Conventional geographic and cultural division of the eastern Pacific Ocean. With Melanesia and Micronesia, these islands make up the Pacific Islands.
BARBARA B. SMITH (I, 1–2, II, 2), ADRIENNE L. KAEPPLER (I, 3), KEVIN SALISBURY (II, 1(i)), MERVYN McLEAN (II, 1(ii), III, 4), AMY K. STILLMAN (II, 3(i–iv)), JANE F. MOULIN (II, 3(v)), RICHARD M. MOYLE (III, 1, 2, 6), THOMAS ALLAN (III, 3), DIETER CHRISTENSEN (III, 5)
2. Music and musical instruments.
Polynesia (Gk. poly: ‘many’; nēsos: ‘island’) comprises 18 island groups lying in a rough triangle in the Pacific Ocean with New Zealand in the south, Hawaii in the north and Easter Island in the east (fig. 1). Within this ocean area of approximately 30 million km2, the land area of New Zealand occupies about 260,000 km2 (for the traditional music of New Zealand see New Zealand, §II), the Hawaiian Islands about 15,000 km2 and the total of all the other islands less than 9000 km2. A useful division for studies of Polynesian music, dance and other aspects of culture is western Polynesia, eastern Polynesia, Polynesian outliers and urban enclaves. In western Polynesia, the dominant islands are Tonga and Samoa, which is divided politically into Samoa (called Western Samoa until 1 July 1997) and American Samoa. Both lie close to Fiji (see Melanesia, §VII), which is often classified with Melanesia, but whose music, dance and many aspects of culture are closely related to those of western Polynesia. The smaller islands of western Polynesia include Niue, Tokelau, Tuvalu (formerly Ellice Islands) and Wallis and Futuna. In eastern Polynesia, the dominant island of the central area is Tahiti (one of the Society Islands). The other central islands include the Austral, Gambier (Mangareva), Marquesas and Tuamotu Islands, all within French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands. The small island of Pitcairn in the east and the islands at the corners of the Polynesian triangle are also eastern Polynesian in culture; the Line and Phoenix Islands, though usually considered geographically eastern Poynesian, are now part of Kiribati (see Micronesia, §III). Most of the Polynesian outliers lie in Melanesia: several in the Solomon Islands (see Melanesia, §IV, 3) and a few in Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea; two lie in the Federated States of Micronesia. Prehistoric settlements of outliers were mostly from larger or volcanic islands with established populations to uninhabited smaller or coral islands for reasons no longer known. During the 20th century many Polynesians moved from smaller or more distant islands to more urbanized ones within the same country or group of islands (e.g. Tuamotus to Tahiti) for greater economic opportunity or a more varied lifestyle. Migration has also taken place for similar reasons to other countries with strong historical relationships (e.g. from Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau and Tonga to New Zealand; from American Samoa to Hawaii and West Coast cities of the continental USA). These expatriate communities maintain some features of the home-island culture, usually including the performing arts. Since the 1960s, Auckland has had the largest concentration of Polynesians of any city in the world.
Ecological differences between volcanic islands, coral atolls and larger land masses such as New Zealand, and long periods of isolation, experienced by the people particularly on Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand, have contributed to cultural diversity. Nevertheless, Polynesians recognize their kinship, as validated through their oral histories of migrations and, for many, revalidated through centuries of trade, intermarriage and occasional wars. In the late 20th century, closer bonds were being established through a cultural renaissance focussed on long-distance canoe voyaging and the performing arts, especially dance. Polynesians speak related indigenous languages; most also speak English, French or Spanish.
The original settlement of Polynesia has been a subject of great interest and not a little controversy. Archaeological research confirms that people who moved through northern Melanesia in a series of eastward migrations settled in the area of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, where a distinctive configuration of cultural patterns developed. Now discredited theories included a route through Micronesia and South American origin of the people. Later, some of these people migrated to central eastern Polynesia, where a distinctively eastern Polynesian culture developed and from which the great migratory voyages to Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand took place. The smaller islands of western Polynesia and the Polynesian outliers were settled primarily by people from the Samoa–Tonga area.
In western Polynesia, traditional social organization focussed on lineage and village; religious music is not known to have been associated with these cultures prior to European contact. In eastern Polynesia, social organization was based on lineage and religious practices, which were centred in ceremonies on the marae (outdoor platform temple), and on concepts of mana (spiritual power or cosmic energy) and taboo, which governed people’s lives. In their stratified society, chanters were specialists responsible for memorizing and reciting important texts, including long genealogical chants that validated a chief’s mana.
Polynesians' musical abilities have been widely recognized, even though their indigenous languages had no collective terms for music or musical instruments. Early European navigators noted that the Polynesians enjoyed performance; Christian missionaries found that singing was the most effective route to their conversion; and the tourist industry promotes an image of handsome, uninhibited people singing and dancing on palm-lined beaches.
Music, though less conspicuous than dance (and therefore less adequately described in many early reports), was intrinsic to a larger number of societal functions. Some vocal styles, in regional variants, were widespread. One solo style of intoned recitation is syllabic, with rhythm and form dependent on the text. Another solo style that is more songlike in quality (though usually also designated as ‘chant’) is more sustained and often melismatic. Its range and the pitch relationships of melodic progressions are more organized, either in level or arching phrase contours that often end with a descending glide, with metric rhythm and strophic form. A multi-part choral style, prevalent in western Polynesia and central eastern Polynesia, usually has either a two- or three-part texture, with each part narrow in range and all parts progressing in parallel motion, or a drone (in the bass or another part) with one or two moving parts. A drone may be relatively short in duration or, when very long, maintained through staggered breathing.
In the 19th century most Polynesians became acquainted with Western musics. Hymns and chants were introduced by Protestant and Catholic missionaries (see Hīmeni) and secular songs by whalers and traders. Some islanders adopted or adapted these directly from the Europeans or Americans who introduced them; others learnt from other Polynesians (the people of Tuvalu were introduced to Christian hymns by recently converted Samoans, for example). A popular secular style that originated in Hawaii, initially referred to as Hawaiian style, became known in the 1950s as pan-Polynesian pop after spreading (with further adaptation) elsewhere in Polynesia and becoming Pan-Pacific pop by the 1960s, after being adopted and adapted in parts of Micronesia and Melanesia.
In the late 1990s, major musical activity was focussed on the continued development of popular music in modern idioms and a renaissance in indigenous music and dance. Popular music is continually stimulated by radio, to some extent by television and especially by the cassette recorder and relatively inexpensive pre-recorded tapes. In Hawaii, New Zealand and Tahiti, where formerly many LPs were produced, CDs are a thriving business. Though radio and cassettes allow popular musics to be heard almost anywhere in Polynesia, there are more live performances in urban centres, where there are venues suitable for electronic amplification and an audience large enough for such performances to be economically viable. The traditional heritage of both chants and dances retained from the past and new works in these idioms are stimulated by local festivals and civic functions, and by international festivals such as the Festival of Pacific Arts (see Pacific Arts, Festival of) and foreign tours.
Principal collections of music of the Pacific Islands, including Polynesia, are the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and the Archive of Maori Music, University of Auckland (includes a territorial survey of Oceanic music).
In early Polynesian societies, musical instruments, except possibly the shell trumpets used for signals and the temple drums used for rituals, were less valued than the voice. Most instruments played in public contexts were intrinsically associated with dance; others were played in more intimate or informal contexts. Clapping, slapping and other body percussion is widely used, especially for dance.
Indigenous idiophones include the slit-drum, which in western and central eastern Polynesia is used for some types of signals and certain dance genres. For some dances in Samoa and Futuna, a rolled mat was beaten with a pair of sticks, and in Rennell and Bellona, a sounding board is beaten (see Melanesia, §IV, 3(ii)). For a major Hawaiian dance genre, a gourd is slapped with the fingers and thumped on the ground. Jew's harps, made from two pieces of plant material, were reported for several islands; other idiophones had very limited distribution.
The only indigenous membranophones were drums. The tall, single-headed drums with shark-skin membrane were the highest status instruments in central eastern Polynesia and Hawaii. Most of the finest extant specimens are now in museums outside the country of origin. In Hawaii, smaller vertical drums are played for the most prestigious genre of hula.
The aerophone with the widest distribution in Polynesia, as elsewhere in the Pacific islands, was the conch-shell trumpet, both end-blown and side-blown. In some islands, the conch is now blown in stage presentations and at the beginning of important civic events. A bamboo nose flute, in several variants in different areas but characteristically with the blowing hole in the side-wall near a closed node, was quite widespread. Panpipes were formerly used, primarily in the Samoa–Tonga area. In New Zealand, where there was no bamboo, the Maori made aerophones, some of exceptionally fine craftsmanship, of several other materials (see New zealand, §II, 2(ii)). The only indigenous Polynesian chordophone was the mouth bow.
The Western instruments most widely adopted by the Polynesians are plucked, fretted chordophones, primarily a four-string instrument introduced first to Hawaii, where it was named Ukulele, and the larger, six-string guitar. Some Polynesians, especially those in central eastern Polynesia, make local variants of the smaller instrument (e.g. an instrument with a half-coconut for the resonator in the Cook Islands; and one with a small membrane in the centre of the face, somewhat like that of the ‘banjo-ukulele’, in the Marquesas). In some areas the guitar functions much like a percussion instrument. These plucked-string instruments are widely used in pan-Pacific pop. Two-headed drums modelled on Western drums, the ‘tin’ (a metal container for crackers or kerosene beaten with two sticks) and the ‘box’ (modelled on a wooden packing crate beaten with bare hands) are essential to certain evolved traditional dance genres in western and central eastern Polynesia. Brass bands, where present, are mostly connected with the government, police, military and schools.
After settlement of the many islands, fundamental aspects of culture were retained while distinctive variants evolved, as is apparent not only in music and dance but also in pronunciation of words of both indigenous origin (e.g. pahu, pa‘u, ‘ukulele, ukulele, ukelele, ‘ukarere) and those adopted from foreign sources (e.g. hīmeni, himene, ‘īmene).
Dance, a conspicuous feature in the social life of many Polynesian communities, has drawn comments from explorers, missionaries, travellers and anthropologists, ranging from outright condemnation to enthusiastic appreciation. Several studies of Polynesian dance have placed this important cultural form in its social context and have analysed its structure. Among these are studies of dance in the Cook Islands, the Marquesas Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, Tokelau and Tonga (see bibliography). Other studies have focussed specifically on the clowning and theatrical elements that use dance in Rotuma and Samoa.
Polynesian dance is a visual extension of sung poetry conveyed through indirectness (to say one thing but mean another), often in honour of chiefs or other important people. Specialists compose poetry, add music and movements and rehearse the performers for months before a public ceremony. In some dances movement motifs and phrases are stereotypic and repetitious; in others, movements pantomime activities of ritual or everyday life. Lower-body movement motifs primarily keep the time while the hand/arm motifs help to convey the poetry through allusion, metaphor and layers of meaning. The movements often refer to selected words of poetry, which themselves have concealed meanings. Texts appeal to genealogy to honour the living, and the observer must know the background of the composition in order to appreciate its significance.
Polynesian standing dances are comparatively stationary, and sitting dances occur throughout the area. Although men often perform movements that open the legs to the sides, women's thighs usually remain parallel. In eastern Polynesia, side-to-side and circular movements of the hips are integral to the lower-body movement motifs. Distinctive stylistic movements of the various Polynesian islands are primarily those of arms and hands: in Tonga, rotation of the lower arm and flexion and extension of the wrist while curling and uncurling the fingers; in Samoa, flexions and extensions of both the elbow and wrist; in Tahiti, an outward flick of the hands with a rotation of the lower arm; and in the Cook Islands, wrist extensions with arms slightly bent at the elbow. In New Zealand Maori dance, wrists are more rigid, with palms extended to create a hand quiver by a series of rapid slight movements at the wrist. The flexibility of wrists and fingers characteristic of Hawaiian movements produces a soft, undulating quality.
In the sung poetry as well as in the accompanying movements, the aim is to tell a story; thus the performers are primarily storytellers rather than actors. Dances are performed for audiences that traditionally had an intellectual and kinaesthetic understanding of the society's traditions; today some dances have entered the realm of spectacle, especially for outsiders who do not understand indigenous languages.
In Tonga, dance remains a functioning part of the socio-political system and is abstractly literary in its interpretation. Dances are created and performed for national occasions, and no notable gathering is complete without them. The most important dance type is lakalaka, performed by up to 200 men and women. It can be described as a sung speech with two sets of choreographed movements for men and women. A series of hand and arm movements that allude to selected words of the text are interspersed with dividing motifs. Leg movements are mainly a series of sideways steps executed nearly in place. Tilting the head to the side, an aesthetic element, expresses a state of inner exhilaration called māfana. Lakalaka is apparently a developed form of the pre-European dance me‘elaufola, set in polyphonic choral singing. Traditional dances from pre-European times, still occasionally performed, are me‘etu‘upaki, a men's standing dance in which a dance paddle is twirled and several changes in formation take place, and a women's dance, fa‘ahiula, which begins with the dancers seated in a curved row (‘otu haka), from which one or more female dancers stand and perform (ula).
A contemporary group dance is ma‘ulu‘ulu, which often draws its participants from a school or church. The poetry is conveyed visually by one set of arm movements, although the performers may be all female, all male or both: seated in curved lines (the second and consecutive lines may be raised by kneeling, standing, or being elevated on benches), the number of participants range from 10 to 500 individuals. A female standing dance, tau‘olunga, is based on hand/arm movements similar to those above but with a wider variety of lower-body movement motifs; it is sung to hiva kakala, sweet songs, and accompanied by string bands. The melodic line and harmony are more Western but unmistakably Tongan. The movements may be pre-set or spontaneous, performed as a solo or by a small group. These principal dancers may be accompanied by one or more secondary dancers (male or female) who spontaneously join in with virile movements to emphasize the graceful movements of the women.
Samoan dance is in many ways similar to Tongan, but no comprehensive study has yet been published. Most dances are performed by groups, and some, such as ma‘ulu‘ulu, interpret poetry. Sasa, a formal group dance accompanied only by percussion instruments (now often including an empty five-gallon paraffin can), is a sitting dance with intricate, precise arm movements. Other Samoan dances include the men's slap dance, fa‘ataupati, and the siva, both performed standing. The last siva of a programme is taualuga, a dance with no set choreography performed by the taupou (chief's daughter). She is usually joined by one or more talking chiefs, whose antics emphasize the grace of her movements.
