Chapter 04
Pohnpei: Place Songs, Sakau Evenings and Many Languages
5 min
Pohnpei State holds several musical geographies
Pohnpei Island, with Kolonia and the national capital at Palikir, is the political centre of FSM. Pohnpei State also includes Pingelap, Mwoakilloa, Sapwuahfik, Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi. The latter two are Polynesian outliers within the federation, and their languages should not be folded into Pohnpeian.
The college songbook makes this plurality immediately audible. Pohnpeian school and place songs sit beside Pingelapese, Mwoakillese, Sapwuahfikese, Nukuoroan and Kapingamarangi lullabies and stories. Their coexistence is not evidence of one blended style. It is evidence of a state formed across different island communities.
Pohnpei is therefore best heard as a hub and a network, not simply one high island.
`Bus Ongong` turns embarrassment into a children's refrain
Bus Ongong, translated as Yellow Bus, tells of a Frontier vehicle whose tire falls off on the way to Kolonia Town. Other cars pass, and the unlucky vehicle receives its teasing nickname. The song then veers into playful English images of flying like a bat and looking for a bird.
Its charm lies in local specificity. Kolonia, a vehicle model, code-switching and communal teasing make the song feel lived rather than emblematic. The melody is memorable enough for children, while repetition makes the joke easy to share.
Ceremonial grandeur often dominates national portraits. Bus Ongong is a better lesson: a country is also the songs children use when somebody has done something funny.
Sakau songs make intimacy social
Dowei Sang Ie, translated as Far From Me, is identified in the songbook as a sakau song. Its text joins longing, a distant beloved, crying and the image of a flower near the Mission garden. Sakau, prepared from kava, belongs to social, chiefly and ceremonial life on Pohnpei; the setting can shape how a song's intimacy is heard.
The piece should not be turned into background music for an exotic drink. The important relation is among gathering, voice, memory and place. A quiet song can hold attention because the listeners already understand its language and social frame.
When hearing Dowei Sang Ie, notice how repetition allows feeling to deepen without a large dramatic arrangement.
School, work and home produce a large Pohnpeian repertory
Doadoahk Kehlail encourages students to work hard and is sung by younger pupils to honour eighth-grade graduates. Pohnpei Ei Wasahn Kousoan, translated as My Home Pohnpei, turns island attachment into a direct place song. Pahpa Kohla Doumeido narrates a father going to get breadfruit. Several lullabies address babies and mothers with small melodic ranges suited to calming rather than display.
These pieces show institutions and household work touching one another. School teaches public performance; home provides language and melody; church and civic events create larger audiences. The repertory grows by use, not by remaining in one ceremonial category.
For listeners, the practical clue is scale. Ask whether the song sounds designed for one child, a classroom, a sakau gathering or a public crowd.
The `Sokehs Rebellion Song` makes history long enough to sing
The Sokehs Rebellion of 1910–1911 took place under German colonial rule. The songbook's Sokehs Rebellion Song runs far longer than the small pieces around it, carrying names and actions through many verses. Its length is part of its function: history becomes sequential, memorable and performable.
A short summary can state what happened. A long song can preserve how a community chooses to narrate courage, loss, place and consequence. That does not make every lyric a neutral archive. It makes the song an authored form of historical memory deserving attention alongside administrative documents.
Listen for accumulation. Each verse adds weight; repetition gives listeners a structure in which to hold detail.
Pingelap, Mwoakilloa and Sapwuahfik refuse the generic “Pohnpei” label
Pingelapese Rahn In Kepeloal, The First Day, and Nihesil Kuloak Welu belong to Pingelap, not simply to a state-wide folk category. Mwoakilloa contributes songs such as Jerpein, Kasoh-Kangla-Koawoa and the lullaby Mehrla. Sapwuahfik songs include Menpihr Weitahta, Red Flying Bird, and Menlau Nohno Tamatamanie, Please, Mama, Remember Me.
The English titles reveal subjects but not pronunciation or melodic fit. The local-language names should lead. They make each song identifiable and remind us that state borders do not erase island-specific speech.
No short account can explain every language, but it can stop making them invisible.
Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi bring Polynesian voices into FSM
Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi are Polynesian outliers within Pohnpei State. Au E Sese Mai Laa Dai Denga Modu Madalama describes walking among Madalama's small islets, hearing wind and birds and greeting a beautiful girl. The note says it may be sung while walking around the lagoon or by teenagers for entertainment.
Kapingamarangi songs in the collection include Dii Budi Maga Dangi Dangi, a little cat's cry used to calm babies, and Hagalongo Gi Dagu Beneinei, a children's song about loving one's family. Their small subjects are an advantage: they show a language living in play, care and school rather than appearing only in a cultural-survival speech.
Place these songs beside Pohnpeian material and the federation's internal Pacific diversity becomes audible without a lecture.
PNI Nation turns local dance language into a portable track
PNI Nation's Ekis Keido, circulating by 2012, is a Pohnpeian popular-dance entry with a direct electronic pulse. Jun Salomon's Linganiki, associated with the group's second album Ekis Keido, offers another path into guitar, reggae and Pohnpeian pop.
These recordings belong to an era when social media and digital stores made regional popularity possible without the documentation expected of a major label. Credits may be thinner than an archivist would like, but the music reached a real audience.
Put Ekis Keido after Doadoahk Kehlail. Both organise collective energy, yet one belongs to a school ceremony and the other to a modern dance floor. Pohnpei is large enough for both.
