Derek Freeman

I’ve concluded that when Mead described Young Samoan women as sexually liberated she was, in fact, projecting onto them "her own sexual experiences as a young woman in the faraway, romantic south seas".

While traveling to Samoa I decided that my objective should be to refute Mead's studies of Samoan sexuality.

I'm going back to Samoa

Psychiatrist Dr. Tenthowathan evaluated me being emotionally unstable. I am  incredibly offended and am going to write a report denouncing the doctor as an incompetent

I was talked into seeing a psychiatrist by the university, I agreed on the condition that the topic of conversation would be Harrison's madness and not my own mental state.

I’ve decided instead to return to Canberra.

I think there may be something wrong with me.. I will be leaving for England to see a friend who happens to be a psychiatrist.

I may have broken into his house while he was out and smashed a carved wooden sculpture at the Sarawak Museum...

I know that Tom Harrison has been a corrupting influence on the local indigenous people. I’ve been working hard to get him forcibly removed from Borneo.

I’ve been exploring, especially the system of cognatic descent and I've been growing increasingly dissatisfied with that paradigm, partly because I feel that it’s leaving unable to answer several important questions regarding Iban ritual behavior.

My thesis about Iban agriculture has been so far described as "a superb piece of research" and "one of the best and most complete accounts of swidden agriculture that has yet been made".

I’ve been collaborating closely with my wife, who just so happens to be an artist, with making many ethnographic drawings of the Iban.

I've married a wonderful woman; Monica Maitland. We will be leaving to go live in Sarawak. 

Recently I gave a lecture series at Oxford University on Samoan social structure, this brought him into contact with Meyer Fortes who has become a very significant influence in my doctoral research. so again, thank you, Meyer. 

I’ve been doing research centered on manuscript sources relating to Samoa in the archives of the London Missionary Society.