World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume V: Australia & New Guinea

Papuan folk music refers to the traditional and community-based music of the Indigenous peoples of the island of New Guinea, spanning today’s Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. It encompasses hundreds of distinct musical micro-traditions tied to language groups, clans, and ecological zones from coastal islands to highland valleys. Core soundworlds include the deep pulse of kundu/tifa hand drums and garamut slit drums, bright bamboo flutes and panpipes, resonant conch shells, rattles and seed shakers, and the susap (mouth harp), often used in courtship. Vocals are central: unison or tightly interlocking group singing, call-and-response, vocables, and heterophony are common, with scales ranging from pentatonic and anhemitonic to locally specific tunings and microtonal inflections. Music functions in ceremony and daily life—initiation and bridewealth exchanges, origin-myth performances, mourning, canoe launches, sago harvests, and warrior dances. Dance is inseparable from the sound, with body adornment, mask traditions, and synchronized movement shaping the rhythm and phrasing. In coastal areas, gong-chime sets and later guitar/ukulele string-band textures intersect with older idioms, while highland aerophone traditions favor bamboo and bone flutes, bullroarers, and powerful communal chant.