Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/154

 a girl about three years past puberty. Masina could not dance. Every one in the village knew that she could not dance. Her contemporaries deplored it; the younger children made fun of her. She had little. charm, was deprecating in her manner, awkward, shy and ill at ease. All of her five lovers had been casual, all temporary, all unimportant. She associated with girls much younger than herself. She had no self-confidence. No one sought her hand in marriage and she would not marry until her family needed the kind of property which forms a bride price.

It is interesting to notice that the one aspect of life in which the elders actively discriminate against the less proficient children seems to be the most powerful determinant in giving the children a feeling of inferiority.

The strong emphasis upon dancing does not discriminate against the physically defective. Instead every defect is capitalised in the form of the dance or compensated for by the perfection of the dance. I saw one badly hunchbacked boy who had worked out a most ingenious imitation of a turtle and also a combination dance with another boy in which the other supported him on his back. Ipu, the little albino, danced with aggressive facility and with much applause, while mad Laki, who suffered from a delusion that he was the high chief of the island, was only too delighted to dance for any one who addressed him with the elaborate courtesy phrases suitable to his rank. The dumb brother of the high chief of one village utilised his