Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/311

 argyrol, alcohol rubs, etc. Through periodic administrations of salvarsan the more conspicuous symptoms of yaws are rapidly disappearing. And the natives are learning to come to the dispensaries for medicine rather than aggravate conjunctivitis to blindness by applying irritating leaf poultices to the inflamed eyes.

Reservoirs have been constructed in most of the villages, providing an unpolluted water supply at a central fountain where all the washing and bathing is done. Copra sheds in each village store the copra until the government ship comes to fetch it. Work on copra sheds, on village boats used in hauling the copra over the reef, on roads between villages, on the repairs of the water system, is carried through by a levy upon the village as a whole, conforming perfectly to the native pattern of communal work. The government operates through appointed district governors and county chiefs, and elected "mayors" in each village. The administrations of these officials are peaceful and effective in proportion to the importance of their rank in the native social organisation. Each village also has two policemen who act as town criers, couriers on government inspections, and carriers of the nurses' equipment from village to village. There are also county judges. A main court is presided over by an American civil judge and a native judge. The penal code is a random combination of government edicts, remarkable for their tolerance of native custom. When no pronouncement on a point of law is found in this code, the laws of the state of California, liberally interpreted and revised, are used to provide a legalistic basis for the court's decision. These courts have taken over the settlement of disputes concerning important titles, and property rights; and the chief causes of litigation in the "courthouse" at Pago Pago are the same which agitated the native fonos some hundred years ago.

Schools are now maintained in many villages, where the