ABSTRACT
Traditional Moluccan music is characterized by ancestral transmission and the soul of Moluccanness. A music analysis presents traditional instruments ( tifa , totobuang , tahuri , suling ), songs ( kapata ), and music styles ( kroncong , Hawaiian). Five children’s music groups illustrate the broader societal and political aim for ethnic revival and the preservation of traditional Moluccan music. The Moluccan Protestant church is seen as a partner in the political project of preservation. Moluccan traditional music unhinges the opposition between tradition and modernity. The author coins the concept ‘the Moluccan traditional’: rather than a concrete practice from the past that is called tradition, the traditional refers to the historical process of mixing that makes something traditional.
