Taibobo: Dancing over the Oceans, from Rotuma to Torres Strait and Back Again

Abstract

Abstract‘Taibobo’ is the name the Torres Strait Islanders give to the style of singing and dancing that they learned from the Rotuman sailors who worked in the marine industry in the late 19th century. The Islanders of Eastern Torres Strait continued to practise them long after the Rotumans had gone, as a part of a repertoire of songs and dances, old and new. Beckett recorded Taibobo in the 1950s. When a Rotuman researcher came to Torres Strait in 2004, Islanders could still sing the songs which, as it eventuated, only the oldest people in Rotuma could remember.The paper will place the Torres Strait adoption of the songs and dances in historical context and describe Taibobo – both the songs and the dances —as one of us encountered it in the 1950s, and later in 2004. Finally the response of contemporary Rotumans on hearing Taibobo recordings from the Torres Strait is documented, as well as the Islander responses to the re‐establishment of contact after so many years.