and each is chosen by a local boy, with whom she spends the night."218

Among the Wagawaga, as well, there are worked out forms whereby girls choose their partners for the night. Here, Professor Seligmann tells us,219 the girls resort in the dusk to a potuma, or one of the "public houses" set aside for the purpose. After dark a number of young bachelors of the community proceed to such a public house and, with the exception of one of them, squat down outside. This latter youth acts as the ambassador and "enters the house and asks the girls if any of them are willing to receive any of the boys whose names he repeats. If one of the latter finds favor, the girl says, 'allright, you tell him byemby to come.' Usually each girl selects a partner, and after finding out which girls want companions, the ambassador comes out and tells the boys which of them have been selected; the latter resort to the potuma, while the unchosen remainder may proceed to another girl-house and there go through the same program."220

The Wotjäks also have a "marriage game." Several boys and girls gather in pairs. Then each pair hides in some out-of-the-way place, and afterward they all gather again.221 Messrs. Gouldsbury and Sheane allude to the night dances, and other things accompanying it, going on until the early hours among the Plateau natives of Northern Rhodesia.222 Baumann tells about the Wadigo couples of boys and girls running off after some evening dance or feast.223 Colonel T. C. Hodson speaks about the peculiar "ropepulling contests" between boys and girls of the Naga tribes-especially the Tangkuls of Manipur.224 Dalton reports of the all-night singing and flirting of many boys and girls together among the Bhuiyars of Bengal.225 John Roscoe, in talking about the Kavirondo natives of the Bantu, relates their characteristic practice of how, during the day, the boys of another village come and make love to the girls, and how the girls repay the visit to the boys at

night, with sexual intercourse resulting." .226 John H. Weeks describes the mbele of the Bakongo natives, the boys' beating of drums, the girls' singing, as the organized preliminary to sexual congress to follow. 227

But showing even more clearly the group aspect of premarital promiscuity is the fact of many peoples' making tribal arrangements, providing public means where the promiscuous sexual practices of the young men and women concerned are to be indulged in.

235

228

While the cohabiting of the boys and girls among the Mailu," the Tubetube,229 the Motu,280 and others is socially understood to take place in the home of the girl—a Yukaghir girl being, it is reported, specially provided after puberty231 with her own separate sleeping tent to facilitate her nightly visitors22_among the Fors, either in the girl's or the boy's home; 233 and among some, as the Wedan,284 the Wamira," or Gelaria 26 natives, in a rough shelter in the bush, many tribes have peculiarly tribal arrangements for the purpose. Thus, the Wagawaga have the definitely provided public-houses or potumas, already referred to, for girls to pass the night with their lovers.237 Among the Yakuts, likewise, the young girls live together during the night in common houses238 where their sexual promiscuity takes place. 239 The Monbuttu natives have what they call a "lovers' home,"240 and the Bakongo natives have for this purpose a system of lodges located in the dense forest.241 The Trobriand Islanders have the bukumatula, or special, common "bachelor houses," where adolescent boys and girls come in Op. cit., p. 281.

couples to spend the night together.242 Among the Kachins of Upper Burma each village has two or three little so-called "bachelor huts" at the disposal of any girl to come to with her favored man.243 The Tuhoe Maoris of New Zealand have "play houses"244 in which games and dances are held and where boys and girls make advances to each other.245

Likewise do the concrete facts with regard to the particular manner, the specific practices, the common understandings, manifested in the sexual promiscuity show the invariable presence of social control in it. These are socially suggested and socially maintained. Thus are, what might be called "the rules of the game,' the regular modes of procedure, the ordinary course of action expected and entrenched.

Thus, it is socially understood among the Mailu246 and others that the boy will come to the girl only after all is quiet in the house,247 the Yukaghit lad will wait until the lights are extinguished,248 and the Tubetube lover will enter through the back door only,249 talk in low tones,250 and leave before daylight, 251 although there is no special need for him to do so, everybody in the household being perfectly aware of his doings; "and again, for the sake of propriety," keeping up the appearance of secrecy.2

252

Among the Wagawaga, ,253 and the Tubetube,25* the Gelaria natives,255 and others, the social propriety is that the girl alone will broach the subject of marriage during the time of intercourse. Among the Koita and Motu the boy will never refuse the girl's

342

256

B. Malinowski, "Psychoanalysis and Anthropology," in Psyche, IV, 297, 324; also ibid., Argonauts of the Western Pacific, p. 56.

246 B. Malinowski, "The Natives of Mailu," Trans. Roy. Soc., p. 560.

247 Ibid.

248 W. Jochelson, op. cit., p. 63.

251 Ibid.

252

253

See, for example, ibid., p. 502; and B. Malinowski, op. cit., p. 562.

C. G. Seligmann, op. cit., p. 502.

254 Ibid.

marriage proposal directly; 257 he will always send his answer with a friend if it is unfavorable.258 Among the Milne Bay natives intimacies do not continue if the boy does not accept the girl's proposal of marriage.259 Likewise Koita and Motu girls will not as a rule allow those boys who refused their offer of marriage to make any subsequent visits.260

Thus, even among tribes and peoples that do not value premarital chastity, and permit a system of sexual promiscuity among its boys and girls, there is clear evidence of the invariable presence of social factors. Whether these are seen as institutional restraints present, issuing from the group's larger taboos and ideals, or as the more positive, even if more subtle, social controls of standards set up, modes worked out, or methods suggested, society's participation in the sexual conduct of men and women is evident. Accordingly, even in a system of sexual promiscuity, it must be clear, sexual acts and practices are not individual alone, but as truly social also.

Social control is invariably present even in presumably "free" sexual conduct.

THE METHODOLOGY OF RACIAL TESTING: ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR SOCIOLOGY1

MARGARET MEAD
Barnard College

ABSTRACT

A discussion of the methodology of racial intelligence testing is both pertinent and necessary. Three problems are involved: measurement of (1) the racial admixture factor; (2) the social status factor; (3) the linguistic disability factor. The methodology of each of these phases of the problem is discussed.

The unquestioning quotation of the results in one field of research by workers in another field carries with it at least tacit approval of the methodology which produced those results. The sociologist is, therefore, very much concerned with the methods employed in experimental psychology, which furnishes him with so much of the raw material for generalization. Perhaps no results of experimental psychology have been utilized so widely and so uncritically as the results of intelligence testing, and particularly of the intelligence testing of different racial and nationality groups. In the discussion of race problems, a controversy so encumbered by worn-out dogmas and hot partisanships, this quantitative type of material was particularly welcome.

The first research to be generally exploited was the army testing. But here so many opponents of the resulting generalizations came forward with destructive criticism, and so many defenders of the tests carefully tried to warn the layman against unjustified conclusions, that the mischief became too public to be dangerous. No discussions today which pretend to scientific caution quote the army tests without many explicit reservations. But the criticisms of the army tests were in great part devoted to the deficiencies of all intelligence tests, of verbal tests, or of group tests as such. Far

1This article was submitted for publication in August, 1924. Since the author is out of the country, it has been necessarily impossible to include the results of researches published subsequent to that time.