Society Islands dance is known for its extremely fast hip movements. As in other Polynesian dances, however, the hand movements are the most important and interpret poetry. In ‘aparima, group dances performed standing or sitting by men and women, the hands are used to illustrate texts, which nowadays are chiefly concerned with love or descriptions of local topography. Fast hip movements are characteristic of both ‘ōte‘a (choreographed group dances) and tāmūrē (spontaneous male-female duets). ‘Ōte‘a and tāmūrē do not interpret poetry and probably evolved in post-European times from the rapid dance endings that astonished early European explorers. In pre-missionary times groups of professional travelling entertainers called Arioi expressed social comment through danced dramas; chiefs and priests were satirized with impunity during the performances in an effort to improve social conditions. Because of their compulsory infanticide and uninhibited sexual practices, the Arioi were entirely suppressed by missionaries; since then dance has become a medium for entertainment and competition. The Heiva, held in July, is now the most important dance occasion each year throughout French Polynesia. Dance troupes from the Cook, Austral, Tuamotu, Marquesas and Society Islands travel to Tahiti to present well-rehearsed dances in order to compete and to learn from each other.
Dance of the New Zealand Maori includes several types, haka, wāita-a-ringa and poi. Haka (see fig. 2) is usually described as ‘posture dance’ and includes dances used to welcome visitors, dances for amusement and war dances, properly called peruperu and performed with weapons. Haka are performed by men or women or both; members of either sex can lead the dance. Haka are usually energetic, with foot-stamping and decisive arm movements which lack the graceful wrist flexion of most Polynesian dances. Often a haka ends with a violent movement and out-thrust tongue. In poi dances one, two or occasionally three or four soft balls, attached to strings of different lengths, are swung in intricate patterns by the dancers, who are usually women. Wāiata-a-ringa ‘action songs’ are now the most common dance form: these incorporate ideas and movements of the older dance forms but have more graceful hand movements, less violent leg movements and Westernized music.
Hawaiian dance, ‘hula’, differs from other Polynesian dances in several ways. In many hula the performer is dancer, singer and musician simultaneously, accompanying himself or herself with percussive instruments such as gourd rattles, slit bamboos, stone clappers and rhythm sticks. Hawaiian movements are more narrative and interpretative: for instance, the hands are shaped to look like flowers, or the arms are moved in the manner of a bird in flight. Hip movements are more graceful and undulating, and steps are more varied. In pre-missionary times professional hula troupes were part of the courtly retinues of chiefs and were trained in specially built structures called halau by a hula master who was also a priest of the gods of the hula. The traditional dances were suppressed by Christian missionaries but revived in the court of King Kalākaua (1874–91) and are now often performed in their 19th-century versions (see fig.3). Modern Hawaiian dances differ from the older forms in music, movement and function. Traditionally hula honoured gods and chiefs, telling their genealogies and comparing them with the beauties of nature. Modern hula are often about love and local attractions, and many use English texts and Westernized music. Throughout Polynesia, especially since the 1960s, new dances and additional categories have been introduced and are used for local, regional and international festivals and competitions. Traditional dances are usually performed in conjunction with traditional musical instruments and less melodic vocal contours, while contemporary dances are performed with introduced musical instruments and Western harmony.
Polynesia, §II: Eastern Polynesia
The Cook Islands comprise 15 widely scattered islands lying between 8° and 23° S and 156° and 167° W, with a total land area of 241 km2 and a total population of 20,000; the islands fall naturally into two groups, the northern and the southern. They are a self-governing protectorate of New Zealand; the administrative centre and seat of government is the island of Rarotonga. The people speak both Cook Islands Maori and English.
Polynesia, §II, 1: Eastern Polynesia: Cook Islands
Pukapuka (also known as Danger Island) is an atoll in the northern group, located approximately 1150 km north-west of Rarotonga and distinctive within the Cook Islands. Its prehistoric cultural and linguistic links were predominantly with islands to the west, but eastern influences were also sustained. Indigenous musical forms, terms and instruments are therefore transitional, bearing similarities to those of both east and west. In contrast, acculturated and borrowed forms and styles of music and dance derive from the southern Cooks and further east. Hence most cultural forms current in the southern group (e.g. ūtē, kaparima) are known and composed by Pukapukans, but are generally only performed in interaction with other Cook Islanders.
From 1857, native missionaries principally from Rarotonga taught literacy with the Rarotongan Bible and hymnal, bypassing the vernacular. All hymns published in the hymnals are known as īmene tapu (‘sacred hymns’) and most can be sung in different styles. The reo metua style (‘tune of the fathers’) covers the earliest hymns with their organum-like parallel movement in 4ths and 5ths, as well as the later responsorial, more contrapuntal style that bears a degree of similarity to the īmene tuki (‘grunted hymns’) genre. The category entitled īmene āpi‘i Sāpati (‘Sunday School hymns’) refers to the European tunes from the Sankey hymnal as they were learnt in the mid-20th century. The other hymn genre īmene tuki is highly popular and not dissimilar to elsewhere: texts are drawn from scripture or are freely composed, varying according to the occasion, whether religious or secular. The inclusion of phrases in Pukapukan or English is favoured, to the extent that many recent īmene have been composed entirely in the vernacular. The Pukapukan form has only two basic parts: women's, tumu, and men's, malū, with optional, improvised decoration in the tenor or soprano range called pelepele. Pitching is often rather high and cannot be sustained. This trait is said to have been brought from Penrhyn in the 1960s, resuilting in pitch instability and a much more piercing, strident tone than in earlier times.
The polyphonic pātautau, a heterogeneous, acculturated style used in sports celebrations and originally derived from the Society Islands pāta‘uta‘u, has developed a unique identity on Pukapuka for over a century. Several short, repeated sections occur in a variety of styles: simplified chant, rhythmic speech, harmonic procedure in 3rds or 6ths, or antiphonal interplay between men and women similar to īmene tuki. All pātautau invariably end with a modern song suitable for dancing and a rhythmic coda repeated successively faster, climaxing with an abrupt halt.
Traditional chants are collectively termed mako (glossed as a ‘type of dance’ throughout western Polynesia), and sub-genres are descriptive of their function. Tila (wrestling chants, named after the mast, the tila, of a canoe) are short, recited chants with a wide intonational range; a triple metre is underscored by hand-clapping, and word rhythms and accentuation are often syncopated, working counter to the metre. The tempo increases markedly on successive repeats as performers dance appropriate actions.
The term mako is now resticted to several sub-genres of long, flowing poems performed in an intoned, essentially monotonic style (the occurrence of an auxiliary tone a minor 3rd below the tonic is entirely predictable according to vowel quality and distribution). Interplay between linguisic features such as vowel assimilation, word stress and vowel length with the elements of music structure is exceedingly complex. Basic metrical organization is according to uniform line lengths of multiples of six morae (12 or 18 vowel counts per line). Other patterns are possible, such as when the tānga, the normative chanting style, changes to ‘dragging style’ (patterning in groups of eight morae with the penultimate vowel prolonged), or when triple metre signals the approaching end of the chant. Fishing chants (lalau) were the principal chants performed corporately by the paternal lineages (and later, the villages), typically to celebrate victory in a fishing contest. Other group chants were composed for individuals: kupu (love chant), pinga (love chant taught in a dream by a deceased partner), tangitangi (boasting chant) and tangi (lament). By 1990 the three villages could perform less than half the 150 mako and tila still known, and the art of composition is virtually lost. However, since 1980 new chants have been composed for special occasions on Pukapuka and in Auckland.
In ancient times dancing was usually an accompaniment to chant, with performers usually arranged in several ranks. Drumming rhythms typically underscored the rhythm of the chant, and this textual basis remains the common compositional device in modern drumming. Ula pau, the modern drum dance formed in sets of double columns, is probably modelled on military parade formation (the main dance is termed vāeau, ‘army’), although commentators believe it derives from Tahiti. The four movements typically contain novel rearrangements of dance routines from the traditional repertory. Innovations are highly valued, and most styles of modern dance have at some time been incorporated within the Pukapukan form.
Indigenous names of instruments and their means of manufacture have gradually been superseded by those from the southern Cooks: so pātē and tōkere replace nawa and kolilo (originally from Manihiki) for wooden slit-drums, while the goatskin drum (tangipalau) and the modern bass drum (pau) have displaced the sharkskin drum (payu). An essential addition to the modern drumming ensemble is the tini, an empty kerosene can. The conch-shell trumpet (pū) was used formerly for signalling and perhaps as an additional sound in festive dancing. Popular songs, īmene lōpā (songs of the youth) are accompanied by a string band comprising ukelele and guitar, often supplemented by a slit-drum or bass drum.
Lying only 42 km apart and formerly occupied alternately for reasons of food conservation, Manihiki and Rakahanga have virtually identical musical cultures. Both are noted within the Cook Islands for the distinctive sound of their drumming to accompany ura pau dances: the slit-drums are tuned higher and may be more numerous than elsewhere. At the annual Constitution Day celebrations in Rarotonga, the principal national performing arts festival, the islands are notable for their artistic innovation. Recent examples of this creativity have included departure from the one man–one drum rule and the creation of a rack of three drums beaten by a single man. Indeed, some Manihiki residents claim that the present-day drum dance itself is a Manihiki creation dating to the 1940s.
Both sacred and secular hīmene (hymns, see Hīmeni) feature a polyphonic combination of solo and group voice parts, the former exercising limited melodic, rhythmic and textual independence, the latter following set lines. The staccato performance of he vocables by soloists among hīmene singers, known as fatifati (‘breaking up‘), is integral to aesthetic satisfaction. In contrast to the practice on Rakahanga and Penrhyn, Manihiki perepere (solo singers) take pride in reaching high notes using chest register without devices to shut out the resultant physical discomfort. During performance, many singers shut their eyes and slowly rock back and forth or from side to side in a non-coordinated manner. During secular performances (e.g. of ute topical songs or hīmene tuki) singers may feel emotionally moved to wave their hands slowly over their heads or get to their feet and briefly dance on the spot.
Competitive music performances on Manihiki, either among the internal divisions of Tauhunu village or between Tauhunu and Tükao villages, use both sacred and secular material. Uapou meetings at the respective Cook Islands' church premises pitted division against division in singing hīmene tapu hymns, and formerly were followed by competitive singing of secular hīmene tuki outdoors. More formal competitions using ute topical, often satirical songs and kaparima dances were also common in recent years. Patahutahu solo dances featuring improvised movements in time to multiple repetitions of short texts sung in unison are less common than formerly.
Events of significance within the village or island – the opening of the airport near Tukao, completion of renovation of the mission house in Tauhunu – are recognized and enhanced by the creation of new drum dances called hupahupa. Kaparima action songs, in which dancers sit or stand to perform synchronized movements in time to Europeanized vocal music together with guitars and ukuleles, are standard items in concert programmes.
Conch trumpets are common for signalling specific village events such as working bees and the evening prayer time, and children occasionally make leaf oboes and jew's harps as sound-producing toys. A single slit-drum struck by a boy walking through the village announces a special school or church event.
The northernmost island in the Cook Islands, Penrhyn, or Tongareva, contains two villages, Omoka and Te Tautua, on opposite sides of its large atoll. The high cost of boat travel to neighbouring islands and especially to Rarotonga has resulted in relative stability of population.
In common with other Cook Islands, sacred and secular forms of hīmene are in frequent use. Secular hīmene taranga feature subject-matter from the historical or legendary past, and hīmene tapu or hīmene tuki treat biblical episodes in either paraphrased form or direct quotation. The regular uapou religious discussions held in the minister's house divide the congregation in two, each group in turn boosting its leader's speeches with a hīmene. Tamau (alto) and marū (bass) group parts are taught and fixed in content, in contrast to perepere soloists singing in soprano and tenor ranges, who are allowed melodic, rhythmic and textual freedom, and whose parts are not taught. Individual compositions contain one or two female and male solo parts whose vocal lines consist of extended melismas and rapid staccato utterances on the syllable hē, a phenomenon called hatihati (‘breaking into pieces’). Individual singers tend to favour a limited number of such devices, as shown in ex.1.
Performance of hatihati expresses an aesthetic preference, rendering the song ‘sweet’ (reka). Female solo singers maintain a chest register for even their highest notes, the physical discomfort eased somewhat by pressing a fist or hymnbook against the temple as they sing; the resultant strident sound is typical of the song genre.
Extended contact with Tahitian pearl divers working the atoll's lagoon in the 19th century and relatively close proximity to Tahiti itself resulted in the addition of new ute topical songs to the local repertory. Their eight-beat couplets and vigorous male grunting, sometimes in two interlocking parts, are identical to those elsewhere in the region. Mutual formal and informal visits with Tahiti have been maintained, and several Penrhyn residents have one Tahitian parent.
Now rare and bereft from its former (and apparently unknown) use context, the kapa chant is performed by a mixed group using rhythmic unison, strong accentuation and coordinated shifts of overall pitch. The language of the texts is not fully understood by modern performers, who may add spontaneous arm gestures while chanting. Several children's games incorporate rhythmic recitations called pese, a term also connoting recited poems of ancient origin, now rarely performed.
Within the term tarekareka (entertainment) falls kosake (dance), of which three genres are distinguished: the taki drum dance, kaparima action song and patahutahu solo dance, the last two tending to have Europeanized songs of local and recent composition.
Apart from wooden idiophones and membranophones of the ensemble accompanying the drum dance, and the Jew's harp and leaf oboes that are children's sound-producing toys, there are relatively few musical instruments. Conch trumpets for signalling are now rarely used.
Polynesia, §II, 1: Eastern Polynesia: Cook Islands
The present discussion relates primarily to traditional music of Aitutaki and Mangaia (McLean, 1967), after Rarotonga the most populous of the southern Cook Islands. More recent studies include Laird (1982) on drumming and Little (1989, 1990) on the music of Atiu, Mauke and Mitiaro, known collectively as Nga Pu Toru.
