Sex and Slander in Tikopia Song: Public Antagonism and Private Intrigue

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Tikopia, a small Polynesian island community in the Solomon Islands, has had a great tradition of orally communicated song. This song tradition has had several marked features. It was very largely a choral tradition. Individual singing occurred in the chants of some traditional tales, in a few ritual chants, in laments of emotional release as in farewells or abandonment of mourning, and in practice sessions when a new song was being learned. But such occasions were relatively uncommon; the great mass of Tikopia singing was done in chorus. Correspondingly, there was no virtuoso singing, by a soloist performing for an audience. Nor was any great importance attached to the quality of a voice; memory for songs and vocal power were the criteria of a purotu, an expert.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.