THE GIRL AND HER AGE GROUP
But the boys have also other matters besides love-making in which they must co-operate. Three are needed to man a bonito canoe ; two usually go together to lasso eels on the reef j work on the communal taro plantations demands the labour of all the youths in the village. So that while a boy too chooses his best friends from among his relatives, his sense of social solidarity is always much stronger than that of a girl. The Aualuma, the organisation of young girls and wives of untitled men, is an exceedingly loose association gathered for very occasional communal work, and still more occasional festivities. In villages where the old intricacies of the social organisation are beginning to fall into disuse, it is the Aualmita which disappears first, while the Aumaga, the young men's organisation, has too important a place in the village economy to be thus ignored. The Aumaga is indeed the most enduring social factor in the village. The matais meet more formally and spend a great deal of time in their own households, but the young men work together during the day, feast before and after their labours, are present as a serving group at all meetings of the matais, and when the day's work is over, dance and go courting together in the evening. Many of the young men sleep in their friends' houses, a privilege but grudgingly accorded the more chaperoned girls.
Another factor which qualified men's relationships is the reciprocal relationship between chiefs and talking chiefs. The holders of these two classes of titles are
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
not necessarily related, although this is often the case as it is considered an advantage to be related to both ranks. But the talking chiefs are major domos, assistants, ambassadors, henchmen, and councillors of their chiefs, and these relationships are often foreshadowed among the young men, the heirs-apparent or the heirs aspirant to the family titles.
Among women there are occasional close alliances between the taufo and the daughter of her father's principal talking chief. But these friendships always suffer from their temporary character j the taufo will inevitably marry into another village. And it is rather between the wife of the chief and the wife of a talking chief that the institutionalised and life-long friendship exists. The wife of the talking chief acts as assistant, advisor, and mouthpiece for the chief's wife and in turn counts upon the chief's wife for support ^and material help. It is a friendship based upon reciprocal obligations having their origins ia the relationship between the women's husbands, and it is the only women's friendship which oversteps the limits of the relationship and affinity group. Such friendships based on an accident of marriage and enjoined by the social structure should hardly be classed as voluntary. And within the relationship group itself, friendship is so patterned as to be meaningless. I once asked a young married woman if a neighbour with whom she was always upon the most uncertain and irritated terms was a friend of hers. "Why, of course, her mother's father's
THE GIRL AND HER AGE GROUP
father, and my father's mother's father were brothers." Friendship based on temperamental congeniality was a most tenuous bond, subject to shifts of interest and to shifts of residence, and a woman came to rely more and more on the associates to whose society and interest ■blood and marriage entitled her.
Association based upon age as a principle may be said', to have ceased for the girls before puberty, due to the exceedingly individual nature of their tasks and th« need for secrecy in their amatory adventures. In the case of the boys, greater freedom, a more compelling' social structure, and continuous participation in co-operative tasks, brings about an age-group associatioii which lasts through life. This grouping is influenced' but not determined by relationship, and distorted by the influence of rank, prospective rank in the case of youth, equal rank but disproportionate age in the case of older men.
THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY
THE community ignores both boys and girls from birth until they are fifteen or sixteen years of age. Children under this age have no social standing, no recognised group activities, no part in the social life except when they are conscripted for the informal dance floor. But at a year or two beyond puberty— the age varies from village to village so that boys of sixteen will in one place still be classed as small boys, in another as taule^ale^asy young men—^both boys and girls are grouped into a rough approximation of the adult groupings, given a name for their organisation, and are invested with definite obligations and privileges in the community life.
The organisation of young men, the Aumaga,' of young girls and the wives of untitled men and widows, the Aualumay and of the wives of titled men, are all echoes of the central political structure of the village, the FonOy the organisation of mataisy men who have the titles of chiefs or of talking chiefs. The Fono is always conceived as a round house in which each title has a special position, must be addressed with certain ceremonial phrases, and given a fixed place in the order of precedence in the serving of the kava. This ideal house has certain fixed divisions, in the right sector sit the high chief and his special assistant chiefs j in the
[74]
THE Gli L IN THE COMMUNITY
front of the house sit the talking chiefs whose business it is to make the speeches, welcome strangers, accept gifts, preside over the distribution of food and make all plans and arrangements for group activities. Against the posts at the back of the house sit the matah of low rank, and between the posts and at the centre sit those of so little importance that no place is reserved for them. This framework of titles continues from gen-, eration to generation and holds a fixed place in the larger ideal structure of the titles of the whole island, the whole archipelago, the whole of Samoa. With some of these titles, which are in the gift of certain families, go certain privileges, a right to a house name, a right to confer a taufo name, a princess title, upon some young girl relative and an heir-apparent title, the manaiaj on some boy of the household. Besides these prerogatives of the high chiefs, each member of the two classes of fnalais, chiefs and talking chiefs, has certain ceremonial rights. A talking chief must be served his kava with a special gesture, must be addressed with a separate set of verbs and nouns suitable to his rank, must be rewarded by the chiefs in tapa or fine mats for his ceromonially rendered services. The ■ chiefs must be addressed with still another set of nouns and verbs, must be served with a different and more honourable gesture in the kava ceremony, must be furnished with food by their talking chiefs, must be honoured and escorted by the talking chiefs on every important occasion. The name of the village, the ceremonial name of the public square in which great cere-
COMING OF AGE IN S MOA
monies are held, the name of the meeting house of the FonOy the names of the principal chiefs and talking chiefs, the names of taupo and manaia, of the Aualuma and the Aumaga, are contained in a set of ceremonial salutations called the Fa'alupega, or courtesy titles of a village or district. Visitors on formally entering a village must recite the Fa'alupega as their initial courtesy to their hosts.