There are at least 40 named song types in the southern Cook Islands. Some are purely vocal, others accompany dance; some are Tahitian importations, others are clearly indigenous; some are peculiar to particular islands and others are more widespread. Only the more common song types are discussed here.
Introduced song types include the hīmene and the ‘ūtē. The term hīmene is a transliteration of the English word ‘hymn’. However, as a verb the word can mean simply ‘to sing’, and hence there are both sacred and secular hīmene. Those of the secular variety include hīmene aka‘eva‘eva (‘laments’) and hīmene tārekareka (‘songs for pleasure’). By far the most common, however, are church hymns, sung in parts. These are known collectively as hīmene tapu (‘sacred hymns’). On the island of Aitutaki there are two styles of polyphonic hīmene tapu: those whose texts are in the hymnbook of the local Cook Islands Christian church, and those that are settings of biblical texts. The latter, which are distinguished by rhythmic grunting in unison from the men, are called hīmene tuki. The grunting (tuki) is performed as an integral part of the composition, ‘to decorate the hymn’.
Hīmene singing was almost certainly introduced into Aitutaki in 1821, by two Tahitian pastors who were taken to the island by the missionary John Williams and left there to introduce Christianity. The style has developed continuously, and new hīmene are constantly being composed. On Aitutaki, composers from each of the seven main villages are required to compose two new hīmene – one hīmene tuki and one with a hymnbook text – twice a year, for Christmas and for the New Year. These new hymns are first performed at combined services in the church at Arutanga. The best-liked of the hīmene tuki may remain in the repertory for 30 years or more, though this is exceptional: more usually, only the latest ones are still sung, because the leading women for the earlier ones have died. There are up to six, or sometimes seven named parts in hīmene tuki. Two are main parts, sung by groups of women and men respectively. Superimposed upon the main women's part are two upper solo women's parts, and one or two upper solo men's parts are added to the main men's part and the bass grunting (tuki). Typically the women sing at the top of their range, as loudly as possible.
Similar styles of hymn singing occur on the other islands of the Cook group with different names, and the names for the voice-parts also differ from island to island. On Mangaia, the men’s grunting is called engu; the hīmene tuki song type is thus called hīmene engu. The hymnbook hymns on Mangaia are called hīmene Āreti, after a missionary named Harris (Āreti), who is credited with introducing the style.
The ‘ūtē style was introduced to the Cook Islands from Tahiti. In the 1820s Ellis complained of Tahitian ‘ūtē that ‘they were, with few exceptions, either idolatrous or impure, and were consequently abandoned when the people renounced their pagan worship’. Unknown to Ellis, however, the ‘ūtē, far from being abandoned, had merely been driven underground. The style subsequently spread not only to the Cook Islands, but also throughout French Polynesia. Many ‘ūtē still contain Tahitian words. Although Ellis described them as ‘historical ballads’, they are now mostly love songs and topical songs. They are sung in parts and with grunting like hīmene tuki, though in a different style. Unlike hīmene, ‘ūtē are sometimes accompanied by guitars, ukuleles, mouth organs or accordions.
Indigenous song types include the pe‘e, amu and karakia. Pe‘e songs are found on all the islands of the southern Cooks as well as on Penrhyn, in the northern group, where they are called pese. The latter cognate form of the word also occurs in Samoa, where it means simply ‘song’, as seems to have been the case in Tahiti, where the term was pehe. In Mangaia, similarly, the word seems to be a generic term for song, since love songs, welcome songs and hauling songs are all called pe‘e. More usually, however, pe‘e are historical songs commemorating particular events or the brave deeds of an ancestor; they were formerly used in oratory to demonstrate the knowledge and ability of the orator. They are now almost invariably associated with legends or other oral traditions and are performed as an integral part of story-telling. Although pe‘e can be sung, most types, particularly in Aitutaki, are recited in ‘speech-song’ style.
In Rarotonga, amu are praise songs that tell the life story or deeds of celebrated chiefs or warriors. On Atiu, they likewise describe ‘brave deeds’ or ‘a love of affection’, or alternatively may be songs of ‘a joyous nature, as in canoe hauling’. On Aitutaki, as in Atiu, there are two varieties of amu, both of which are said to be sung in unison (although the few recorded by the writer were in parts). The first are songs of praise or farewell for the dead, intended for performance in the presence of the dead body. They are accompanied by wailing and are sung not at the funeral service but immediately after death by women mourners and relatives of the deceased, gathered round the body. All songs of this type are said to have been composed by women, and they are sung mostly by women, although sometimes old men will join in. The other kind of amu was sung while hauling logs or pulling up boats, to encourage the men. In Mangaia, the term amu does not appear to be used, but songs for lifting heavy loads – the equivalent of the second variety of amu in Atiu and Aitutaki – are called tauamu.
Karakia are incantations or invocations. They are found throughout the southern Cook group. According to Buck, the Mangaian variety formed part of the stock-in-trade of priests, and the set words were valuable intangible property. They are performed solo, by men, in recited style.
There are some song types specific to Mangaia, of particular interest because of changes that have taken place in them since missionary activity began. The missionary William Gill wrote at length in 1875 of ceremonies called tara kakai (‘death talks’). These took place at night in large, specially constructed houses lit with candlenut torches. Each male relative of the deceased had to lead a unison unaccompanied tangi (‘crying song’); these songs alternated with tiau, songs accompanied by the ka‘ara (slit-drum). Besides the ‘death talks’, funeral games called ‘eva (‘dirge proper’) were performed. Unlike the ‘death talks’, these took place by day. Four varieties were listed by Gill: ‘eva tapara (‘funeral dirge’), ‘eva puruki (‘war dirge’), ‘eva toki (‘axe dirge’), and ‘eva ta (‘crashing dirge’). All except the first were performed with weapons, presumably by men. In 1967 – less than 100 years later – no-one could be found on Mangaia who had ever heard of a tara kakai, tangi, or Gill’s four varieties of ‘dirge proper’. The term ‘eva, however, is still extant as a type of song performed exclusively by men, concerned with such topics as battles or the honouring of a warrior.
Complementary to the ‘eva is another song type, not mentioned by Gill at all, called mire, which was formerly sung only by women. Women still lead the song, but men may now take part. According to some informants, ‘eva and mire are sung on special occasions to entertain important people visiting the island, unlike pe‘e, which can be performed at any time. Both ‘eva and mire are recited song types performed in unison by groups of singers; they may be accompanied by actions; many of the mire recorded by the writer were accompanied by vigorous hand-clapping.
The only instruments still important are those used in ensemble to accompany the exciting and visually spectacular ‘ura pa‘u (drum dance). Both the dance and the pakau tārekareka, its accompanying percussion ensemble, are similar to those of the somewhat better-known Tahitian ‘ōte‘a. The instruments of the ensemble include several slit-drums (pātē on Rarotonga; tōkere (fig.4) on Aitutaki; ōve on Mangaia and Atui), which are also used singly for signalling; pa‘u and pa‘u mango (large double- and small single-sided drums respectively with shark- or goatskin heads); and the tini (paraffin tin), now often replaced by a small slit-drum of high pitch known as the tini-tōkere. Larger slit-drums, called ka‘ara, played with two sticks instead of one to produce three notes instead of the two of the tōkere, are attested for Aitutaki, Mangaia and Rarotonga but had become obsolete as a traditional instrument by the late 1960s, surviving only as tūpāpaku (‘ghost voices’) of the olden days, which are said to be heard in the bush when a chief is going to die. The ka‘ara was revived in the 1070s by the Cook Islands National Arts Theatre dance company, but without the older instrument's three-pitch capacity. Bamboo flutes, apparently mouth-blown, were used as toys by children in the early 20th century, as were coconut-leaf whizzers, leaf oboes and bamboo jew's harps. According to Buck, another toy used was the bullroarer. The pū (shell trumpet), usually end-blown though sometimes side-blown, was formerly used as a signal to assemble the people or as a warning for warriors to mobilize. On Mangaia, the sound of the pū was the voice of the god Rongo, calling the people to rituals associated with his service. It is now more prosaically used by the baker, to signal when bread is ready.
Action songs with guitar or ukulele accompaniment and European-style melodies, similar to those of the New Zealand Maori, are called kaparima (cognate with the Tahitian ‘aparima). They are performed by teams of dancers at events such as Constitution Celebrations, at hotels and other venues, where they generally alternate with drum dances together with traditional items such as ‘ūtē and dramatized legends in which pe‘e or hīmene tuki may be incorporated.
Polynesia, §II: Eastern Polynesia
Easter Island (Rapanui), lying at 27° 20'S and 109° 30'W, is the furthest east of the Polynesian Islands. Of the total population of 2770 (1992 census), approximately 1800 are pure Rapanui, the others being of mixed ancestry or from Chile. According to a tradition still celebrated in song, the ancestral settlers arrived from the west in two canoes. An impressive Polynesian culture flourished before the arrival of the first Europeans on Easter Sunday, 1722. Ceremonial dances performed at the ahu (sacred places at the site of the famous huge stone images) were a form of worship. Ancient stories, incised in script or glyphs on kohau rongorongo (wooden tablets), were chanted by traditional specialists at the rites of the bird-man cult and other ceremonies, and are still chanted by some elderly people. Some examples still known include the creation myth, stories about ancestors, the bird and yam legend, laments and work chants.
Catholic missionaries from Tahiti arrived in 1864, bringing a style of chant that was adopted by the islanders. But the death of the traditional priests and most of the population through a smallpox epidemic and ‘blackbirding’ (the forced recruitment of Pacific Islanders for labour) resulted in the loss of much pre-contact culture by the 1870s. Secular genres from other Polynesian cultures (mostly Tahitian) were absorbed from 1914 onwards, and Latin American and international popular styles from 1954 (e.g. the Mexican corrido, the Argentine tango, the waltz, foxtrot etc.). In that year a regular ship service was established with Chile, which had annexed the island in 1888. The demands of tourism strongly influenced musical activity after an airport was opened in 1967. In the 1970s, when large numbers of Chileans and tourists began to visit the island, the conjuntos (popular island groups), which had been performing (usually outdoors) occasionally for islanders, developed smaller performing groups to provide regularly scheduled indoor evening entertainment. These groups perform music and dance, both traditional (some including demonstrations of string games) and contemporary, which incorporates other Polynesian and some Latin American elements (e.g. guitar styles). Chilean poular music is broadcast on government radio stations, and disco is popular among young islanders. Contemporary Tahitian music, readily available on cassette recordings, is the most popular ‘foreign’ music on Easter Island. Rapanui composers incorporate some stylistic features of popular Tahitian musics and, less extensively, of American country and western and rock, and Chilean popular songs. Some youth groups use the ‘Spanish guitar’. There was a great resurgence of interest in learning and performing traditional songs and dance in the late 1990s.
Both traditional and modern music are predominantly vocal. To the pre-missionary period, Campbell ascribed akuaku (chants devoted to spirits), riu (laments recounting past events) and riu-tangi (funeral chants), ‘atē (praise chants addressed to humans and things, with musical patterns similar to those of riu), ‘utē (short songs with fixed forms), kaikai (recitations for string games, some being pāta‘uta‘u recitations (see below) of texts from the rongorongo tablets), and ēi (provocative or insulting songs, consisting of improvised satirical couplets, which could lead to fights or even tribal war if the satirized person took offence). To the period from 1864 to 1914 he ascribed evolved types of riu, kaikai and ēi in addition to hakakio (chants expressing gratitude at feasts), hāipoipo (wedding chants of Tahitian origin), and hīmene (hymns). Riu, the broadest category, embraces some types (e.g. surfing chants) that have been classified separately by other authors. Early riu were historical accounts of local kings or wars, remembrance of ancestors or expressions of mythical beliefs about tangata manu (‘bird men’). Evolved riu concern more recent historical events.
Extant ‘atē, considered by Campbell to be at least 200 years old, are rhythmically free and have wide ranges of pitch. Pāta‘uta‘u are free rhythmic recitations without precise pitch. Musical styles within riu and other traditional song types vary because in many instances the music now sung is more recent in origin than the text. Tahitian hīmene style (see §3 below) and other two- and three-part singing styles are found (in bourdon, organum, free counterpoint and homophonic harmony).
Dancing or body movements, such as the gentle swaying of torso and arms in hīmene, accompanies most singing. Clapping, striking hands on the ground and non-musical vocal sounds are common types of accompaniment. The instrumental inventory is small. The keho (a stone plate over a gourd resonator in a pit in the ground) was stamped rhythmically to accompany singing and dancing. A shell (trumpet) was listed by one early writer. The kauaha from South America (a jawbone of a horse used as a rattle) and guitars and drums said to have come from Tahiti are now considered traditional accompaniment to light songs and dances. Other adopted instruments include a cane flute, button accordion and ukelele (ukulele).
Polynesia, §II: Eastern Polynesia
The area of south-eastern Polynesia that comprises the political entity of French Polynesia embraces five archipelagos: the Society Islands (eight inhabited high volcanic islands), of which Tahiti is the largest and best known; the Austral Islands (five volcanic islands) to the south-west; the Marquesas Islands (12 high volcanic islands) to the north-east; and the Tuamotu archipelago (76 coral atolls) and Gambier Islands (eight high volcanic islands within one fringing reef) to the east and south-east. The region was first populated by seafaring peoples who migrated from western Polynesia (Tonga or Samoa) around 100 to 300 ce, first settling in the Marquesas and Society Islands. Further dispersal from this centre resulted in the settling of the Austral, Tuamoto and Gambier Islands.
A high level of mutual intelligibility persists among the distinct languages that had emerged by the time of European exploration in the Pacific. Yet different experiences of missionization and colonization in each area have had an impact on the subsequent development of autochthonous performance traditions. Complicating this situation is the hegemony of Tahitian language and performance traditions that has extended to all areas throughout the territorial area since 1880.
Polynesia, §II, 3: Eastern Polynesia: French Polynesia
The name of the principal island, Tahiti, is frequently applied to all the Society Islands and occasionally to all of French Polynesia. Lying between 15° 48' and 17° 53' S and 148° 05' and 154° 43' W, the Society Islands are further subdivided into a south-east Windward group (Tahiti, Moorea, Maiao) and a north-west Leeward group (Huahine, Ra‘iatea, Taha‘a, Bora Bora and Maupiti), a division reflected in choral singing practices.
