Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/99

 connected only by affinity who live in the same family. The only friendships which really are different in kind from those formed by common residence or membership in the same relationship group, are the institutionalised relationships between the wives of chiefs and the wives of talking chiefs. But these friendships can only be understood in connection with the friendships among boys and men.

The little boys follow the same pattern as do the little girls, running in a gang based upon the double bonds of neighbourhood and relationship. The feeling for the ascendency of age is always much stronger than in the case of girls because the older boys do not withdraw into their family groups as do the girls. The fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys gang together with the same freedom as do the twelve-year-olds. The borderline between small boys and bigger boys is therefore a continually shifting one, the boys in an intermediate position now lording it over the younger boys, now tagging obsequiously in the wake of their elders. There are two institutionalised relationships between boys which are called by the same name and possibly were at one time one relationship. This is the soa, the companion at circumcision and the ambassador in love affairs. Boys are circumcised in pairs, making the arrangements themselves and seeking out an older man who has acquired a reputation for skilfulness. There seems to be here simply a logical inter-relationship of cause and effect; a boy chooses a friend (who is usu-