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3 - Torres Strait Islander Musics: Tradition, Travel and Change

from Part I - Continuities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Karl Neuenfeldt
Edited by
Amanda Harris  and
Clint Bracknell
Amanda Harris
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Clint Bracknell
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Summary

This article explores the importance of music to Australian Torres Strait Islanders, in their home islands and on the Australian mainland, for maintaining and sustaining connections with the historical traditions of the Torres Strait region in far northern Queensland. Beginning post-World War Two, there was a sizeable diaspora to the Australian mainland and also the gradual unravelling of race-based laws aimed at controlling the travels and personal lives of Islanders, and Aboriginal peoples. Because of the diaspora, there were some changes in Islander sociality and culture over time, place and situation, in particular regarding performance and performativity. However, aspects of Islander music practices remain similar to what had occurred traditionally, but with some modifications via adoptions, adaptations and innovations befitting new social, cultural and economic environments. This article concludes with discussion of how traditional practices have contributed to contemporary Islander music variously as culture, commerce and creativity.

Keywords

AustraliaTorres Strait IslandersdiasporamusicCambridge Anthropological ExpeditionThe Mills SistersHenry ‘Seaman’ DanDulcie Pitt/Georgia LeeChristine AnuWill Kepa
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Music in Australia , pp. 40 - 55
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Costigan, L. and Neuenfeldt, K., ‘Negotiating and Enacting Musical Innovation and Continuity: How Some Torres Strait Islander Song Writers Are Incorporating Traditional Dance Chants within Contemporary Songs’, The Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 5 (2004), 113–28.Google Scholar
Dan, H. and Neuenfeldt, K., Steady, Steady: The Life and Music of Seaman Dan (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Hoges, J., ‘Anomaly in Torres Strait: Living “under the Act” and the Attraction of the Mainland’, Journal of Australian Studies, 24(64) (2000), 166–72.Google Scholar
Lawrence, H., Matthias, P., and Whaleboat, T., ‘Revitalising Meriam Mir through Sacred Song’ in Wafer, J. and Turpin, M. (eds.), Recirculating Songs: Revitalising the Singing Practices of Indigenous Australia (Hamilton, NSW: Hunter Press, 2017), pp. 318–35.Google Scholar
Neuenfeldt, K., ‘“Ailan Style”: An Overview of the Contemporary Music of Torres Strait Islanders’ in Mitchell, T. and Homan, S. (eds.), Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Australian Popular Music (Hobart: Australian Clearing House for Youth Studies, 2008), pp. 167–80.Google Scholar
Neuenfeldt, K., ‘Adventures in the Third Space of Intra-Indigenous Recording Projects: Is Border-Crossing a Bridge or a Barrier?’ in Barney, K. (ed.), Musical Collaboration between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous People in Australia: Exchanges in the Third Space (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023), pp. 122–40.Google Scholar
Shnukal, A., ‘Torres Strait Islanders’ in Brandle, M. (ed.), Multicultural Queensland 2001: 100 Years, 100 Communities, a Century of Contributions (Brisbane: The State of Queensland (Department of Premier and Cabinet), 2001), pp. 21–35.Google Scholar
Watkin Lui, F., ‘My Island Home: Re-Presenting Identities for Torres Strait Islanders Living outside the Torres Strait’, Journal of Australian Studies, 36(2) (2012), 141–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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