Coming of Age in Samoa
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Coming of Age  A Psychological Study of Primitive By  Foreword by Franz Boas William Morrow & Company |
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Coming of Age in Samoa
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To the Girls of Taū
this book is dedicated
ʻOu te avatu
lenei tusitala
iā te ʻoutou
O Teineīti ma le Aualuma
o Taū
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the generosity of the Board of Fellowships in the Biological Sciences of the National Research Council whose award of a fellowship made this investigation possible. I have to thank my father for the gift of my travelling expenses to and from the Samoan Islands. To Prof. Franz Boas I owe the inspiration and the direction of my problem, the training which prepared me to undertake such an investigation, and the criticism of my results.
For a co-operation which greatly facilitated the progress of my work in the Pacific, I am indebted to Dr. Herbert E. Gregory, Director of the B. P. Bishop Museum and to Dr. E. C. S. Handy and Miss Stella Jones of the Bishop Museum.
To the endorsement of my work by Admiral Stitt and the kindness of Commander Owen Mink, U. S. N., I owe the co-operation of the medical authorities in Samoa, whose assistance greatly simplified and expedited my investigation. I have to thank Miss Ellen M. Hodgson, Chief Nurse, the staff nurses, the Samoan nurses, and particularly G. F. Pepe for my first contacts and my instruction in the Samoan language. To the hospitality, generosity, and sympathetic co-operation of Mr. Edward R. Holt, Chief Pharmacist Mate, and Mrs. Holt, I owe the four months’ residence in their home which furnished me with an absolutely essential neutral base from which I could study all the individuals in the village and yet remain aloof from native feuds and lines of demarcation.
The success of this investigation depended upon the co-operation and interest of several hundred Samoans. To mention each one individually would be impossible. I owe special thanks to County Chief Ufuti of Vaitogi and to all the members of his household and to the Talking Chief Lolo, who taught me the rudiments of the graceful pattern of social relations which is so characteristic of the Samoans. I must specially thank their excellencies, Tufele, Governor of Manuʻa, and County Chiefs Tui Olesega, Misa, Sotoa, Asoao, and Leui, the Chiefs Pomele, Nua, Tialigo, Moa, Maualupe, Asi, and the Talking Chiefs Lapui and Muao; the Samoan pastors Solomona and Iakopo, the Samoan teachers, Sua, Napoleon, and Eti; Toaga, the wife of Sotoa, Faʻapuaʻa, the Taupo of Fitiuta, Fofoa, Laula, Lleauala, and Felofiaina, and the chiefs and people of all the villages of Manuʻa and their children. Their kindness, hospitality, and courtesy made my sojourn among them a happy one; their co-operation and interest made it possible for me to pursue my investigation with peace and profit. The fact that no real names are used in the course of the book is to shield the feelings of those who would not enjoy such publicity.
For criticism and assistance in the preparation of this manuscript I am indebted to Dr. R. F. Benedict, Dr. L. S. Cressman, Miss M. E. Eichelberger, and Mrs. M. L. Loeb.
The American Museum of Natural History,
Table of Contents
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 knew 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.
The anthropologist doubts the correctness of these views, but up to this time hardly any one has taken the pains to identify himself sufficiently with a primitive population to obtain an insight into these problems. We feel, therefore, grateful to Miss Mead for having undertaken to identify herself so completely with Samoan youth that she gives us a lucid and clear picture of the joys and difficulties encountered by the young individual in a culture so entirely different from our own. The results of her painstaking investigation confirm the suspicion long held by anthropologists, that much of what we ascribe to ‘human nature’ is no more than a reaction to the restraints put upon us by our civilisation.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1928, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1978, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 45 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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