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Volume 81 1972 > Volume 81, No. 1 > Social organization of Manu'a (1930 and 1969), by Margaret Mead: some errata, by Derek Freeman, p 70-78
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- 70
 SHORTER COMMUNICATIONS SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF MANU'A (1930 AND 1969), BY MARGARET MEAD: SOME ERRATA 1
At the end of 1969 what has been described as a “revised edition” of Margaret Mead's Social Organization of Manu'a (originally published in 1930) was issued by the Bishop Museum Press. This new edition has a handsome front cover, a new introduction and a chapter of conclusions, by Dr Mead, “outlining her current thought concerning the theoretical formulations and factual findings of the original work”, together with “two bibliographic appendices”. 2 The original text of Social Organization of Manu'a has not, however, been revised in any way, having been reprinted with all of the errors (including the many literal errors in the Samoan language), which disfigured the edition of 1930. Moreover, coming as it does from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum (an institution with an established reputation in the field of Polynesian scholarship), it is well possible that unsuspecting readers of the reprint of this “classic in the field of cultural anthropology” will themselves be led into error. I have, therefore, in the interests of the accuracy upon which ethnography depends if it is to be of any scientific value, compiled a list of errata to go with the 1969 Bishop Museum Press reprint of Mead's Social Organization of Manu'a. In the case of an ethnographic study such as Mead's Social Organization of Manu'a which is likely to be used as a source of information by scholars engaged in comparative study of the Polynesian region, it is obviously of importance that all citations in the vernacular should be accurately recorded in a consistent orthography. For an ethnographer working in a little known or hitherto uncontacted region such accurate recording of a local language may pose formidable difficulties, but Miss Mead, when she began her researches in Samoa in 1925, was fortunate in having for her guidance the 4th revised edition (1911) of Pratt's scholarly Dictionary of the Samoan Language, as well as Krämer's Die Samoa-Inseln (1902), which contains numerous texts in Samoan (in a consistent ortho- - 71 Two of the most important conventions of Samoan orthography established by Pratt (who spent some 40 years in Samoa) are the use of an inverted comma to represent the glottal stop, and of a macron to mark phonetically long vowels. 3 Thus, in his grammar, Pratt (1911:2) notes that the glottal stop (or “break”, as he calls it) is “a very important distinction between words otherwise similar in spelling, and must be carefully observed”; and among the examples he gives are: ulu “head” and 'ulu “breadfruit”, and ta'e “to break” and tae“excrement”. The orthography of a Samoan word containing a glottal stop (or stops) is thus not complete without its correctly placed inverted comma (or commas). It will be evident then that in ethnographic reports on Samoa, the correct marking of the glottal stops present in Samoan words is of vital importance, for this not only ensures grammatical and semantic accuracy, but also facilitates etymological analysis, the glottal stop in Samoan corresponding to the consonant “k” in other Polynesian languages. Similarly, the inclusion of a macron, when this is integral to their orthography, is essential if some Samoan words are to be identified correctly in writing or in print. Mead, unfortunately, although she had Pratt's Dictionary to guide her, did not, in the 1930 edition of Social Organization of Manu'a, use either the inverted comma (marking a glottal stop) or the macron (marking a phonetically long vowel) in a consistent way. Occasionally, as in the phrase: 'o le nu'u (p. 15), the glottal stop is correctly shown, but very frequently it is omitted. Sometimes we are offered two versions of the same word on the same page, e.g. p. 174: Aga'e (correct) and Agae (incorrect); p. 196 Aso'au (correct) and Asoau (incorrect). On other occasions a glottal stop is shown where it does not belong, e.g. p. 103, where toe (meaning: again) is incorrectly printed as to'e (meaning: a sea eel; cf. Maori, toke, an earth worm), and p. 201, where tia (meaning: a funeral cairn) is incorrectly printed as ti'a (meaning: a slender rod used in a game of darts; cf. Tikopia, tika, a dart). One of the most hallowed of the institutions of Ta'ū was the Fale 'Ula (lit. crimson house; cf. Maori, Whare Kura), in which the genealogies and oral traditions of the Samoans were preserved. Mead spells this correctly in places (e.g. p. 149), but she also makes use of the erratic forms: fale-ula (p. 168), fale ula (p. 190) and faleula (p. 199), which are misleading, for whereas 'ula signifies crimson, ula means to be facetious. As the title of the sacrosanct supreme chief of Manu'a we are offered the forms: Tu'i Manua (p. 148), Tui