An Oasis of Learning in the Desert — With Dr. Margaret Mead in Dhahran

Just as the Bedouin prizes the fall of rain in the desert, so do the employees of the Arabian American Oil Company in the district of Dhahran and the other centers of black-gold production rejoice at the descent of springs of thought and learning, when the company brings them from the farthest and nearest ends of the earth to whet minds and to make the thousands here feel that life is not black gold alone — there is also the gold of the mind, nay, its very jewels.

The latest of these springs was an American lady and scholar counted among the most famous women of America — indeed among the most famous learned women of the world — namely Dr. Margaret Mead. This world-famous lady has several works to her name.

Dr. Mead was born in the state of Philadelphia in 1901, but she has lived the last thirty years in New York, where she still occupies the post of the natural history of the human races (anthropology) at Columbia University, and is head of the research section on contemporary civilization, among other posts...

I wanted to let "The Woman's Voice" share in a conversation I was given the chance to hear from this great lady in the midst of the desert...

Dr. Mead answered some of my questions in a private sitting that brought me together with her for this purpose.

Q — How and why did you choose the science of the natural history of the human races, known as "anthropology," as the subject of your specialty?

A — My mother took an interest in sociology before me; she worked with the Italian community in the district where we lived in the United States, and so I grew up from childhood loving people and interested in studying their conditions. The ember of this inclination in me never went out, for I found someone to feed it during my university studies: my professor was one of those personalities who make you love the subject they teach — to him, then, this turning point in my life goes back — and he was Franz Boas; and likewise to Ruth Benedict. This science was then only little known, and had not yet developed. There was but a handful of workers in this field in all parts of the world. The material they used was the civilizations of peoples who either, by way of historical accidents, had changed their pattern of life, so that our own life stood out by comparison, or who had merged into the outward forms of our life so that the features of their own way of living faded away.

Q — What are these historical accidents that can change a people's civilization and transform the substance of its life?

Every epidemic, every new discovery of an oil field or a gold field, and every one of the missionaries' endeavors has brought some new people nearer the circle of our Western intellectual life, covering over forever the living record of their former ways of life. This feeling in me made the interest in this science a living desire instead of merely a necessary part of my profession, for I came to have a bent for knowledge and research — and that was in 1924, following my meeting with anthropologists from all parts of the world at the British Association for the Sciences.

Q — Why has the number of anthropologists lately increased over what it was a few years ago?

A — Civilization is advancing with surpassing speed, and modern communications have drawn the ends of the world together; there are no longer any far-off lands, nor any people wholly cut off from the world. And in the face of these phenomena, we find these peoples taking up the new modern life quickly; so if we do not hurry to learn their history from their elders, who will soon die out — for they have no recorded history — if we do not hurry to the research, all these things will be lost to us. For this reason the number of those interested in this science has grown, with a view to saving what can be saved and recording what has gone unrecorded. And to understand a present-day people, one must know the course of its development over time.

Q — Which of such primitive peoples have you studied lately?

A — I was assigned to study the inhabitants of the "island of Samoa" and the people of "New Guinea." The first is one of the beautiful islands of the Pacific, where beauty among the women runs very high and freedom is at its widest range. I turned to studying the life of the young people there, and that ran contrary to earlier studies, for scholars until then had cared only to study the elders of a people. Thus I was the first to take an interest in the young people, the boys and the girls, twenty-five years ago; and I went back to that island last year, after that long interval, to see the vast difference between their life a quarter of a century ago and their life now. When I set to work I had to study their language and live with them exactly as they are, and how many times I would say to myself: "I cannot do it, I cannot" — until one day I noticed that I was saying this not in my English but in the Samoan language, and only then did I know that I could learn the language and carry out the task.

Q — Will you be able to study the people of some of the remote districts of this country (Saudi Arabia)?

A — The short time I have keeps me from making an adequate study, especially since such a study demands a longer time than the study of a people with no past and no historical heritage as rich as the history of this country — which I hope circumstances will allow me to visit again for a longer stay.

Q — Do you intend to visit any other Arab country after your stay here?

A — I do not think I can, for I must answer the invitations of three world congresses, at each of which I shall give a lecture: in Greece, in Holland, and then in West Germany, where I shall attend the international congress of the "New Education Fellowship."

Q — Do you think the field of anthropology is easier for a woman to break into than for a man, because she is finer in feeling, and for other reasons?

A — Certainly. I think it is much easier for a woman to get in touch with families to study their conditions than it is for the men of anthropology. These simple peoples shy away from strangers in general, and from a man in particular, for they believe this stranger will take their women from them. And apparently the women have no fear for their men from me!!... (Here she laughed, and I laughed, and then I added, commenting and saving the situation, saying to her: "They must be entirely sure of them — and besides, they consider you above all that!")

Q — Have you any connection with the Lebanese emigrants in the United States?

A — Since I live in New York, where there is the great number of Syrians (and we — as you know — apply the name Syrians to Lebanese and Syrians together), you find me in touch with them. In our research bureau we studied the Syrian community and the difference among the followers of the three religions — Christianity, Islam, and the Jews — and the extent of their influence on life and their harmony with American life. For the sake of this study my connection with the Syrians (and the Lebanese) was a close one.

You Lebanese are adventurers to a frightening degree; since the dawn of history you have been on the move — since the days of the Phoenicians. And you can "acclimatize" with surpassing speed: before any set time has passed, you become part of the country you take for your homeland and the home of your new life!

Q — Have you any particular observation about the Syrian women of the United States?

A — There is a strange phenomenon I noticed after my study: the women work in the big commercial establishments and succeed, and their number is large if measured against other women in the world, and the range of their success wider. (Here I commented on this strange phenomenon — for our women in the homeland work only in the private professions, or hold posts only; and in those days I had read in the magazine "Al-Musawwar" of an Egyptian lady who entered the field of commerce, taking upon herself the management of the great "Tarabishi" stores a year after her husband's death; her reason was to preserve the money he had left her and her five children. In the course of that year the money was nearly lost, but for the alertness of the bereaved wife, who saved the business, filled her husband's post, and succeeded completely in that trade.) I was pleased at Dr. Mead's observation, and our women in the homeland are bound to be pleased at it too, and so take after their sisters in the Mahjar and set about concerning themselves with the new, vital enterprises.

Here I left Dr. Mead to prepare for the great dinner party given in her honor, which was to be followed by a lecture of hers to the senior officials and administrators. And I have neglected to mention something important: her quickness of mind and her power of observation — qualities that her profession and her field of work demand.