The Aumaga mirrors this organisation of the older men. Here the young men learn to make speeches, to conduct themselves with gravity and decorum, to serve and drink the kava, to plan and execute group enterprises. When a boy is old enough to enter the Aumagay the head of his household either sends a present of food to the group, announcing the addition of the boy to their number, or takes him to a house where they are meeting and lays down a great kava root as a present. Henceforth the boy is a member of a group which is almost constantly together. Upon them falls all the heavy work of the village and also the greater part of the social intercourse between villages which centres about the young unmarried people. When a visiting village comes, it is the Aumaga which calls in a body upon the visiting taufOy taking gifts, dancing and singing for her benefit.
The organisation of the Aualuma is a less formalised version of the Aumaga. When a girl is of age, two or three years past puberty, varying with the village practice, her fnatai will send an offering of food to the house of the chief taufo of the village, thus announ
c-
THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY
Ing that he wishes the daughter of his house to be henceforth counted as one of the group of young girls who form her court. But while the Aumaga is centred about the FonOy the young men meeting outside or in a separate house, but exactly mirroring the forms and ceremonies of their elders, the ^u a luma is centred about the person of the tawpOy forming a group of y maids of honour. They have no organisation as have the Aumagay and furthermore, they do hardly any work. Occasionally the young girls may be called upon to sew thatch or gather paper mulberry j more occasionally they plant and cultivate a paper mulberry crop, but their main function is to be ceremonial help-ers for the meetings of the wives of mataisy and village hostesses in inter-village life. In many parts of Samoa the Aualuma has fallen entirely to pieces and is only remembered in the greeting words that fall from the lips of a stranger. But if the Aumaga should disappear, Samoan village life would have to be entirely reorganised, for upon the ceremonial and actual work of the young and untitled men the whole life of"- v-the village depends.
Although the wives of matais have no organisation recognised in the Fa'alupaga (courtesy titles), their association is firmer and more important than that of the Aualuma. The wives of titled men hold their own formal meetings, taking their status from their husbands, sitting at their husbands' posts and drinking their husbands' kava. The wife of the highest chief receives highest honour, the wife of the principal talk-
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
ing chief makes the most Important speeches. The women are completely dependent upon their husbands for their status in this village group. Once a man has been given a title, he can never go back to the Aumaga. His title may be taken away from him when he is old, or if he is inefficient, but a lower title will be given him that he may sit and drink his kava with his former associates. But the widow or divorced wife of a matai must go back into the Aualuma, sit with the young girls outside the house, serve the food and run the errands, entering the women's fono only as a servant or an entertainer. ^,,-^-~~^
The womei-p fonos^^are of two sorts: fonos which precede or fdllbw-eommunal work, sewing the thatch for a guest house, bringing the coral rubble for its floor or weaving fine mats for the dowry of the taupo; and ceremonial fonos to welcome visitors from another village. Each of these meetings was designated by its purpose, as a falelalagUy a weaving bee, or an 'aiga fiafia tama'ita'iy ladles' feast. **rhe women are only recognised socially by the women of a visiting village but the tau-po andTier court are the centre of the recognition of both men and women In the malaga, the travelTing.party. And these wives of high chiefs have to treat their own tawpo with great courtesy and respect, address her as "your highness," accompany her on journeys, use a separate set of nouns and verbs when speaking to her. Here then is a discrepancy in which the young girls who are kept in strict subjection within their households, outrank their aunts and mothers in
THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY
the social life between villages. This ceremonial undercutting of the older women's authority might seriously jeopardise the discipline of the household, if it were not for two considerations. The first is the tenu-ousness of the girls' organisation, the fact that within the village their chief raison (Tetre is to dance attendance upon the older women, who have definite industrial tasks to perform for the village j the second is the emphasis upon the idea of service as the chief duty of the tawpo. The village princess is also the village servant. It is she who waits upon strangers, spreads their beds and makes their kava, dances when they wish it, and rises from her sleep to serve either the visitors or her own chief. And she is compelled to serve the social needs of the women as well as the men. Do they decide to borrow thatch in another village, they dress their tawpo in her best and take her along to decorate the fnalaga. Her marriage is a village matter, planned and carried through by the talking chiefs and their wives who are her counsellors and chaperons. So that the rank of the taupo is really a further daily inroad upon her freedom as an individual, while the incessant chaperonage to which she is subjected and the way in which she is married without regard to her own wishes are a.complete denial of her personality. And similarly, the slighter prestige of her untitled sisters, whose chief group activity is waitmg upon their elders, has even less real significance in the daily life of the village.
