Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/173

 tongues with great relish. The children of seven and eight get as much illicit satisfaction out of the other functions of the body as out of sex. This is interesting in view of the different attitude in Samoa towards the normal processes of evacuation. There is no privacy and no sense of shame. Nevertheless the brand of bad taste seems to be as effective in interesting the young children as is the brand of indecency among us. It is also curious that in theory and in fact boys and men take a more active interest in the salacious than do the women and girls.

It seems difficult to account for a salacious attitude among a people where so little is mysterious, so little forbidden. The precepts of the missionaries may have modified the native attitude more than the native practice. And the adult attitude towards children as non-participants may also be an important causal factor. For this seems to be the more correct view of any prohibitions which govern children. There is little evidence of a desire to preserve a child's innocence or to protect it from witnessing behaviour, the following of which would constitute the heinous offence, tautala laititi ("presuming above one's age"). For while a pair of lovers would never indulge in any demonstration before any one, child or adult, who was merely a spectator, three or four pairs of lovers who are relatives or friends often choose a common rendezvous. (This, of course, excludes relatives of opposite sex, included in the brother and sister avoidance, although married