Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/126

 men. One luckless youth in Luma neglected to remove his lavalava. The girl discovered him and her sister succeeded in biting a piece out of his lavalava before he escaped. This she proudly exhibited the next day. As the boy had been too dull to destroy his lavalava, the evidence against him was circumstantial and he was the laughing stock of the village; the children wrote a dance song about it and sang it after him wherever he went. The moetotolo problem is complicated by the possibility that a boy of the household may be the offender and may take refuge in the hue and cry following the discovery. It also provides the girl with an excellent alibi, since she has only to call out "moetotolo" in case her lover is discovered. "To the family and the village that may be a moetotolo, but it is not so in the hearts of the girl and the boy."

Two motives are given for this unsavoury activity, anger and failure in love. The Samoan girl who plays the coquette does so at her peril. "She will say, 'Yes, I will meet you to-night by that old cocoanut tree just beside the devilfish stone when the moon goes down.' And the boy will wait and wait and wait all night long. It will grow very dark; lizards will drop on his head; the ghost boats will come into the channel. He will be very much afraid. But he will wait there until dawn, until his hair is wet with dew and his heart is very angry and still she does not come. Then in revenge he will attempt a moetotolo. Especially will he do so if he hears that she has met another that night."