Music of Polynesia

Music of Tonga refers to music derived from the island Tonga in the islands of Polynesia. Music of Tonga today generally falls under the category of traditional music that has withstood the test of time, or into one of the two opposing genres of religious and secular music. Tongan music can be either very emotional and somewhat modern with instrumental makeup including modern brass instruments, or conversely can be more traditional and consist of only drums and voices. In this way, Tongan music is very diverse despite the fact that it is contained to a fairly small island, which means that the different cultures and styles co-exist on the small land mass together without blending.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods. Using replicas of traditional double-hulled canoes, PVS undertakes voyages throughout Polynesia navigating without modern instruments.

Raiatea or Ra'iatea is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the organised migrations to the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and other parts of East Polynesia started at Raiatea.

The Music of Samoa is a complex mix of cultures and traditions, with pre- and post-European contact histories. Since American colonization, popular traditions such as rap and hip hop have been integrated into Samoan music.

The music of Tokelau occurs in the atolls of Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo. It is dominated by communal choral activity in harmony, with percussive accompaniment including log drums (pate), pokihi and apa. Nukunonu is notable for traditional song and dance.

Samoans or Samoan people are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in Polynesia, who speak the Samoan language. The group's home islands are politically and geographically divided between the Independent State of Samoa and American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States of America. Though divided by national border, the culture and language are the same.

The culture of the Native Hawaiians encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms practiced by the original residents of the Hawaiian islands, including their knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits. Humans are estimated to have first inhabited the archipelago between 124 and 1120 AD when it was settled by Polynesians who voyaged to and settled there. Polynesia is made of multiple island groups which extend from Hawaii to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean. These voyagers developed Hawaiian cuisine, Hawaiian art, and the Native Hawaiian religion.

Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. This island hopping was a solution against the scarcity of useful resources, such as food, wood, water, and available land, on the small islands in the Pacific Ocean. When an island’s required resources for human survival began to run low, the island's inhabitants used their maritime navigation skills and set sail for a new island full of possibilities. However, as an increasing number of islands in the South Pacific became occupied, and citizenship and national borders became of international importance, this was no longer possible. People thus became trapped on islands with the inability to support them.

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including language relatedness, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night.

The Peʻa is the popular name of the traditional male tatau (tattoo) of Samoa, also known as the malofie. It is a common mistake for people to refer to the pe'a as sogaimiti, because sogaimiti refers to the man with the pe'a and not the pe'a itself. It covers the body from the middle of the back to the knees, and consists of heavy black lines, arrows, and dots.

The Polynesian Leaders Group (PLG) is an international governmental cooperation group bringing together four independent countries and eight self-governing territories in Polynesia.

Wallis and Futuna, an overseas territory of France in Oceania, has a rich Polynesian culture that is very similar to the cultures of its neighbouring nations Samoa and Tonga. The Wallisian and Futunan cultures share very similar components in language, dance, cuisine and modes of celebration.

Kalani Peʻa is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter of Hawaiian music. He released his first album, E Walea, in 2016, which won the 2017 Grammy award for Best Regional Roots Music Album. Peʻa released his second album, No 'Ane'i, in 2018, which won the Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.

Ho'okena is a Hawaiian music trio which consist of the members Horace K. Dudoit, Chris Kamaka and Glen Smith. The group was created in 1986 and remains one of the longest lasting Hawaiian music groups. Ho'okena has been nominated for the Grammy Awards three times and has won multiple Na Hoku Hanohano Awards.

E Walea is the debut album by Hawaiian singer Kalani Pe'a. It was released on August 5, 2016.