COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA _A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation_ _By_ MARGARET MEAD _Assistant Curator of Ethnology American Museum of Natural History_ [Signet] _Foreword by Franz Boas_ _Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University_ WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY NEW YORK MCMXXVIII COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA [Signet] [Illustration: _With Hibiscus in her hair_] +To the Girls of Taū+ THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED _’Ou te avatu lenei tusitala iā te ’outou O Teineīti ma le Aualuma o Taū_ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to the generosity of the Board of Fellowships in the Biological Sciences of the National Research Council whose award of a fellowship made this investigation possible. I have to thank my father for the gift of my travelling expenses to and from the Samoan Islands. To Prof. Franz Boas I owe the inspiration and the direction of my problem, the training which prepared me to undertake such an investigation, and the criticism of my results. For a co-operation which greatly facilitated the progress of my work in the Pacific, I am indebted to Dr. Herbert E. Gregory, Director of the B. P. Bishop Museum and to Dr. E. C. S. Handy and Miss Stella Jones of the Bishop Museum. To the endorsement of my work by Admiral Stitt and the kindness of Commander Owen Mink, U. S. N., I owe the co-operation of the medical authorities in Samoa, whose assistance greatly simplified and expedited my investigation. I have to thank Miss Ellen M. Hodgson, Chief Nurse, the staff nurses, the Samoan nurses, and particularly G. F. Pepe for my first contacts and my instruction in the Samoan language. To the hospitality, generosity, and sympathetic co-operation of Mr. Edward R. Holt, Chief Pharmacist Mate, and Mrs. Holt, I owe the four months’ residence in their home which furnished me with an absolutely essential neutral base from which I could study all the individuals in the village and yet remain aloof from native feuds and lines of demarcation.