New Blackbird Stringband bass player Eric Jonsin

The New Blackbird string band takes its name from "Blackbirds": local people captured by traders and sent to Queensland as forced laborers in the cane fields. Many villages, however small, have their own string bands, which became extremely popular after independence. Their song lyrics often gibe politically at colonialism and praise independence. Along with local performances, the Wintua string band traveled to play and sing publicly, and to participate in competitions among other string bands on the island of Malakula, and in battle-of-the-band competitions nationwide.

Eric, the son of Chief Jonsin, is photographed with his tea chest bass, a wooden chest once used to deliver tea; the equivalent of a washtub bass in the U.S. When playing, the free end of the pole is braced against the lip of the chest so the string is taut. Plucking or slapping the string produces the musical tones. Changing pressure against the stick will vary the tension of the cord, which causes changes in pitch.

The design painted on the chest shows the new blackbird, freed and rising/emerging from the land (critical to the Vanuatu identity.) There are two-crossed ukulele necks (instruments common in the bands) painted with the cleansing water/river flowing over the instruments toward the sea. The new blackbird (now free from the Condominium rule) represents the new life of the ni-Vanuatu, rising out of the energy of their protests for independence and their taking back of the indigenous land. Many string band lyrics celebrate the new dynamism of nationalism/nationhood and the reinvention of their cultural and political spirit.

Audio cassettes are available in collection.

• Summer 1981

• Larcom, Joan

• Skinner-Jones, Ann

• Elections and Politics
• Influences of Outsiders

• Melanesia
• Oceania
• Pacific Islands
• South West Bay (Malakula, Vanuatu)
• Wintua (Malekula, Vanuatu)

• Elections
• String bands

• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

• Skinner-Jones, Ann

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2021-11-16