Mead's Depiction of the Samoans

During the last few months of her fieldwork in Manu'a, Mead turned, as we have seen, to the general study of Samoan society. With the information she collected during this period, supplemented by her reading of the earlier literature on Samoa, she produced Social Organization of Manu'a, which she dedicated to Ruth Benedict. Mead's general study of Samoan society and culture was also of quite crucial significance for the argument she presented in Coming of Age in Samoa. As we have already seen, rather than attempting a direct study of the interrelation of cultural and biological variables, Mead followed the course of presenting Samoan society as a negative instance, that is, as a society with special characteristics that had resuited in the disappearance of the disturbance at adolescence that tends to occur elsewhere in human populations. In defining

these special characteristics she had perforce, as she noted in the introduction to Coming of Age, to „give a picture of the whole social life of Samoa.“ It was Mead's view in 1925 that a trained student could „master the fundamental structure of a primitive society in a few months,“ and, supposing the Samoans to have a „very simple society,“ she had no compunction, despite the cursoriness of her inquiries, in constructing her own picture of Samoan culture and character.¹

It is with the scientific adequacy of Mead's picture of Samoan society that I shall be concerned from now on, for to the extent that this picture is defective, Samoa ceases to be a negative instance and Mead's central conclusion that culture, or nurture, is all-important in the determination of adolescent and other aspects of human behavior is revealed as ungrounded and invalid.

In chapter 13 of Coming of Age in Samoa, having announced her conclusion that in the case of adolescent behavior „we cannot make any explanations in terms of the process“ and must therefore look wholly to the „social environment“ for an answer, Mead at once went on to outline the aspects of Samoan life that „irremediably affect“ the life of the Samoan girl. „The Samoan background,“ she wrote,

which makes growing up so easy, so simple a matter, is the general casualness of the whole society. For Samoa is a place where no one plays for very high stakes, no one pays very heavy prices, no one suffers for his convictions, or fights to the death for special ends. Disagreements between parents and child are settled by the child's moving across the street, between a man and his village by the man's removal to the next village, between a husband and his wife's seducer by a few fine mats. Neither poverty nor great disasters threaten the people to make them hold their lives dearly and tremble for continued existence. No implacable gods, swift to anger and strong to punish, disturb the even tenor of their days. Wars and cannibalism are long since passed away, and now the greatest cause for tears, short of death itself, is a journey of a relative to

another island. No one is hurried along in life or punished harshly for slowness of development. Instead the gifted, the precocious, are held back, until the slowest among them have caught the pace. And in personal relations, caring is as slight. Love and hate, jealousy and revenge, sorrow and bereavement, are all matters of weeks. From the first months of life, when the child is handed carelessly from one woman's hands to another's, the lesson is learned of not caring for one person greatly, not setting high hopes on any one relationship.²

Elsewhere in her writings, Mead elaborates this, picture of the background that, for Samoans, „makes growing up so easy,“ the leitmotif of her depiction being the notion of ease. Samoan life, she claims, is above all else „characterized by ease“; Samoan society is „replete with easy solutions for all conflicts.“ She remarks, for example, on „the ease with which personality differences can be adjusted by change of residence,“ on „the easy acceptance of innovation,“ and on a prevailing „ease in sex relations.“ Adolescence is „the age of maximum ease,“ and Samoans develop into „easy, balanced human beings“ in a society that „emphasizes a graceful, easy, diffuse emotional life, a relaxed dependence upon reliable social forms.“³

This picture of an easeful society was powerfully conveyed in the chapter immediately following the introduction to Coming of Age. Entitled „A Day in Samoa,“ it was originally written for inclusion in Social Organization of Manu'a, in the section on which Mead worked in close collaboration with Benedict. It was, however, judged to be „too literary“ for this monograph, and in 1928 it became part of the text of Coming of Age. This piece of writing has been frequently republished, and Mead herself in 1965 gave it prominence in Anthropologists and What They Do as giving an idea of „the whole gentle rhythm of life“ in Samoa. Her beguiling vignette begins at dawn as lovers slip home from trysts beneath slender palms at the edge of the gleaming sea, and ends long past midnight, with the mellow thunder of the reef and the whispering of lovers as the village rests before another golden dawn. The sole disturbing element is the death of a relative in another village; and there is no hint of the grim realities, as, for example, the violent quarrels, the punishments, the jealousies, the insults, and the disturbed emotional states that are as much a part of Samoan existence as the alluring features of which Mead's „A Day in Samoa“ is so artfully compounded.⁴

