Introduction

In the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea, including the Southern and Western Highlands and Enga Provinces, there are remarkable oral traditions of chanted tales. The chanted tales have been poetic vehicles through which peoples of the region have maintained their histories - and shared with others their knowledge of the land and people. They are also an enchanting means of community entertainment.

Often the tales were told in the evenings and indoors by story-tellers using language that was poetic – a kind of chant that had an inherent rhythmic pattern and repeating melodic structure. The stories that were told ranged from love stories of a boy meeting a girl and of conflicts between people and cannibals, ogres or giants structured around the universal themes of good and evil.  The stories provided entertainment as well as being a record of history, a pictorial or image map of the home lands and folklore with stock characters that served to educate the members of the communities on the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of their societies and other important knowledge and values that bonded them.

Those who told the stories - the story tellers - they were masters of their craft. They captured the attention of the on-lookers with images of heroes, heroines, journeys, places and deeds. Indeed as masters of oral imagery, they beguiled and bedeviled the on-lookers as they juggled and juxtaposed words that were chanted in a seamless rhythmic pattern – an art form which would be new to many today, yet deeply rooted in the Papua New Guinean context. The art form of chanted tales formed a vital part of peoples’ lives in entertainment, history and knowledge in their communities.

Since the arrival of white people under colonial rule in the early 1930s, the people in the Highlands region have experienced dramatic shifts and changes in terms of government, education, religion, law and culture. All of the cultural groups of the region were oral cultures and there were no written records of the cultures and ways of life of the people. Today many young people of the region are educated and trained in the ways of the white people and have had very little education in the ways of their own cultural ways and traditions.

It seems inevitable that ancestral traditions belonging to the young people of the region will gradually be lost. Among the traditions caught in this precarious situation are the regions’ ancient and wonderful ways of storytelling through chant. The story tellers present in some of the areas are among the very few people left who maintain the art in their respective communities, as education, church, government processes and economic shifts and changes have been influential in changing peoples’ ways of life. As the white people’s forms of entertainment and information through radio and television take a strong hold in the region the stories may soon disappear as will the story-tellers or chanters – two invaluable partners that formed and performed the most remarkable and epic-like chanted tales.

In the face of these shifts and changes various researchers (Papua New Guineans and others) over some forty years have spent considerable time and effort in recording, studying and disseminating information and knowledge on the chanted tales from the region. Invaluable data and resource material have also been collated through these efforts. In recent times there has emerged a renewed interest in the retention and continuation of these traditions by members of various communities. The role of institutions, through researchers and teachers, in taking responsibility - and beginning to collect, reflect, and discuss and do further work with and on heritage collections is a major step in the right direction.

The 'Chanted Tales Project' will strengthen these efforts to retain and continue these traditions in the region, for the country and for the world.

The project

This project will bring together an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Papua New Guinea as well as beyond who, through various ways, have become engaged with chanted tales of the region. The team is comprised of those who come from the region and have grown up with the tradition of chanted tales and have now been educated and trained in ways of the white people. Members of the team also comprise those who have spent considerable time and energy studying chanted tales and the people who have woven them in order to better appreciate the tradition and also share with others within Papua New Guinea and beyond the fascinating world of chanted tales. The team will collaborate and develop state-of-the art digital recordings of the range of chanted epic tales performed in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. These recordings will then be written in the local languages and translated in Tok Pisin (national lingua franca pf Papua New Guinea) and English for heritage purposes for Papua New Guineans and others and also for use by children in schools in order to learn their language as well their traditions.

The aims of the Papua New Guinea Chanted Tales Heritage Project will be:

1. To develop an archive of state-of-the art digital recordings of the full range of genres of chanted epic tales performed in Highland New Guinea, each with a verbatim, line-by-line transcript in the original language, and translation into English and Tok Pisin.
2. To facilitate the publication of particularly outstanding examples of the recorded tales, in print with accompanying sound recordings, for distribution both within Papua New Guinea (at specially subsidized low prices) and abroad.
   
3. To support the work of indigenous PNG scholars in recording, translating and analyzing these tales and performance traditions.
4. To support the work of the Papua New Guinea National Education Department in its aims to retain and maintain local languages and cultural knowledge in teaching in Elementary Education (P-2) in local vernacular using local knowledge by making the chanted tales through stories (both in book, audio and visual forms) as important resource material for use in schools.
5. To provide opportunities for the remaining story-tellers to share their skills and knowledge with others in schools and institutions in workshops, presentations and performances with the view that the young will appreciate this art form and hopefully acquire the skills and knowledge so that others can maintain this tradition of story telling.

Work Shop on Chanted Tales

On February 14 and 15, 2004, a two-day workshop was held at the University of Goroka. This workshop was focused on bringing various researchers and interested persons who have focused on ‘Chanted tales’ as an area of research, writing, discussion and general interest. It was a time where information and ideas were shared about the different genres of chanted tales that have been recorded, transcribed and studied by various researchers and writers. Chanted tales is a way of telling stories that makes use of special intonational and/or rhythmic patterns that are different from ordinary speech. Chanted tales are not necessarily to do with ‘singing’ stories. Nor are they ‘stories’ told. It is something in between and this makes them a rather remarkable form of oral poetry. The workshop served as a vehicle to focus discussions on the poetry, the purposes for such an art form and other areas that have been of interest. Indigenous persons including story-tellers, were invited to participate in the discussions and share their knowledge and insights at the workshop. The workshop was a good launch pad for the Chanted Tales Heritage Project.

Tales Report

Across a large area within the central Highlands of Papua New Guinea, including the Western and Southern Highlands and Enga provinces, there are ways of telling stories that make use of special pitch patterns and rhythms that are different from those of ordinary speech. These ‘sung stories’ or ‘chanted tales’ are currently (in 2003-5) the subject of a research project based at the Australian National University and a cultural heritage project based at the University of Goroka. The projects involve researchers from these institutions, as well as from the University of Queensland, Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, and the University of Papua New Guinea. In February 2004, participants in both of these projects met together at the University of Goroka in a workshop to hear performances by some of the leading composer-performers of these tales from around the Highlands, present some of their research findings, and discuss the significance of this art form for Papua New Guineans and for the comparative study of verbal art and music. In order to help introduce this art form to a wider public, it was decided at the workshop to produce a sampler compact disc with excerpts of chanted tales from various language regions within the project area. In this first CD, we are not including transcripts of the tales or full summaries of their contents. The main aim here is to exemplify the sound of various genres of chanted tales and how they differ from ordinary speech.

Chanted tales are always solo vocal performances; never by a group, with any instruments, nor with dance. They are frequently performed indoors at night, after a meal, for an audience which, according to the area concerned, may either remain totally silent or make interjections to encourage the performance. Both the performer and the audience are usually seated or, in some areas, lying down. The performer takes his or her audience on a poetic journey, revealing much about social relationships, neighbouring groups, local traditions, and the environment, but in addition to the educational value of chanted tales, their primary purpose is entertainment. While the stories may be known to the listeners, the performer is also a composer in elaborating elements of the story in a vocabulary often quite different from everyday language. Although requiring further research, the melodic patterns of chanted tales often appear to be related to those found in genres more readily recognised as song.

A project is being planned to select a number of tracks to reveal the wide variety of chanted tales from the Highlands. Different performers of the same genre, both men and women, will be included where possible, and different styles of narration are also represented: from spoken to sung, along with various styles in between. Extracts of performances, full performances of short, sung stories etc will be considered.  The tracks will be arranged to generally sweep from the east to the west of the Highlands and will show some contrast between different styles of chanted tales.