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Continuities in Fijian Music: Meke and Same

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

David Goldsworthy
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Extract

Methodist and Catholic missionaries brought Christianity to the Fijian islands in the nineteenth century. They taught the islanders Western hymns and translated the Bible into the vernacular for Fijians to read. Fijians responded musically to these developments in two ways. For some church music they adopted Western styles and forms, and began composing these religious songs themselves in their own language. In certain cases, however, they continued to use a style of chanting derived from older, pre-European-contact forms for their Christian worship. This latter response resulted in same, a type of sacred music involving the unaccompanied chanting of Biblical texts.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 27 , 1995 , pp. 23 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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References

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