The further depiction that Mead gives of Samoan character stems directly from her account of the pervasive ease of the Samoan way of life. Samoans, so Mead would have it, display a „lack of deep feeling“ and „no strong passions.“ Children, before age six or so, have „learned never to act spontaneously, even in anger, but always after reviewing the social scene.“ After thus acquiring „a relaxed dependence on reliable social forms,“ the individuals reared in Samoan society, according to Mead, have „a peaceful harmonious development which holds few situations for conflict.“ The minds of adolescents being „perplexed by no conflicts,“ there is among Samoans an „absence of psychological maladjustment.“ Indeed, in discussing the adolescent girls of whom she made a detailed study, Mead claims that in almost all cases the benign social environment in which they had grown up had resulted in „a perfect adjustment.“ Samoan society, in Mead's judgment, „never exerts sufficient repression to call forth a significant rebellion from the individual.“ Among Samoans, there is „practically no suicide,“ and suicides of humiliation do „not exist.“⁵

The Samoans, given the „pleasant, mild round of their way of life,“ are „well-adjusted“ and „contented,“ the „adult personality“ being „stable enough to resist extraordinary pressures from the outside world and keep its serenity and sureness.“ A culture such as that of Samoa, claimed Mead, probably assured „the greatest degree of mental health in its members.“ In 1963, in response to the question „Is there any one society that you have observed in which the people seem considerably happier than those in other societies?“ she answered that „a happy society would be one like Samoa.

In these statements from her general purview of Samoan society and character, the central argument on which Mead relied in Coming of Age in Samoa is clearly evident. If, as she claimed, the Samoans were so well-adjusted, with adolescence being the age of maximum ease, and if, as she assumed, the shaping of the character of individuals is absolutely determined by their culture, then the Samoan social environment had also to be free from any significant stress and conflict. It was in these terms then that Mead depicted Samoan culture, so creating her negative instance of a society singularly different from those, like twentieth-century America, in which there was, to use Boas' words, an „adolescent crisis.“ Mead's argument, reduced to its simplest form, was one in which she purported to demonstrate that the „perfect adjustment“ which she claimed to exists in almost all of the adolescents she studied had been shaped by processes of harmonious development in a virtually perfect sočily. She was thus obliged, by the logic of her central argument, to depict the whole social life of Samoa as being free of happenings that might generate tension and conflict.

The ease that pervades Samoan life, and especially that in sex relations, is made possible, Mead claims, by „the whole system of child rearing.“ As depicted by Mead, the Samoan extended family, of some fifteen or twenty people, is undifferentiated internally, and characterized by casual relationships and generalized affection. In this situation, „the child is given no sense of belonging to a small intimate biological family,“ and „the relationship between child and parent is early diffused over many adults.“ Because they are treated with „easy, unparticularistic affection“ by a large group of relatives, children „do not form strong affectional ties with their parents.“ And so it comes about that „children do not think of an own mother who always protects them,“ but rather of „a group of adults all of whom have their interests somewhat but not too importantly at heart.“ This amounts to a claim that in the Samoan family primary bonding between mother and infant does not occur; indeed, Mead leaves us in no doubt that this is her position by asserting that in Samoa „the child owes no emotional allegiance to its father and mother.“ This being the case, so Mead argues, „the setting for parent fixation vanishes,“ the relationship between Samoan parents and children being „too casual to foster such attitudes.“ This means that as children grow up „they are schooled not by an individual but by an army of relatives into a general conformity upon which the personality of their parents has a very slight effect.“ „In such a setting,“ Mead concludes, „there is no room for guilt.“⁷

This depiction of a family system without bonding or guilt, Mead then uses to explain the remarkable ease that, so she claims, characterizes life in Samoa, especially during adolescence. If the Samoan girl, she wrote in 1929, ever learned „the meaning of a strong attachment to one person,“ this would be „a cause of conflict.“ But this she does not learn. Rather, Samoan children grow up with „easy, friendly warmth and no idea that one human being is unique or that one lover cannot be substituted for another.“ Thus, „adolescence is not a period when young people rediscover the violent feelings of early childhood, because early childhood provided them with no such feelings to discover.“⁸