With the exception of the tawpoy the assumption of
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
whose title is the occasion of a great festival and enormous distribution of property by her chief to the talking chiefs who must hereafter support and confirm her rank, a Samoan girl of good family has two ways of making her debut. The first, the formal entry into the Aualuma is often neglected and is more a formal fee to the community than a recognition of the girl herself. The second way is to go upon a malaga, a formal travelling party. She may go as a near relative of the taufo in which case she will be caught up in a whirl of entertainment with which the young men of the host village surround their guests; or she may travel as the only girl in a small travelling party in which case she will be treated as a taupo, (All social occasions demand the presence of a taufOy a manalay and a talking chief j and if individuals actually holding these titles are not present, some one else has to play the role.) Thus it is in inter-village life, either as a member of the Aualuma who call upon and dance for the manaia of the visiting malaga^ or as a visiting girl in a strange village, that the unmarried Samoan girl is honoured and recognised by her community.
But these are exceptional occasions. A malaga may come only once a year, especially in Manu'a which numbers only seven villages in the whole archipelago. And in the daily life of the village, at crises, births, deaths, marriages, the unmarried girls have no ceremonial part to play. They are simply included with the "women of the household" whose duty it is to prepare the layette for the new baby, or carry stones to
THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY
strew on the new grave. It is almost as if the community by its excessive recognition of the girl as a taupo or member of the Aualumay considered itself exonerated from paying any more attention to her.
This attitude is fostered by the scarcity of taboos. In many parts of Polynesia, all women, and especially menstruating women, are considered contaminating and dangerous. A continuous rigorous social supervision is necessary, for a society can no more afford to ignore its most dangerous members than it can afford to neglect its most valuable. But in Samoa a girl's power of doing harm is very limited. She cannot make tafoloy a bread- r fruit pudding usually made by the young men in any case, nor make the kava while she is menstruating. But she need retire to no special house j she need not eat alone J there is no contamination in her touch or look. In common with the young men and the older women, a girl gives a wide berth to a place where chiefs are engaged in formal work, unless she has special business there. It is not the presence of a woman which is interdicted but the uncalled-for intrusion of any one of either sex. No woman can be officially present at a gathering of chiefs unless she is tau-po making the kava, but any woman may bring her husband his pipe or come to deliver a message, so long as her presence need not be recognised. The only place where a woman's femininity is in itself a real source of danger is in the matter of fishing canoes and fishing tackle which she is forbidden to touch upon pain of spoiling the fishing. But the enforcement of this prohibition is in the hands of
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COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
individual fishermen in whose houses the fishing equipment is kept.
Within the relationship group matters are entirely different. Here women are very specifically recognised. The oldest female progenitor of the line, that is, the sister of the last holder of the title, or his predecessor's sister, has special rights over the distribution of the dowry which comes into the household. She holds the veto in the selling of land and other important family matters. Her curse is the most dreadful a man can incur for she has the power to "cut the line" and make the name extin
ct. If a man falls ill, it is his sister who must first take the formal oath that she has wished him no harm, as anger in her heart is most potent for evil. When a man dies, it is his paternal aunt or his sister who prepares the body for burial, anointing it with turmeric and rubbing it with oil, and it is she who sits beside the body, fanning away the flies, and keeps the fan in her possession ever after. And, in the more ordinary affairs of the household, in the economic arrangements-betwccn-t^eiat-iv^y in disputes over propert y or in f amily feuds, the women play as^active a part as the men.
The girl and woman repays the general social negligence which she receives with a corresponding insouciance. She treats the lore of the village, the genealogies of the titles, tke origin myths and local tales, the intricacies of the social organisation with supreme indifference. It is an exceptional girl who can give her great-grandfather's name, the exceptional boy who can-
THE GIRL IN THE COMMUNITY
not give his genealogy in traditional form for several generations. While the boy of sixteen or seventeen is eagerly trying to master the esoteric allusiveness of the talking chief whose style he most admires, the girl of the same age learns the minimum of etiquette. Yet this is in no wise due to lack of ability. The tatipo must have a meticulous knowledge, not only of the social arrangements of her own village, but also of those of neighbouring villages. She must serve visitors in proper form and with no hesitation after the talking chief has chanted their titles and the names of their kava cups. Should she take the wrong post which is the prerogative of another taufo who outranks her, her hair will be soundly pulled by her rival's female attendants. She learns the intricacies of the social organisation as well as her brother does. Still more notable is the case of the wife of a talking chief. Whether she is chosen for her docility by a man who has already assumed his title, or whether, as is often the case, she marries some boy of her acquaintance who later is made a talking chief, the tausiy wife of a talking chief, is quite equal to the occasion. In the meetings of women she must be a master of etiquette and the native rules of order, she must interlard her speeches with a wealth of unintelligible traditional material and rich allusiveness, she must preserve the same even voice, the same lofty demeanour, as her husband. And ultimately, the wife of an important talking chief must qualify as a teacher as well as a performer, for it is her duty to train the taufo. But unless the community thus recognises her existence,
Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation Page 7