Tahiti was the first of the Pacific Islands to attract widespread interest in Europe. First visited by the English navigator Samuel Wallis in 1767, Tahiti was named New Cythera by the French navigator Bougainville, who visited in 1768. Bougainville took a native named Aoutouru (Auturu) to France, where he fascinated many leaders of the Romantic movement, to whom he exemplified a ‘noble savage’ from an island paradise. In 1774 the English navigator James Cook took another native named Omai from the island of Huahine to England, where he became the subject of O'Keefe's popular musical of 1785, Omai; or a Trip round the World, with music by William Shield.
Musical practices prior to conversion to Christianity can be generalized from descriptions in accounts by voyagers. Drumming on various sized drums called pahu and chanted recitation of prayers were integral components of elaborate state rituals held on marae, outdoor temple platforms (fig.5). In public settings, formal entertainments called Heiva were presented by professional travelling musicians and actors who were initiated members of the Arioi society, a cult dedicated to the god ‘Oro; their entertainments included singing, dancing and dramatic enactments. In private settings, recreational participatory singing was accompanied by nose flutes and occasionally small drums.
The commencement of Christian evangelization in 1797 by members of the newly formed, non-denominational London Missionary Society, and the conversion of Tahiti by 1815, marked a turning point in Pacific history. Missions from Tahiti were launched into other areas of Polynesia, which in turn initiated subsequent missions elsewhere in the Pacific. The use of native catechists facilitated the dissemination of vernacular languages and musical practices, thus extending the sphere of Tahitian influence within Protestant areas. The English missionaries introduced British hymn and psalm tunes. By the late 19th century, the emergence of three indigenized genres of choral singing reflected a confluence of Western harmonization and an indigenous framework for vocal parts.
Missionary-instigated censure of ‘pagan practices’ failed to uproot indigenous performance traditions, for surreptitious performances of dance are described in travel accounts throughout the 1830s. By the early 1850s, the French colonial administration (established in 1842) openly encouraged the revival of dance performances. The most important development for stimulating Tahitian performance traditions was the 1881 inauguration of the Fête National, commemorating the 14 July 1789 storming of the Bastille; it was renamed Heiva in 1985 on the establishment of internal autonomy. The annual July revels, popularly called Tiurai, have included folkloric competitions of Tahitian choral singing since 1881; Tahitian dance was added to the competitions in 1892. Professional Tahitian dance troupes also perform in hotels and restaurants, especially since the rise of mass tourism in the 1960s. Their shows are often scaled-down versions of their elaborate spectacles first unveiled in the Heiva competitions.
The rise of wage labour and corresponding acceleration of a cash economy in the 20th century instigated mass migrations of islanders to the capital town of Pape'ete and the immediate neighbouring districts. Enclaves of islanders live alongside urban ‘demis’ (of mixed Tahitian and French descent), French and Chinese residents. In the 1990s, Chinese residents, largely descendants of plantation labourers imported in the 1860s and 1870s, used Chinese music and dance as part of their assertion of Chinese identity.
Performance traditions in the late 20th century included choral singing, dance drumming, string-band accompanied dance songs, and popular songs. Choral singing, performed a cappella, is called hīmene (see Hīmeni). Originally applied to Christian hymn singing, the term was extended to choral singing in secular civic contexts. Tahitians distinguish five genres according to musical criteria; additional terms distinguish categories of choral singing differentiated by criteria other than musical ones (e.g. age-group of singers, whether or not a hymn originates in a printed hymnal, when instrumental accompaniment is added etc.).
Hīmene puta are Western hymn tunes performed in chordal note-against-note style; this style is applied to vernacular-language hymn texts in printed hymnals called puta, which are largely translated from British and American sources. Hīmene nota are arrangements performed from notated scores with new Tahitian-language texts; generally in four parts, these arrangements depart from the chordal style with techniques such as antiphonal alternation and textural variation among sections.
The indigenized choral styles, hīmene rū‘au, hīmene tārava and hīmene tuki, emerged by the late 19th century in the context of Protestant worship and devotion exercises. Hīmene rū‘au (‘old hymn’) manifests an ‘old way of singing’ owing to the association of the musical style with Protestant hymn texts that predate 1880. This orally transmitted singing style combines stereotyped melodic motion and formulaic cadential patterns among basically three vocal parts. Hīmene tārava (‘hymns that lie horizontally’) are performed in a stanzaic multipart style in which named vocal parts are either fully texted, rhythmically punctuative or melodically decorative. Western harmonization (but not functional harmonic progressions) results from the combination of vocal parts. The specific musical content and names of vocal parts, which range in number from five to thirteen, differentiate three broad regional styles practised in the Windward, Leeward and Austral Islands. In performance, one woman called fa‘aaraara (‘to awaken’) begins a stanza; others in the chorus join in by ‘catching’ (haru) her melodic line; rhyhthmic punctation consists of a grunting (hā‘ūr) performed by men seated at the rear of the group; melodic decoration by one or more soloists called perepere (‘to soar’) consists of contrasting high-pitched lines using vocables; at the end of a stanza, all parts converge and hold on a unison tonic. Stanzas may be repeated at will. This singing style originated at Bible-study meetings, where repetition of biblical passages or paraphrases within the hīmene tārava framework served didactic purposes. Hīmene tuki is the Tahitian name for the counterpart to hīmene tārava as performed in the Cook Islands to the west. Sung using Rarotongan-language texts, its name derives from the Rarotongan term for the men's grunting.
All indigenized choral styles are performed in the annual Heiva competitions. The subject-matter of specially composed poetic texts called paripari fenua (‘to glorify the land’) relate indigenous legendary and historical episodes.
Dance presentations in the Heiva competition include group dances in four genres, all accompanied by a drum ensemble. The discrete pieces that accompany discrete dance pieces are called pehe song. In ‘ōte‘a, a group dance of varying formations in rows and columns by male and female dancers, the accompanying pehe are solely percussive, made up of repeated 8- or 16-beat rhythmic patterns. In the pā‘ō‘ā, a male solo chanter declaims a poetic text, which is frequently comical; sections are concluded by a chanted response declaimed by dancers seated in a circle on the ground. The drum ensemble, situated in the centre of the circle, maintains a steady rhythmic pulse, enhanced by the dancers who slap their thighs and the ground. Male–female couples of dancers take turns performing inside the circle. In the hivinau, dancers are lined in two concentric circles, moving in opposite directions. A chanted poetic text by a male solo chanter alternates with emphatic vocable syllables chanted by the dancers; the soloist and the drumming ensemble are at the centre of the circles. The ‘aparima is an interpretive dance performed to a poetic text sung en masse by singers and drummers, the latter also providing accompaniment on guitars and ukuleles. ‘Aparima usually conclude a dance programme and are performed in costumes of gaily coloured printed fabric rather than the grass skirts used in the other three dance genres.
Also included in dance presentations are ‘ūtē, satirical songs performed by one or two soloists and accompanied by guitarists and ukulele players who also provide a vocable-based melodic accompaniment. The customary melodic contour descends from the upper leading tone to the tonic below over the course of a text line; the harmonic accompaniment alternates between the dominant and tonic harmonies.
Contemporary Tahitian-language popular songs dominate radio broadcasts and a thriving commercial recording industry, as well as entertainment in hotel and waterfront bars. In addition to the songs performed to accompaniment of ukulele-based string bands, contemporary recording artists also draw on international styles, including Jamaican-inspired reggae (largely by way of Honolulu-based Hawaiian reggae) and African-American rap music.
The Tahitian drum ensemble consists of three basic types of drum: a slit-log drum called tō‘ere, held upright on the ground and beaten with a stick, which provides the main rhythmic pattern (fig.6); a single-headed upright drum called fa‘atete, played with two sticks, which provides a counterpoint to the tō‘ere; a single-headed drum called pahu tupa‘i rima, beaten with fingers or palms; and a double-headed bass drum called tariparau, which marks a basic pulse. Drum ensembles include multiple tō‘ere of various sizes and thus contrasting pitches. The lead tō‘ere player begins with a pehe with a solo rendition of the basic rhythmic pattern, after which the rest of the ensemble enters. Since the 1970s, Tahitian drum ensembles have included a Cook Island style of playing small-sized tō‘ere horizontally using two sticks. The use of a five-gallon kerosene or biscuit can called tini in early decades of the 20th century is now discontinued. An instrument called ihara described by European visitors before 1800, consisting of a length of bamboo bounded by two nodes with a slit running parallel to the length and beaten with sticks, was revived in the late 1980s.
Guitars and ukuleles (Tahitianized as ‘uturere) are used to accompany the Western melodies of ‘aparima and ‘ūtē; in the early decades of the 20th century the accordion was also popular. Travellers described the use of the vivo nose flute, which was revived along with the bamboo titapu flute in the 1980s. The pre-Christian signalling function of conch-shell trumpets called pū have been maintained in contemporary presentations of Tahitian dance (fig.7).
Polynesia, §II, 3: Eastern Polynesia: French Polynesia
The five inhabited volcanic islands south-west of Tahiti stretch over 1450 km; at 27° S and 140° 20' W, the southermost island of Rapa lies well outside of the tropics. Very little is known about performance traditions in the pre-European era. Few explorers called at any of the islands, and few artefacts from the islands made their way into museum collections, save for several elaborately carved tall drums associated with indigenous religious practices, which are occasionally found mainly in Europe. The continuing isolation of the islands stems from difficult anchorages and a lack of natural and recreational resources, deterrents to the streams of European, and later American traders and tourists, who have called instead at Tahiti.
The Austral Islands were evangelized by native Tahitian catechists in the 1820s, since which time the archipelago has remained staunchly Protestant. The exception is the island of Tubuai, which hosts a mélange of Christian denominations. All Protestant Church affairs are conducted in the Tahitian language, although each of the islands maintains a separate dialect. The Austral Islands were formally brought under French colonial control when the territory was established in 1880. Tahitian-language performance traditions have eclipsed any autochthonous traditions that may have predated conversion to Christianity.
In the 1990s, performance traditions in the Austral Islands were generally those choral-singing and dance genres found throughout the Society Islands, albeit with local variations in performance styles. In choral hīmene tārava singing, each of the five Austral Islands maintains a distinct style (although all are considered outside the region to be variations on one broad regional style, to the displeasure of Austral Islands residents). On the island of Tubuai, the choral singing resembles that found on the island of Tahiti, with eight vocal parts. The islands of Rimatara and Rurutu have ten and twelve vocal parts respectively; their high-pitched soloist parts, as well as pronunciation variations owing to dialect differences, clearly distinguish their choral style from those in the Society Islands. Choral singing in the southern islands of Ra‘ivavae and Rapa have 11 and 13 vocal parts respectively, with the richest and fullest textures of Tahitian-language hīmene to be heard anywhere. Local differences are also manifest in variant names for other choral genres.
The annual July folkloric competitions continue to be the primary occasion for the peformance of Tahitian drum dances (‘ōte‘a, pā‘ō‘ā, hivinau and ‘aparima), and for choral performance of hīmene that relate indigenous subject-matter. Major holidays include New Year's Day and the annual May contributions; both are occasions for competitions of newly composed hīmene in all genres.
Polynesia, §II, 3: Eastern Polynesia: French Polynesia
No ethnomusicological field study has yet been made in the Tuamotu archipelago. What is known is derived from sound recordings made during anthropological expeditions, as well as brief descriptions in the subsequent reports. Moreover, studies have concentrated on the more isolated eastern atolls; comparatively little attention has focussed on central and western atolls.
The isolation of the mostly low coral atolls, situated between 14° and 24° S and 135° and 149° W, stems from a combination of limited natural resources (coconuts, fishing and pearls), hazardous navigation conditions and long intervals between shipping schedules. Populations on many atolls number only 100–200 people. Many people migrate to Tahiti in search of greater educational and employment opportunities. The southern end of the archipelago serves as the site for the French nuclear testing programme administered from Tahiti, which accounts for a strong military presence and imported workforce.
European exploration dates from Medaña's sighting of Pukapuka in 1521; the archipelago was not fully and reliably charted until 1820. Successful conversion to Christianity was achieved by Mormon missionaries in western islands after 1845, in competition with Roman Catholic missionaries dispatched from the Gambier Islands to the south. French authorities in Tahiti brought most of the eastern islands under the French protectorate between 1849 and 1858. Increased interaction with Tahiti, especially by people in the central and western areas, has resulted in highly Tahitianized lifestyles.
Archaeological remains of outdoor platform temples suggest pre-contact religious practices similar to those in the Society Islands, involving the use of drums and chanted prayers and incantations. Indigenous singing combines performance styles differentiated by musical criteria and various classifications of poetic texts by function.
In the eastern Tuamotus, the archaic fagu chanting style involves recitation on a principal pitch, or a small number of tones arranged phrase by phrase that rise stepwise from, and return to, the principal pitch. Phrases conclude with a quavering called fakatututuku, which combines progressive increase in velocity and decrease in interval between two pitches. In performance, a leader intones an introduction called hua; the response by a second person is called maro, then a chorus group sings the main text, called popoki. The fagu chanting style is used for poetic texts of indigenous sacred lore called vanaga, laments which are also fagu, and chants of glorification such as fakataratara (praise of land), also called fakateniteni, and rorogo (praise of heroes).
Various categories reported from the eastern Tuamotus in the 1930s include haka, hurihuri vaka, katoa, kihau, koke, nihinihi, putu, tirivara; dance categories from other Tuamotuan areas presented in Heiva competitions in Tahiti in the 1980s have included heahea, koivi, kapa, nuka, piirara, ruta and tikoti. Dance chants combine rhythmic monotonic recitation and occasional wide leaps with indefinite pitched portamento, particularly descending at phrase endings. The musical style called patakutaku is a rapidly intoned chant with hand clapping; the accompaniment by guitar and ukulele is used for the rhythmic, rather than harmonic quality of the rapid strumming on one or two chords. The term kapa is apparently used in western areas for dance songs in patakutaku style.
