HAIR]	Frontispiece
	FACING PAGE
[THE “HOUSE TO MEET THE STRANGER”]	18
[REBUILDING THE VILLAGE AFTER A HURRICANE]	18
[A CHIEF’S DAUGHTER AND THE BABY OF THE HOUSEHOLD WHOSE YELLOW HAIR WILL SOME DAY MAKE A CHIEF’S HEADDRESS]	52
[THE LOCAL PARLIAMENT IS CONVENED]	80
[A DANCING COSTUME FOR EUROPEAN TASTES]	112
[BY NAME “HOUSE OF MIDNIGHT DARKNESS”]	112
[A SPIRIT OF THE WOOD]	122
[IN THE BARK CLOTH COSTUME OF LONG AGO]	160
[DRESSED UP IN HER BIG SISTER’S DANCING SKIRT]	160
[A TALKING CHIEF—THE NATIVE MASTER OF CEREMONIES]	190
[A FAMOUS MAKER OF BARK CLOTH]	190

FOREWORD

Modern descriptions of primitive people give us a picture of their culture classified according to the varied aspects of human life. We learn about inventions, household economy, family and political organisation, and religious beliefs and practices. Through a comparative study of these data and through information that tells us of their growth and development, we endeavour to reconstruct, as well as may be, the history of each particular culture. Some anthropologists even hope that the comparative study will reveal some tendencies of development that recur so often that significant generalisations regarding the processes of cultural growth will be discovered.

To the lay reader these studies are interesting on account of the strangeness of the scene, the peculiar attitudes characteristic of foreign cultures that set off in strong light our own achievements and behaviour.

However, a systematic description of human activities gives us very little insight into the mental attitudes of the individual. His thoughts and actions appear merely as expressions of rigidly defined cultural forms. We learn little about his rational thinking, about his friendships and conflicts with his fellowmen. The personal side of the life of the individual is almost eliminated in the systematic presentation of the cultural life of the people. The picture is standardised, like a collection of laws that tell us how we should behave, and not how we behave; like rules set down defining the style of art, but not the way in which the artist elaborates his ideas of beauty; like a list of inventions, and not the way in which the individual overcomes technical difficulties that present themselves.

And yet the way in which the personality reacts to culture is a matter that should concern us deeply and that makes the studies of foreign cultures a fruitful and useful field of research. We are accustomed to consider all those actions that are part and parcel of our own culture, standards which we follow automatically, as common to all mankind. They are deeply ingrained in our behaviour. We are moulded in their forms so that we cannot think but that they must be valid everywhere.

Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways. It is still more important to know how the individual reacts to these standards.

In our own civilisation the individual is beset with difficulties which we are likely to ascribe to fundamental human traits. When we speak about the difficulties of childhood and of adolescence, we are thinking of them as unavoidable periods of adjustment through which every one has to pass. The whole psycho-analytic approach is largely based on this supposition.