Full Blog: Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference Information

   Title: Coming of Age in Samoa

   Author: Margaret Mead

   Editors: Williams Morrow and Company (1928)

Summary

Margaret Mead performed an ethnography on a Samoan civilization. She particularly studied the effects civilization had on adolescents. She directed most of her attention to girls and how they are treated as they grow up. She felt that she could talk to and study girls more intimately than boys.

Mead begins by describing a typical day in Samoa. Men go to work and young boys fish. The evening is usually a much lighter time, as Samoans gather together to dance and wander amongst the village. Dance is very important in Samoan culture. It is the single activity that all groups of individuals can participate in. Being a bad dancer leads to inferiority.

Babies are taken care of by the children. The education they receive is very simple and around age 5, they should be housebroken. They make a big emphasis to never address adults in a standing position. They soon become in charge of the younger children and learn very simple tasks like breaking open a coconut. Once the girls are strong enough, they begin work on plantations. The Samoan household is actually made up of several households throughout the village. The interactions of the different members are fairly complicated but the roles are well defined.

Children belong to different "groups" as they age. There are however, girls that diverge from the groups and act differently. The organization of young men is called the Aumaga and the organization of young girls is called the Aualuma. In regards to relationships, it's actually pretty simple. There are two types of sex relations besides marriage that are recognized by members of the community: love affairs between unmarried people and adultery.

Mead concludes by talking about the similarities and differences of Samoan and American youth. She cites the social environments constructed by each society and how it affects the two cultures. She also talks about education of youth in America. She believes that parents need to teach their children how to think, not what to think, in the face of so many choices.

Discussion

This was an interesting book, although it was hard to read at times. It must've been pretty exciting and scary at the same time, performing her study. It was neat that this was a culture that not many people had direct knowledge of. It was a good example of how an ethnography should be done.