Note.—The vowels to be pronounced as follows: a as in “tar,” e as in “obey,” i as in “ici,” o as in “so,” u as in “rule.”
The training of natives of these islands by the Melanesian Mission at Norfolk Island has shown that the compass of their voices and their ear for music are capable of much cultivation. When staying with Bishop Selwyn at Gaeta in the Florida Islands, I heard familiar hymn-tunes sung with as true an appreciation of harmony as would be found in the Sunday School of an English village, and sung by a congregation of natives of both sexes, who, with the exception of their teachers, had never left their island.
During our lengthened sojourn in Bougainville Straits, we became very familiar with the popular tunes of the natives; and through the exertions of Mr. Isabell, I have been able to reproduce in this work three of the commonest [airs].[125] The songs are usually sung in chorus, and a droning accompaniment is often introduced by some of the men which is especially well given in the second tune. There appear to be four or five common airs. All are short and most of them have refrains which are repeated over and over again. The first tune is a cannibal song and is sung at the war dances. Its words, as I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, are the address of a man to his enemy, in which he informs him of his intention to kill and eat him. The second tune, though not possessing words, is often sung or rather chanted by the men. When sung by a number of persons, its wild music is to an imaginative mind very suggestive of the savage life. I have heard it sung by about forty men whilst passing the night with them in the village of Sinasoro in Faro Island. The tambu-house, in which we were, was dimly lighted, and the natives were squatting around a wood-fire chanting their wild song in chorus, and terminating it in a fashion that sounded very abrupt to the white man’s ear. The third tune is a pretty air which the men of the “Lark” used to play with the concertina in waltz time. The words, accompanying it, have a music of their own. I learned from the natives of Treasury Island that this tune was brought from Meoko (Duke of York Islands) not long since.
[125] Mr. Isabell was indebted for assistance to Mr. Tremaine of Auckland, N.Z.
The Pandean pipe is the musical instrument in common use amongst the natives of the Islands of Bougainville Straits. I did not notice it in St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the other end of the group, where it is either not known or but rarely used. The distribution of this instrument in the Pacific is interesting. It is figured by D’Albertis in his work on New Guinea, and there are specimens in the British Museum Collection from Brumer’s Island off this coast, as well as from the Admiralty Islands, the New Hebrides, the Tonga Group, and New Zealand. The instruments from all these localities are distinguished from the Solomon Island pan-pipe by the reeds being arranged in a single row and being of a much smaller size. They are also more neatly made. Those used by the Treasury and Shortland natives are composed of a double row of from 6 to 8 reeds, the second row being merely added to give support to the instrument. The longest reed is usually a foot in length and three quarters of an inch in bore; whilst the shortest reed is about 5 inches long and rather less than half an inch in bore. Some natives prefer instruments having twice this length. The Pandean pipes, played at the public dances of Alu, are of very large size, the length of the longest reed of one which I measured being between 31⁄2 and 4 feet. At such performances, the air is given by the smaller pipes; whilst the bass notes of the larger pipes form a droning but harmonious accompaniment. The music of these instruments, being in the usual contracted compass, is of a somewhat monotonous character. Those of Treasury Island are said to be only adapted for playing one tune, which is the second [air] given on the page. I learn from Mr. Isabell, who was interested in this matter, that the natives vary the number of reeds in the instrument according to the air it is intended to play. The musician accompanies his melody with a nodding of the head and a swaying of the body on the hips, movements which are anything but expressive and are in fact rather ludicrous.
Jew’s harps of foreign manufacture are much in demand amongst persons of both sexes and all ages throughout the Solomon Group. In the eastern islands they fashion them of bamboo, as in the New Hebrides and New Guinea;[126] but I did not observe any native-made instruments amongst the people of Bougainville Straits. The women of Treasury Island produce a similar though softer kind of music by playing, somewhat after the fashion of a Jew’s harp, on a lightly made fine-stringed bow about 15 inches long. This is held to the lips and the string is gently struck with the fingers, the cavity of the mouth serving as a resonator. . . . That school-boy’s delight, the “paper-and-comb instrument,” finds its counterpart in these islands. On one occasion, when I was enjoying a pipe and watching the surf on the south coast of Stirling Island, a young lad, who accompanied me, amused himself with some rude music by holding in front of his lips, as he hummed a native air, a thick leaf in which he had made a hole about half an inch wide, leaving the thin transparent epidermis intact on one side; the vibration of this thin membrane gave a peculiar twang to his voice.
[126] Mr. Mosely in his “Notes by a Naturalist” gives an illustration of a Jew’s harp from the New Hebrides.
The drum in common use in the different islands we visited was made of a portion of the trunk of a tree, 8 to 10 feet long, hollowed out in its interior and possessing a slit in the middle. It is placed lengthways on the ground, and is struck by two short sticks. Similar drums are employed by the inhabitants of the New Hebrides[127] and the Admiralty Islands.[128] This pattern may therefore be described as the Melanesian drum. A kind of sounding-board, placed in a pit in the ground and struck by the feet of the dancers, is described in my account of the dances of these islanders (vide [page 144]).