Manus: Childhood Thought
On
the boat returning from Samoa, Mead met her second husband, Reo
Fortune, a New Zealander headed to Cambridge, England, to study
psychology. They were married in 1928, after Mead's divorce from
Luther Cressman. They traveled together to Pere, a small village
on the island of Manus, in what was then the Admiralty Islands
and is now part of Papua New Guinea. Mead wanted to study the
thought processes of children in preliterate cultures and asked
the children of Pere to prepare drawings for her. On the trip
she collected approximately 35,000 pieces of children's artwork.
Contrary to prevailing thought, she discovered that what is considered
childlike in thought varies according to the emphases of the culture.
In a culture such as Manus, where the supernatural permeates everyday
life, Mead found that children showed no particular interest in
the supernatural in their drawings. They focused instead on realistic
depictions of the world around them. She published her findings
in Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), a book written for
a general audience. But, as with her Samoan research, she also
published a technical monograph on Manus for her peers entitled
titled Kinship in the Admiralty Islands (1934).
Margaret Mead.
Letter to Reo
Fortune,
January 17, 1927
[original letter is misdated as 1926].
Page 2
Manuscript, with additional
notes by Fortune.
Manuscript
Division (98)
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"When does an Indian become an Indian?"
In this letter to her future husband Reo Fortune, Mead
recounts a conversation with noted psychologist Robert Sessions
Woodworth (1869-1962), one of her former psychology professors.
In this conversation, Woodworth asked "at what points a
child's cultural environment impinged sufficiently upon
its consciousness to make it an Indian (culturally) as compared
with an American." This question--which Mead summarized
elsewhere as "When does an Indian become an Indian?"--was
critical to the research Mead did during the rest of her
career. Fortune has also made some notes on the page.
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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF LETTER:
Woodworth, after hours of rambling comment,
let fall an idea which struck me as an excellent thread
upon which to string developmental observations on children.
- that was to consider at what points a child's cultural
environment impinged sufficiently upon its consciousness
to make it an Indian (culturally) as compared with an American.
Of course there would be a whole series. The adoption of
gesture, attitude, posture, habits related to the simplest
functions of the body - speech. The most obvious -- and
then more complex points like the comprehension of matrilineal
organization as compared with the comprehension of a fostering
family group. It is a dramatic way of looking at the matter,
don't you think?
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Mead and Fortune in Pere Village
In 1928, Mead married her second husband, Reo Franklin
Fortune (1903-1979), in Auckland, New Zealand. From there
they headed to do fieldwork in the Admiralty Islands, settling
in the Manus village of Pere. Mead focused on childhood
education and mental development, while Fortune published
a book on Manus religion from his research. Mead later termed
it "the best field trip we ever had." Mead and Fortune divorced
in 1935.
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Reo Fortune or Margaret Mead, photographer. Margaret
Mead and Reo Fortune in Pere Village, Manus, Admiralty
Islands,
1928.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(106)
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Reo Fortune, photographer.
Margaret Mead on a canoe
with Manus children, 1928.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript
Division (107)
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Mead on Canoe with Manus Children
Growing up in a village built over water, Pere children
learned basic physical skills for survival at a very young
age--how to swim, maintain balance, and paddle a canoe.
Mead observed that few demands or restrictions were placed
on the children by their elders, except those that related
to their physical survival and to respecting the personal
property of others. Mead felt that the carefree lives of
Manus children did not prepare them for the harsh conditions
of adult life.
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Mead on Crutches
Mead broke her right ankle numerous times, beginning in
1924, when she was hit by a New York City taxicab. She broke
it again in 1929, while living in Pere Village. Village
houses were built on stilts over the lagoon. Mead fell and
broke her ankle when the ladder to her house collapsed.
Mead was treated by a Manus bonesetter, and villagers built
crutches for her use, fashioned from canoe poles and wooden
pillows. Mead broke her ankle a final time in 1960. After
that break, she began using a tall English-made walking
stick, which became her trademark.
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Reo Fortune, photographer.
Margaret Mead on crutches,
Pere Village, Manus, 1929.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(109)
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Margaret Mead.
Letter to Martha
Ramsey Mead,
April 24, 1927.
Holograph manuscript.
Manuscript
Division (85)
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Reality and Fantasy in Children's Drawings
In a letter written a few months before her grandmother's
death, Mead described a conversation with one of her husband's
young nephews. This exchange prompted her to think about
how children distinguish reality from fantasy, proving crucial
to the way Mead set up her Admiralty Islands research. On
the expedition, Mead asked Manus children to draw pictures.
She discovered that, in this culture where the adult world
was suffused with ghosts and supernatural forces, children's
drawings showed none of the animism that filled the images
made by Western children.
