Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/144

 to one air, now to another. The verse pattern is simply based upon the number of syllables; a change in stress is permitted and rhyme is not demanded so that any new event is easily set in the old pattern, and names of villages and of individuals are inserted with great freedom. The content of the songs is likely to take on an extremely personal character containing many quips at the expense of individuals and their villages.

The form of the participation of the audience changes according to the age of the dancers. In the case of the smaller children, it consists of an endless stream of good-natured comment: "Faster!" "Down lower! Lower!" "Do it again!" "Fasten your lavalava." In the dancing of the more expert boys and girls the group takes part by a steady murmur of "Thank you, thank you, for your dancing!" "Beautiful! Engaging! Charming! Bravo!" which gives very much the effect of the irregular stream of "Amens" at an evangelistic revival. This articulate courtesy becomes almost lyric in quality when the dancer is a person of rank for whom dancing at all is a condescension.

The little children are put out upon these public floors with a minimum of preliminary instruction. As babies in their mothers' arms at just such a party as this, they learned to clap before they learned to walk, so that the beat is indelibly fixed in their minds. As two- and three-year-olds they have stood on a mat at home and clapped their hands in time to their elders' singing. Now they are called upon to perform before a group.