Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/163

 good child will be said to listen easily or to act well, a bad child to listen with difficulty or act badly. "Easy" and "with difficulty" are judgments of character; "good" and "bad" of behaviour. So that good or bad behaviour have become, explained in terms of ease or difficulty, to be regarded as an inherent capability of the individual. As we would say a person sang easily or swam without effort, the Samoan will say one obeys easily, acts respectfully, "easily," reserving the terms "good" or "well" for objective approbation. So a chief who was commenting on the bad behaviour of his brother's daughter remarked, "But Tui's children always did listen with difficulty," with as casual an acceptance of an irradicable defect as if he had said, "But John always did have poor eye sight."

Such an attitude towards conduct is paralleled by an equally unusual attitude towards the expression of emotion. The expressions of emotions are classified as "caused" and "uncaused." The emotional, easily upset, moody person is described as laughing without cause, crying without cause, showing anger or pugnaciousness without cause. The expression "to be very angry without cause" does not carry the implication of quick temper, which is expressed by the word "to anger easily," nor the connotation of a disproportionate response to a legitimate stimulus, but means literally to be angry without cause, or freely, an emotional state without any apparent stimulus whatsoever. Such judgments are the nearest that the Samoan approaches to