Edited by Don Niles, Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, and Denis Crowdy, University of Papua New Guinea. The conference was itself something of a performative event, where people from various parts of the culturally and ethnically very heterogeneous Papua New Guinea came together to discuss and present music. A major theme at the conference was the discussion about the nature of Papua New Guinea music. This event should no doubt also be seen as an exercise in nation building, like the whole series of publications on music and culture from the Institute of New Guinea Studies. It is impossible in a review to mention all papers in this book, there are no less than 23, and also transcripts from discussions.
Some papers are very short, almost like abstracts, and some are more fully worked out papers.
Webb's tale about the early years of Westernised popular music and the role which people of mixed descent played in it is quite fascinating. His perspective is that of modern performance theory, and he places his observations in a sociological perspective, arguing that this new type of music was used to create status for the group of people of mixed ethnic origin, the so-called Euronesians. And Wam used this language to convey information about the movement of Japanese ships along the coast to allied forces, which was of help in the war effort. This produces a powerful sound that carries far and the pitch can be varied by varying the size of the cavity formed by the hands. The considerable skill and dexterity in producing these sounds and in interpreting them would seem to account for their rare occurrence, but this is an interesting paper on a rather amazing topic, which is not yet fully studied and understood.