Manua (p. 188) and Tui Manu'a (p. 188), only the last of which is correct. Further the form “Tu'i Manua” is untoward, for whereas Tui is the honorific term for a chief of paramount rank, tu'i means: to pound into pulp or to curse. Again, the macron, while used correctly in some instances (e.g. p. 213 māfaufau), is frequently omitted, some of these omissions being not unimportant semantically; on p. 115, for example, Mead records that one of the terms used in Western Samoa to refer to the death of a high chief is gasoloao, and suggests that this form is derived from gasolo, to slip down (i.e. as thatch slipping out of - 72 The orthography of some Samoan words calls for the use of both an inverted comma and a macron. One such word is the name of the island on which Miss Mead carried out her principal researches in Samoa. In the new edition of Social Organization of Manu'a we are offered three different versions: Ta'u (p. xviii), Taū (p. 157) and Tau (p. 162). All are imprecise, the correct orthography being: Ta'ū. In another instance, a macron is omitted, and a glottal stop gratuitiously inserted, to produce a particularly inappropriate solecism. Fitiuta is one of the most distant and proudly dignified polities in the whole of Samoa. The term which Samoans use to refer to such a place is faigatā, a word commonly translated: “difficult”, but which, in this instance, carries the connotation of a place where (because of the high rank of its chiefs), the approach of any malaga, or party of visitors, has to be painstakingly punctilious, this being for the reason that a polity, with chiefs of such exceptionally high rank, is quick to take offence at the slightest impropriety. Mead, however, has described Fitiuta (p. 196) not as faigatā, but as fa'igata, a neologism, which has the literal meaning of: “defunct banana”. Mistakes like this may be laughable to some but they are decidely out of place in what purports to be a scholarly ethnography of Manu'a—the highest ranking region, traditionally, of all Samoa. A comparable error occurs on p. 173 where, in the course of a discussion of the origin of the name Manu'a, a reference is made to: Manua Tale. This should read: Manu'a Tele, which has the literal meaning: “great wound”, a reference to the rending of the earth during the creation of Samoa. Tale, when used as an adjective (as in this instance) means: “coughing”; and so the version published by Dr Mead: Manua Tale, has the ludicrous meaning of “coughing wound”. On the same page (p. 173), the title of one of the highest ranking chiefs in Western Samoa, Malietoa, is twice misspelt: “Maleetoa”, and on p. 185 the personal name of Tui Manu'a Eliasara, the last Samoan to hold this august title, is misspelt: “Etisela”. On p. 206, the portion of a shark (malie) which is, by tradition, ritually due to Sai and Faoa, two of the high-ranking titular chiefs (ali'i) of the island of Ofu, in eastern Samoa, is said to be the sogo. The correct word for the portion in - 73 Again, on p. 94, the Samoan word for the coconut-leaf platter on which fā'ausi (a taro delicacy) is served to titular chiefs is given as: maile. Maile, means: dog, and is a common word, the use of which is interdicted in the presence of chiefs. The correct term for such a coconut-leaf platter is: ma'ilo. On p. 103 a girl when making kava in an assembly of chiefs is said, after the bast strainer has been returned to her free of particles of kava root, to soli lea i luga o le tanoa, which literally means: “to trample on the kava bowl”, soli meaning: “to tread on or trample”. This passage should read: sōloi fa'ata'amilo lea o 'augutu 'o le tanoa, a reference to the ritualised wiping of the flat rim of a kava bowl with a bast strainer, sōloi meaning: “to wipe”. Yet another catachrestic usage deserving of especial mention is Mead's listing (p. 214) of taupo as the term for “the titled girl of a chief's family”. Pratt (1911:303) correctly gives the form tāupou, as the term for a ceremonial virgin, but this orthography Mead specifically rejects, stating that she prefers the “simpler phonetic spelling” of taupo. This, as anyone with an understanding of the Samoan language will recognise, is a very odd statement, for it betrays not only an inadequate ear for a basic Samoan diphthong, but also a failure to appreciate quite elementary points in Samoan cultural behaviour and etymology. A tāupou, as the holder of a title of rank, has the right, similar to that of a titular chief (ali'i), to sit, on certain occasions, in chiefly company, at one of the posts (pou) in the tala “rounded lateral section” of a fale tele, or fono house. And it is to this right that the word tāupou refers, i.e.: tau, particle, denoting continued or repeated activity; pou, the post of a house. In marked contrast, pō means: night, so that one of the possible connotations of taupo (the form preferred by Mead) is, as Krämer pointed out in 1902 in cautioning against this solecism, “to indulge in love affairs at night”, 4 a meaning totally alien to the culturally defined role of a ceremonial virgin, or tāupou. Unfortunately, the emphatically cacographic taupo, because of the prominence given to it by Mead in Coming of Age in Samoa (1928 and all subsequent editions) and in Social Organization of Manu'a (1930 and 1969), has—despite Krämer's warning—become an established solecism in the literature of anthropology. 