Popular Music as Local Culture: An Ethnographic Study of the Album Matha Wa! by the Band Paramana Strangers from Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This paper explores the capacity for commercially recorded popular music to sustain local culture by presenting the ways in which recordings by the band Paramana Strangers from Papua New Guinea are imbued with meanings that are understood locally as having roots in traditional culture. I present examples in the form of song texts from the album Matha Wa! (1981) to demonstrate how traditional metaphors and cultural practices surrounding music composition are sustained through popular song traditions. I focus my analysis on what the song composers deem important, and explore ways that recordings are utilized to sustain culture, not only as ‘documentations’ of culture, but also through the practices of music making and sharing. By doing so, indigenous ways of knowing and imparting knowledge are given priority, providing local perceptions about traditional culture and its sustainability.

Notes

¹ The group was the first PNG band to commercially record and release locally with the 1978 album Paradise Calling. They have subsequently enjoyed considerable nationwide popularity. Tereakone Iro, Kiki Geno and Vevao Geno were the three original Paramana Strangers. When Vevao, the eldest brother died in 1973, (the now) Dr. Warilea Iamo, Samuela Pepena, and Vagi Geno joined the band. Tereakone, however, was killed in 1994 when he was shot along Maggi Highway near the Hood Lagoon turn-off. The bands Paramana Strangers II and Parmana Strangers III also feature relatives of the original band-members. In 2007 the PNG governor general made Kiki Geno a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to music.

² Acknowledging and including indigenous epistemologies into academic research is considered an important part of de-hegemonization, and decolonization. See Hau’ofa (1993) and Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo (2001).

³ Anthony Seeger (1986, 1991, 1996, 2001) has addressed a range of concerns on this topic, particularly in relation to archiving.

⁴ These recordings were made by CHM, an Asian-owned PNG-based record label. For more information see Webb and Niles (1987), Webb (1993, 1998) and Philpott (1995, 1998).

⁵ The local status of informants has been acknowledged as critical in Pacific research, especially concerning perspectives on ‘traditions’, and what constitutes ‘traditional culture’. See Cattermole (2011), for example.

⁶ Denis Crowdy’s ability on guitar and good nature is famous among Central Province musicians. He also previously taught at the University of Papua New Guinea, and conducted ethnographic research on stringband music in the Central Province in the early 2000s that is referenced throughout this article (Crowdy 2001, 2005, 2006).

⁷ For critiques on researcher engagement with indigenous and PNG cultures, see Gewertz and Errington (1987), Barz and Cooley (2008), Strathern (1983), and Gillespie (2009).

⁸ After lengthy discussion, it was decided that songs from the album Matha Wa! should be the focal point of this article, as well as other publications and conference presentations.

⁹ There are stylistic variations within Lokal musical styles (including Central Province styles) that have origins in stringband music (see Crowdy 2005). For the purpose of this article, the term Central Province Lokal style encompasses broad stylistic characteristics specific to Lokal music from Central Province as identified by musicians in Port Moresby at the time of this research. In the analysis of songs from this album, I endeavour to adhere to the band’s own classifications of the different types of songs discussed.

¹⁰ The Tok Pisin (the PNG lingua franca) term Lokal refers to a stringband-influenced style of (usually) electronically produced recorded popular music. See Webb (1993, xix).

¹¹ This would be either a toti (a small hollowed out piece of wood similar to a six-inch slit-drum struck by a small stick) often used to accompany Ute, a Polynesian melody introduced by Pacific Island missionaries in the late nineteenth century (Cook Island and Loyalty Island missionaries have been documented in Hanuabada Village in Port Moresby; see Niles 2000) and found along the Central Province coast, or a small gourd (usually used for transporting lime powder) or miscellaneous piece of wood hit by a small stick.

¹² The significance of metaphors in PNG cultures has been discussed in Steven Feld’s seminal book on the Kaluli (Feld 1982).

¹³ The significance of inducing sorrow through song has been identified in other studies of PNG music; for example, see Suwa (2001) and Feld (1982).

¹⁴ The importance of ancestors in Melanesian communities is explored by Lindstrom (1990).

¹⁵ Steven Feld explores the relationship between birds, metaphor and sentiment in his seminal book Sound and Sentiment (1982).

¹⁶ Even though in most cases melodies (both Lokal and Marikamu) are considered communally owned, it is possible for groups or individuals to stake rights over a newly composed melody. It is also possible for groups (or individuals) to ‘purchase’ the rights to perform melodies that other groups lay claim to. For example, one Marikamu melody found in Aroma, called Kitoro originates from the neighbouring language group Rigo. This melody was traded for pigs—probably over 100 years ago—as part of a customary system of exchange and reciprocity between groups in the area. Additionally, a popular traditional ceremony known as Tovi was attained from neighbouring Mailu (Niles 1981, 1). The (potentially violent) process of enforcing customary copyrights is no longer practiced; however, breaking customs concerning the rights and ownership over songs is still a major taboo.

¹⁷ In PNG, a number of scholars have documented how traditions are sustained through appropriated or borrowed forms (Feld 1988; Métraux 1990). Notably Crowdy’s (2001, 2005, 2006) study of stringband music demonstrates how borrowed musical forms sustain traditional/local belief systems and aesthetics within a local cultural framework.

¹⁸ This notion is reinforced by Hayward who asserts that in PNG: ‘we are not simply dealing with a discourse of rip-offs but [we are] actually seeing the rip-off as an essential and locally legitimate practice’ (2000, 182; see also Crowdy 2006).

¹⁹ This issue is explored in further detail in another publication (see Wilson 2011, 131).

²⁰ The importance of ples as a PNG cultural construct has been addressed by a number of scholars (see Gillespie (2009, 231) and Ward (2000, 231)).

²¹ The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies directed by Don Niles has been instrumental in locating and documenting much of these early locally-made recordings (Niles 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 1989, 1992).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oli Wilson

Oli Wilson is a Lecturer in the Music Department at Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand. His research interests include Indigenous popular music from Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. Email: [email protected]