When I was preparing for my first field trip to Papua New Guinea in 1989, I read a short text by Gregory Bateson on the ceremonial flute music from the Sepik River area. Bateson (1936: 158-170) refers to the significance of this music for the freshly initiated young men, who, while learning to play the flutes, also learn – according to Bateson – about the social organisation of their group. Bateson states:

Bateson describes the impossibility of determining whether ‘the process of thought patterned by such a system’ has influenced the music of the flute duet. The following analysis will show that there is, however, a very strong reason to believe that this is indeed the case. Furthermore, the phenomenon that a society's thought patterns are mirrored in its key music seems not to be limited to the flute music in Papua New Guinea, but is evident in other places in Melanesia as well (Ammann 1997; Coppet 1978). I have chosen the ayoii songs of New Caledonia as an example. In both cases, the music of the ceremonial flutes at the Middle Sepik and the ayoii songs of New Caledonia, the music is composed of small structural forms, which are repeated on various levels, from the smallest motif to the larger parts of the song.