Tuamotuans have embraced Tahitian polyphonic choral singing styles called hīmene tārava and hīmene rū‘au as practised in the Windward (Society) Islands. The musical styles are used to perform poetic chants of praise; they are also used by Catholics and Mormons with doctrinally appropriate texts.
Chanting in archaic styles has been largely replaced by Westernized popular songs sung with guitar and ukulele accompaniment. However, the subject-matter of indigenous legendary and historical episodes has been maintained. Many popular songs recorded in Tahiti in the 1950s and 60s had Tuamotuan-language poetic texts.
Early indigenous instruments included a drum and conch trumpet characteristic of eastern Polynesia, and a bamboo nose flute that may have been imported from Tahiti. Body percussion continues to be important.
The Tuamotus are also famed for the accompaniment style called ta‘iri pa‘umoto, a rapid percussive strumming developed before 1934, after the guitar was introduced by anthropologist Kenneth Emory during the Bishop Museum's first Tuamotu expedition. This strumming style has become a fundamental characteristic of commercial recordings of Tahitian popular songs.
Polynesia, §II, 3: Eastern Polynesia: French Polynesia
The archipelago is commonly referred to as Mangareva, the name of the largest of eight volcanic islands fringed by a surrounding reef. The group lies at the south-eastern end of the Tuamotu archipelago, on the Tropic of Capricorn at 135° W.
The little that is known of pre-contact practices stems from museum artefacts, ethnographic descriptions by Catholic priests and travel accounts. Roman Catholicism was unanimously embraced by 1838 and remains the dominant faith in the archipelago. In contrast to Protestant efforts elsewhere to abolish indigenous performance styles, Roman Catholic priests actually encouraged the adaptation of indigenous singing styles to Catholic devotional material. ‘Akamagareva (‘to make Mangarevan’), sacred counterparts to secular kapa songs, flourished alongside Latin Gregorian chant. Following the vernacular language reforms of the Second Vatican Council in 1967, the archdiocese in Tahiti mandated the discontinuation of Latin (including Gregorian chant) and advocated the adoption of hymns in the Tahitian and French languages, which are the regional lingua franca.
Traditional Mangarevan music consists of four genres differentiated by musical criteria. The keko style of rapid speechlike declamation reported by Buck was not recorded in 1985. The other three, ‘akatari pē‘ī, kapa and tagi, are combined in performances called pē‘ī, which are enactments of episodes from legends and historical narratives (both of which are called atoga). Kapa and tagi are both song forms in stanza-chorus alternation and are both performed in free unmetred time. Kapi and tagi songs use two principal pitches, one in the stanza and the second, a minor or major second above, in the refrain; additional neighbouring pitches add melodic interest. In performance, there may be alternation between a soloist who sings the stanzas and a chorus that sings the refrain. The performances of tagi, meaning ‘to cry’, is distinguished from kapa by the use of a shrill, higher-pitched, plaintive vocal quality evocative of crying, and a slower tempo. ‘Akatari pē‘ī are metred, for they function as an accompaniment for dancers to dance onto the performing area at the start of a pē‘ī enactment. Poetic texts for kapa and tagi are classified by their subject-matter, such as porotu (honorific songs), tagitagi (love songs) and tau (laments).
Tahitian dance genres are also practised, although only two genres were reported in 1985, the pā‘ō‘ā and the ‘aparima. Both use Mangarevan-language texts. Although the texts of both could be based on themes of pē‘ī, Tahitian dance genres are placed at the conclusion of the pē‘ī and are not considered integral to it.
By the time of the Bishop Museum's Mangarevan Expedition in 1934, none of the pre-Christian musical instruments were extant; Te Rangi Hiroa (Buck) based his published descriptions on museum artefacts. Instrumental accompaniment for pē‘ī enactments is provided by a kerosene tin. Performances of Tahitian dance genres are accompanied by the Tahitian drum ensemble (see §(i) above).
Polynesia, §II, 3: Eastern Polynesia: French Polynesia
The 12 volcanic islands of the Marquesas, known to the islanders as Te Fenua ‘Enata, lie approximately 1500 km north-east of Tahiti. A predominantly Polynesian population of about 7000 inhabits six of the islands, sharing a unique musical legacy that exhibits both archipelago-wide cohesion and rich regional variation. The continuation of this legacy in the 1990s was remarkable, because Western contact, colonization and evangelization in the 19th century brought intense social disruption, severe depopulation and radically altered contexts for music-making. In the 20th century, Tahitian cultural, economic and political hegemony relegated Marquesan music to the periphery of country-wide interests and governmental support. Nevertheless, traditional performances continue, underscoring the value Marquesans place upon retention of their arts and highlighting the desire of Marquesans to maintain and assert their distinct identity.
The first published transcription by Tilesius of a Marquesan song dates from 1805, although detailed comments on the music and dance do not appear until after the Bayard Dominick Expedition of 1920–21. Drawing on the manuscripts of early missionaries and the comments of informants who knew ancient chants, Handy (1923) describes musical genres that large groups performed as an indispensable part of major rituals and community festivities, as well as chants used by individuals for spells, courting and daily personal interactions. No sound recordings were made, but Winne later transcribed Handy's remembered version of performances he witnessed (Handy and Winne, 1925). The first systematic audio documentation of the music occurred in 1989, when a UNESCO-sponsored Territorial Survey of Oceanic Music provided field recordings of over 700 Marquesan vocal and instrumental performances. Moulin's 1991 and 1994 studies contained musical ethnographies of late 20th-century Marquesan practice.
Ancient Marquesans were highly articulate in speaking of their musical life. 19th and early 20th-century sources reveal an extensive vocabulary related to music and document the richness of traditional performance. Marquesans acknowledged separate vocal registers, sounds produced by different ways of clapping hands and striking the body, and over 130 genres of music and dance (a number of which they still perform). They also used a variety of musical instruments (including shell and wooden trumpets, whistles and flutes, percussion sticks, a small wooden xylophone, jew's harp, mouth bow and several types of drums) and onomatopoeic drum ‘sounds’, which identified rhythmic patterns.
Marquesans divide their music into two well-delineated categories: old/indigenous and new/imported. Both demonstrate a preference for vocal, logogenic music and public performance by large groups; in traditional performances, a prominent group leader provides introductory oratory as well as chanted invocations. Marquesans employ a wide range of vocal production, from singing to forceful chanting, rhythmic recitation, shouted declamation and a vigorous rumbling of the vocal cords; one traditional genre, the famous pig dance, consists entirely of rhythmic grunting.
The term mea kakiu (‘old things’) embraces several traditional performative genres as well as new compositions in traditional style. Solo genres performed in the 1990s included a variety of declamatory chants (ha‘anaunau/anaunau, mauta‘a, tapatapa, va‘ahoa/vakahoa), genealogies (matatetau/matatatau; pei if accompanied by juggling), women's improvised greeting calls (hahi/mave) and laments (uē tūpāpa‘u/puhi nui/uē pahevaheva; uhaki). Some genres, such as the mahohe/maha‘u (pig dance) and the putu, a circle dance accompanied by hand-claps, are for male groups; however, women join these dances in some regional variants. Mixed groups most frequently perform rari/ru‘u, topical songs, and tape‘a/rikuhi, energetic songs to end a performance.
Traditional music displays features in common with other eastern Polynesian musics: limited melodic range, a primary chant tone with a small inventory of secondary pitches (often including either a major or a minor 3rd below the chant tone and the major 2nd above it), the use of indefinite pitch, a prevalence of speech-rhythm (solo chants) and duple rhythm (group chants), the use of melodic descent and descending glides to mark structural ending points, and a sectional approach to musical composition. Dance is an important accompaniment to all traditional genres intended for group performance; both standing and sitting dances are found. Mea kakiu use the Marquesan language; old songs texts often contain archaic expressions and altered words, rendering meaningful translation difficult, even for native speakers.
Mea hou (‘new things’) include church songs (hīmene pure; hīmene tārava), entertainment songs in pan-Pacific style (hīmene ‘eka‘eka/hīmene ‘a‘a nui) and dance music from Tahiti (tapiriata/tapriata, ‘aparima, pā‘ō‘ā, hivinau). Although Marquesans compose mea hou in all of the above genres, many pieces are imported, usually from or via Tahiti. These songs exhibit language diversity, wide melodic range, functional harmony and strophic or verse-refrain form. Continued updating occurs in these genres as Marquesans incorporate new practices and compositions from Tahiti and beyond, although it often takes time for new ideas to reach the Marquesas and appear in Marquesan performances.
Musical instruments reflect this same division of indigenous and introduced. Although nose and mouth flutes and the single-reed pū hakahau disappeared in the early 1980s, following the death of the last performers, some traditional sound-producers remain: handstruck, single-membrane drums in various sizes (pahu); shell trumpets (pū, pū tona, pū‘i‘u, pū tupe); wood trumpets (pū‘akau/pū rohoti); jew's harp (tioro/tita‘apu); and children's amusements such as whistles (kī), the leaf whizzer (pinao) and leaf oboe (pū). Popular imported instruments include guitar (kīta), ukulele (‘ukarere), Tahitian slit-drums (tō‘ere) and skin-drums (pahu), the tin-can drum (tini) and electronic instruments (guitar, keyboard, drums). Locally made banjo-ukuleles (also called ‘ukarere), spoons (tuita) and the one-string bass (tura) accompany entertainment songs on occasions of informal music-making. Few historic instruments remain in the islands; the technical skills and highly acclaimed artistic merit of earlier examples is represented in museums around the world but largely unknown to this generation of Marquesans.
Polynesia, §II: Eastern Polynesia
Although the name actually refers only to the principal island of the Hawaiian Islands archipelago, it is now commonly used to designate all the islands of that group. Lying in the North Pacific about 3070 km south-west of San Francisco, Hawaii was the northernmost archipelago settled by Polynesians and had a flourishing Polynesian culture when discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. Since 1959 Hawaii has been a state of the USA, and its population of about 1.3 million is known for its cultural pluralism; in addition to descendants of early Polynesian settlers there are also Polynesians from other island groups (e.g. Samoa), as well as Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese) and Caucasians (European and North American). Certain genres of the musical heritage of all these peoples are perpetuated, some primarily by the peoples themselves, others by all the inhabitants jointly, providing an annual calendar of many colourful festivals. The discussion here centres on music identified as traditional Hawaiian; for Western art music see Hawaii.
In traditional Hawaiian performance that descends from indigenous culture before contact with Europeans, music was predominantly vocal. The term mele applies to poetic texts as well as their recited presentation. With the exception of a few poetic genres improvised on informal occasions, poetic texts are composed prior to performance. The subject-matter of texts, classified in named categories, range from sacred prayers (mele pule), genealogical chants (mele ko‘ihonua), honorific name chants (mele inoa), love songs (mele ho‘oipoipo) and funerary laments (mele kanikau) to various kinds of spontaneous expression and informal game chants.
In performance, a basic distinction obtains between oli and hula. Oli are chanted without instrumental accompaniment and dance and are thus unmetred recitation, with phrase lengths entirely dependent on completing the thoughts expressed in the poetry. Hula are poetic texts intended for presentation as dance; they are metred and incorporate instrumental accompaniment.
Oli is a term that covers five sub-styles from speechlike to song: the kepakepa style is a rapid speechlike declamation with clear enunciation; the kāwele style involves some pitch prolongation in otherwise speechlike declamation; the olioli style incorporates prolonged phrases on one basic pitch and the use of various named vibrato techniques, among them the widely admired i‘i tremelo; the ho‘āeāe style incorporates multiple pitches in prolonged vibrato phrases; the ho‘ouwēuwē style, used for lamenting, involves the greatest use of pitches and prolongation in vibrato phrases and may be punctuated by outbursts of wailing. Each of the five sub-styles of oli is appropriate to particular poetic subjects and incorporates various named vocal articulatory techniques. A trained chanter thus applies chant style and vocal techniques based on their appropriateness to a poetic text.
Hula delineates a domain of repertory that bridges extensive transformations in musical practices embraced by Hawaiians throughout the 19th century. In the hula pahu and hula ‘āla‘apapa, the two categories held to descend directly from pre-European practices, the vocal recitation style called ‘ai ‘ha‘ha, which incorporates melodic patterning, is used. Both categories involve a division of labour between dancers (‘ōlapa) who perform the movements, and chanters (ho‘opa‘a) who recite the text and provide the instrumental accompaniment using solely indigenous instruments. The accompaniment for the hula pahu consists of sharkskin-covered log membranophones called pahu, often played together with the smaller fishskin-covered coconut drum called pūniu (also called kilu); the accompaniment for the hula ‘āla‘apapa consists of the double-gourd idiophone variously called ipu (gourd), ipu heke (double gourd), and ipu hula (dance gourd). In both categories, musical phrases are determined by poetic phrase and variable section length; each category is also distinguished by the use of specific choreographic sequences.
In the 1860s, after decades of missionary-inspired censure during which hula had been maintained underground, a revival of hula spawned a period of creativity. A new style of hula emerged called hula ku‘i, the term ku‘i meaning ‘to join old and new’. The hula ku‘i combined indigenous vocal recitation techniques and dance movements with Western pitch, harmonization and instrumental accompaniment, including guitar, ukulele and piano. These performance characteristics were applied to poetic texts in a new format that combined consistent line length of four or eight beats, a stanzaic organization of couplets (or occasionally quatrains) of text, corresponding strophic form resulting from the repetition of a basic melody for as many stanzas as necessary, and the separation of stanzas by a brief instrumental interlude performed with an associated movement sequence specific to hula ku‘i.
Many melodies of hula ku‘i songs incorporate leaps of a 4th or greater interval. Among male singers, keys are chosen to place the melody within the vocal range so as to exploit contrasts between lower and upper falsetto vocal registers and to emphasize, rather than minimize, the break in the vocal line when alternating between registers; falsetto singing is called leo ki‘eki‘e, meaning ‘high voice’.
The hula ku‘i category encompasses repertory that specifically combines Western and indigenous components. Hula songs in the couplet poetic format, however, continued to be performed to the accompaniment of solely indigenous instruments such as the ipu gourd idiophone for standing dances, and with various rhythmic implements (see below) played by the dancers who performed seated and recited the text. In the early 20th century, the term hula ‘ōlapa came into use to distinguish hula songs with solely indigenous instrumental accompaniment from their Westernized hula ku‘i counterparts.
