Pacific Islander vocal harmonies

Watching coverage tonight of the Fiji coup I was reminded of something that struck me when visiting Tonga:

The harmony singing of Pacific Islanders is very distinctive. It has a brightness to it, almost an artificial loudness. What is this due to?

A couple of WAGs: it is in the voicing - a different and unfamiliar version of a chord or triad is being sung.

Or perhaps the spacing between the notes is different - maybe the third is sung a bit sharp?

What accounts for this difference in timbre? Do other regions also have distinctive sounds in harmony singing?

picmr

If I’m thinking of the same thing you’re thinking of, it’s “missionary singing” that they picked up from the 19th century missionaries. That three- and four-part vocal harmony must have struck a cultural chord (so to speak), because most of the Pacific Island cultures that came into contact with Baptist and Methodist missionaries picked up on the singing thing almost immediately.

Don’t know what kind of singing they had “Before Christ”–it’s possible that their cultures are all so changed that nobody even knows anymore.