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Manus Boys
When Mead went into the field with her husbands, they typically
had a house built in the local style and employed youths
from the village to work for them. In Pere, they employed
a succession of several boys of about 12 or 13 years to
run their household. One of these boys was Kilipak (later
Johanis Kilipak), whom Mead described in 1929 as "possibly
thirteen, quick as a flash, son of the ruling family, a
natural leader of men."
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Margaret Mead, photographer.
Houseboys, Pere Village, Manus,
Admiralty Islands, 1928.
From left to right: Kapeli, Pomat,
Yesa, Kilipak, and Loponiu.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(91)
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"Catching
Fish in a Net"
by Kilipak, New Guinea, male age 13.
Page 2
Pencil drawing.
Manuscript
Division (92)
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"Catching Fish in a Net,"
Manus Children's Drawings
Mead collected nearly 35,000 children's drawings in Manus
on her 192829 field trip. This drawing is by Kilipak,
described by Mead as "the brightest" in the group
of older boys from whom she collected her first drawings.
Mead found no tendency towards spontaneous animism in the
drawings she collected, but she did observe some variations
in types of drawings by sex and age. Girls, for instance,
often tended to draw designs and to use color, while boys
avoided color and depicted "realistic" scenes
and subjects like human beings, animals, and ships.
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Interpreting Ink Blots
As she had in Samoa, Mead developed psychological tests
to administer to the children of Pere. This notebook contains
ink blot tests and children's answers. While their interpretations
varied, the children generally described things in the world
around them, such as pigs and dogs. Mead observed that when
some children were uncertain in naming an ink blot, they
would call it "tchinal." Tchinal
is a "land devil" that the adults of Manus invoked to threaten
children. Mead found that most children did not believe
in tchinals and were not afraid of them.
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Margaret Mead.
Field notebook with projective
testing materials,
Manus, Admiralty Islands, 1929.
Manuscript Division
(99)
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Margaret Mead,
"Child Thought
and Culture,"
undated, probably ca. 1930-31.
Page 2
Holograph manuscript.
Manuscript
Division (94)
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"Child Thought and Culture"
This is a pencil draft of the article that would be published
as "An Investigation into the Thought of Primitive Children
with Special Reference to Animism" (1932). In that classic
article, Mead challenged the view of psychologist Jean Piaget
(1896-1980) that animism (supernaturalism or attribution
of spiritual qualities to objects) is a universal stage
of development in childhood thought. Based on the children's
drawings she collected and results of ink blots and other
psychological tests, Mead argued that, due to their upbringing,
Manus children did not think animistically.
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Learning by Imitation
Here three-year old Ponkob is sitting in one of the Mead/Fortune
household chairs, in Mead's words, "playing at being a European."
Manus children had not used pencil and paper prior to the
presence of Mead and Fortune. They were familiar, however,
with the act of writing from seeing Mead, Fortune, and colonial
government officials write. When Mead collected drawings
in Manus, she instructed the oldest children to draw, without
giving specific instructions. Then the younger children
imitated them. Mead chose this approach to minimize the
intrusiveness of introducing a new activity into the culture.
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Photographer: Margaret Mead.
"Ponkob plays at writing,"
Pere Village, Manus,
Admiralty Islands, 1929.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(104)
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Margaret Mead or Reo
Fortune, photographer.
"The mariners
of the next generation,"
Pere Village, Manus, Admiralty Islands, ca. 192829.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript
Division (115)
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Nanua and Ponkob
In her field notes on psychology, Mead described an episode
where Nauna is sent by his mother to retrieve his recalcitrant
younger brother Ponkob. In this photo, the brothers are
in a canoe (Nauna, in front; Ponkob, paddling), with Pere
village in the background. With the westernized name Michael
Nauna, the older brother became a leader of postwar Pere.
According to Mead, in the 1950's Nauna was "the most
trusted man in the village."
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Tobacco
Tobacco is believed to have been introduced into New Guinea
by traders centuries ago. In the 1920's and 1930's, Westerners
brought tobacco with them to New Guinea to trade or use
for gifts or payment. Even the very small children smoked
tobacco. The children also chewed the stimulant betel
nut, the nut of a tropical palm tree found in the
region. In this photo, young Manus girls are rolling cigarettes
from a gift stick of tobacco, with Nauna standing behind
them.
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Margaret Mead, photographer
or Reo Fortune.
"Small girl assistants
supervised by Nauna,"
Pere Village, Manus,
Admiralty Islands, 1928.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(115b)
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Reo Fortune, photographer.
