Torres Strait Island Culture

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There are various indigenous people existing in the world. They have lived with their own culture for long time. It is well-known that indigenous cultures are often changed because of the impact of outsider’s culture. In Australia, there are two indigenous groups, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, from the long time ago. In the history, many Aboriginal people were killed by people from Europe since British began to colonise Australia. Also, European people reached to Torres Strait Islands. Thus, Torres Strait Island’s customs were probably impacted by Europeans. In addition, some of islands are located in very close to Papua New Guinea, so it is possible that island’s customs were impacted by Papuan culture. This essay will compare …show more content…

Traditionally, Torres Strait Islanders have been cultivated, hunted, fished, and traded for their food. Anderson, Fredericks and Lee Brien (2014, p. 29)refer that the traditional foods, that islanders have ate, are sweet potato, taro and yams, native plum, berries, coconuts, animals, cows and pigs, and seafood, fish, dugong, turtle, squid, and octopus. Similarly, the islanders still eat such traditional foods in some feasts, for example, a celebration, and a gathering of friends. For instance, in the feasting, they eat meats, fishes, turtle, dugong, and vegetables (Anderson, Fredericks and Lee Brien 2014, p. 30) and these are almost same as traditional foods. There is another similarity of food custom, which is the way of cooking. The traditional style was cooking on the ground that is called as Kup Maori and Edwards (1988, p. 14) explains that at a feast, the stone oven was used. Likewise, Alfred C. Haddon reported that hot stones were used for cooking on the ground in a Western tribe of Torres Strait where Haddon went and observed in 1888. Therefore, contemporary feasting is still based on the traditional Island food customs. However, at contemporary feasts, rice and noodles are also served, but Anderson, Fredericks and Lee Brien (2014, p. 30) state that rice and noodles are not traditionally food, so these can be different …show more content…

Mabo (2005, pp. 47-48) explains that when the dance is performed, drums and bamboo clapsticks are usually used for the dance music. These instruments are still used for the contemporary dance music, but Mabo (2005, p. 48) refers that guitars have also been used. Also, the dance costume such as a headdress, called Dari, have some differences between traditional and contemporary costumes of Island dance. Islanders still wear the headdress for the dance, but Casey (2012, p. 84) points out that recently, to make the headdress, sometimes not traditional materials, for instance, tinplate and cotton cloth, are used while they have traditionally used shells, foliage, and woods. In addition, Casey (2012, pp. 83-84) outlines about characteristics of several types of traditional Island dance and these dances were, for example, performed in sacred place; performed fighting and brave actions; or performed daily activities which are fishing and hunting. Therefore, traditional Island dance were probably connected to islanders’ spiritual beliefs and everyday life. However, according to Mabo (2005, p. 48): ‘On Thursday Island, a dance was performed depicting a football game and another about tennis.’ Such dances are hardly traditional dance which has been performed from long time ago. This is because both football and

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