Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/299



It is impossible to present a single and unified picture of the adolescent girl in Samoa and at the same time to answer most satisfactorily the various kinds of questions which such a study will be expected to answer. For the ethnologist in search of data upon the usages and rites connected with adolescence it is necessary to include descriptions of customs which have fallen into partial decay under the impact of western propaganda and foreign example. Traditional observances and attitudes are also important in the study of the adolescent girl in present-day Samoa because they still form a large part of the thought pattern of her parents, even if they are no longer given concrete expression in the girl's cultural life. But this double necessity of describing not only the present environment and the girl's reaction to it, but also of interpolating occasionally some description of the more rigid cultural milieu of her mother's girlhood, mars to some extent the unity of the study.

The detailed observations were all made upon a group of girls living in three practically contiguous villages on one coast of the island of Taū. The data upon the ceremonial usages surrounding birth, adolescence and marriage were gathered from all of the seven villages in the Manu'a Archipelago.

The method of approach is based upon the assumption that a detailed intensive investigation will be of more value than a more diffused and general study based upon a less accurate knowledge of a greater number of individuals. Dr. Van Waters' study of The Adolescent Girl Among Primitive