Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation
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This book made available by the Internet Archive.
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
14 ith Hihbcus in her hair
T> l..(
To THE Girls of Tau
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
*Ou te avatu
lene't tusitala
id te ^outou
O Teineiti ma le Aualuma
o Tail
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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^ticism 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 Mu-
^seum 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
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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 Manu'a, and County Chiefs Tui Olesega, Misa, Sotoa, Asoao, andXeuL the Chiefs Pomele, Nua, Tialigo, Moa, Maualupe, Asi, and the Talking Chiefs Lapui and Muaoj the Samoan pastors Solomona and lakopo, the Samoan teachers,^ Sua, Napoleon, and Etij Toaga, the wife of Sotoa, Fa'apua'a, the Taupo of Fitiuta, Fofoa, Laula, Leauala, and Felofiaina, and the chiefs and people of all the villages of Manu'a and their children. Their kindness, hospitality, and courtesy made my sojourn among them a happy onej 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. j^_ j^_
The American Museum of Natural History, March, 1928.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPENDIX PAGU
V Materials upon Which the Analysis Is Based . 28?
a. Sample Record Sheet
b. Table I. Showing Menstrual History, Sex Experi-
ence and Residence in Pastor's Household
c. Table H. 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
W
WITH HIBISCUS IN HER HAIR
THE "house to meet THE STRANGEr" REBUILDING THE VILLAGE AFTER A HURRICANE
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
i8
A CHIEF S DAUGHTER AND THE BABY OF THE HOUSEHOLD WHOSE YELLOW HAIR WILL SOME DAY MAKE A chief's HEADDRESS ....
THE LOCAL PARLIAMENT IS CONVENED
A DANCING COSTUME FOR EUROPEAN TASTES
BY NAME "house OF MIDNIGHT DARKNESs"
A SPIRIT OF THE WOOD ....
IN THE BARK CLOTH COSTUME OF LONG AGO
DRESSED UP IN HER BIG SISTER's DANCING SKIRT
A TALKING CHIEF THE NATIVE MASTER OF
MONIES .
/ FAMOUS MAKER OF BARK CLOTH
CERE
52
80
I 12
I 12
122 160 160
190 190
[xi]
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 ^unoaiy, family and political organisation, and j^gji gious beliefs and practices. Through a comparative studjTbf-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 stro- ig 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 in dividu al is almost_eiim-
[xiii]
J.J
FOREWORD ^■■
inated 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 j like rules set down defining the style of art, but not the way in which the artist elaborates his ideas of beauty j like a list of inventions, anc'. 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 oui' 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. I
Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity td. definite ethical standards are universal, but what con-/ stitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and ethicai 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 witi i difficulties which we are likely to ascribe to fundamentaJ human traits. When we speak about the difficulties o.'' childhood and of adolescence, we are thinking of then x
[xiv] ,
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FOREWORD
as unavoidable periods of adjustment through which every one has to pass. The whole psycho-analytic approach is largely base
d on this supposition.
The anthropologist doubts the correctness of these views, but up to this time hardly any one has taken the pains to identif^hjmself 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. "^i.e csults of her painstaking investigation confirm he suspicion long held by anthropologists, that much c *• what we ascribe to human nature'.is no more than a reaction to the restraints put upon us by our civilisation.
Franz Boas.
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
INTRODUCTION
DURING the last hundred years parents and teachers have ceased to take childhood and adolescence for granted. Jlhey have attempted to fit education to the needs of the child, rather than to press the child into an inflexible educational mould. To this new task they have been spurred by two forces, the growth of the S£ience of psychology, and the difficulties and maladjustments of youth. Psychology suggesfed-that much might be gained by a knowledge of the way in which children developed, of the stages through which they passed, of what the adult world might reasonably expect of the baby of two months or the child of two years. And the fulminations of the pulpit, the loudly voiced laments of the conservative social philosopher, the records of juvenile courts and social agencies all suggested that something must be done with the period which science had named adolescence. The spectacle of a younger generation diverging ever more widely from the standards and ideals of the past, cut affifFwithout the anchorage of respected home standards or group religious values, terrified the cautious reactionary, tempted the radical propagandist to missionary crusades
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
among the defenceless youth, and worried the least thoughtful among us.
In American civilisation, with its many immigrant strains, its dozens of conflicting standards of conduct, its hundreds of religious sects, its shifting economic conditions, this unsettled, disturbed status of youth was more apparent than in the older, more settled civilisation of Europe. American conditions challenged the psychologist, the educator, the social philosopher, to offer acceptable explanations of the growing children's plight. As to-day in post-war Germany, where the younger generation has even more difficult adjustments to make than have our own children, a great mass of theorising about adolescence is flooding the book shop)Sj so the psychologist in America tried to account for the restlessness of youth. The result was works like that of Stanley Hall on "Adolescence," which ascribed to the period through which the children were passing, the causes of their conflict and distress. Adolescence 'was characterised as the period in which idealism flowered-and rebellion against authority waxed strong, a period during which difficulties and conflicts were absolutely inevitable.
