Abstract
This thesis is concerned with determining the means by which the Scottish Highland bagpipe was introduced to, and established in, New Zealand, with particular reference to Southland, Otago and Canterbury - the southern regions of the South Island. The initial settlement of Otago by the Scottish Free Church in 1848 provides an obvious starting point for such an investigation. Popular mythology has enshrined the belief that the Highland bagpipe formed part of this predominantly Lowland settlement's cultural expression, but the contents of shipboard diaries indicate that the presence of pipers is not able to be confirmed until greater numbers of Highland immigrants began to arrive, a decade later.
Corroborative information from shipping lists, immigration documents, Caledonian societies' solo piping competition results, pipe band histories, regional and family histories enabled the generation of a sample of tradition bearer pipers in the regions of study. Detailed analysis of inheritance patterns within selected families of tradition bearers provides evidence of the impact of migration on the redefinition of these patterns. In this, matrilineal inheritance and the emergence of pipe bands assume an important role.
Documentation of the annual gatherings of the Caledonian societies in urban Invercargill and the rural regions of Southland and South Otago provides details of the social response to Highland music culture at a community level. The analysis of data relating to the competing solo pipers and the increasing numbers of band pipers at these gatherings permits a description of their contribution to the expansion of piping activity. This enables the synthesis of an interactive model to describe the dissemination processes of the piping tradition in these regions.
Fewer and more obscure resources, reflecting an earlier reliance upon oral forms of transmission in the piping tradition, are available to determine both the repertory performed by pipers in the region and the processes by which that repertory was transmitted. Tune titles from a late nineteenth century competition repertory highlight the contribution of collections published in Glasgow.
Comparative analysis of the contents of two selected pipe tune manuscripts from the region of study reinforce this contribution and substantiate the reliance placed on manuscript in the transmission of repertory.
The study of transmigration of the Scottish Highland bagpipe to New Zealand involves the description of various redefinition processes. The effects of migration trauma are reflected in the redefinition of inheritors and inheritance patterns and of the tradition's teaching base. Redefinition of repertory reflects responses to both the increasing importance of literacy in piping and the sources of those publications. The emergence of pipe bands in New Zealand generated a postcolonial redefinition of performance context. This, in turn, contributed to the gradual homogenisation of the instrument's cultural identity during the period on which this study concentrates.