Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/142



is the only activity in which almost all ages and both sexes participate and it therefore offers a unique opportunity for an analysis of education.

In the dance there are virtuosos but no formal teachers. It is a highly individual activity set in a social framework. This framework varies from a small dancing party at which twelve to twenty people are present to the major festivities of a malaga (travelling party) or a wedding when the largest guest house in the village is crowded within and encircled by spectators without. With the size and importance of the festivity, the formality of the arrangements varies also. Usually the occasion of even a small siva (dance) is the presence of at least two or three strange young people from another village. The pattern entertainment is a division of the performers into visitors and hosts, the two sides taking turns in providing the music and dancing. This pattern is still followed even when the malaga numbers only two individuals, a number of hosts going over to swell the visitors' ranks.

It is at these small informal dances that the children learn to dance. In the front of the house sit the young people who are the centre and arbiters of the occasion.