Musical instruments were primarily used for accompanying vocal recitation during dance performance; in purely instrumental performance (i.e. without poetic text), instruments either functioned as a voice substitute, or sound production was for non-musical purposes, such as signalling or in games. Materials for making instruments were selected for their quality of sound.
The pahu is a wooden drum made from a log (either coconut or breadfruit) with one large upper and one smaller lower cavity carved out on each side of a thick partition. Shark skin is stretched over the rim of the large cavity and is secured in place with cord lashings drawn taut through the carved openwork patterns of the smaller cavity. The drummer strikes the membrane with one or both hands. According to Hawaiian tradition, the pahu was introduced about six centuries ago by the distinguished visitor La‘a-mai-Kahiki (La‘a-from-Tahiti). Temple priests also used the drum for religious ceremonies on heiau, outdoor temple platforms.
The pūniu is a coconut-shell drum traditionally covered with the skin of a surgeon-fish (though other types of skin are now used as well), which is firmly lashed to a ring under the shell. Cords are braided at the ring lashings to tie the pūniu to the player's thigh. The drum is struck with a braided thong of leaf or fibre. It is played either in conjunction with the pahu drum for hula pahu, at which time both drums are played by the one performer. It may also be used for self-accompaniment in seated dances, during which the performer also recites the poetic text.
The ipu is a gourd idiophone used to accompany dancers in standing hula ‘āla‘apapa and hula ‘ōlapa dances. The ipu may also be used as self-accompaniment in seated dances, in which case the dance is categorized as either hula kuolo or hula pāipu. The ipu may be made from a single hollowed gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). For standing dances, the double-gourd ipu heke is used. It is made from combining two gourds; the lower is large, long and globular, and the upper is short and squat. Both are selected for the quality of sound produced by striking the dried, hard rind. The stem ends are cut off, inner seeds removed, and the two gourds are joined by gluing one neck inside the other. A hole is centred above the resonance chamber. With the instrument grasped in the left hand, the performer alternates thumping the instrument on a mat and slapping the lower gourd on its side with the fingers of the right hand. Named rhythms include kū, a single thump; kūkū, a triple thump; pā, a single slap; and kāhela, a double slap; combinations of these rhythms are associated with the use of named lower-body movement motifs in the hula.
The next six instruments are implements manipulated by dancers in self-accompaniment, usually (though not always) in seated dances. Dances that use these implements are often classified by the name of the implement, e.g. hula‘ili‘ili, hula kāla‘au, etc. The percussive rhythms aid groups of dancers in maintaining coordination.
‘Ili‘ili are stone pebbles played as clappers. Two matched pairs of water-worn, dense (usually basaltic lava), flat, round or oval pebbles are selected both for quality of sound (lava from recent flows gives a preferred brighter sound) and for comfortable fit in the seated dancer's hands.
Kāla‘au are paired sticks. They are made from two rods of hard, resonant wood, traditionally kauila (Alphitonia ponderosa), but now rose-wood and coffee-wood introduced by Europeans are also used. An older form of the instrument, used in standing rather than seated dances, requires one rod about a metre long and another about a third as long, both slightly thicker in the middle and tapered at each end. The shorter rod, held in the right hand, is struck against the longer rod. A newer form dating from the 1870s is a matched pair of rods the size and shape of the smaller of the older rods. In standing hula kāla‘au, the papa hehi treadle footboard may also be used by the dancers in conjunction with the kāla‘au sticks.
The pū‘ili is a bamboo rattle made from a section of native Hawaiian bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris), about 5 cm or longer. One end with a node serves as a handle; narrow longitudinal slits, evenly spaced, are inserted in the remainder of the tube. The pū‘ili is held in the right hand, and the dancer gently taps the palm or back of the left hand, the shoulders, or the ground. In the Westernized hula ku‘i, pū‘ili are sometimes used in pairs and are struck together.
The ‘ulili is a spinning rattle. It consists of three small circular gourds mounted on a stick. The two end gourds, filled with seeds, spin when a cord wound around the stick is pulled through a hole in the middle gourd.
The ‘uli‘uli is a feather-decorated rattle, used in either sitting or standing dances. It is made from a single small gourd receptacle containing seeds, fitted with a fibre handle, at the end of which is a flat circular disc mounted perpendicular to the handle and fringed with feathers. Traditionally one implement is manipulated in the right hand by shaking it in the air, tapping it against the left hand, the shoulders, the thighs and the ground. In some Westernized hula ku‘i, dancers now use a pair of ‘ulī‘ulī, one held in each hand. In 1779, Captain Cook and his men observed a hula ‘ulī‘ulī dance at Kealakekua, Hawaii (see fig.8). The male dancer wore kūpe‘e niho ‘īlio (dog-teeth anklets) made from multiple rows of canine teeth strung on a net backing. The rustling sound produced by rattling teeth contributed aurally to a performance, and facsimiles, sometimes made with shells, are occasionally seen.
Instruments for serenading include the ‘ohe hano ihu (bamboo nose flute; (fig.9), which consists of a length of native Hawaiian bamboo with a nose-hole cut at an angle above the closed node end and two or three finger-holes along the tube towards the open end; the ipu hōkiokio (gourd whistle), a globular flute; and ūkēkē, a mouth bow with two or three fibre strings. These instruments are considered a substitute for a vocalized poetic text.
Sound-making devices include the pū lā‘ī (ti leaf trumpet) made of a rolled leaf; the oeoe (bullroarer); and the nī‘au kani (sounding coconut midrib), a jew's harp. The pū kani (sounding horn), a shell trumpet used for blowing signals, is usually made from either the triton (Charonia tritonis) or the helmet shell (Cassis cornuta). It is similar to shell trumpets found elsewhere in Polynesia.
American Protestant missionaries began evangelizing in the islands in 1820. In addition to teaching rudiments of Western music in order to sing Christian hymns (hīmeni), missionaries also taught literacy in Western staff notation; printed tunebooks first appeared in 1834. By the 1860s, musically literate Hawaiians began to compose secular songs, using alternating verse-chorus format of the American Sunday-school and gospel hymns for models. Hundreds of songs have been published in sheet music beginning in 1869, and song folios beginning in 1893.
By the beginning of the 20th century, with tourism on the rise and the Hawaiian language in decline, songs about Hawaii by Hawaiian composers using English-language lyrics began to appear. These songs came to be called hapa haole (half foreign) songs. In their most extreme form, from tunesmiths in New York's Tin Pan Alley, overly sentimentalized images were combined with phony nonsense syllables; the consistent use of the 32-bar popular song form (AABA), however, served as a model for Hawaiian composers of hapa haole songs in subsequent decades.
Commercial recording of Westernized Hawaiian songs began in 1905 and sold especially well during various Hawaiian music fads that swept the US mainland in the late 1910s through the 1920s, and during and following World War II. What fuelled the fads was interest in the ukulele and the ‘Hawaiian guitar’ style of playing melodies, in which a metal bar was used to stop the guitar strings. The fads spawned a proliferation of instruction books as well.
In the 1950s, a more elaborate guitar style came into prominence, which combined picking a melody on the higher-pitched strings while simultaneously maintaining a rhythmic bass line on the lower-pitched strings. This style is called slack key or kī hō‘alu, after the practice of slackening the strings to obtain altered tunings.
In the 1970s, indigenous Hawaiian culture underwent a renaissance as Hawaiians revived non-commercial styles, including oli, hula pahu, hula ‘āla‘apapa and hula ‘ōlapa, which had waned almost to the point of disappearing altogether. This renaissance continued in the 1990s. Annual competitive events such as the Merrie Monarch Festival, the King Kamehameha Chant and Hula Competition, and the Queen Lili‘uokalani Keiki (Children's) Hula Competition serve as major performance occasions for privately operated schools of hula. Institutions involved in fostering perpetuation of and research into Hawaiian music include the Bernice P. Bishop Museum (for maintaining historically important manuscript collections), the Kamehameha Schools and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which inaugurated a BA degree in Hawaiian Music in the autumn of 1995.
Polynesia, §III: Western Polynesia
The musical culture of Niue, a solitary uplifted atoll at the easternmost corner of Western Polynesia, shows a blend of homogeneity with neighbouring islands (Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga) as well as distinctive features. Despite the island's small population (around 1500 and falling through emigration to New Zealand, where some 7000 Niueans now live), two linguistic dialects exist.
The success of 19th-century missionization may be gauged by the extreme dearth of even early references to song and dance and the present numerical dominance of European-style compositions. Designative terms for song types appear not to exist: the generic term lologo prefixes a distinguishing word, e.g. lologo takalo (challenge song), lologo fakahula (boasting song). Several children's game songs exist, similar in type and language to those elsewhere in Western Polynesia, but are in decline in the face of ever-increasing European material and cultural influence.
Within koli, the generic term for dance, several genres are identified. In the men's takalo (challenge dance), dancers divide into two opposing warrior groups and enact alternating martial movements to loud rhythmic recitations of ancient origin, culminating in mimed hand-to-hand combat. The meke men's dance features vigorous movements of the whole body accompanied by nafa-beating. The tamē dance involves synchronized seated or standing actions by mixed dancers, formerly accompanied by rhythmic recitations but now by guitar-accompanied acculturated songs. The tafeauhi dances are no longer performed because they are considered morally lax, except with greater propriety as part of school exhibitions.
Niue's nose flute, of which very few specimens are still in existence, is noteworthy for both its nomenclature and construction. At the turn of the century its name was kofe, the local term for bamboo; since that time, however, the term for bamboo changed to kaho and the flute name to kikikihoa or kikihoa. Curiously, favoured construction material appears to have shifted from wood to bamboo during this same period. Possessing two or three finger-holes, the instrument was blown as a source of personal entertainment; among museum specimens there is no evidence of a preferred tonal inventory or scale.
Smaller than its namesake in neighbouring islands in the prehistoric era, the hand-held Niuean nafa slit-drum is used for accompanying dances of the meke and tamē genres, beating fast, unchanging rhythms. The larger logo slit-drum, evidently introduced from Samoa in the 19th century, is used exclusively for announcing church services.
Polynesia, §III: Western Polynesia
The music of the Samoan Islands has long been the object of travellers' admiration and the subject of extended and detailed investigation. The nine inhabited islands of the Samoan archipelago (the four islands of the independent state of Samoa and the five islands that comprise the territory of American Samoa) form a homogeneous musical area whose style appears to be distinct from those of neighbouring island groups, although some of these, Tonga in particular, adopted Samoan songs and dances up to the 20th century.
Samoan music is primarily vocal and is performed on a wide variety of public and private occasions; the songs themselves do not have titles but are identified according to their use. In a few cases (e.g. dancing and paddling), virtually any composition will suffice as an accompaniment to the actions; but in general, textual content restricts the occasions on which a song is performed. Samoan speech distinguishes formal and colloquial systems of pronunciation; in song, however, only the formal type is used. The texts themselves usually have rhyming lines occupying an equal number of bars; non-rhyming lines or lines of unequal length tend to be followed by a refrain. Nonsense syllables are virtually unknown. Older songs often refer to practices now obsolete, such as traditional marriage ceremonies, food homages and some games. Words of unknown meaning are also occasionally found.
A common song type is the tagi, which is the sung section of a type of legend called a fagono; several hundred fagono are extant, and narrating them is a popular form of night-time entertainment. A large number of tagi use one or more of three stereotyped melodic phrases; the form of these tends to be ABC, with B always and C occasionally in series (see ex.2). Occasionally the B type of phrase occupies the entire tagi melody. Fagono may last from five minutes to more than an hour and may contain from one to 16 tagi.
There are a few medicinal incantations performed by only one or two people in a village; nonetheless they are widely trusted to cure headaches, choking on a fishbone, hiccoughs, skin blemishes and carbuncles. An incantation either addresses the malign spirit thought to be possessing the patient and threatens it with destruction, or invokes the native doctor's family spirit to effect a cure. Samoan children have numerous group games incorporating songs, which are usually short and are performed in time to actions described in the texts. Many of the melodies centre on two notes a perfect 4th apart (see ex.3). Children also sing when gathering shellfish, massaging adults, teasing a cat, losing a tooth etc. Chief among songs no longer performed in their original contexts are those of war and paddling. Both types tend to be short, with alternation between leader and unison chorus, and are capable of indefinite repetition (see ex.4). Where they are still sung, they often serve as dance-songs, two or more strung together forming a longer composite whole. Despite this change in purpose they continue to be identified according to their former contexts.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, Samoan dance styles changed: the large groups of singing performers carrying out movements in unison were replaced by non-singing dancers who performed independently. Very few songs are composed specifically for dance accompaniment; there are, however, a small number of mostly humorous texts used exclusively for dances that imitate animal and human behaviour. Modern group songs in traditional style are composed for specific village occasions (e.g. welcome, farewell, praise, sorrow) and are often freely performed thereafter at festive gatherings. Other song types performed less frequently include obscene, funeral and marriage songs, lullabies and intoned historical texts. There is no written record of music associated with pre-Christian religion.
Analysis reveals four sub-styles of Samoan song, each distinguished on the basis of musical texture – solo, unison, responsorial and part-singing. Solo songs are characterized by a predominance of stepwise movement, intervals smaller than a 4th, usually rising, and descending intervals larger than a 4th at phrase endings. Unison songs contain a considerable amount of melodic repetition, especially at the opening of a song, and their melodies centre on two notes a perfect 4th apart, with cadences often rising a 4th before falling approximately one octave in a terminal glissando. Responsorial songs also concentrate on notes a perfect 4th apart. There are similarities too between the level opening of the unison song and the melodic repetition of the leader's line in the responsorial song. The cadential outline of the chorus line in the responsorial song also resembles that of the unison song. Overlap between leader and chorus is rare. Relatively few non-acculturated homophonic or polyphonic songs have been recorded; these songs appear to be characterized by movement in parallel 4ths and 5ths and a cadence formula in which the highest voice remains level above two falling parts. Stylistic features common to Samoan music as a whole include a wide range of tempos, the frequent use of simple duple metre and a dactylic rhythmic figure, and the constant appearance of the perfect 4th, not only as a harmonic and melodic interval but also as the total melodic range and as an integral part of several cadence formulae.