Closely linked with Mead's depiction of the „easy, friendly warmth“ of the diffused relationships that surround a child within the Samoan family is her claim that a child who suffers the domination of a parent or anyone else is readily able to move to another more congenial household. Indeed, from the time they can run about, according to Mead, Samoan children are permitted to, and often do, „show their preference for relatives other than their parents by going to live with them.“ Under Samoan custom, then, as Mead would have it, Samoan children „choose their own homes,“ little truants being „welcomed by any relative.“ This freedom of choice, furthermore, „serves as a powerful deterrent of specific adult tyrannies,“ so that a child is „often content to remain in one household serene in the reflection that he can always run away if he wishes.“ This way of dealing with difficulties within the family persists, according to Mead, into adolescence. In Coming of Age in Samoa, in discussing girls who deviated in temperament or conduct, she states that „any strong resentment results in the angry one's leaving the household,“ and that „to escape from a disagreeable situation“ an individual „simply slips out of it into the house next door.“⁹

Samoan society, as depicted by Mead, is very far from being harsh or punitive. Instead, it is a society of „diffuse but warm human relationships,“ in which „neither boys nor girls are hurried or pressed.“ Within Samoan culture, claims Mead, each child is „given the means to satisfy his desires completely.“ In the case of a girl, development from childhood to womanhood is „painless,“ while „the boy who would flee from too much pressure hardly exists in Samoa.“¹⁰

Nowhere does Mead make mention of anything resembling severe or grievous punishment of the young. Samoan children, she reports, „are not carefully disciplined until they are five or six“; the avoidances they are required to observe are „enforced by occasional cuffings and a deal of exasperated shouting and ineffectual conversation.“ In later childhood „violent outbursts of wrath and summary chastisements do occur, but consistent and prolonged disciplinary measures are absent.“ Occasionally, adults will „vent their full irritation upon the heads of troublesome children“ by soundly lashing them with palm leaves or dispersing them with a shower of small stones, but „even these outbursts of anger are nine-tenths gesture,“ and „no one who throws the stones actually means to hit a child.“ Such punishment as does exist, if Mead is to be believed, is thus infrequent and slight, with a negligible effect on character formation. In brief, Samoan society, as depicted by Mead, is in essence kindly, permitting in both children and adolescents „a gradual development of the emotional life free from any warping compulsory factor.“¹¹

Just as Samoan culture has eliminated strong emotion, so also it has eliminated any interest in competition. Samoan social organization, claims Mead, places „each individual, each household, each village, even (in Western Samoa) each district, in a hierarchy, wherein each is dignified only by its relationship to the whole,“ each performing tasks that „contribute to the honor and well-being of the whole,“ so that „competition is completely impossible.“ Samoa, according to Mead, is thus in its basic composition a cooperative society in which „competition is muted and controlled.“ Even in everyday life, a growing boy „must never excel his fellows by more than a little,“ as going faster than one's age mates is „unforgivable.“ Parents, says Mead, will blush and hang their heads in shame if one of their children exceeds someone else's child. In this situation those individuals who are less proficient than others in social skills do not experience during either childhood or adolescence any disabling stress. Instead, „the pace is always set by the slowest“; „this is the child to whom everyone points with pride.“¹²

In a comparable vein, Mead makes light of the significance in Samoan society of rank, which is „so arranged that there are titles for all those capable of holding them.“ In Samoa, she states, the sanctity surrounding chiefs is „minimal for the Polynesian area.“ The ali'i, or titular chief, does not „make his own speeches in council.“ Instead, „his talking chief speaks for him“ and „also makes most of his decisions for him.“¹³

The traditions of Samoa, according to Mead, are „almost unprecedentedly fluid and variable“; the kava ritual, which is performed whenever chiefs meet in a fono, or formal assembly, is a „dexterous graceful play with social forms,“ and „so flexible is the social structure, so minutely adapted to manipulation, that it is possible to change the appearance of the fono in twenty years.“ Furthermore, „competition between holders of titles is covert and always expressed as the manipulation of the rank of a title, not as any overt alteration which affects the individual,“ who is important only in terms of the position he occupies, being of himself nothing.¹⁴

Not only is competition muted and covert within village communities, but also, Mead claims, „competitiveness between villages usually does not reach important heights of intervillage aggression.“ Thus, „warfare was stylized as part of the interrelationship between villages that were ceremonial rivals, and occasioned few casualties.“ Being but a „matter of village spite, or small revenge, in which only one or two individuals would be killed,“ warfare was „slight and spasmodic.“ In Manu'a there were „no war gods“ and „no war priests.“ Wars were „fought for no gains other than prestige, nor were there any important rewards for individual warriors.“ In Manu'a, „bravery in warfare was never a very important matter,“ and the warrior did not hold any important place in Manu'an society.¹⁵

