Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/152

 dance as an æsthetic performance. The formal adult dance with its row of dancers, the taupo in the centre and an even number of dancers on each side focussed upon her with every movement directed towards accentuating her dancing, loses both symmetry and unity in the hands of the ambitious youngsters. Each dancer moves in a glorious individualistic oblivion of the others, there is no pretence of co-ordination or of subordinating the wings to the centre of the line. Often a dancer does not pay enough attention to her fellow dancers to avoid continually colliding with them. It is a genuine orgy of aggressive individualistic exhibitionism. This tendency, so blatantly displayed on these informal occasions, does not mar the perfection of the occasional formal dance when the solemnity of the occasion becomes a sufficient check upon the participants' aggressiveness. The formal dance is of personal significance only to people of rank or to the virtuoso to whom it presents a perfect occasion for display.

The second influence of the dance is its reduction of the threshold of shyness. There is as much difference between one Samoan child and another in the matter of shyness and self-consciousness as is apparent among our children, but where our shyest children avoid the limelight altogether, the Samoan child looks pained and anxious but dances just the same. The limelight is regarded as inevitable and the child makes at least a minimum of effort to meet its requirements by standing up and going through a certain number of motions. The