jaw harp, sokē

Jaw harp system used by the Samberigi people of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, described by Pugh-Kitingan (1982). The instrument itself (sokē in Samberigi) is a bamboo lamellophone with a long curved frame, held between the lips and plucked by jerking a length of twine attached to one side. The jaw harp system encodes linguistic tone, though the Samberigi language is "not as fully tonal" as the related Huli language (107). Pugh-Kitingan suggests that this explains the relative looseness of tonal encoding on the sokē compared with the Huli jaw harp (hiriyùla).The sokē is not restricted by gender but is most commonly used by men during nightly courtship. Content includes poetic verses in a fragmented style "giv[ing] the fleeting suggestion of an idea and reinforc[ing] it through loose repetition" (107). The example performance given by Pugh-Kitingan contains "inarticulate" introductory and conclusory sections that do not incorporate linguistic material.​

Pugh-Kitingan, J. (1982). Language communication and instrumental music in Papua New Guinea; Comments on the Huli and Samberigi Cases. Musicology Australia, 7(1), 104–119.