Samoan society as depicted by Mead is thus markedly unaggressive. The Samoans, she states, „decree that all young people must show the personality trait of unaggressiveness and punish with opprobrium the aggressive child.“ Again, given their casual attitude toward life, there is among Samoans an „avoidance of conflict,“ with hostility between individuals being „expressed covertly in the form of gossip and political machinations rather than in open clashes.“ This setting, Mead argues, does not produce „violent, strikingly marked personalities.“ The Samoans „never hate enough to want to kill anyone,“ and are „one of the most amiable, least contentious, and most peaceful peoples in the world.“ In such a society, if Mead is to be believed, there is obviously little or no possibility, during adolescence or at any other time, of serious stress from acts of aggression. As depicted by Mead, then, „the whole gentle rhythm of life“ in Samoa is integral to the benign background that, for Samoan children and adolescents, „makes growing up so easy.“¹⁶

By the time Mead began her researches in Samoa toward the end of 1925, the Manu'ans had all been Christians since the 1840s, and for several generations had taken pride in the rigor of

their adherence to the strict ordinances of the protestant London Missionary Society. Yet Mead, in the main text of Coming of Age in Samoa, beyond evocative allusions to „the soft barbaric singing of Christian hymns“ and „brief and graceful evening prayer,“ makes virtually no reference to the fundamental significance of the Christian church in the day-to-day lives of the Manu'ans. Instead, the place of the Christian religion in Samoa in the mid 1920s is relegated to a single paragraph in an appendix. It was also Mead's view that in aboriginal Samoa religion had „played a very slight role.“ The premium that was set by society on religion was very low, with all contacts with the supernatural being „accidental, trivial and uninstitutionalized.“ The gods „were conceived of as having resigned their sacredness to the chiefs“; as being „concerned about their own affairs“ and „presiding graciously over the affairs of men“ as long as men kept quiet and conformed to the rules.¹⁷

Further, the Samoans she studied in 1925-1926, despite having been Christian for almost a hundred years, had only, according to Mead, taken such parts of Western culture „as made their life more comfortable, their culture more flexible“ and were „without the doctrine of original sin.“ Indeed, the missionary influence had failed to give Samoans any „conviction of sin,“ and, in particular, because of „the great number of native pastors with their peculiar interpretations of Christian teaching,“ it had been impossible to establish in Samoa „the rigour of Western Protestantism with its inseparable association of sex offences and an individual consciousness of sin.“ Again, although the Christian church required chastity for church membership, in actual practice, according to Mead, no one became a church member until after marriage, for the authorities made „too slight a bid for young unmarried members to force the adolescent to make any decision.“ There was thus a „passive acceptance by the religious authorities themselves of premarital irregularities,“ and in this way the adolescent was relieved from the stress of religious conflict. Any strong religious interest, according to Mead, might have disturbed the nice balance of Sa-moan society and so had been outlawed. The Manu'ans, then, while having accepted protestant Christianity, had „gently remoulded some of its sterner tenets“ so that it had come to be taken „simply as a pleasant and satisfying social form“ in the „elaborate and cherished“ traditional pattern of Samoan society.¹⁸

The Samoans, according to Mead, as well as having no conviction of sin, regarded lovemaking as „the pastime par excellence,“ made „a fine art of sex,“ and had, of all the people she had studied, „the sunniest and easiest attitudes towards sex.“ Samoan society, she reported, „works very smoothly as it is based on the general assumption that sex is play, permissible in all hetero- and homosexual expression, with any sort of variation as an artistic addition.“ „Love between the sexes is a light and pleasant dance,“ and „the expected personality is one to which sex will be a delightful experience expertly engaged in“ while not being „sufficiently engrossing to threaten the social order.“ Thus, „the Samoans condone light love-affairs, but repudiate acts of passionate choice, and have no real place for anyone who would permanently continue, in spite of social experiences to the contrary, to prefer one woman or one man to a more socially acceptable mate.“ Romantic love, Mead claims, does not occur in Samoa, and „jealousy, as a widespread social phenomenon, is very rare.“ Samoan culture, so Mead argues, has eliminated many of the attitudes that have afflicted mankind, and „perhaps jealousy most importantly of all.“ „Marriages make no violent claims for fidelity“ and adultery „is not regarded as very serious.“ Many adulteries occur „which hardly threaten the continuity of established relationships.“ A man who seduces his neighbor's wife simply has to settle with his neighbor, as „the society is not interested.“ The assumption that sex is play provides a cultural atmosphere in which „frigidity and psychic impotence do not occur and in which a satisfactory sex adjustment in marriage can always be established“; the Samoan adult sex adjustment is „one of the smoothest in the

