Tikopia Songs
Poetic and Musical Art of a Polynesian People of the Solomon Islands

This book shows how the poetry and music of a Polynesian people, the Tikopia, can have an intimate relation with their social life.

Raymond Firth (Author), Mervyn McLean (With)

9780521032056, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 December 2006

328 pages, 20 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.7 cm, 0.491 kg

"The commentary itself is very interesting...sensitive treatment of Tikopia song and culture..." Ellen E. Facey, The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

Sir Raymond Firth is one of the most distinguished British anthropologists, and one internationally acclaimed. His work here forms part of one of the fullest and most professional ethnographic accounts by any anthropologist of a non-industrial people, an account which extends over many years. This book is about the songs of a Western Pacific people, the Tikopia, who not so long ago lived entirely on a small remote island of the Solomons. Their songs vary from lively dance chants to mournful funeral laments. All are novel to western ears. The book provides about 100 examples, in text and translation. It also discusses the relation of the songs to the social life of the people, and it includes an analysis of the structure of their music, by Mervyn McLean, a noted musicologist.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. General: 1. The nature of Tikopia song
2. Tikopia poetic language and imagery
3. Funeral and mourning as musical occasions
4. Dance and song
Part II. Musical Analysis Mervyn McLean: 5. The structure of Tikopia music
Part III. Song Texts, Translations and Commentary: 6. Dance songs of everyday life
7. Songs of the sea and of travel
8. Eulogies and farewells
9. Songs of protest and criticism
10. Songs of erotic arousal and sex antagonism
11. Laments and funeral dirges
12. Songs on historical and mythic themes, and of ritual quality
13. Epilogue
Appendices
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]