Amadu of Buzi

Amadu playing a jew's harp
14x11 inches, pencil and spray paint on paper, 2020

One more from Papua here, this time from the south coast, an area that is actually quite modern compared to areas from which other Papuan music I've written about originates. There's been many of those over the years. An area to which Coca-Cola, Starbucks, baseball caps and hip-hop have been introduced. Even in 1964 when the recordings were made that feature on Music from South New Guinea [Folkways, 1971] most photographs in the booklet show the performers in western style clothing. Back then the traditions in music were still remembered, I doubt of the traditions heard on the record are still alive today. The recordings in the collection were made by Wolfgang Laade mostly in Buzi, situated between the mouth of Fly River and the border with Indonesia (Irian Jaya). Amadu was recorded several times by Laade, once playing a darombi (a sort of jew's harp) like in the image above, he's heard on several songs he composed himself, and a recording of a tataro, a bundled panpipe. The tataro tune, the one in the top 100 list, is an improvised instrumental. He had asked a child to bring him some pawpaw stalks that he then bundled and blew into. Papua is still relatively unaffected by COVID-19 as the count still stands at 11, the same number from the last time I wrote it down. Nobody has died.