Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/231

 a reputation and then rest upon it or another claimant to the same title will take advantage of his indolence and pass him in the race. One good catch of fish does not make him a fisherman nor one housebeam neatly adzed, a carpenter; the whole emphasis is upon a steady demonstration of increasing skill which will be earnest of the necessary superiority over his fellows. Only the lazy, the shiftless, the ambitionless fail to respond to this competition. The one exception to this is in the case of the son or heir of the high chief who may be made the manaia at twenty. But here his high rank has already subjected him to more rigorous discipline and careful training than the other youths, and as manaia, he is the titular head of the Aumaga, and must lead it well or lose his prestige.

Once having acquired a matai name and entered the Fono, differences in temperament prevail. The matai name he receives may be a very small one, carrying with it no right to a post in the council house, or other prerogatives. It may be so small that matai though he is, he does not try to command a household, but lives instead in the shadow of some more important relative. But he will be a member of the Fono, classed with the elders of the village, and removed forever from the hearty group activities of the young men. Should he become a widower and wish to court a new wife, he can only do so by laying aside his matai name and entering her house under the fiction that he is still a youth. His main preoccupation is the affairs of the village; his