The careful child psychologist who relied upon experiment for his conclusions did not subscribe to these theories. He said, "We have no data. We know onjly a little about the first few months of a child's life. We are only just learning when a baby's eyes will fiii'st follow a light. How can we give definite answers to
INTRODUCTION
questions of how a developed personality, about which we know nothing, will respond to religion?" But the negative cautions of science are never popular. If the experimentalist would not commit himself, the social philosopher, the preacher and the pedagogue tried the harder to give a short-cut answer. They observed the behaviour of adolescents in our society, noted down the omnipresent and obvious symptoms of unrest, and announced these as characteristics of the period. Mothers were warned that "daughters in their teens" present special problems. This, said the theorists, is a difficult period. The physical changes which are going on in the bodies of your boys and girls have their definite psychological accompaniments. You can no more evade * one than you can the other 3 ^ your daughter's body changes from the body of a child to the body of a woman, so inevitably will her spirit change, and that stormily. The theorists looked about them again at t'-^e adolescents in our civilisation and repeated with P ceat conviction, "Yes, stormily." ?-* cSuch a view, though unsanctioned by the cautious t jperimentalist, gained wide currency, influenced our educational policy, paralysed our parental eflfort§» Just as the mother must brace herself against the baby's crying when it cuts its first tooth, so she must fortify herself and bear with what equanimity she might the unlovely, turbulent manifestations of the "awkward age." If there was nothing to blame the child for, ntiither was_there any programme except endurance
^^
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COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
which might be urged upon the teacher. The theor'.st continued to observe the l5eMviour of American adolescents and each year lent new justification to his hypothesis, as the difficulties of youth were illustrated and documented in the records of schools and juvenile courts.
But meanwhile another way of studying human development had been gaining ground, the approach of the anthropologist, the student of man in all of liis most diverse social settings. The anthropologist, as he pondered his growing body of material upon the customs of primitive people, grew to realise the tr_eip.§itt-dous-jgle played, in an individuaPs life by the ^ocjal environment^ in which each is born and reared. ~One by one, aspectS-oi behaviour which we had been accustomed to consider invariable complements of our humanity were found to be merely a result of civilisation, present in the inhabitants of one country, absent, in another country, and this without a change of race. F)(e^ learned that neither race nor common humanity caft-^e, held responsible for many of the forms which ev/^i such basic human emotions as love and fear and angilr take under different social conditions. j
So the anthropologist, arguing from his observatioius of the behaviour of adult human beings in other civilisations, reaches many of the same conclusions wliidh the behaviourist reaches in his wo7t^upoh~humanT3aBi7es who have as yet no civilisation to shape their malleabjje humanity.
INTRODUCTION
With such an attitude towards human nature the anthropologist listened to the current comment upon adolescence. He heard attitudes which seemed to him dependent upon social environment—such as rebellion against authority, philosophical perplexities, the flowering of idealism, conflict and struggle—ascribed to a ^period of physical development. And on the basis of his knowledge of the determinism of culture, of the plasticity of human beings, he doubted. Were these difiiculties due to being adolescent or to being adoles-ce nt in Amer ica ?
For the biologist who doubts an old hypothesis or wishes to test out a new one, there is the biological laboratory. There, under conditions over which he can exercise the most rigid control, he can vary the light, the air, the food, which his plants or his animals receive, from the moment of birth throughout their lifetime. Keeping all the conditions but one constant, he q^ can make accurate measurement of the effect of the ^^ one. This is the ideal method of science, the method "^jJ^tJ of the- controlled experiment, through which all hy- -^ '^ ' potheses may be submitted to a strict objective test. '
Even the student of infant psychology can only par-
tially reproduce thesejdeal laboratory conditions. He cnnnot j:ontrol the pre-natal environment of the child whom he will later subject to objective ineasuremeht. .rie can, however, control the early environment of the iihiH, the first few days of its existence, and decide what sounds and sights and smells and tastes are to
Ci]
COMING OF AG^ IN SAMOA
impinge upon it. But for the student of the adolescent there is no such simplicity of working conditions. What-We.wish to test is no less than the effect of civilisation upon a developing human being at the age'^of puberty. To test it most rigorously we would have to construct various sorts of different civilisations and subject large numbers of adolescent children to these dif-, ferent environments. We would list the influences the I effe
cts of which we wished to study. If we wished to study the influence of the size of the family, we would construct a series of civilisations alike in every respect except in family organisation. Then if we found differences in the behaviour of our adolescents we could say with assurance that size of family had caused the difference, that, for instance, the only child had a more troubled adolescence than the child who was a member of a large family. And so we might proceed through a dozen possible situations—early or late sex knowledge, early or late sex-experience, pressure towards precocious development, discouragement of precocious development, segregation of the sexes or coeducation ( from infancy, division of labour between the sexes or common tasks for both, pressure to make religious choices young or the lack of such pressure. We would vary one factor, while the others remained quite constant, and analyse which, if any, of the aspects of our civilisation were responsible for the difficulties of oui*'^ children at adolescence. —-^ I
Unfortunately, such ideal methods of experiment'
INTRODUCTION
are denied to us when our materials are humanity and the whole fabric of a social order. The test colony of Herodotus, in which babies were to'be isolated and the results recorded, is not a possible approach. Neither is the method of selecting from our own civilisation groups of children who meet one requirement or another. Such a method would be to select five hundred adolescents from small families and five hundred from large families, and try to discover which had experienced the greatest difficulties of adjustment at adolescence. But we could not know what were the other influences brought to bear upon these children, what effect their knowledge of sex or their neighbourhood environment may have had upon their adolescent development.
What method then is open to us who wish to conduct a human experiment but who lack the power either to construct the experimental conditions or to find controlled examples of those conditions here and there throughout our own civilisation? The only method is that^of the anthropologist, to go to a^-different civilisation and make a. study of human beings under different cultural ^conditions in. SiiQie_x»ih£iL part _of the world. For such studies the anthropologist chooses quite sim-p] I peoples, primitive peoples, whose society has never at^ined the complexity of our own.^ In this choice of primitive peoples like the Eskimo, the Australian, the South Sea islander, or the Pueblo Indian, the anthropologist is guided by the knowledge that the analyg[s