Word: samoan
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...jargon-free, almost lyrical prose, Coming of Age described how a cultural web of ritual, taboo, kinship and history formed the typical Samoan personality. Growing up is "so easy, so simple," she found, because "Samoa is a place where no one plays for very high stakes, suffers for his convictions or fights to the death. Caring is slight." The book became a bestseller and basic reading for introductory social-science courses; it is still in print. Though the work broke no theoretical ground, Margaret Mead's conclusion that the Samoan teen-ager was calm and free from trauma provided...
These lean, didactic, aphoristic statements, so varied in their language, seem to distill a universal wisdom. In the Samoan fishing culture, which is dependent on the canoe, islanders would have no difficulty in recognizing the kinship of the English proverb, "It never rains but it pours," to one of their own: "It leaks at the gunwale, it leaks in the keel." From the Biblical injunction, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," it is only a short and negotiable step to an old saying of the Nandi tribe in East Africa: "A goat's hide buys...
Milner's 'interest in the proverb began in 1955, when he flew to the South Pacific to compile the first Samoan dictionary since 1862. There he found a rigidly stratified culture that relied on the proverb as a guide through the thicket of social life. The Samoans had proverbs for every human exchange, says Milner: "To pay respect, to express pleasure, sympathy, regret, to make people laugh, to blame or criticize, to apologize, to insult, thank, cajole, ask a favor, say farewell." Intrigued, he collected thousands of these pithy sayings...
Back in England, Milner compared his Samoan stock with the proverbs current in Europe, and was struck by the many similarities in structure, rhythm and content. It was almost as if the proverb shared a common source. Since this was culturally impossible, Milner considered another potential origin: the universality of human thought...
Despite the demonstrations, Johnson emerged on top after his days down under. Along with a planeload of gifts ranging from a brace of albino kangaroos to miniature Samoan canoes, he was accorded an impressive measure of approval-occasionally in spite of himself. Too often, the President seemed somewhat heavyhanded, particularly in his ponderous praise for Prime Minister Holt and his references to American affluence. He dwelt endlessly on his own limited wartime service in New Zealand and Australia; and his martial derring-do sounded more Mittyesque with each telling, until, at Melbourne's airport, he conjured up a picture...