‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ by Margaret Mead: Book Review

Margaret Mead, one of the leaders of the Culture and Personality school of Thought was a leading lady anthropologist of Columbia University. She was a student of both Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. Configurationalism, the identification of salient cultural characteristics, representing the patterns of culture, and their presentation in a familiar psychological idiom, was the forerunner of reconciliation between historical particularism of Boas and psychoanalysis of scholars of culture personality school.

‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ is Mead’s first book published in the year 1928. The book has been republished four times in 1939, 1949, 1953 and 1961. In each preface of the book, the author has discussed the difference in the world of readers for whom it would be published. The book launched Mead as a pioneering researcher and established her as one of the most famous anthropologists in the world.

The book ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ bore sub-title, ‘A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization’. The major point of study among the inhabitants, particularly the adolescent girls of the three little villages of Luma, Siufaga and Faleasao of the little island of Tau was to answer questions such as: 1) “Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization?”; 2) “Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?”.

The author concentrated on the individual’s reaction to her social setting. Mead’s mission was to emphasize the existence of bio-psychological plasticity in human affairs sufficient to permit the cultural conditioning of adolescent behavioral patterns along the lines which contrast with the stereotype of adolescence in middle class Euro-American culture.

The book comprises of fourteen chapters and five appendices, the chapters are ethnographic description of Samoan life and adolescence among the Samoan girls, their adjustments and reactions to it. The appendices consist of methodologies used in the study, the Samoan life in contemporary context, the behavior and life of mentally challenged persons and the materials and data on which the study is made. Mead selected the people of South Sea Islands because of the radically different culture, and with a deep understanding of the Samoan culture she attempted to compare and contrast it with the Western culture. Mead’s attempt was to understand that the difficulties of adolescent was due to the phase or due to being of a particular place.

History shows evidence that childhood and adolescence did not hold much of importance, but in the last hundred years child centric education has gained utmost importance in the eyes of teachers and parents. Child centric education was spurred by two factors – growth of psychology and difficulties of youth. Problems of youth were widely discussed particularly of adolescents in modern society and the various approaches to understanding these problems. Adolescence was characterized as the period in which was marked by rebellion in nature, conflicting standards of conduct. The titles of the chapter are self-explanatory in nature.

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Mead begins with the description of a typical day in Samoa. There is no privacy in birth and it is celebrated with grand feast. She then describes the education of a child, various methods of disciplining children. Punishment among them is mostly ritualistic and not meant to inflict serious harm. Children are expected to contribute meaningful work from a very early age. The boys are educated in fishing, while the girls focus more on child care. If a girl is inadequate in domestic tasks, her chances of getting married is damaged.

Structure of Samoan village is described by Mead, which comprises of thirty to forty households, headed by the headman called a ‘matai’. The ‘matai’ has ultimate authority over the group. Relatives of opposite sex have a most rigid code of etiquette prescribed for all their contacts with each other. Strict avoidance applies to all individuals of opposite sex within five years above or below one’s own age, with whom one was reared or to whom one acknowledged relationship by blood or marriage. Rank not of birth but of title is very important in Samoa. The status of a village depends upon the rank of its high chief, the prestige of a household depends upon the title of its matai. The household also provides freedom for children including girls. According to Mead, if a girl is unhappy with the relatives she lives with, she can simply move to a different home within the same household.

Mead describes the psychology of the individual Samoan as being simpler, more honest and more comfortable with issues such as menstruation and more casual about non-monogamous sexual relations. The moetotolo (rape) is the only sex activity which presents a definitely abnormal picture.

Mead devotes a whole chapter to Samoan music and the role of dancing and singing in Samoan culture. Through this, Samoans express their individuality. Dance helps in the reduction of the threshold of shyness. In Samoan culture, excessive emotions, violent preferences, strong allegiances are disallowed. Preference in Samoa is a moderate amount of feeling, a discreet expression of a reasonable and balanced attitude.

The childhood in Samoa is very different. Most children had seen birth and death. There is no convention of keeping children away during such occasions. Individuals between whom sexual relations are prevalent, there is a notion of shyness. So, no Samoan child is accustomed to seeing father and mother exchange casual caresses. But lack of privacy within the houses, custom of young lovers of using the palm groves for their rendezvous makes it inevitable that children should see intercourse. Scouring the village palm groves in search of lovers is one of the recognized forms of amusement for ten-year old children. Samoan children have complete knowledge of the human body and functions. Little children go unclothed, adults with scant clothing, habit of bathing in sea, lack of privacy in sexual life is seen among the Samoans. They have a clear understanding of the nature of sex, masturbation is a universal habit. There is no privacy and no sense of shame. The adolescent girl in Samoa differed from her younger counterparts in one chief respect, that the earlier had some bodily changes. No other great differences could be seen among the group that was passing through adolescence and the group which would become adolescents in next few years. Samoan background which makes growing up so easy, so simple is the general casualness of the whole society.

The entire book depicts a kind of story, the Samoan life and their customs and habits. The author has basically given a detailed description about the Samoan life and tried to compare it with the Western civilization that she has been a part of. Mead’s picture of Samoan free love is persuasive, but this is not the whole picture. The author has mentioned it in the appendix “But it is only fair to point out that Samoan culture, before white influence was less flexible and dealt less kindly with the individual aberrant. Aboriginal Samoa was harder on the girl sex delinquent than is present day Samoa” (p.273). On one hand, we are shown licensed freedom precluding mental derangements, on the other we see all girls of rank originally subjected to the defloration rite and the taupo liable to the death penalty for unchastity. It is one thing to have a community treat the individual’s sex life as an individual matter when the society is in a normal state; quite another, to find it unconcerned with his amours when abnormal contacts destroy old standards and fail to impose substitutes. The reformer must face the question whether any normal society can and will practice that lofty detachment found in Samoa nowadays. Mead’s solid contribution to ethnographic fact and method is commendable. The child fleeing from a cruel parent to the sanctuary of a nearby relative household (p.43), the six-year-old girl impressed into nursery service and bullied into indulgence by her squalling ward (p.22-24) - these will linger in memory. Many important details are brought out incidentally, such a brother-sister taboo (p.174), the bonds created between boys circumcised at the same time (p.69) etc.

Mead’s ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ is an attempt to answer the question of the effect of culture and social environment in the attitude of adolescents. She tried to give a description of Samoan life and how the simple way of growing up without any restrictions in expressing themselves help the children to have a peaceful phase of adolescents. Mead tried to point the view that due to the Western culture and its taboos regarding sex, death and birth issues the children don’t get a free environment to express themselves and thus an attitude of aggression, delinquency develops. Although the author claims the study to be an understanding of the differences of Samoan culture with that of ‘Western culture’, the fails in providing the larger picture of the contrast as no instances were given in the book itself. The reader gets an ethnographic account of Samoan culture only. This is maybe due to the author’s perception of the readers. The intended audience for the book is the Western people, which is maybe regarded as the major flaw of the book. It cannot be reached easily by the larger audience.