Page:Coming of age in Samoa.pdf/184

 but consistent and prolonged disciplinary measures are absent, and a display of temper is likely to be speedily followed by conciliatory measures. This, of course, applies only to the relation between a girl and her elders. Often conflicts of personality between young people of the same age in a household are not so tempered, but the removal of one party to the conflict, the individual with the weakest claims upon the household, is here also the most frequent solution. The fact that the age-group gang breaks up before adolescence and is never resumed except in a highly formal manner, coupled with the decided preference for household rather than group solidarity, accounts for the scarcity of conflict here. The child who shuns her age mates is more available for household work and is never worried by questions as to why she doesn’t run and play with the other children. On the other hand, the tolerance of the children in accepting physical defect or slight strangeness of temperament prevents any child’s suffering from undeserved ostracism.

The child who is unfavourably located in the village is the only real exile. Should the age group last over eight or ten years of age, the exiles would certainly suffer or very possibly as they grew bolder, venture farther from home. But the breakdown of the gang just as the children are bold enough and free enough to go ten houses from home, prevents either of these two results from occurring.

The absence of any important institutionalised