Idiophones, membranophones and aerophones are found in Samoa, although aerophones are now rare; there is no evidence of chordophones. The three principal wooden slit-drums, the pātē, lali and logo, serve to signal church events. The smallest, the pātē, was brought from Tahiti by English missionaries; the larger lali had its origin in Fiji, probably coming to Samoa as part of the normal equipment of the large Fijian double canoe. The largest of all, the logo (fig.10a), appears to have been created by missionaries in the 19th century for use as a church ‘bell’; in design, it is modelled on the Samoan lali. No particular rhythmic patterns are evident for any instrument. The pātē and logo are struck with single beaters, but lali are played with two drumsticks, and they are always beaten in pairs (fig.10b), one man to each instrument. Beating a rolled floor mat is a common form of rhythmic accompaniment to group singing; mat-flicking and hand-clapping are also features of dance-songs. A jew's harp, fashioned from two pieces of coconut leaf, is used as a children's toy. Early writings indicate the former presence of stamping tubes, sounding boards, half coconut shells and at least one other type of slit-drum, but these instruments are now obsolete.
Flutes were once common, including end-blown and side-blown types, the syrinx and the nose flute. For reasons not yet clear none of these types is still used, although they are well remembered by older Samoans. Finger-holes varied in number from two to eight, but little is known of the scale patterns used. The conch-shell trumpet is commonly employed as a signalling device on both land and sea. Children sometimes make toy whistles and squeakers out of grass. Drums with single or double skin-heads are used principally as signals for applause at cricket matches; these types of drum may originally have been introduced from the Marquesas Islands in the 19th century, although modern examples tend to be European in design.
Larger villages have a resident composer, normally male, who provides songs for specific occasions: arrivals or departures, deaths, political and social achievements. The more renowned among them are often engaged by villages other than their own. The composer also teaches his songs to the village choir and may even act as song leader for a first public performance. In return he is paid in fine mats, bark cloth and cash. In partsongs the lowest voice (malū) is taught first, a whole strophe at a time, before the upper parts (usu and ato) are added. Missionary influence has been responsible for two developments, apart from introducing new melodic outlines and stereotyped harmonic progressions: four-part harmony (earlier songs were in two or three parts) and mixed choirs (earlier group songs appear to have been exclusively male).
There is no organized system of song ownership, but local pride effectively discourages widespread use of a song that has specific references to a particular village, and because most group songs are composed for particular occasions, textual content tends to determine the appropriateness of further performances. Particular funeral and marriage songs may be performed only by certain villages or districts on pain of public shame or even physical violence, and medicinal incantations are sung only by the native doctor, whose supernatural power is essential to the cure. Where a song is known and sung over a wide geographical area and where its origin is not known, it is usually referred to simply as a ‘Samoan song’ and is the common property of the whole country; several paddling, war and game songs are of this type.
The attributes of a good singer include a strong, clear voice and the ability both to maintain a given pitch and tempo and to memorize a voice part and song text. A song leader is also expected to know all the voice parts and be prepared to correct any uncertainties in melody or text, to choose a comfortable pitch and tempo, and to introduce and regulate the hand-clapping that accompanies dance-songs. Most group songs are performed seated, sometimes with the leader standing in the middle of the group. In the older, standing group dances, the dancers themselves sang, but for the newer, individualistic performances, a seated choir accompanies the dancers. Most funeral, food-homage and marriage songs are performed while walking or carrying out prescribed body movements. Medicinal incantations are delivered from a variety of postures, as are children's game songs.
Samoan concepts of music have song as their focal point; all musical performances by voices or instruments are called ‘songs’ provided they have a melody; instruments producing unpitched rhythm, on the other hand, are said to be ‘struck’. Samoans believe that all children are born with equal musical talent and seem to have no notion of the inheritance of such skills, although they appear to consider that musical ability is but one manifestation of a generally superior intelligence. The value of song is seen as twofold: it heightens emotions, especially humour and sorrow, through the compression and balance of contrasting ideas and rhyming lines; and, particularly in the form of group songs, it adds dignity and formal significance to any ceremonial occasion. For group songs there is no recognized optimal choir size: ‘the more, the better’ is generally the opinion. However, kava calls (the shouted parts of the kava-drinking ritual), intoned poetry and incantations may not be performed by more than one person. Voice grouping in single-sex partsongs strongly favours the bass, which may have two or even three times the number of tenors; even the largest choirs, though, have but one leader, who sings the highest vocal line. Mixed choirs tend to have equal numbers in all parts.
Polynesia, §III: Western Polynesia
The three coral atolls of Tokelau (Atafu, Nukunonu, Fakaofo) are situated on the northern edge of Western Polynesia, isolated by considerable distances from their nearest Pacific Island neighbours. The population of the atolls at the end of the 20th century, approximately 1500, is outnumbered by approximately 3560 people who live in four centres in New Zealand, where music and dance performance is also strongly continued.
The music of Tokelau was affected by the wave of modernization in this region of Polynesia, which altered the traditional arts of music and dance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The new dance and music forms experimented with at this time contained Western tonal vocal harmony, traditional drumming with some new instruments, and dance that illustrated song texts. Although this experimentation has been equated in the larger settlements in Polynesia with the presence of outsiders, in Tokelau there were no tourists and few visitors, and the experimentation must reflect a genuine desire of the islanders to create new music and dance forms that relate to the modern world.
The survival of many different kinds of traditional chant was encouraged by the Catholic mission on the island of Nukunonu, which unlike Protestant missions on the other Tokelau atolls did not prohibit traditional forms. The kinds of chant that have survived in greatest numbers, however, are those that have a contemporary function: haumate are chants performed at a funeral, at the laying out of the body for mourning; tuala are performed at weddings, at the procession around the village of a newly married couple. Within traditional kakai (tales), short chants called tagi are sung, with historical narratives concluded with a song.
Traditional chants of many different types are subsumed into two poetic categories: vale (unison, with a characteristic refrain at the end of each line) and hoa (in which the lines overlap and two-part singing is common). Dance or body movement occurs with most music forms. Hiva hahaka (action song), tafoe (paddle dance), tapaki (a form now forgotten) and hikaki, a dance of welcome with fishing poles, are further examples of these.
Several types of contemporary music can trace connections to another part of the region: mako, a solo love song, uses Tuvaluan language; mauluulu originated in Samoa; upaupa came from Pukapuka in the Northern Cooks; hake, a stick dance, derives from Uvea and Futuna. While connections can be demonstrated, it should be noted that such introductions often involve only one feature, such as the text of a song, the movements of a dance or an instrument. In the case of hake, the stick dance may have existed all round the region before it was subsequently introduced in the 1870s as a memorial to the martyrdom of St Peter Channel.
The fatele (action song), currently the most popular and distinctive Tokelau dance and music form, has connections to the Tuvaluan dance of the same name. However, its form in Tokelau is distinctive, and Tokelauan composers create new songs in their own idiom (Thomas, 1996). The competitive singing of fatele on all festive occasions, in the meeting house in each Tokelau atoll and in New Zealand displays many of the most admired qualities of Tokelau character and community. At festivals the songs of a performing group are answered in turn by another group, who are also the principal audience. The dialogue that results from this competitive singing emphasizes the importance of the words in such Polynesian song.
Polynesia, §III: Western Polynesia
The variety of Tonga's song and dance styles first came to European notice after visits by Captain Cook in the 18th century. One of the very few Polynesian groups not colonized by the 19th-century Western powers, Tonga continues to retain musical features and styles readily identifiable as indigenous alongside genres in which European musical influence is clear.
Several forms of dance are known to have been discontinued because of mainly Protestant missionary opposition. Surviving dances of the old tradition, associated within Tonga with the more liberal Catholic church but increasingly included in overseas performances merely as ‘Tongan’, include ula and faha‘iula, and a single specimen of the formerly numerous me‘etu‘upaki club-dance. Dances of the new tradition include the locally developed lakalaka and ‘otuhaka, the mā‘ulu‘ulu and tau‘olunga from Samoa, and the kailao brought from Uvea. Typically, dancers also sing, their voices boosted in the lakalaka and me‘etu‘upaki by a separate and equally large group of singers standing at the rear.
Although serious use of the fangufangu nose flute for personal entertainment has virtually ceased in the face of forms of imported recorded music, executant ability is taught in schools. Similarly, the blowing of multiple conch trumpets for entertainment at cricket matches has sharply declined in recent years. Small groups of nafa skin drums accompany the mā‘ulu‘ulu dance, a single mat-drum or slit-drum beats for the ‘otuhaka, and various combinations of European string instruments accompany hiva kakala songs and tau‘olunga dances.
Lali slit-drums, introduced from Fiji in prehistoric times, function as signalling devices for both secular and religious events. Other idiophones, including stamping tubes, sounding boards, jew's harps and one other form of slit-drum, are now obsolete. The simultaneous beating of bark-cloth by two or three women is organized rhythmically into rapid, even beats that continue for long periods during the day.
Multipart singing, which impressed early visitors, is still integral to all choral compositions and uses three to eight parts. Stereotyped melodic progressions and cadence formulae are the standby of minor composers of lakalaka and mā‘ulu‘ulu dances, whereas accomplished men called punake, who create the poetry, music and dance movements, are more likely to be more individualistic. A feature of hiva kakala songs is male falsetto for the highest part. In all choral compositions, including those with clear European elements, the melody is positioned in the second-lowest part and exercises a degree of melodic and rhythmic flexibility, in contrast to the other, fixed parts, imparting stylistic continuity and national identity to even heavily acculturated styles.
Combining features of two European forms, a system of numerical notation was introduced in the late 19th century and is in widespread use for the teaching of hymns. Tongan-composed hymns, through-composed in multipart arrangements with occasional solo sections and sung unaccompanied, are characteristic of some minority denominations.
Large numbers of children's activity songs exist, as do spoken fananga fables that contain one or more fakatangi (short songs); at least three melodic stereotypes are in wide use.
Audience participation is integral to successful large-scale dancing; responding to shouts of encouragement and the spontaneous donation of cash and cloth onto their oiled bodies, dancers are inspired to raise their standards and achieve a state of māfana (ecstasy). Tongan audiences also participate mentally, deciphering a style of song poetry that avoids direct referencing in favour of historical and mythological allusion, metaphor and oblique mention, and for this reason verses are normally repeated; the more complex the poetic references, the greater the satisfaction in understanding them.
Polynesia, §III: Western Polynesia
Tuvalu (formerly, as the Ellice Islands, part of a British protectorate and subsequently colony, and since 1978 an independent country) is an archipelago of nine low coral islands, lying between 5° and 11°S and 176° and 180°E, some 1200 km north-west of Samoa. The inhabitants (c9000) speak a Polynesian language, except for those on the island of Nui, which was conquered by Gilbertese from Micronesia. The archipelago was first populated by Polynesians in the 16th century by migration from the west. Sporadic contacts with European sailors in the early 19th century and, after 1861, systematic Christianization, primarily through Samoan missionaries of the London Missionary Society, led to drastic changes in the religion, social organization and, consequently, music and dance of Tuvalu. The establishment of church choirs, mission and government schools, migratory work and the introduction of radios have contributed to an intensive process of cultural change. In the 1960s, music and dance in Tuvalu were dominated by European-American traits, but the 1980s brought a resurgence and revival of traditional local forms in the context of Tuvalu nationhood and the projection of a national identity, for instance at Pacific Arts Festivals (see Pacific Arts, Festival of).
Before the arrival of missionaries, indigenous music and dance were closely connected with religious ceremonies and social organization. The only instruments were the pu (shell trumpet), used exclusively for signalling, and the pātē and nafa (slit-drums), which were used for signalling but also served to accompany dances (fig.11). Categories of song included taanga (genealogical songs), onga and fakanau (dance-songs), play songs etc. These songs were typically in one of three styles: a kind of speech-song (strophic, strictly metrical recitation without definite pitches); level recitative (strophic, metrical recitation on two or more tonal levels simultaneously); and triadic melody (strophic songs emphasizing the 3rd and the 5th, with a second line in parallel movement or as a bourdon). Both speech-song and level recitative are common phenomena throughout Polynesia; there are specific similarities between Tuvalu songs and those of the Tuamotu Islands. The triadic melodies may represent influences from eastern Melanesia.
Another type of song structure, the pentatonic responsorial, which prevails in dance-songs of the categories mako fakaseaseo, mako fakatangitangi and fatele, was introduced after the arrival of Samoan missionaries and flourished between 1890 and 1915. It is characterized by a melismatic, pentatonic solo line answered by an overlapping, syllabic chorus line a 5th to an octave lower. Outside Tuvalu, similar songs have been found only in Samoa; historical data make a Samoan derivation probable.
Since 1915, adaptations of tunes from Christian hymnbooks (e.g. those of Sankey) and functional-harmonic polyphony have gained prominence, shaping also the style of secular songs. In the 1950s, local composers began to create multi-part church and secular songs that combine local elements with those of Samoan and European derivation. Along with American-European popular songs and music from other Pacific nations, acoustic and electric guitars and electronic keyboards have entered musical practices. A heightened sense of competitiveness is reflected in faster tempos and stepwise rising pitch levels during performances. The reinterpretation of revived or reconstructed ‘old’ songs extends to their functions: ceremonial and work songs whose original contexts have become obsolete are now performed for entertainment and projection of group identity, while former gender restrictions are ignored. For almost all dances rhythmic accompaniment is now provided by men sitting round a wooden crate and beating it with their hands.
