Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/101

 But the boys have also other matters besides love-making in which they must co-operate. Three are needed to man a bonito canoe; two usually go together to lasso eels on the reef; work on the communal taro plantations demands the labour of all the youths in the village. So that while a boy too chooses his best friends from among his relatives, his sense of social solidarity is always much stronger than that of a girl. The Aualuma, the organisation of young girls and wives of untitled men, is an exceedingly loose association gathered for very occasional communal work, and still more occasional festivities. In villages where the old intricacies of the social organisation are beginning to fall into disuse, it is the Aualuma which disappears first, while the Aumaga, the young men's organisation, has too important a place in the village economy to be thus ignored. The Aumaga is indeed the most enduring social factor in the village. The matais meet more formally and spend a great deal of time in their own households, but the young men work together during the day, feast before and after their labours, are present as a serving group at all meetings of the matais, and when the day's work is over, dance and go courting together in the evening. Many of the young men sleep in their friends' houses, a privilege but grudgingly accorded the more chaperoned girls.

Another factor which qualified men's relationships is the reciprocal relationship between chiefs and talking chiefs. The holders of these two classes of titles are