Music and Dance

Many of the traditions of Tamba -Tamba are the produce of a marriage between the habits of 18th century mariners and the indigenous traditions of Wessel's island.
This is best illustrated by the traditional music of the island.
Music played a vital role on board ship. Every ship had a fiddler or a squeezebox player. Various shanties, jigs and reels were associated with various routines on board. Dancing was also used as a form of physical exercise on long journeys.
The men of the HMS Dreadful would have been familiar with the Hornpipe and other similar brisk dances.
Dance is very important in the traditions of Wessel's Island, with various dances, unchanged for centuries, central to ceremonies of courtship and thanksgiving and most social occasions.
Music and dance from  both traditions and a hybrid of both are very much in evidence on the island today...

Dancers at Palmerston Quays.

Big Joe Rowley dancing a hornpipe at The Sons of Dreadful Club.

Mr and Mrs Howard dancing at Cox Plantation c. 1910

Girls of PROTT Academy performing a traditional Wessel's Island dance.

Dancing classes at Berry Sands High School.