Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:49:39.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The Saving Grace of Social Culture’: Early Popular Music and Performance Culture on Thursday Island, Torres Strait, Queensland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Karl Neuenfeldt  and
Steve Mullins
Get access

Extract

This article explores the dissemination of globalised popular culture forms into the “white culture” of colonial Thursday Island (henceforth TI), the administrative centre of Torres Strait in northern Queensland. The analysis draws on a variety of media sources from approximately 1881 to 1906. It is grounded in an historical understanding of Torres Strait as a place of cultural convergence and also a society affected profoundly by the transnational flows and connections of popular culture forms, such as music, used in part to popularise British Imperialism (MacKenzie, 1992). Both “high” and “low” culture are examined to illustrate how British and North American cultural values and institutions helped create hybrid forms which contained aspects of the two main lineages of Australian popular culture, as explored by Whiteoak (2001; 1999; 1993), Waterhouse (1995), Johnson (1987), and Bisset (1979). Our goal in this article, and other on-going research, is to appreciate TI as the hub of this process for Torres Strait.

Type
Research Article
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , November 2001 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anonymous, (1885) The Echo (Sydney). 31 January.Google Scholar
Bisset, A. (1979) Black Roots, White Flowers: A History of Jazz in Australia, Sydney: Golden Press.Google Scholar
Bowen, G.F. (1861) Letter to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 6 December 1861, Dispatch 73 QUA, GOV/23.Google Scholar
Bowen, G.F. (1889) Thirty Years of Colonial Government, London: Longmans, Green and Company. British India and Queensland Agency Company Limited (1890–91) Handbook of Information, Brisbane: np.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. (1995) Writing the Colonial Adventure: Race, Gender and Nation in Anglo-Australian Popular Fiction, 1875–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R., (2001) Prostethic Gods: Travel, Representation, and Colonial Governance, St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, J. (1899) Inquest into the Death of John Mollenhauer, 16 & 18 December 1899, QUA, JUS/N, 2 of 1900.Google Scholar
Foley, J. (1982) Timeless Isle: An Illustrated History of Thursday Island, 3rd edition, Thursday Island: Torres Strait Historical Society.Google Scholar
Giddings, R. (1992) “Delusive Seduction: Pride, Pomp, Circumstance and Military Music” in MacKenzie, J., (ed.), 25–19.Google Scholar
Haddon, A.C. (1889) Field Diary, Haddon Papers, Cambridge Museum.Google Scholar
Haddon, A.C. (1901) Head-Hunters Black, White, and Brown, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hayward, P., 2001 ‘“A Glad Round of Melody and Song”: Frank Hurley's Account of Music and Dance on Erub (Darnley Island) during Summer 1920/2’, Perfect Beat 5.3, 66–74.Google Scholar
Hurley, F. (1920) Diaries 1920, NLA MS 883. Hurley, F., (1921) Diaries 1921, NLA MS 883.Google Scholar
Johnson, B. (1987) The Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mayer, D. (1992) “The World on Fire…: Pyrodramas at Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester c. 1850–1950”, in MacKenzie, J. (ed), 179–197.Google Scholar
McFarlane, S. (1884) Letter to Foreign Secretary LMS. 15 November 1884, B3 F1 Jc, CWMA.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, J. (1992) “Introduction: Popular Imperialism and the Military”, in MacKenzie, J. (ed.) 1–25.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, J., (ed.) (1992) Popular Imperialism and the Military 1850–1950, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
McQueen, H. (1986) A New Britannia: An Argument Concerning the Social Origins of Australian Radicalism and Nationalism, Ringwood: Penguin.Google Scholar
Milman, H. (1906) Report of the Government Resident at Thursday Island for 1905, QPP, vol 1 17–29.Google Scholar
Mullins, S. (1995) Torres Strait: a History of Colonial Occupation and Culture Contact, 1864–1897, Rockhampton: Central Queensland University Press. Google Scholar
Parry, S. (1881) My Journey Round the World, Vol 1, London: Hurst and Blackett.Google Scholar
Pearl and Savages (1921) Frank Hurley, Director.Google Scholar
Pennefather, C., (1882) Letter to the Colonial Secretary, 31 October 1882, ML B14I4.Google Scholar
Russell, D. (1992) ‘“We Carved Our Way to Glory”: The British Soldier in Music Hall Song and Sketch, c. 1880–1914’ in MacKenzie, J. (ed), 50–79.Google Scholar
Tait Scott, J., (1881) Cruise in Torres Straits in the Jessamine, 28 February-2 March 1881, Papua Journals, CWMA.Google Scholar
Torres Strait Pilot and New Guinea Gazette (Pilot). Google Scholar
Waterhouse, R. (1995) Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788, South Melbourne: Longmans.Google Scholar
Waterhouse, R. (1990) From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: The Australian Popular Stage 1788–1914, Kensington, NSW: New South Wales University Press.Google Scholar
Webb, M. (1997) “A Long Way From Tipperary: Performance Culture in Early Colonial Rabaul, New Guinea, and the Genesis of a Melanesian Popular Music Scene” Perfect Beat 3.2, 32–59.Google Scholar
Whiteoak, J. (1993) “From Jim Crow to Jazz: Imitation African-American Improvisatory Musical Practices in Pre-Jazz Australia” Perfect Beat 1.3, 50–74.Google Scholar
Whiteoak, J. (1999) Playing Ad Lib: Improvisatory Music in Australia 1839–1970, Sydney: Currency Press. Google Scholar
Whiteoak, J, (2001, in press) Currency Companion to Australian Music and Dance,Sydney: Currency Press. Google Scholar