Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/159

 detailed inquiry and with a minimum of complaint. This fatalistic acceptance of an inexplicable attitude makes for an odd incuriousness about motives. The Samoans are not in the least insensitive to differences between people. But their full appreciation of these differences is blurred by their conception of an obstinate disposition, a tendency to take umbrage, irascibility, contra-suggestibility, and particular biases as just so many roads to one attitude—musu.

This lack of curiosity about motivation is furthered. by the conventional acceptance of a completely ambiguous answer to any personal question. The most characteristic reply to any question about one's motivation is Ta ilo, "search me," sometimes made more specific by the addition of "I don't know." This is considered to be an adequate and acceptable answer in ordinary conversation although its slight curtness bars it out from ceremonious occasions. So deep seated is the habit of using this disclaimer that I had to put a taboo upon its use by the children in order to get the simplest question answered directly. When this ambiguous rejoinder is combined with a statement that one is musu, the result is the final unrevealing statement, "Search me, why, I don't want to, that's all." Plans will be abandoned, children refuse to live at home, marriages broken off. Village gossip is interested in the fact but shrugs its shoulders before the motives.

There is one curious exception to this attitude. If