James Cote and Paul Shankman Respond

More of the Same

As promised in a previous issue (May/June 1999), I have now made available the primary sources that Derek Freeman has been selectively offering as evidence that Margaret Mead was hoaxed.

This includes excerpts from All True, which Freeman claims contains Mead's admission to this effect (it does not--he is continuing his practice of selective citation and misrepresentation of sources). I will nor take up valuable space here to deal with the many problems with Freeman's claims. Instead, readers can consult the Web sire I have created that provides the primary sources most pertinent to Mead's Samoa research: www.sscl.uwo.ca/sociology/mead/index.htm.

In addition, readers are directed to a special issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (Fall 2000) that includes in-depth critical analyses of Freeman's claims about Mead's supposed hoaxing, her relationship with Franz Boas, and Mead's and Boas's position on cultural and biological influences on behavior. The group of scholars contributing to that journal issue are unanimous in the view that Freeman has seriously misrepresented Mead's Samoan research and its influence.

The fact that Freeman finds solace in an endorsement from the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute for his smearing of (the liberal) Margaret Mead speaks for itself. It is telling, though, that they did nor put any of Freeman's books on their pet list of the fifty best books of the twentieth century. Mead's hook was not among the best of the twentieth century, but it is clearly among the most provocative, as the continuing attention to it in the twenty-first century attests.

Professor James Cote

Editor, Identity

Department of Sociology

University of Western Ontario

London, Ontario, Canada

Mead-Freeman: The Never-Ending Controversy

Once again Derek Freeman is arguing that Margaret Mead was "hoaxed" about Samoan sexual conduct by two young women. He believes that his recent "discovery" of an autobiographical chapter by Mead provides "direct evidence" of the alleged hoax in her own words. Yet Freeman quotes only a relevant single sentence from her chapter in an adventure book written primarily for young women. In this sentence, Mead states that she became acquainted with "the Samoan girls" and received "their whispered confidences." Freeman interprets this sentence as "definitive historical evidence" of hoaxing by raking these very general phrases and assuming that they have very particular meanings.

Freeman assumes that the phrase "their whispered confidences" refers to innocent lies about sex allegedly told to Mead by two young Samoan women, Fa'apua'a and Fofoa. However, in Mead's chapter there is no discussion of sexual conduct; "their whispered confidences" does not refer to any particular aspect of Samoan culture. Freeman also assumes that "the Samoan girls" refers exclusively to Fa'apua'a and Fofoa, but the phrase is used elsewhere in the chapter without reference to these two young women. Thus there is no "direct historical evidence" of hoaxing in the chapter.

Freeman first claimed over a decade ago that Fa'apua'a's sworn testimony showed Mead was hoaxed. Martin Orans (1996) effectively questioned this argument by noting that if Fa'apua'a, herself a ceremonial virgin (or taupou), had told Mead that girls "spent nights with boys," and if Mead had believed her, then Mead would have written in Coming of Age in Samoa that ceremonial virgins engaged in premarital sex. Instead, she wrote that the entire village protected the virginity of taupou. Therefore, while girls may have told Mead innocent lies, there is no evidence in Mead's writing that she believed them. Hence there is no evidence of successful hoaxing.

In his most recent book, Freeman (1999) claimed that a letter from Mead to Boas provided new "smoking gun" evidence of hoaxing. Orans (1999) demonstrated that Freeman had selectively quoted the letter, thereby misreading it. Now Freeman is offering Mead's chapter as further evidence of hoaxing, but Freeman, once again, has selectively quoted and misread the evidence.

As for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which deemed Coming of Age in Samoa the worst book of the twentieth century, this organization may, with Freeman, wish to believe that Mead's book was an intellectual disaster. The ISI is free to do so. But the Institute's use of Freeman's deeply flawed argument about hoaxing does not add to its credibility or Freeman's.

References

Freeman, Derek. 1999. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. Boulder, Colo.: Westview

Orans, Martin. 1996. Not Even Wrong: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoans. Novato, Calif.: Chandler and Sharp.

---. 1999. Mead Misrepresented. Science, 283, 1649-59.

Paul Shankman

Department of Anthropology

University of Colorado

Boulder, Colorado

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