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    Beautiful recycled stock CD case with 20 page booklet with explanations of the tracks and images taken in the Torba province.

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about

Totolag village, Mota Lava

In 19th century, in one of the villages called Mossman in Mota Lava, there was a young boy who was kidnapped when he and his brother were bow and arrow fishing along the shore. His brother went back to the village and told the people in the village that his brother was dragged onto the boat by some white people.

When they came to the place where he was taken, they only found his bow arrow laying there and he was gone. So they went back to the village and said they will hear from him again but when he never returned they sang this song about him. This is a story about two specific brothers blackbirded from Mota Lava but there are many other villages and islands throughout Vanuatu that have similar stories about family members going missing or being taken during the blackbirding era. Blackbirding was the practise of coercing or kidnapping Pacific Islanders, particularly from Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, for unpaid or poorly paid labour in Australia. More than 60,000 were
taken to Australia over a 40 year period and when Australia stopped the practice of taking islanders to Australia, the blackbirding ships did not return the islanders to their home island, many had to build new lives in strange places. This song could represent any of those taken during the blackbirding era and is sung in an old language from that period of time.

credits

from N​ē​v​ē​nek: Ground Music from Torba Province, Vanuatu, released September 30, 2019

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Wantok Musik Australia

Wantok Musik aims to generate and foster various cultural exchanges between Australia and our neighbours throughout Oceania by establishing a leading, not-for-profit Music Label representing First Nations and World Music groups of this unique region.

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