SONGS. 141 



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 sang 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 exerticns of Mr. Isabell, I have been able to reproduce 

 in this work three of the commonest airs.^ The songs are usuallv 

 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 imagin- 

 ative 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 woi'ds, 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. 



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 i-aiely 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 



1 Mr. Isabell was indebted for assistance to Mr. Tremaine of Auckland, N.Z. 



