Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/168

 life and death was overdeveloped in proportion to their knowledge of the organisation of their society or any of the niceties of conduct prescribed for their elders. They were in a position which would be paralleled in our culture if a child had seen birth and death before she was taught not to pass a knife blade first or how to make change for a quarter. None of these children could speak the courtesy language, even in its most elementary forms, their knowledge being confined to four or five words of invitation and acceptance. This ignorance effectually barred them from the conversations of their elders upon all ceremonial occasions. Spying upon a gathering of chiefs would have been an unrewarding experience. They knew nothing of the social organisation of the village beyond knowing which adults were heads of families and which adult men and women were married. They used the relationship terms loosely and without any real understanding, often substituting the term, "sibling of my own sex," where a sibling of opposite sex was meant, and when they applied the term "brother" to a young uncle, they did so without the clarity of their elders who, while using the term in an age-grouping sense, realised perfectly that the "brother" was really a mother's or father's brother. In their use of language their immaturity was chiefly evidenced by a lack of familiarity with the courtesy language, and by much confusion in the use of the dual and of the inclusive and exclusive pronouns. These present about the same difficulty in their lan-