Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/153

 beneficial effects of this early habituation to the public eye and the resulting control of the body are more noticeable in the case of boys than of girls. Fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys dance with a charm and a complete lack of self-consciousness which is a joy to watch. The adolescent girl whose gawky, awkward gait and lack of co-ordination may be appalling, becomes a graceful, self-possessed person upon the dance floor. But this ease and poise does not seem to be carried over into everyday life with the same facility as it is in the case of young boys.

In one way this informal dance floor approximates more closely to our educational methods than does any other aspect of Samoan education. For here the precocious child is applauded, made much of, given more and more opportunities to show its proficiency while the stupid child is rebuked, neglected and pushed to the wall. This difference in permitted practice is reflected in increasing differences in the skill of the children as they grow older. Inferiority feeling in the classic picture which is so frequent in our society is rare in Samoa. Inferiority there seems to be derived from two sources, clumsiness in sex relations which affects the young men after they are grown and produces the moetotolo, and clumsiness upon the dance floor. I have already told the story of the little girl, shy beyond her fellows, whom prospective high rank had forced into the limelight and made miserably diffident and self-conscious.

And the most unhappy of the older girls was Masina,