Sounds of Secrets: Field Notes on Ritual Music and Musical Instruments on the Islands of Vanuatu By Raymond Ammann (review)

Near the end of the introduction to Sounds of Secrets, the ethnomusicologist Raymond Ammann attempts to account for the unique structure of this book, which is neither an in-depth study of one particular group’s musical life in Vanuatu, nor a conceptual examination of theoretical themes:

It was neither the idea nor the intention to write a thesis, concentrating on one particular region of Vanuatu. Neither will I refer in detail to ethnological or ethnomusicological theories and concepts. Only in the case where it helps to understand the significance of the respective topic will I refer to such theories of anthropological opinions. The book contains my field notes with my personal opinions, ideas, and—especially—a lot of new insights.

(p. 18)

This passage still leaves much in question. The book is much more than a field journal, so why does Ammann choose to refer to it as field notes? What does he mean by that, and what, if any, are the field-note-like qualities of the book? Some answers may lie in the changing politics of knowledge production and epistemologies in the Pacific and other indigenous and post-colonial societies worldwide over the past few decades. Yet Ammann makes none of this explicit. He does, however, state that the research was commissioned by the National Cultural Centre of Vanuatu specifically to ‘complete an ethnographic reference on the music of Vanuatu’ (p. 17), and was thus produced with both a general and an academic audience in mind (p. 18). It clearly aims to be as comprehensive an account as possible. I will return to the fieldwork context of post-colonial Vanuatu, but first, it is worth taking a look at what the book accomplishes.

The balance of interpretation and description in this book is heavily weighted on the side of description. As such, this book should serve as a welcome ethnological reference on Vanuatu’s ritual music. More than merely a record of what Ammann has observed in his multiple fieldwork trips between 1998 and 2007, the descriptions presented here also draw on writings of earlier ethnographers and colonial observers, as well as instruments found in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and in European museum collections. The book is thus more than field notes of the kind ‘meant to be read by the ethnographer and produce meaning through interaction with the ethnographer’s headnotes’ (Roger Sanjek, Field Notes: The Makings of Anthropology (Ithaca, NY, 1990), 92). Though the reader unfamiliar with Vanuatu is often left wanting more contextual information and organizational coherence in the thick descriptions of ritual events, Ammann does provide some interpretation.

The loose theme of secrecy and power unites the material in this book. Invoking the extensive anthropological and less extensive, though not insignificant, ethnomusicological literature on the Pacific, Ammann asserts that as in many other Pacific islands, secrecy is a source of power in Vanuatu, though the way in which this power is obtained and demonstrated varies regionally. In general, individuals work to increase their power and status through access to esoteric knowledge, and demonstration that they have obtained such knowledge. The rituals and music that are associated with northern Vanuatu’s hierarchical grade-taking societies, the secret societies in the Banks Islands, and the rituals of exchange in the south, allow individuals to assert their status as secret-holders through music and dance performance, and the visual symbolism of musical instruments and dance costumes (p. 229). Songs come from ancestral spirits, musical instruments produce the voices of spirits, and dances are repositories of valuable secret knowledge. Ammann’s descriptions discuss how this is so for a great variety of songs, musical instruments, and ceremonies, while also providing details about all of these, their history, and their status today.

These themes of secrecy and power underlie a structural-functionalist perspective on Vanuatu...