Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/62

 men and the older men without titles, the group that is called, not in euphemism but in sober fact, “the strength of this village.” Here he is badgered into efficiency by rivalry, precept and example. The older chiefs who supervise the activities of the Aumaga gaze equally sternly upon any backslidings and upon any undue precocity. The prestige of his group is ever being called into account by the Aumaga of the neighbouring villages. His fellows ridicule and persecute the boy who fails to appear when any group activity is on foot, whether work for the village on the plantations, or fishing, or cooking for the chiefs, or play in the form, of a ceremonial cail upon some visiting maiden. Furthermore, the youth is given much more stimulus to learn and also a greater variety of occupations are open to him. There is no specialisation among women, except in medicine and mid-wifery, both the prerogatives of very old women who teach their arts to their middle-aged daughters and nieces. The only other vocation is that of the wife of an official orator, and no girl will prepare herself for this one type of marriage which demands special knowledge, for she has no guarantee that she will marry a man of this class.

For the boy it is different. He hopes that some day he will hold a matai name, a name which will make him a member of the Fono, the assembly of headmen, the which will give him a right to drink kava with chiefs, to work with chiefs rather than with the young men,