5 One can only hope that the correct form of this fundamentally important Samoan word will in time become known—at least among anthropologists; and that this and other consequences of Margaret Mead's inadequate knowledge of the Samoan language will gradually be eliminated. Recently, Dr Mead has written of the “rights” of people who “only recently lived a self-sufficient life without script or relationship to script. . . .” 6 One of the rights of all peoples, I would venture to suggest, is the right to have their language correctly recorded—and especially by professional ethnographers. The people of Samoa, whose orators are among the most accomplished and sophisticated users of words to be found anywhere in the world, take an intense pride in their language. Thus, it was the late Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole, Joint Head of State (with Malietoa Tanumafili II) of the Independent State of Western Samoa, who was the “moving spirit” 7 in arranging for a modern study of the - 74 In the following list of errata, errors (even when they occur repeatedly in the text) are noted once only. Numerous minor imprecisions (especially instances in which glottal stops or macrons are not shown) and a few usages which I have been unable to identify, have been passed over. Errata in English, German, Latin and Fijian are not included. A few mistranslations have been noted. The errata in the language of Samoa which I have listed are to be found in both the 1930 and the 1969 editions of Social Organization of Manu'a by Margaret Mead, Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 76, Honolulu, Hawaii. 9
REFERENCES
1 I wish to thank those European scholars with an expert knowledge of the Samoan language, as well as the Samoan authorities resident in Upolu, Tutuila and Manu'a who commented on sections of this paper while it was being prepared for publication. For this present version, however, I alone am responsible.
2 Announcement, of Bulletin 76 (revised), by Bishop Museum Press, 1969.
3 In her “Publisher's Preface” to the 1969 edition of Social Organization of Manu'a, the editor of the Bishop Museum Press states (p. vii) that “traditions in printing style change through the years”, and “authors and editors feel today that the addition of the indication of the glottal stop aids the reader in pronunciation of the words in which they appear”. This statement is scarcely accurate, for the importance of the correct indication of the glottal stop in Samoan words had been firmly established by Pratt (the first edition of whose Dictionary was published in 1862) some years before the founding of the Bishop Museum Press, and the correct and consistent use of the inverted comma to indicate the glottal stop in Samoan words is to be found not only in the various editions of Pratt's Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language, but also in such scholarly works of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as Tregear's Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, Wellington N.Z., 1891, and Krämer's Die Samoa-Inseln, Stuttgart, 1902. In the main text of Social Organization of Mau'a (1969), the glottal stop is represented by a raised comma ('); while in the Introduction and Conclusion an inverted comma (') is used to represent this same phoneme. In this present paper, the glottal stop is represented by an inverted comma, the convention to be found in both Pratt's Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language (1911) and G. B. Milner's Samoan Dictionary (1966).
4 Cf. Krämer 1902:32; “Wenn Miss Fraser stets von einer taupo oder gar tapo erzählt, so sollte sie doch vorsichtiger sein, denn dies heisst bei einem Mädchen ‘in der Nacht Liebeshändel treiben’, was gerade für eine taupou sehr unpassend ist.”
5 Cf. Keesing 1934:53; Honigmann 1954:188; Sahlins 1958:30.
6 Mead 1967:304.
7 Cf. Foreword by Malietoa Tanumafili II, C.B.E., Head of State of Western Samoa, and H. Rex Lee, Governor of American Samoa, in Milner 1966:vii.
8 In October, 1967, when I first heard that a new edition of Mead's Social Organization of Manu'a was to be published by Bishop Museum Press I at once wrote to the Director of the Bishop Museum from Sa'anapu in Western Samoa (where I was then resident) warning him that the text of the 1930 edition contained numerous errors. The receipt of my letter was formally acknowledged, but the warning contained within it was entirely ignored.
9 In this communication I have dealt only with certain of the literal errors in Samoan which are to be found in Social Organization of Manu'a. I am, however, preparing for publication a general appraisal of Margaret Mead's anthropological writings on Samoa.
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