Margaret Mead
carrying a Manus girl,
probably Piwen, on her back, 1928.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript
Division (110)
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Holding On in Pere
Mead, an early student of gesture and body language, was
interested throughout her career in the way children were
held and carried in various cultures. Among the Pere villagers,
she wrote in her notes, "the reaction of grasping the
elder's throat comes very early." Because much of village
life occurred in or over water, small children were carried
on their elders' shoulders and backs.
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Father and Daughter
Here Mead documents the interaction between a Manus father,
Luwil, and his daughter Piwen. Mead found a strong father-child
bond in Manus: "As soon as children can walk, they become
their fathers' constant companions." In her research notes,
Mead recorded a scene of Luwil disciplining Piwen. And in
the photograph seen here, notice that Piwen is resting her
hands around her father's neck. Mead went on to present
a paper entitled "Father and child in Manus" at the joint
meeting of the American Anthropological Association and
American Folklore Society in December of 1929.
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Margaret Mead, photographer.
Luwil Bomboi carrying his 2
1/2
year old daughter Piwen.
Manus, Admiralty Islands, 1929.
Gelatin silver print.
Manuscript Division
(120)
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Margaret Mead.
Note slip, "Piwen April 5,"
Manus, Admiralty Islands, 1929.
Manuscript.
Manuscript Division
(120a)
TRANSCRIPTION OF NOTE SLIP:
Pwasa is playing with her
- gives her [head?] an awful smack against the table. She
only cries a second. Luwil swiftly holds her [hand?] in
his hands + gives Piwen a mild slap. He makes no fuss and
neither does she.
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Alfred L. Kroeber.
Letter to Margaret
Mead,
May 14, 1931.
Typescript.
Manuscript
Division (129)
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Kroeber's Critique
In a 1931 review of Growing Up In New Guinea,
Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960) criticized Mead for her ahistorical
outlook and for not including sufficient ethnographic data
to support her conclusions. He also noted that she had an
aesthetic gift for conceptualization "approaching genius."
Kroeber had been Franz Boas' first Ph. D. student and was
one of the most eminent anthropologists of the time. Mead
was troubled by his critique and wrote him to thank him
for the praise he gave her in the review and to answer his
criticisms. This letter is Kroeber's response.
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"The Ethnographic Points of Manus Culture"
While Mead often published technical works from the same
research she used in her books for general audiences, she
also included detailed appendices in many of her more "popular"
books. In this draft page from one of a dozen
appendices to Growing Up In New Guinea, for
instance, Mead provided basic information about Manus geography,
house-building, and language. While some reviewers liked
her inclusion of the appendices, others, such as Alfred
Kroeber, thought the material would have been better integrated
into the text.
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Margaret Mead.
"The Ethnographic Points of
Manus Culture,"
draft of page from Appendix 2 of
Growing Up in New Guinea,
ca. 1929-30.
Holograph manuscript.
Manuscript Division
(122)
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Margaret Mead
fieldwork dress.
Fabric.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution,
the National Museum of American
History, Behring Center (273)
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Fieldwork Dress
This is a dress Mead designed for doing fieldwork. It has
pockets large enough to hold notebooks and a wraparound
waist that can accommodate weight change. She wore dresses
made from this pattern when she returned to Manus after
World War II.
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A Changed Manus
Accompanied by two younger colleagues, Theodore and Lenora
Schwartz, Mead examined the effects of technological change
on the lives of the people, publishing her findings in New
Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation--Manus, 1928-1953
(1956). Mead felt that a key to the success of the change
was that it was total and rapid. She has been criticized
for exaggerating the extent of the change in Manus culture.
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Theodore or Lenora Schwartz, photographer.
"The field work team, 1953,"
Margaret Mead, Lenora Schwartz,
and Theodore Schwartz [left to right]
with Manus children, 1953.
Gelatin silver print.
Courtesy of Ted Schwartz
Manuscript Division
(267)
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Theodore or Lenora Schwartz, photographer. 1928
houseboys as adults.
Johanis Lokus (Loponiu), Margaret Mead,
Petrus Pomat, Raphael Manuwai
[not in 1928 photo], John Kilipak -
[left to right] with Manus children, 1953.
Gelatin silver print.
Courtesy of Ted Schwartz
Manuscript
Division (268)
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Return to Manus
In 1953, Mead made a follow-up visit to Pere Village, the
first of six trips she would make there in the post-World
War II years. Mead was interested in Manus as a successful
model of cultural transformation. Because Manus had been
a wartime staging area, life there had changed dramatically
in the twenty five years since Mead's first trip. This change
was accompanied by a political movement headed by a charismatic
leader named Paliau Maloat (1907-1991).
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