world.“¹⁹

This exceptionally smooth sex adjustment of adult Samoans is preceded, Mead reports, by a period of free lovemaking and promiscuity before marriage by adolescents. During this time of premarital freedom, sex is regarded as play and as a skill in which one becomes adept; the whole emphasis is on „virtuosity in sex techniques rather than upon personality.“ This freedom of sexual experimentation, Mead states, is „expected,“ and the casual love life of a female adolescent begins two or three years after menarche. All of the interest of such a girl is „expended on clandestine sex adventures,“ and her favors are „distributed among so many youths, all adepts in amorous technique, that she seldom becomes deeply involved.“ A girl's promiscuity, Mead writes, „seems to ensure her against pregnancy.“ Illegitimate children are rare and when they do appear are enthusiastically welcomed. In Samoan society then, with its sanctioning of „an easy expression of sexuality“ during adolescence, young females „defer marriage through as many years of casual love-making as possible,“ it being one of their „uniform and satisfying ambitions“ to live as girls „with many lovers as long as possible“ before marrying and settling down to have many children.²⁰

In the case of male adolescents, a successful lover is defined as one who is able to make a female „sexually contented and who is also himself contented in doing so.“ Lovemaking is seen as something that must be approached gradually while „the girl's body is prepared to enjoy a lover.“ In Samoa, then, male sexuality is „never defined as aggressiveness that must be curbed, but simply as a pleasure that might be indulged in, at appropriate times, with appropriate partners.“ „The idea of forceful rape or of any sexual act to which both participants do not give themselves freely is,“ according to Mead, „completely foreign to the Samoan mind.“²¹

This picture of „the whole social life of Samoa“ was constructed by Mead, as we have already seen, with the express purpose of producing a negative instance, by showing that in the mild, gentle, graceful, easy, pleasant, and happy Samoan social environment „adolescence represented no period of crisis or stress.“ In making this substantive claim, Mead did admit that there were a few girls who deviated in temperament or in conduct, and so lacked the perfect adjustment of the great majority of Samoan girls, but she in no way allowed these deviations to interfere with her general conclusions, arguing that in many cases they „actually had no painful results,“ and further, that „the causes for absence of conflict in the even tenor of development of the average girl“ were actually „corroborated by the turbulent histories of the few cases where these causes did not operate.“ In almost all of her statements after the publication of Coming of Age in Samoa no mention whatever was made of these deviants, and her readers were told, in absolute terms, as in her article „Adolescence in Primitive and Modern Society“ of 1930, that „in Samoa there is no conflict because the adolescent girl is faced by neither revelation, restriction, nor choice, and because society expects her to grow up slowly and quietly like a well-behaved flower.“²²

Adolescence in Samoa, according to Mead, is thus „peculiarly free of all those characteristics which make it a period dreaded by adults and perilous for young people in more complex—and often also, in more primitive societies.“ What is the most difficult age in American society becomes in Samoa the

age of maximum ease, „perhaps the pleasantest time the Samoan girl will ever know.“ With „no religious worries,“ „no conflicts with their parents,“ and „no confusion about sex“ to vex the souls of Samoan girls, their development is „smooth, untroubled, unstressed,“ and they grow up „painlessly … almost unselfconsciously.“ And this being so, Mead states, she was left with „just one possible conclusion“: that „the woes and difficulties“ of American youth could not be „due to adolescence“ for, as her researches had shown, in Samoa adolescence brought „no woes.“ In other words, the crisis and stress of adolescence are determined not by nature but by nurture.²³

On the basis of Mead's writings, Samoa came to be recognized in intellectual circles and in the social sciences as providing conclusive proof of the cultural determinism central to the Boasian paradigm. This paradigm, as we have seen, had been launched in 1917 in the theoretical formulations of Kroeber and Lowie; what was sorely needed, thereafter, was an empirical demonstration of the validity of these purely theoretical formulations. Just over a decade later, this demonstration, so it seemed to the Boasians, had been decisively given by the publication of the „painstaking investigation“ conducted in Samoa by Margaret Mead. So enthusiastically was Mead's vision of Samoa accepted that her conclusions, as they were elaborated by herself and others, gave rise to what has become the most widely promulgated myth of twentieth-century anthropology. 

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