In Trinidad and Tobago, and other parts of the Caribbean, the term tassa refers to a drumming ensemble drawn from an amalgamation of various North Indian folk drumming traditions, most importantly dhol-tasha, a style that remains popular today in many parts of India and Pakistan. Beginning in the 1830s and lasting until 1918, dhol-tasha was taken around the world by Indian workers, mostly from present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, enmeshed in a global scheme of indentured labor in British, French, and Dutch territories.
In Trinidad and Tobago, and other parts of the Caribbean, the term tassa refers to a drumming ensemble drawn from an amalgamation of various North Indian folk drumming traditions, most importantly dhol-tasha, a style that remains popular today in many parts of India and Pakistan. Beginning in the 1830s and lasting until 1918, dhol-tasha was taken around the world by Indian workers, mostly from present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, enmeshed in a global scheme of indentured labor in British, French, and Dutch territories.
== History == Tassa is a drum ensemble with ancient Persian origins, also known as Taash or Taasha drums. These drums disseminated to the Indian subcontinent with the Mughal migration, and from India spread worldwide with the Indian diaspora. The tassa drum proper is a conical or bowl-shaped nagaara- (aka nagada or nagaada) type drum which is played with a heavy bass drum called dhol, or simply "bass", and brass cymbals or metal shakers called or jhaal (Hindi/Sanskrit). Tassa-dhol ensembles of three to five players are especially common in street processions, whether associated with Indian weddings, political rallies, Hindu festivals, or Muslim festivals, especially Muharram (known as "Hosay" in Jamaica and Trinidad, a colloquialization of Hussain). In Maharashtra, ensembles of several dozen drummers compete in festivities honoring the deity Ganesh. Drummers in these ensembles are often amateurs, or specialists in other drum traditions. Brought by indentured workers to the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, and Africa in the 19th century, tassa ensembles have flourished with great dynamism in Trinidad and Tobago, where they were used in the Hindu Phagwah, Muslim Hosay festival, and also in Florida, the New York metropolitan area, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Texas, the Greater Toronto Area, California, Australia, New Zealand, and various other places where Indo-Caribbean and Indo-Fijian diasporic communities are found.
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