Giving women a voice

Christian songs and female expression at Kopiago, Papua New Guinea

Authors

  • Kirsty Gillespie Griffith University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v11i1.7

Keywords:

Papua New Guinea, gender, Christian music, laments, women, composition, empowerment

Abstract

At Lake Kopiago, in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, women’s public music-making is often restricted and men are the most visible performers. However, the introduction of Christianity has seen women become more visible in the musical landscape through their participation in church musical activities. Christian songs learnt by women in church are now spilling over into the secular realm, forming the basis for much community composition. Women are able to directly express their desires, and their anxieties, in music, using these newly introduced musical tools. This paper investigates the processes of women’s composition in these terms, focusing on songs composed and performed by the Duna women of Lake Kopiago, Southern Highlands Province.

Author Biography

  • Kirsty Gillespie, Griffith University

    Kirsty Gillespie is a Research Fellow in the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University, and a Visiting Fellow in the School of Culture, History and Languages at the Australian National University.

References

Bowers, Jane. 1998. ‘Women’s Lamenting Traditions around the World: A Survey and Some Significant Questions’. Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 2: 125–46.

Crowdy, Denis. 2005. Guitar Style, Open Tunings and Stringband Music in Papua New Guinea. Apwitihire: Studies in Papua New Guinea Musics, 9. Boroko: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.

Fearon, W. Jon, ed. 1980. Inanaga ibagana: Local Language Songs of Papua New Guinea. Tari: Daulo Teachers’ College.

Feld, Steven. 1982. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

—1990. ‘Wept Thoughts: The Voicing of Kaluli Memories’. Oral Tradition 5/2-3: 241–66.

—1996. ‘Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea’. In Senses of Place, ed. Keith Basso and Steven Feld, 91–135. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Feld, Steven, and Denis Crowdy. 2002. ‘Papua New Guinean Music and the Politics of Sound Recording’. Perfect Beat 5(4): 78–85.

Gillespie, Kirsty. 2007a. ‘Laip senis: Music and Encounter in a Papua New Guinean Community’. In Oceanic Music Encounters: The Print Resource and the Human Resource. Essays in Honour of Mervyn McLean, ed. Richard Moyle, 69–80. Auckland: Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland.

—2007b. ‘Steep Slopes: Song Creativity, Continuity and Change for the Duna of Papua New Guinea’. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.

Giris, Jeline, and Teresia Rynkiewich. 2005. ‘Emerging Issues for Women and Children in Papua New Guinea’. Occasional Paper of Melanesian Institute, 12. Goroka: Melanesian Institute.

Haley, Nicole. 2002. ‘Ipakana Yakaiya—Mapping Landscapes, Mapping Lives: Contemporary Land Politics among the Duna’. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.

—2008. ‘Sung Adornment: Changing Masculinities at Lake Kopiago, Papua New Guinea’. Australian Journal of Anthropology 19(2): 213–29. doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.2008.tb00 123.x

Haley, Nicole, and Ronald J. May. 2007. ‘Introduction: Roots of Conflict in the Southern Highlands’. In Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, ed. Nicole Haley and Ronald J. May, 1–19. Canberra: ANU E Press.

Magowan, Fiona. 2007. Melodies of Mourning: Music and Emotion in Northern Australia. Oxford: James Currey.

McLeod, Abby. 2002. ‘Where are the Women in Simbu Politics?’ Development Bulletin 59: 43–46.

Petrovic, Ankica. 1990. ‘Women in the Music Creation Process in the Dinaric Cultural Zone of Yugoslavia’. In Music, Gender, and Culture, ed. Marcia Herndon and Susanne Ziegler, 71–84. Wilhemshaven: Noetzel.

Pugh-Kitingan, Jacqueline. 1981. ‘An Ethnomusicological Study of the Huli of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea’. PhD dissertation, University of Queensland, Brisbane.

—1984. ‘Speech-tone Realisation in Huli Music’. In Problems and Solutions: Occasional Essays in Musicology Presented to Alice M. Moyle, ed. J. C. Kassler and J. Stubington, 94–120. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger.

Robbins, Joel. 2004. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stürzenhofecker, Gabriele. 1998. Times Enmeshed: Gender, Space and History among the Duna of Papua New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Wardlow, Holly. 2006. Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Webb, Michael. 1993. Lokal musik: Lingua franca Song and Identity in Papua New Guinea. Apwitihire: Studies in Papua New Guinea Musics, 3. Boroko: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.

Weiner, James. 1991. The Empty Place: Poetry, Space, and Being among the Foi of Papua New Guinea. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Published

2010-08-25

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Gillespie, K. (2010). Giving women a voice: Christian songs and female expression at Kopiago, Papua New Guinea. Perfect Beat, 11(1), 7-24. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v11i1.7

Most read articles by the same author(s)