Photo courtesy (supplied): Campfire Studios NZ. Retrieved from abc.net.au
John Kanai grew up watching his uncles and grandfathers blow and beat the traditional bamboo panpipes in Malaita, his home in Solomon Islands.
More than an instrument, for John, the sound of traditional panpipes is akin to the sounds of ancestors, a connection to the past.
“The panpipe is something that your ancestors did,” he told Culture Compass.
“Whenever I perform… it’s always a spirit of wholesomeness, like nothing else matters in the world.”
“You’re sharing a part of something that is ancient.”
Panpipe music is found in most of the islands of the Solomons, and was one of the many ways aspects of culture was preserved — from showing reverence for the dead, or celebrating a milestone.
“They performed during funerals, and also when the son of the chief becomes the next chief of the tribe,” he explains.
Passed down from generations before, John’s family has continued the panpipe tradition, but in other parts of the Pacific, the sounds of our ancestors were forced to stop when colonial missionaries arrived.