Tuk band

Music of The Anglophone Caribbean
Genres
Calypso Chutney Dancehall Dub Goombay Junkanoo Rake-and-scrape Ragga Rapso Reggae Ripsaw Rocksteady Scratch Ska Soca Spouge Steelpan
Regional music
Local forms	Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Bermuda British Caribbean Caymans Grenada Montserrat St. Vincent and the Grenadines St. Kitts and Nevis Turks and Caicos UK Virgin Islands US Virgin Islands Other Anglophone islands
Related areas	Aruba and the Dutch Antilles Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Guadeloupe Guyana Haiti Jamaica Martinique Puerto Rico St Lucia Suriname Trinidad and Tobago

A tuk band is a kind of Barbadian musical ensemble, which plays tuk or rukatuk music. They consist of a double-headed bass drum, triangle, flute and a snare drum; the traditional fiddle has most recently been replaced by the pennywhistle. The tuk band is based on the regimental bands of the British military, which played frequently during the colonial era. The Tuk Band is accompanied by characters that are African in origin. African tribes used costumed figures to represent elements such as fertility, witch doctors, and describing routes of commercial transportation, as well as having survived difficult times.

In the Barbados Tuk Band, the regular costumed figures are Shaggy Bear (who is sometimes called the Bank Holiday Bear), the Donkey Man, Mother Sally, a masked man dressed up like a woman with an exaggerated behind, and the Stiltman.

Shaggy Bear is said to represent an African witch doctor figure.Shaggy gained a reputation as the Bank Holiday Bear because he always shows up on island Bank Holidays. Other Caribbean islands like Jamaica have their own Shaggy Bear figure which goes under a different name.

The Donkey Cart was an important means of transportation in the past, and the Donkey Man is representative of the island transportation that was used by the locals. Mother Sally represents the female fertility, and with an exaggerated back end. Mother Sally is always good for a laugh, and a favorite among Bajans and visitors alike.

The Stiltman is another character that accompanies the Tuk Band, and is also seen on Bank Holidays. The Stiltman represents surviving hard times, and the effigy of Mr. Hardin.

Tuk Bands perform during island festivals such as Crop Over, the Holetown Festival, and at Christmas and New Years. The trio provides musical accompaniment for The Landship.

After being colonized in 1627 by the British, "Little England" (as Barbados was called) had much fusion of music. Eighty Englishmen and ten Africans were captured from a Spanish galleon and settled in Barbados in February in 1627. The result of this mixture of people was "African-based drum music and British folk ballads and religious songs ultimately led to the distinctively Barbadian sound of traditional tuk band music".

HISTORY OF THE TUK BAND

The music of the drums was brought to the island of Barbados by African slaves who arrived on the island in the mid-1600s.

The newly initiated slaves were forced to leave their drums behind, but found the Mahogany trees on the island well suited for the drum base, and they fashioned the drum skin from sheep, goats and cattle.

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Wikipedia