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  1. Home
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  3. Tikopia Songs
  • Cited by 2
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2010
Print publication year:
1991
Online ISBN:
9780511627255
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511627255
Subjects:
Ethnomusicology, Music, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture (20)
Information

Book description

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.

Reviews

"Raymond Firth sets out to provide a detailed empirical study of the social context of Tikopia song, and this he does.... [a] sensitive treatment of Tikopia song and culture." The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

"This is an excellent book if one appreciates reality and empiricism, written by the best author of ethnology of Polynesia, presenting us with rare, perhaps unique, Polynesian material....Firth has written another classic." Ethnohistory

"What is truly remarkable is the vivid portrayal here of Tikopia song, performance, and aesthetics in photograph, song text, translation, and description. This is fortunate for all students of the Pacific, and for the Tikopia themselves." American Anthropologist

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

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