Unpublished field recordings of Tuvalu music are archived at the Musikethnologische Abteilung, Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, and at the Center for Ethnomusicology, Columbia University, New York.
and other resources
GEWM, ix
MGG2 (‘Ozeaniem’, §D: Polynesien; R.M. Moyle)
H. Fischer: Schallergerate in Ozeanien (Strasbourg, 1958; Eng. trans., Boroko, 1986/R as Sound-Producing Instruments in Oceania)
M. McLean: An Annotated Bibliography of Oceanic Music and Dance (Wellington, 1977, suppl., 1981, enlarged 2/1995)
A.L. Kaeppler: ‘Method and Theory in Analysing Dance Structure with an Analysis of Tongan Dance’, EthM, xvi (1972), 173–217
A.L. Kaeppler: ‘Melody, Drone and Decoration, Underlying Structures and Surface Manifestations in Tongan Art and Society’, Art in Society: Studies in Styles, Culture and Aesthetics, ed. M. Greenhalgh and V. Megaw (London, 1978), 261–74
J.F. Moulin: The Dance of Tahiti (Tahiti, 1979)
A.K. Stillman: The Hula Ku'i: a Tradition in Hawaiian Music and Dance (diss., U. of Hawaii, 1982)
J. Shennan: The Maori Action Song (New Zealand, 1984)
A.L. Kaeppler: ‘Structured Movement Systems in Tonga’, Society and the Dance: The Social Anthropology of Performance and Process, ed. P. Spencer (Cambridge, 1985), 92–118
A.L. Kaeppler: ‘Pacific Festivals and the Promotion of Identity, Politics and Tourism’, Come mek me hol'yu han': the Impact of Tourism on Traditional Music, ed. A.L. Kaeppler and O. Lewin (Kingston, 1988), 121–38
H.R. Lawrence: ‘The Material Culture of Music Performance on Manihiki’, Culture and History in the Pacific, ed. J. Siikala, (Helsinki, 1990), 217–32; repr. as The Material Culture of Contemporary Musical Performance on Manihiki, Northern Cook Islands (diss., U. of North Queensland, 1993)
J.F. Moulin: He ko'ina: Music, Dance and Poetry in the Marquesas Islands (diss., U. of California, Santa Barbara, 1991)
C. Sinavaiana: House of the Spirits: a Social/Cultural History of Comic Theater in Samoa (diss., U. of Hawaii, 1992)
A.L. Kaeppler: Hula pahu: Hawaiian Drum Dances, i: Ha'a and hula pahu: Sacred Movements (Honolulu, 1993)
A.L. Kaeppler: Poetry in Motion: Studies of Tongan Dance (Tonga, 1993)
E. Tatar: Hula pahu: Hawaiian Drum Dances, ii: The pahu: Sounds of Power (Honolulu, 1993)
V. Hereniko: Woven Gods: Female Clowns and Power in Rotuma (Honolulu, 1995)
W. Ellis: Polynesian Researches (London, 1829, enlarged 2/1832–4/R)
W.W. Gill: Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (London, 1876) [song texts in Polynesian and English]
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: The Material Culture of the Cook Islands, Aitutaki (New Plymouth, 1927)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Ethnology of Manihiki and Rakahana (Honolulu, 1932)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Ethnology of Tongareva (Honolulu, 1932)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Ethnology of Pukapuka (Honolulu, 1938/R)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands (Honolulu, 1944)
M. McLean: Field Notes on the Music of Aitutaki and Mangaia (1967)
W. Laird: Drums and Drumming in the Cook Islands (diss., U. of Auckland, 1982)
K. Salisbury: Pukapukan People and their Music (diss., U. of Auckland, 1983)
K. Salisbury: ‘Tradition and Change in the Music of Pukapuka, Cook Islands’, Pacific Arts Newsletter, xxviiii (1984), 32–55
R.M. Moyle: Report on a Survey of Traditional Music of the Northern Cook Islands (Auckland, 1985)
J.M. Little: Report on a Preliminary Study of the Music of Nga Pu Toru (Auckland, 1989)
J.M. Little: The Music of Nga Pu Toru (Southern Cook Islands) (diss., U. of Auckland, 1990)
K. Salisbury: ‘The Oral Tradition of Pukapuka: Treasure Trove of the Ancestors’, Rongorongo Studies, i/2 (1991), 50–53
A. Métraux: Ethnology of Easter Island (Honolulu, 1940/R)
E. Pereira Salas: La música de la Isla de Pascua (Santiago, 1947)
R. Campbell: La herencia musical de Rapanui: etnomusicología de la Isla de Pascua (Santiago, 1971)
J.T. Seaver: ‘Some Observations on the Arts Today in the Navel of the World’, Development of the Arts in the Pacific, ed. P.J.C. Dark (Wellington, 1983), 49–70
R. Campbell: ‘Ethnomusicología de la Isla de Pascua’, RMC, no.170 (1988), 5–47
M. Loyola: ‘Mis vivencias en la Isla de Pascua’, RMC, no.170 (1988), 48–74
T. Henry: Ancient Tahiti (Honolulu, 1928/R)
E.G. Burrows: Native Music of the Tuamotos (Honolulu, 1933/R)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Ethnology of Mangareva (Honolulu, 1938/R)
D.L. Oliver: Ancient Tahitian Society (Honolulu, 1974)
K. Emory: ‘Tuamotuan Chants and Songs from Napuka’, Directions in Pacific Traditional Literature: Essays in Honor of Katherine Luomala, ed. A.L. Kaeppler and H.A. Nimmo (Honolulu, 1976), 173–93
S. Hatanaka and N. Shibata, eds.: Reao Report: a Study of the Polynesian Migration to the Eastern Tuamotos (Kanazawa, 1982)
A.K. Stillman: Report on a Survey of Music in Mangareva, French Polynesia (Auckland, 1987)
A.K. Stillman: Hïmene Tahiti: Ethnoscientific and Ethnohistorical Perspectives on Choral Singing and Protestant Hymnody in the Society Islands, French Polynesia (diss., Harvard U., 1991)
A.K. Stillman: ‘Prelude to a Comparative Investigation of Protestant Hymnody in Polynesia’, YTM, xxv (1993), 89–99
Tilesius: ‘Bachia, oder Kamtschadalischer Barentanz, Nationalmusik und Tanz, und Das Menschenfresser-Lied der Marquezas-Insulaner auf Nukahiwah, ein Nationalgesang’, AMZ, vii (1804–5), 262–71
E.S.C. Handy: The Native Culture of the Marquesas (Honolulu, 1923/R)
E.S.C. Handy and J.L. Winne: Music in the Marquesas Islands (Honolulu, 1925/R)
J.F. Moulin: Territorial Survey of Oceanic Music: Music in the Southern Marquesas Islands (MS, 1990, NZ-Aua)
J.F. Moulin: He ko'ina: Music, Dance and Poetry in the Marquesas Islands (diss., U. of California, Santa Barbara, 1991)
J.F. Moulin: Music of the Southern Marquesas Islands (Auckland, 1994)
N. Emerson: Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: the Sacred Songs of the Hula (Washington DC, 1909/R)
H.H. Roberts: Ancient Hawaiian Music (Honolulu, 1926/R)
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: Arts and Crafts of Hawaii (Honolulu, 1957)
D. Kahananui: Music of Ancient Hawaii (Honolulu, 1962)
K. Wong: ‘Ancient Hawaiian Music’, Aspects of Hawaiian Life and Environment (Honolulu, 1965), 9–10
M.K. Pukai and S.H. Elbert, eds.: Hawaiian Dictionary (Honolulu, 1971, enlarged 2/1986)
G. Kanahele, ed.: Hawaiian Music and Musicians: an Illustrated History (Honolulu, 1979)
E. Tatar: Nineteenth Century Hawaiian Chant (Honolulu, 1982)
B. Stoneburner: Hawaiian Music: an Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT, 1986)
A.K. Stillman: ‘Published Hawaiian Songbooks’, Notes, xxxxiv (1987), 221–39
A.K. Stillman: ‘Not all Hula Songs are Created Equal: Reading the Historical Nature of Repertoire in Polynesia’, YTM, xxvii (1995), 1–12
The Right Hon. R.J. Seddon's Visit to Tonga, Fiji, Savage Island, and the Cook Islands (Wellington, 1900)
R.M. Moyle: Report on a Survey of Traditional Music of Niue (Auckland, 1985)
J. Williams: Journal of a Voyage to the Navigators, in the Olive Branch (MS, 1832–3)
G. Turner: Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before (London, 1884)
J.B. Stair: Old Samoa, or Flotsam and Jetsam from the Pacific Ocean (London, 1897), 134–5
T.R. Hiroa [P.H. Buck]: ‘The Wooden Gongs’, Samoan Material Culture (Honolulu, 1930/R), 575–8
R.M. Moyle: ‘Samoan Song Types’, SMA, vi (1972), 55–67
R.M. Moyle: ‘Samoan Medicinal Incantations’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, lxxxiii (1974), 155–79
R.M. Moyle: ‘Samoan Musical Instruments’, EthM, xviii (1974), 57–74
R.M. Moyle: Traditional Samoan Music (Auckland, 1988)
W.J. Love: Samoan Variations: Essays on the Nature of Traditional Oral Arts (New York, 1991)
J. Huntsman: Ten Tokelau Tales (Auckland, 1977)
A. Thomas and T. Inelao: ‘Profile of a Composer: Ihaia Puka, a Pulotu of the Tokelau Islands’, Oral Tradition, v/2–3 (1990), 267–82
A. Thomas: A New Song and Dance from the Central Pacific: Creating and Performing the Fatele of Tokelau in the Islands and in New Zealand (New York, 1996)
E.W. Gifford: Tongan Myths and Tales (Honolulu, 1924/R)
E.E.V. Collocott: Tales and Poems of Tonga (Honolulu, 1928/R)
J.C. Beaglehole, ed.: The Journals of Captain James Cook: Edited from Original Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1969)
I.F. Helu: ‘Tongan Poetry IV: Dance Poetry’, Faikava, iv, 28–31
R.M. Moyle: Tongan Music (Auckland, 1987)
A. Linkels: Geluiden van Verandering in Tonga (Katwijk aan Zee, 1988)
A.L. Kaeppler: Tongan Musical Genres in Ethnoscientific and Ethnohistoric Perspectives (forthcoming)
G.W. Wyatt: Jottings From The Pacific (London, 1885)
C.M. David: Funafuti or Three Months on a Coral Island: an Unscientific Account of a Scientific Expedition, by Mrs. Edgeworth David (London, 1899)
R.G. Roberts: ‘Te Atu Tuvalu: a Short History of the Ellice Islands’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, lxvii (1958), 394–423
D. Christensen: ‘Old Musical Styles in the Ellice Islands, Western Polynesia’, EthM, xviii (1964), 34–40
D. Christensen and G. Koch: Die Musik der Ellice-Inseln (Berlin, 1964)
Spirit of Polynesia: Traditional Chants, Drum Dances and Other Music from Rapa Iti, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Tokelau, Niue, Nauru, Tuvalu, Marquesas, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Cooks and Easter Island, Saydisc SDL 403 (1993) [incl. notes by D. Fanshawe]
Fiafia: Dances from the South Pacific, Pan 150 (1994)
Hula, haka, hoko: Polynesian Dances, Pan 162 (1997)
Te kuki airani: the Cook Islands, Songs, Rhythms and Dances, Pan 2099 (1998) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Isla de Pascua, EMI (Chile) LDC 36547–36548 (1965)
The Easter Island, Peters International FARN 91040 (1976)
Musique de l'île de Pâques: Rapa Nui, Societé Française de Productions Phonographiques AMP 7 (1976)
Música de la isla de Pascua, coll. R. Campbell, Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Chile, Sección de Musicología (1991)
Easter Island, Marquesas Islands, rec. 1970 and 1985, JVC VIGC 5273–2 (1994)
Rapa Nui, Noiseworks 130 (1995)
Rapa Nui, Arion ARN 64345 (1996)
Te pito o te henua: End of the World: Easter Island Songs and Dances, Pan 2077 (1996) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
The Gauguin Years: Songs and Dances of Tahiti, Nonesuch H–72017 (1965)
Te Ka'ioi, Oceane Production, Serie CO13 (1990–91)
The Tahitian Choir: Rapa Iti, i, Triloka Records 7192–2 (1992) [incl. notes by P. Nabet-Meyer]; ii, Shanachie 64055 (1994) [incl. notes by P. Nabet-Meyer]
Tubai Choir, from the Polynesian Odyssey, Shanachie 64049 (1993) [incl. notes by P. Nabet-Meyer]
Music of Polynesia, i: Tahiti, Society Islands, JVC VICG–5271 (1994)
Music of Polynesia, ii: Tuamoto Austral Islands, JVC VICG–5274 (1994)
Territorial Survey of Oceanic Music: Music of the Southern Marquesas Islands, coll. J.F. Moulin, recordings deposited in the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music, University of Auckland
Ha'aku'i Pele i Hawai'i: Pele Prevails in Hawai'i, Hula Records HS–560 (1978)
Na leo Hawai'i kahiko: Voices of Hawai'i, Bishop Museum ARCS 1 (1980)
Hawaiian Drum Dance Chants: Sounds of Power in Time, Smithsonian Folkways SF 40015 (1989) [incl. notes by E. Taylor]
Hukilau Hulas, GNP Crescendo GNPD–35 (1992)
Hana hou: Do it Again, Hawaiian Hula Chants and Songs, Pan 2033 (1993) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Hawaiian Steel Guitar Classics 1927–38, Arhoolie CD–7027 (1993)
Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters, Dancing Cat Records 08022 38032–2 (1995)
Hawaiian Rainbow, videotape, dir. R. Mugge, Mugshot Productions (Secane, PA, 1987)
Kumu Hula: Keepers of a Culture, videotape, dir. R. Mugge, Mugshot Productions (New York, 1989)
1993 Merrie Monarch Festival: Hula, the First 30 Years, dir. R. Yamamoto, TAK Communications (Honolulu, 1994)
Fa'a-Sāmoa: The Samoan Way: Between Conch Shell and Disco, Pan 2066 (1995) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Mālie! Beautiful! Dance Music of Tonga, Pan 2011 (1992) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Faikava, the Tongan Kava Circle, Pan 2022 (1993) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Ifi palasa, Tongan Brass, Pan 2044 (1994) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Ko e temipale tapu: the Holy Temple: Church Music of Tonga, Pan 7007 (1996) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Afo ‘O E ‘Ofa: Strings of Love: Tongan String Band Music, Pan 2088 (1997) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Faikava, Tonga: Sounds of Change, Pan 2098 (1998) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]
Tuvalu: a Polynesian Atoll Society, Pan 2055 (1994) [incl. notes by A. and L. Linkels]