Chapter 03
Guitars, Villages and Songs of Home
5 min
In January and February 1986, David Goldsworthy and Meli Tuqota recorded village groups on Kadavu, Taveuni and Qamea. The eighteen-track collection Fiji: Songs of Love and Homeland: String Band Music appeared through Smithsonian Folkways in 2014 (UNES08316). It documents sere ni cumu, social songs associated with beer or kava gatherings from the 1920s onward.
What to listen for
Multipart voices connect these recordings, but the accompaniments range from no instruments at all to acoustic strings, percussion and an electric band. The repertory's history is not simple. Some texts and musical habits connect with earlier Fiji practices; instruments, melodies and harmonies also show long contact with European and wider Pacific music. What emerged is neither a museum survival nor a failed imitation. It is a repertory made in Fiji for social life.
Begin with the Vatulawa Trio
Eight tracks feature Vatulawa Trio, all composed by lead singer Iliesa Koroi. He sings with Ifireimi Wailaea and Viliame Lekai; his elder brother Noa plays lead guitar. The group name describes the vocal trio, not the full number of musicians.
On “Kauti Au Ena Vakacegu,” follow the closely moving voices, then the guitar responses between them. Three acoustic guitars divide lead, rhythm and bass functions, with ukulele adding strummed chords. The accompaniment does not merely keep time: its melodic interludes are part of the arrangement.
Move to “Luvuci Au,” translated as “I am touched with grief,” and “Na Tagi na Rarawa,” “Your tears of sorrow.” The emotional subject does not require exaggerated performance. Restraint keeps the words inside a communal style; they never turn into solo confession.
Then use “Marama” as a shorter contrast and “Au Mai Kidavaki” as another love song. Its translated opening, “You welcome me,” belongs to that romantic context; it does not make the song an example of ceremonial hospitality.
The booklet distinguishes the close harmony of trio style from sere bass, where a prominent low vocal line stands apart from the upper parts. Vatulawa represents the first; many of the other village groups the second. Listening for that difference is more useful than describing every ensemble as one soft choral blend.
Listen for the moment a second part enters. Does it shadow the melody, hold a note while the lead moves, or complete the chord at the end of a phrase? Listen to consonants. If the group closes a word together, the rhythm feels firm even when the strings remain gentle.
This is social precision. The ensemble sounds relaxed because its members know how to breathe and finish together.
The islands enter through names
The rest of the collection widens the map. Baidamudamu village group sings “Sa Rogo Levu na Noqu Vanua” and “Ni Rogoca Mada na Noqu i Talanoa.” Vuna village group performs “Ko Lomaloma,” while Vuna village band closes the programme with “Talanoa ni Noqu Koro,” a story of the village. Solovola village group offers the extended “Noqu Vanua.” Naselesele village group announces “I want to tell a story.” Dreketi village group on Qamea performs “Ko Droka na Bogi.”
These credits are not administrative clutter. They keep the music attached to people and place. Noqu vanua can be translated as “my land” or “my homeland,” but vanua carries relationships among land, community and belonging that no one English word can hold. A national playlist should let several groups say home in their own recorded voices.
Guitar and ukulele do more than keep time
With Vatulawa, separate the chordal pulse from the picked bass figures and Noa's melodic replies. Elsewhere, “Ko Lomaloma” and “Ko Droka na Bogi” are unaccompanied, while the closing Vuna band uses electric lead, rhythm and bass guitars with drums and tambourine. The collection moves between several ensemble sounds, not one acoustic formula.
The instruments also regulate social volume. They support conversation-friendly singing and do not require a formal stage. Because tuning and chord shapes are portable, a repertory can travel among households and islands while remaining locally owned through text, voice and group memory.
Calling this “Western influence” and moving on misses the creativity. Musicians took available instruments into their own gatherings, wrote or adapted songs, and developed a sound recognisable across decades. Modernity did not arrive once; it was negotiated every time someone learned a chord, changed a lyric or carried a song to another island.
Songs remember without becoming archives
Titles about villages, homeland and loss invite historical reading. A song can preserve a name, relationship or event, but it is not a neutral document. Lyrics select, praise, mourn and persuade. Performance changes the memory again: a village group in 1986 may sing an older text for a recorder, a local audience and a future they cannot predict.
Use songs as voices in history, not as proof that every detail happened exactly as sung. The recording date matters, as does the likely age of the repertory. “Recorded in 1986” is honest. “An ancient song from Fiji” is not supported simply because the ensemble is village-based.
A five-track close-listening set
Hear these in sequence:
1. Vatulawa Trio — “Kauti Au Ena Vakacegu”: close vocal harmony and distinct guitar roles. 2. Baidamudamu village group — “Sa Rogo Levu na Noqu Vanua”: homeland through a named community. 3. Solovola village group — “Noqu Vanua”: a longer form and sustained group pacing. 4. Dreketi village group — “Ko Droka na Bogi”: Qamea locality and compact narrative energy. 5. Vuna village band — “Talanoa ni Noqu Koro”: village story as the album's final statement.
By the fifth track, the collection no longer sounds like one continuous island mood. Different ensembles have acquired faces, durations and choices.
