Mead to Boas - Jan. 16, 1926 (this is a long handwritten letter, similar in form to her Mar. 14 letter):

Dear Dr. Boas:

It is very sad that anyone as willing to take advice as I am should be so far beyond the reach of it. Life here is one long battle with my conscience as to whether I [am] working correctly and whether I’m working hard enough. I remember you saying to me "You will have to waste a great deal of time," but I wonder if you guessed just how much. This afternoon I have to go fishing, for instance. The ethnological gain will probably be nil, but the boy I’m going with is an excellent informant, and one of the leaders of the Aumaga, the organized group of young men. Or else the mother of one of my adolescents comes to call. We talk for hours about how many children she has and how many sisters I have, all to get a preliminary impression of her standards, her attitude towards her daughters, etc. All I can do is lay out [at] times and then feel virtuous when they are accomplished, and measure my days in terms of number of hours put in. At present, also, it’s very hard to get actual informants because everyone is so busy rehabilitating the village.

I’m giving the children some wonderful intelligence tests for various esoteric motives, unconnected with usual test purposes. For the children come to my room and have to be occupied somehow. And I can reframe the tests so as to give me a fairly good notion of the way they go at things. Then they enjoy it and bring other children with them. It’s an extremely harmless subject for village conversation and obscures somewhat the prying nature of my questions. And finally it’s excellent excuse for getting them alone, an unusually difficult matter for they seldom call in groups of under three.

I didn’t put anything in my report about the problem of submission to the group and family authority because I wasn’t sure enough to commit myself. But I’m practically sure that it presents a very different pattern from ours. The cowing process begins when the children are about six and by twelve it’s practically over, except in the case of sex. The runaway marriage is an institutionalized matter, even the highest chiefs in refusing an offer of marriage for their daughters must remember that "she may turn wild and run off".

I’m trying to make as detailed a study as possible of the social organization and all its various minute variations. Such information as we have on rank is so heavily inadequate. With the absence of primogeniture and even of direct descent the various "ranks" are extremely mixed up. Also each family has a quota of matai names which can be variously dealt out to members of the family. With the very recent abolition of the Tu’i Manu’a (The Sacred King of Manu’a) there is also much food for study in the way the less important families are assuming his prerogatives. Looking at my work from a purely ethnological standpoint, I think the detailed account of variations, reinterpretations and readaptations[?] of the general common pattern should compensate for the very narrow field which I have allowed myself from a geographical standpoint.

Another thing which I use to wonder about was the degree to which a primitive language was spoken correctly by the whole population. The degree of variation in the correctness of speech is enormous. As English is taught in the schools - after a fashion- this cannot be contributed to the schools. Relationship terms are badly bungled not only by the young, but by the adult population as well. The existence of rank makes for why divergences in the matter of etiquette, and also in underline courtesy.

It is decidedly culture without strong religious sanctions either as survivals in heathen days, or from the present ubiquitous Christianity. The most valuable comparisons which come, from making a study of a culture with strong [?] oral sanctions.

But through it all, I have no idea whether I’m doing the right thing or not, or how valuable my results will be. It all weighs rather heavily on my mind. Is it worth the expenditure of so much money? Will you be directly disappointed in me?

If Gladys gets her fellowship, I should be delighted to take the Museum trips, Goddard be willing.

It was very good of you to write me such a long letter. I hope I won’t disappoint you in this year’s work.

Very sincerely yours,

Margaret Mead

P.S. (Feb. 7, 1926) In answer to your letter in Jan. 4, I do not especially want to reapply. Thank you so much for anticipating my possible wish in that respect.