Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/290

 and if it is necessary to specify seniority, a qualifying adjective must be used.

Tamā, the term for father, is applied also to the matai of a household, to an uncle or older cousin with whose authority a younger person comes into frequent contact and also to a much older brother who in feeling is classed with the parent generation. Tinā is used only a little less loosely for the mother, aunts resident in the household, the wife of the matai and only very occasionally for an older sister.

A distinction is also made in terminology between men's terms and women's terms for the children. A woman will say tamā (modified by the addition of the suffixes tane and fafine, male and female) and a man will say atali, son and afafine, daughter. Thus a woman will say, "Losa is my tamā," specifying her sex only when necessary. But Losa's father will speak of Losa as his afafine. The same usage is followed in speaking to a man or to a woman of a child. All of these terms are further modified by the addition of the word, moni, real, when a blood sister or blood father or mother is meant. The elders of the household are called roughly matua, and a grandparent is usually referred to as the toa'ina, the "old man" or olamatua, "old woman," adding an explanatory clause if necessary. All other relatives are described by the use of relative clauses, "the sister of the husband of the sister of my mother," "the brother of the wife of my brother," etc. There are no special terms for the inlaw group.

Pages 60 to 65.

For the sake of convenience the households were numbered in sequence from one end of each village to the other. The